Ethermine switches off servers after Ethereum Merge

Etheremine, Ethereum’s largest mining service provider by computing power, switched off its servers on September 15th, 2022, after Ethereum transitioned from a proof of work to a proof of stake consensus mechanism.

The mining service has been in operation for seven years and mined 3,271,518 blocks and 9,836,656 Ether, announced on its Twitter page and official website. Its users would no longer be able to connect their miners to the Ethereum pool.

The Merge

Ethereum’s transition to proof of stake (PoS), dubbed the Merge, was a highly anticipated event that had been in the works for a while. The Merge replaced miners with validators. The network now relies on validators to validate transactions and security. Before the Merge, Ether mining had developed into a multi-billion industry. More than a million people across the globe with mining equipment worth over $10 billion had at a particular time mined Ether.

The process involved miners competing to solve complex mathematical problems to earn the block rewards. Only the first miner to solve the computational problems got the rewards.

The need for expensive mining hardware and more computational power grew as the process became more competitive. It is this need that led to the existence of mining pools like Etheremine.

The service aggregates computing power from a group of miners to increase the probability of winning Ether. The reward would then be distributed among miners based on their contribution. The pools charged some fees for their services.

Staking Service

In anticipation of the Merge, in August 2022, Etheremine launched a staking pool for its users. The new service offered via BitFly enabled users to stake their Ether and earn interest on their deposits.

Unlike other platforms, Ethermine allows users to invest as little as 0.1ETH and earn yields for lending. However, in terms of the service fees, the lower a user’s holding, the higher the fees.

The platform allows those who wish to participate in ETH staking and earn but don’t have the required 32ETH.

Before its Ethermine Staking service, the platform debuted Ethpool, a solo staking platform that requires users to have at least 32ETH. At the time of writing, the platform has 469 validators and guarantees 5.5% APR.

It is worth noting that those who participate in ETH staking will not be able to withdraw their earnings until the Shanghai Upgrade, another major upgrade to the Ether network. However, a precise date for the Shanghai upgrade is yet to be determined.

Also, the Merge, though a highly anticipated event, was not a welcomed network upgrade for all ETH holders. A few coin holders wished to continue using the network as a proof of work mechanism. Ethermine has no plans to support the planned PoW forks.

Although the Ethereum network has stopped mining, users can continue to use the platform’s other affiliated servers to mine Ergo (ERGO), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Beam (BEAM, and Ravencoin (RVN).