Cryptocurrency miners initially flocked to GPU-compatible PoW tokens after The Merge Ethereum event. However, as the price of these tokens fell, many miners gave up.
Ethereum Classic
Ethereum Classic (ETC) saw its Hash rate drop to 157.51 TH/s after peaking at 303.7 TH/s while The Merge took place on September 15.
According to 2miners data, the ETC mining difficulty was reduced to 2.06P from more than 2.5P after the event.
ETC’s rally also seems to be over as the asset has fallen most of its gains in the previous weeks. Since the Ethereum Merge, ETC has dropped by 26% in value.
Over the past 24 hours, the asset is down 3%, trading for $28.22 – a figure that is too different from its value during The Merge.
Ravencoin
Another PoW token that has attracted some miners after The Merge is Ravencoin (RVN).
RVN’s hash rate is recorded to have increased from about 3 TH/s on September 9 to more than 22 TH/s on September 17. However, that number has now dropped to 15.09 TH/s as of the time of writing.
The mining difficulty of the network was reduced to 208.47 thousand from more than 300 thousand.
The price of RVN reflects the decline in its hash rate and mining difficulty. The RVN token has dropped by about 46% in value since The Merge took place.
In the last 24 hours, RVN has lost 6.23% of its value.
Ergo
Ergo (ERG) was hit the hardest because its mining hash rate increased by about 91%. Ergo’s hash rate peaked at 303.41TH/s on September 15. However, that number has gradually dropped to 27.90 TH/s as of the time of writing.
Its network mining difficulty is currently 16.61P after peaking at 21.67P on September 17.
The price of ERG is similar. After peaking at $5.21 on September 15, it was down 37.3% in value and trading at $2.64 at press time.
Ethereum POW
Ethereum’s PoW token has also seen its hash rate drop after The Merge. According to 2miners data, the ETHPOW hash rate is currently at 47.16TH/s. The network’s hash rate peaked at 79.42TH/s on September 15.
Meanwhile, it should be noted that ETHPOW’s hash rate is gradually growing due to the network being used more. According to OKLink data, the blockchain network has processed 1.7 billion transactions since its launch.
However, the value of ETHPOW has been declining since September 15, when it was trading for $51.50. According to Coingecko’s data, the token was sold for as low as $5.31 before recovering slightly to $9.51.
GPU discounts in China
Reports have revealed that the value of GPUs has dropped by as much as 40% in China since the Ethereum network upgrade.
According to the report, when Ethereum was still a PoW token, demand for high-end graphics cards such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 was very high, which pushed up the retail value of these GPUs.
However, since The Merge took place, the demand for these tools has dropped significantly, especially as the value of other tokens that GPUs can mine drops too much lower levels. Meanwhile, gamers have taken this drop as a benefit as they can buy these GPUs at a more affordable price.
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