What to mine after Ethereum moves to PoS?
Even though the rumors about having only a few months of mining left and that the ETH is soon moving from Proof-of-Work to a Proof-of-Stake scheme roamed around the mining world since 2016, they were never rumors, but a plan that took a little longer to get executed. Now the time has come and it seems we have less than 1 month left of Ethereum mining.
Since 2016, Ethereum went through two large bull cycles (2017 - 2018 and 2021) and one long bear period (2018 - 2020). We don’t have data on minerstat for mining rewards from this period, but you could quickly make calculations to compare estimations from different periods. Let’s check an example of estimated rewards with a GPU that is mining with 30 MH/s in January and July from 2017 to 2022.
- Jan 2017: 0.1620 ETH/day = 1.30 USD/day (1 ETH = 8 USD)
- Jul 2017: 0.0130 ETH/day = 3.66 USD/day (1 ETH = 280 USD)
- Jan 2018: 0.0041 ETH/day = 3.06 USD/day (1 ETH = 756 USD)
- Jul 2018: 0.0022 ETH/day = 1.01 USD/day (1 ETH = 453 USD)
- Jan 2019: 0.0031 ETH/day = 0.44 USD/day (1 ETH = 142 USD)
- Jul 2019: 0.0024 ETH/day = 0.69 USD/day (1 ETH = 294 USD)
- Jan 2020: 0.0021 ETH/day = 0.27 USD/day (1 ETH = 127 USD)
- Jul 2020: 0.0021 ETH/day = 0.49 USD/day (1 ETH = 226 USD)
- Jan 2021: 0.0013 ETH/day = 0.97 USD/day (1 ETH = 730 USD)
- Jul: 2021: 0.0008 ETH/day = 1.73 USD/day (1 ETH = 2,109 USD)
- Jan 2022: 0.0004 ETH/day = 1.64 USD/day (1 ETH = 3,766 USD)
- Jul 2022: 0.0004 ETH/day = 0.47 USD/day (1 ETH = 1,058 USD)
Lately, in 2022, the rewards in fiat value are dropping again and it feels like the beginning of the bear period. But in one month, Ethereum won’t be mineable anymore.
If you view the statistics of different mining software providers, you can quickly see that ETH mining represents a large majority (more than 80%) of GPU mining power. Theorizing, if an average mining rig mines with 300 MH/s and the total network hashrate of Ethereum mining is 890 TH/s, there would be ~3,000,000 such mining rigs mining Ethereum. No one knows at this moment what will happen with such a large amount of mining hardware and power. There are only two options though: either miners will disconnect (keeping the hardware or selling it) or they will switch to a different coin.
The main fear everyone sees with switching to different coins is the unknown response from different coins’ markets when such a large amount of hashrate will be distributed to smaller networks and the question of how long will it take for things to stabilize. There are, however, already a few coins available that miners are eyeing switching to after ETH goes to PoS.
Ethereum Classic (ETC), Etchash
Ethereum Classic is here since 2016 already and was in the 2018 - 2020 bear market comparable in rewards with Ethereum. GPUs are mining with the same hashrate on Etchash and Ethash algorithms. The current network hashrate of ETC is around 40 TH/s, which means that ETH has around 40x more hashrate than ETC.
Ravencoin (RVN), KAWPOW
Ravencoin is here since 2018 and is also one of the main options miners are eyeing. GPUs are making around half the hashrate on KAWPOW in comparison to the Ethash algorithm. The current network hashrate of RVN is around 2 TH/s, which means that ETH has around 400x more hashrate than RVN.
ERGO (ERG), Autolykos2
ERGO is here since 2017 and is also one of the interesting options miners can switch to. GPUs are making around two times more the hashrate on Autolykos2 in comparison to the Ethash algorithm. The current network hashrate of ERG is around 12 TH/s, which means that ETH has around 140x more hashrate than ERG.
New coins
There are already new coins lurking around and there will probably be even more of them as this was the trend in the previous bear market as well. At minerstat we are always looking to add new coins as soon as possible, so you can start mining them at their release.
💡 You can find trending coins on our coins page.
Dual mining
There are a few options for dual mining already available and utilized by miners. You can find all tutorials on our help pages. Since ETH won’t be mineable anymore, it will be replaced with ETC.
Profit switching
Since it is expected that things won’t be stabilized in the first few weeks after ETH goes to PoS, you can also set up profit switching with minerstat and let the system switch to the most profitable coin at the moment. You can find a detailed tutorial here. We suggest you try profit switching before an actual event, so you get familiar with the feature and you will be able to customize it to fit your needs.
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