Contents
When Ethereum Mining Ends
Ethereum developers have defined the condition for the POW to POS switch. They operate with the parameter known as Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) of the Ethereum network. TTD calculation is quite complicated. In simple words, it is a counter (a variable) that grows with every new block found in the Ethereum network.
Wen Merge? is an awesome website with the Merge counter. You could always check the current Total Difficulty (TTD) there.
Current TTD is 57 569 366 816 331 680 186 368
Merge happens when TTD reaches 58 750 000 000 000 000 000 000
This happens roughly on September 14th.
Is this date accurate?
Yes, this date is quite accurate. Some minor changes could be seen if the Ethereum hashrate changes severely. We don’t think this could happen in the nearest two weeks.
Are there any factors that may alter the transition to the POS date?
Yes, Ethereum developers could postpone the Merge to a higher TTD. This is an extremely unlikely event though.
How the Merge Happens
We’ve heard a lot of rumors that ETH mining would be still possible after the Merge just the mining difficulty would increase because of the difficulty bomb etc. That is not true. When Merge happens the Ethereum network will no longer accept POW-mined blocks. So the mining just dies.
Ethereum (ETH) mining stops in the middle of September (approximately on September 14th). No more ETH mining would be possible.
How Will 2Miners ETH Pool Operate
At that particular moment when the Ethereum TTD reaches the preset value of 58 750 000 000 000 000 000 000 the pool can no longer find a new ETH block and get rewarded. The date and time of the Merge event is not precise therefore we will operate until the Merge happens.
We are grateful to have such an awesome ETH mining pool and mining community that we have. More than 100K miners are mining Ethereum in 2Miners. We would like to say BIG THANKS! to all our miners. No flattering, we always stand for our miners, you guys rock! In this sad moment, we would fight to the last mined block.
When the Merge happens the pool will still accept shares for a short period of time. Obviously, no rewards after the Merge event could be credited. We would like to switch you automatically to ETC (Ethereum Classic) mining pool. However, that is impossible because ETC uses a modified version of the Ethash mining algorithm called Etchash. You will need to reconfigure your software in order to do that.
2Miners Ethereum Pool Payouts
The payouts would be processed in the standard way until the Merge.
The payouts to the ETH addresses are processed every 2 hours (usually much faster if there is no long queue). The payouts to the BTC and NANO addresses are processed once a day at 12:00 UTC.
After the Merge, we will process one last payout to all the Ethereum pool users. It should happen in a couple of hours after Merge. It could be slightly delayed due to possible network issues. ETH was never operated using the POS consensus before. Anything could happen. A lot of cryptocurrency exchanges may suspend ETH deposits and withdrawals for the time of Merge. We use Kraken and Binance to process the payouts in BTC or NANO. Please note that the last BTC/NANO payout may be delayed until one of these crypto exchanges resumes operations with Ethereum.
You don’t need to request the final payout or claim it anyhow. You don’t need to change your payout threshold too if it was too high. We will pay all the unpaid balances that are over the minimum Ethereum pool payout threshold.
- For ETH addresses 0.01 ETH;
- For BTC addresses 0.005 ETH;
- For NANO addresses 0.0005 ETH.
What to Mine when Ethereum Mining Stops
There is a whole bunch of coins that you could mine after Ethereum mining ends. We got a post where all of them are listed What to Mine when Ethereum Goes POS.
Currently the most profitable coins after Ethereum are Ravencoin, Firo, Cortex, Ergo, Aeternity, Beam, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic, and Callisto. You could always check the most profitable coins for your hardware on 2CryptoCalc.com
Obviously, when the ETH mining ends a huge hashpower would be set free. The profitability calculations may be inaccurate for a short period of time while the miners would be constantly switching from one coin to another. 2Miners provides you with the best possible experience by offering all the altcoin mining pools in one place. Just open 2Miners.com, choose the coin that is the most profitable for your hardware and start mining.
Some coins have a huge hashrate and others are quite small. No coin could be compared to Ethereum in terms of hashpower but Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, and Ergo are the closest pursuers. Choosing one of them is the safest post-Merge strategy. At least for the first days.
Switching to ETC Mining
- Change pool host in your mining software from eth.2miners.com:2020 to etc.2miners.com:1010
- Change mining algorithm from ethash to etchash.
ETH and ETC have the same wallet format. Sometimes it is possible to keep your ETH wallet address. All you need is to simply switch the network from ETH to ETC in your wallet. Sometimes the process is harder especially if you mine to a crypto exchange. We also do support the BTC payouts for the Ethereum Classic pool.
If you use an ASIC device, new firmware might be required. Here is the detailed post regarding Innosilicon machines.
URL: stratum+tcp://etc.2miners.com:1010
Worker: YOUR_ADDRESS.ASIC_ID
Password: x
The settings could be always found on etc.2miners.com/help
Here’s the settings for ETC mining through Nicehash.
