Getting closer to: the Merge

A timeline has been released by the group of miners preparing to fork Ethereum.

The group, calling their project "ETHPoW" and their token "ETHW," tweeted that "ETHW mainnet will happen within 24 hours after the Merge." The exact time will be announced with a countdown timer one hour before launch."


"The mainnet will begin at the block height of the Merge block 'plus' 2048 EMPTY blocks as padding," according to the EthereumPoW Twitter account. "As a result, the Merge block + 2049 will be the first block on ETHW to contain any transactions." The empty block rewards will be directed to the 1559 multi-sig wallet."

If everything goes as planned, the EthereumPoW chain will begin processing transactions 2,049 blocks after the merge.

Following the Twitter thread on Tuesday morning, EthereumPoW's contentious token rose 58% in 24 hours, reaching $45.21, before falling back to $29.98.

According to estimates, the Ethereum merge will be completed on Thursday. If everything goes as planned, the upgrade will convert Ethereum from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, significantly reducing its environmental impact.

The merge effectively ends Ethereum mining, leaving these miners with no income. Some miners have spent tens of thousands of dollars on equipment in the hopes of achieving long-term financial stability, and they aren't about to give up without a fight.

After all, the fork will have no effect on the value of Ethereum or its native cryptocurrency, Ether. Uniswap Labs, as well as stablecoin behemoths Circle and Tether, have pledged support for the post-merge Ethereum proof-of-stake chain.

That's why, after the merge, miners hope to fork—a blockchain split of sorts—Ethereum in order to continue a proof-of-work chain and keep their jobs, no matter how long the odds are.