Ahead of the Ethereum Merge which is expected to take place on September 15, Ethermine, reportedly world’s largest Ethereum mining pool, has launched a new staking pool for users but won’t be available to US miners, as reported by Cointelegraph.
According to Cointelegraph, through the new service, Ethermine members will be able to collectively stake their Ether (ETH) and earn interest over their deposits. As much as 0.1 ETH ($159) can be staked as smaller the holding, the greater will be the fee. Currently, the platform is offering stakers an annual ETH interest rate of 4.43%. Staking pools aim to offer competitive interest rates and low entry barriers than solo staking as node operators which needs close to 32 ETH ($51,000) to operate a node. Ethermine currently allows users to mine ETH, Zcash, Ethereum Classic (ETC), Beam (BEAM), Ravencoin (RVN) and Ergo (ERGO). Post the ETH merge, ETH mining will be phased out as the network changes from a proof-of-work (PoW) mining model to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mining model.
On the basis of information by Cointelegraph, miner dashboards will have a Merge countdown clock and minerscan keep mining ETH up until the time is over. Soon, ETH miners will be replaced with PoS validators, which is expected to reduce ETH network consumption by 99%. While some members of the ETH mining community have pushed to keep the current PoW consensus mechanism, others have made the point that the changes will cause negative effects beyond the loss of mining.
Moreover, Cointelegraph noted that the current PoW system is an energy-oriented process for miners to harness large amounts of computer power to solve complex puzzles, validate instructions and earn ETH rewards. Under the PoS model, validators keep certain amounts of cryptocurrency in a smart contract on the blockchain, which helps to secure and decentralise the network.
(With insights from Cointelegraph)
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