Can you still mine Ethereum?

Can you still mine Ethereum?

No, not with a GPU, an ASIC, a phone or a cloud contract. Proof of work is simply gone from Ethereum. Mining software can still connect to other networks, but there is no Ethereum block left to find. That also means any offer of “Ethereum mining” today is selling something else, so it pays to ask what. Our guide to spotting a legit cloud mining service has the questions.

What people used to call Ethereum mining is now either staking ETH, or mining a different coin with the same kind of hardware. Both are covered below.

What happened at the Merge?

Ethereum ran two chains for almost two years. The original mined chain carried every transaction. Next to it, from December 2020, the Beacon Chain ran proof of stake with real validators but no user transactions. The Merge joined them.

The switch wasn’t set for a date or a block number. It was set for a total amount of mining work, the terminal total difficulty of 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000. The mined chain passed it at block 15,537,393, early on 15 September 2022. From block 15,537,394 on, the Beacon Chain chose who made each block. Blocks now come in fixed 12-second slots instead of whenever a miner got lucky. If you want to see what that luck looked like, try hashing a block yourself.

How much energy did the Merge save?

Almost all of it. Proof of work turns electricity into security: to rewrite the chain you’d need to redo the work. Proof of stake gets its security from ETH at risk instead, so the network only has to run ordinary computers.

These are estimates, and estimates of proof-of-work energy vary a lot. ethereum.org’s own proof-of-work page quotes a higher figure of about 70 TWh a year from Digiconomist, just before the switch. Whichever you take, the drop is several thousand times. Bitcoin still uses proof of work; our Bitcoin mining and energy guide looks at that side.

Where did Ethereum’s GPU miners go?

To any chain their cards could still mine, all at once. Ethereum Classic was the obvious first stop, since it runs almost the same algorithm. Ergo and Ravencoin, both GPU-mined, jumped on the same day.

The problem was size. Ethereum had far more hashrate than all the other GPU coins together, and a coin’s rewards don’t grow because more miners show up. More hashrate on ETC meant the same ETC per block split among more people. Analysts warned about this a week earlier:

So a lot of cards were switched off or sold, and some went to other proof-of-work coins and other uses. Which GPU coins are worth a look today, and why most don’t cover power, is in the GPU mining guide. Kaspa was one of the chains GPU miners tried; it has since moved to ASICs, as the Kaspa mining guide explains.

How does Ethereum Classic mining work?

Ethereum Classic is the chain that split from Ethereum in 2016, when some miners refused the DAO fork. It has stayed on proof of work and calls itself the largest proof-of-work smart-contract chain. Its algorithm, Etchash, is Ethash with one change.

Ethash-style mining needs a big block of data, the DAG, held in the GPU’s memory, and the DAG grows over time. In 2020 Ethereum’s DAG passed 4 GB and cut off every 4 GB card. ETC’s Thanos upgrade (ECIP-1099, block 11,700,000) doubled the epoch length from 30,000 to 60,000 blocks, which roughly halved the DAG and slowed its growth. That kept 4 GB cards mining for a few more years. Try your card:

ETC has a fixed supply schedule, called 5M20: the block reward drops by 20% every 5 million blocks, heading for a total of about 200 million ETC. Today it is 1.6384 ETC per block, plus fees.

Almost everyone mines ETC through a pool, for the same reason Bitcoin miners do: steadier payouts. The payout schemes work the same way, and our mining pools guide explains PPS, PPLNS and the rest. Etchash ASICs exist as well and compete for the same blocks, so check what a card earns against its power cost before you start. The ETC hardware guide covers both.

Staking vs mining: what’s the difference?

Both are ways a network picks who adds the next block and pays them for it. What you put at risk is different.

What can you still mine?

Plenty of coins still run on proof of work. Bitcoin is the biggest by far, and it is mined with ASICs running SHA-256, not graphics cards. Our crypto mining guide lists which coins are mined with what, from Bitcoin ASICs to CPU-friendly coins.

If you just want to watch mining happen without hardware, noise or a power bill, the CloudMineCrypto app lets you start Bitcoin mining free. Claim the free plan, add more hashrate from ads, games, offers and the daily check-in, and withdraw to your own wallet over Lightning. Rewards are estimates and aren’t guaranteed. Terms apply.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

1. Ethereum forks: Paris (The Merge), block 15,537,394 and the terminal total difficulty · ethereum.org
2. Ethereum energy consumption (CCRI and Cambridge estimates) · ethereum.org
3. Proof-of-stake: validators, 32 ETH, 12-second slots · ethereum.org
4. Ethereum Classic and Ravencoin’s hashrate nearly doubles after Merge · CoinDesk, 15 Sep 2022
5. How much Ethereum mining hashrate can other blockchains absorb? · Hashrate Index, 8 Sep 2022
6. ECIP-1099: calibrate the epoch duration (Etchash) · Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposals
7. Mining hardware guide: Etchash, GPUs and ASICs · ethereumclassic.org
8. Sound money: the 5M20 emission schedule · ethereumclassic.org

Live figures on this page come from the CloudMineCrypto API or from the public blockchain data services named next to them, refresh on a schedule, and are labelled where they appear. This guide is educational and not financial advice. CloudMineCrypto is not an investment product; rewards in the app are estimates and aren’t guaranteed.