Custom pool name: 2Miners ETC
Algorithm: ETCHash
Stratum hostname or IP: etc.2miners.com
Port: 1010
Username: YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS
Password: x
Switching to RVN Mining
- Change pool host in your mining software from eth.2miners.com:2020 to rvn.2miners.com:6060
- Change mining algorithm from ethash to kawpow
- Change your wallet address. ETH and RVN addresses are different!
The settings could be always found on rvn.2miners.com/help
Nicehash is supported.
Custom pool name: 2Miners RVN
Algorithm: KAWPOW
Stratum hostname or IP: rvn.2miners.com
Port: 6161
Username: YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS
Password: x
Switching to Ergo Mining
- Change pool host in your mining software from eth.2miners.com:2020 to erg.2miners.com:8888
- Change mining algorithm from ethash to autolykos2
- Change your wallet address. ETH and ERG addresses are different!
BTC payouts are not yet supported for Ergo, but our developers are working to implement this feature in September.
The settings could be always found on erg.2miners.com/help
Nicehash is supported.
Custom pool name: 2Miners ERG
Algorithm: Autolykos
Stratum hostname or IP: erg.2miners.com
Port: 8888
Username: YOUR_WALLET_ADDRESS
Password: x
EthereumPoW Mining
The new project called EthereumPoW (ETHW) appeared recently. The developer team wants to keep on the original Ethereum chain without switching to POS. We don’t think it would be possible to switch the miners from ETH to ETHW mining smoothly. The ETHW network will start sometime after the Merge event itself.
Currently, we are discussing the possibility to add the ETHW to 2Miners and we are in contact with the project developers. We will keep you updated on this matter. We will also add EthereumPoW to 2CryptoCalc when the ETHW mining starts.
What to Mine with GPU in 2023
Ethereum’s switch to Proof-of-Stake is, without a doubt, one of the most important events in the cryptocurrency mining history of all time. ETH devs planned this from the beginning but not so many people expected this to happen in 2022. Ethereum was always the most important driver of the graphics card mining industry. The following year the GPU mining process would not be as easy as before. In 2023 you should choose the coins you mine wisely. The times when you could just set the ETH mining on your rig and forget about it for a couple of years have passed. Now you always need to calculate the profitability bearing in mind your operational costs, especially the energy consumption.
What to Mine with Nvidia Video Cards in 2023
Nvidia GPUs always provide the best flexibility in terms of mining. Nvidia could mine well all the GPU algorithms that exist. Even if you have not noticed that before we could assure you that is an advantage of this brand compared to AMD.
There are a lot of low-tier old cards like Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti that could still mine with the profitability of up to $0.3/day.
4 GB memory is enough for almost all the coins including Ravencoin. RVN DAG file is currently 3.523 GB. That means you could still mine RVN with a 4 GB card but only if you operate with Linux OS. It would be quite impossible to run Ravencoin mining with a GTX 1050 Ti on Windows.
Of course, you couldn’t mine such demanding algorithms like CuckooCortex with a 4 GB card. This algorithm is used by Cortex (CTXC) and it requires at least 8 GB graphics cards.
Let’s say you have an advanced Nvidia card like Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. What should you do?
Go to https://2cryptocalc.com/ and click on your card. The mining profitability table will appear.
Without ETH there are still coins that bring you more than $1/day from the card. This profitability table will change when ETH goes POS and the profitability of RVN, ETC and other coins could go down. However, if you are a lucky owner of 3070 Ti you could mine high-demanding coins like Cortex. This may be a safe haven for you.
What to Mine with AMD Video Cards in 2023
AMD cards are often cheaper than Nvidia analogs. They usually consume more energy and support fewer mining algorithms. These factors could be crucial when Ethereum switches to POS. Thanks to lolMiner and other mining software developers the AMD cards could mine more and more coins.
Such 5 year-old cards like AMD Radeon RX 480 or AMD Radeon RX 580 even without Ethereum coin could still mine with a profitability of $0.5/day.
If you have the 4 GB graphics cards models you could continue mining in 2023. ERGO, RVN, ETC – all these coins seem to be very promising for your hardware.
Ravencoin (RVN) mining on 4 GB graphics cards would be possible until the middle of 2023.
So what about advanced AMD cards? What to mine if you have AMD Radeon RX 6800XT?
The procedure is similar to Nvidia. Go to https://2cryptocalc.com/ and click on your card name. The mining profitability table will appear.
Things don’t look that bad in the absence of ETH. It is still unclear how will it change. Anyway, it will not take long and at the end of September, we’ll see the new World of GPU cryptocurrency mining. We will keep you updated in our blog and Twitter.
We highly recommend you to join our miner community in Telegram or one of the local chats in Russian, Turkish, Spanish, and Chinese.
