ETHPoW, a separatist Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain forked from Ethereum's Merge, went live on Sep. 15. However, the chain suffered technical issues after the launch, which put downward pressure on its ETHW token.
The price of ETHW has dropped by 65% since ETHPoW's launch to around $14 on Sep. 16, according to CoinMarketCap. At its lowest, the token was changing hands for $9.50.
The losses coincided with a technical issues related to ETHPoW's ChainID."
ChainIDs are identifiers that help users identify one blockchain from another. Thus, ETHPoW required a new ChainID to separate its transaction data from the original Ethereum blockchain after the Merge, otherwise, it risked creating duplicate transactions.
Lol EthPow miners set to wrong chainID, so they’re mining testnet https://t.co/IichaPURjr
The team behind ETHPoW announced on Sep. 15 that its unique ChainID is 10001. However, data from Chainlist shows that a cryptocurrency project called Smart Bitcoin Cash, operating under the ticker BCHT, had the same ID. This issue resulted in errors on the Metamask cryptocurrency wallet.
The ETHPoW recognized the issue and adjusted the ChainID later on Sep. 15. However, several miners appeared to have pulled out despite a few major pools continuing to mine the PoW chain.
Notably, the ETHPoW hash rate fell to 66.64 TH/s on Sep. 16 after peaking at 80.56 TH/s earlier in the day.
In comparison, the hash rate of Ethereum Classic (ETC), another PoW alternative for Ethereum miners, was 234.56 TH/s on Sep. 16 versus its peak near 310.5 TH/s the day before.
Eric Wall, the chief investment officer at cryptocurrency investment firm Arcane Assets, noted that ETHPoW miners could not sustain the chain at current ETHW prices. He explained:
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