After the move to Proof of Stake, the value of Ether coins continues to fall. Meanwhile, some miners are looking for alternatives, but GPU mining seems to be unprofitable, at least for now.
After several postponements, the time had finally come on Thursday: Ethereum was switched from “Proof of Work” to “Proof of Stake”, which means that mining for Ether coins, which has been criticized for years, is no longer carried out using energy-intensive calculations. Mining farms are faced with a problem because there is no real successor in sight. And the change known as “The Merge” has apparently not done the value of the ether coins any good either.
Price losses and no alternatives
Ether hit its all-time high in November 2021, when a single coin traded for just over $4,000. After that it went downhill for a long time. The cryptocurrency managed to briefly exceed 3,000 euros again in April, but has since fallen significantly in value. Even the switch to Proof of Stake could not stop this development: On Tuesday, an ether briefly cost just over 1,700 euros, but then it went down twice. On Wednesday, a coin was only worth around 1,600 euros, and on Thursday afternoon the currency was around 1,500 euros. Now, on Saturday, it is already approaching the next mark: it is approaching 1,400 euros.
It has already become more difficult for the miners in recent months, which is why the demand for graphics cards has collapsed. Existing farms were also partly dissolved and the graphics cards were offered on the used market. But some miners are apparently sticking to their business model and switching to other coins after the ether conversion, which can also be mined with GPUs.
According to a report by PC Gamer, other cryptocurrencies are currently even less attractive than Ethereum was in the end. Supposedly, the currently best alternative is the fork “Ethereum Classic”, which, at least for the time being, is not even close to the market capitalization of Ethereum. In addition, mining for Ethereum Classic is also significantly less worthwhile. Unless there is new hype, there is hope that the topic of GPU mining will increasingly be a thing of the past with the merge.
