BT Daily News: How Ethereum Miners Plan to Pivot After the Merge

1. How Ethereum Miners Plan to Pivot After the Merge

As the mid-September window for the Ethereum merge draws closer, the final days of proof-of-work mining on Ethereum are here. The merge upgrade will transition Ethereum to a proof-of-stake system, which is forcing miners to rethink their business models.

Hive, a publicly traded company, plans to explore other blockchains to continue its mining operations. Hut 8 Mining, another major miner, will meanwhile pursue ventures outside of crypto.

Computer hardware manufacturing company Hive Blockchain says it has analyzed alternative tokens that are mineable with its graphics processing units (GPU). Hive aims to use its “6.5 Terahash of Ethereum mining capacity in the event of Ethereum’s transition to Proof of Stake across various other GPU mineable coins."

IT services and consulting group Hut 8 Mining Corp., meanwhile, will be going in a different direction. Hut 8 recently installed more GPUs at their Canadian mining facility and will pivot away from mining.

The merge makes Ethereum one of the first blockchains to convert from proof-of-work validation to proof of stake for more energy efficiency and further adds to the uncertainty in the future of mining. Miners who reaped the benefits from proof of work will likely be sidelined by the switch.

2. White House Calls for Crypto Mining Standards to Minimize Environmental Impact

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy called for the U.S. to conduct further research on the energy impact of crypto mining in order to set standards for the industry, in a new report published Thursday.

In the report, among the first publicly available responses to U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order on cryptocurrencies, the office detailed its approach to the question of what sort of impact crypto mining has on the environment, including what the scale of the impact and how different cryptocurrencies is differ in their energy needs.

The report calls on federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy to work with states and local officials to develop standards for the industry’s impact on the environment; the intensity and source of energy that goes into it, noise pollution, water usage as well as how to build carbon-free energy to balance out crypto mining’s consumption.

3. Bitcoin Up Slightly Despite Fed Chairman's Hawkish Comments

Bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) rose in Thursday trading along with traditional risky assets after hawkish comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell mixed with better-than-expected jobs data increased the probability of tighter monetary policy.

During a question-and-answer session held by the Cato Institute on Thursday, Powell reiterated the Fed’s commitment to stemming inflation, which increased expectations for a 75 basis points rate hike in September.

Bitcoin rose 0.4% despite Powell’s hawkish comments. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap traded lower the hour prior to Powell’s comments, but reversed course in the hours following. BTC’s daily trading volume was slightly below average when compared to its 20-day moving average of volume.Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was 0.94% higher on the day, on above-average volume. ETH also fell before Powell’s comments and rose after them. ETH’s 30-day correlation to BTC remains strong, at 0.9.

4. Crypto markets see flood of Queen Elizabeth memecoins and NFTs

Crypto degens have wasted no time after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, flooding the crypto market with more than 40 new Queen-related meme tokens, and hundreds of new nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in the same vein.

New tokens launched on decentralized exchanges on the BNB Smart Chain and Ethereum over the past 24 hours include names such as Queen Elizabeth Inu, Save the Queen, Queen, QueenDoge, London Bridge is Down and Rip Queen Elizabeth.

According to data from Dex Screener, the Queen Elizabeth Inu token on BSC-based PancakeSwap has since had the biggest price value gain over the past 24 hours, with an eye-watering 28,506% pump to $0.00008000 at the time of writing.

It’s worth noting that both Queen Elizabeth Inu and Elizabeth have just $17,000 and $204,000 worth of liquidity behind them, indicating a lack of serious backing behind and a potential for short-lived pump and dump, similar to the infamous Squid Games token that crashed and burned in October last year.

5. GameStop doubles down on crypto amid a new partnership with FTX US

Gaming retailer GameStop is partnering with United States crypto exchange FTX US to bring more customers to crypto and work together on online marketing initiatives.

In a Wednesday statement, the gaming retailer noted that the new partnership will introduce GameStop’s customers into the FTX ecosystem, including its marketplaces for digital assets, while also seeing the retailer become FTX’s “preferred retail partner in the United States.”

The partnership will also see certain GameStop retail stores carrying FTX gift cards. As of Aug. 31, there are 2,970 GameStop stores across the United States.

GameStop has significantly ramped up its Web3 efforts this year after unveiling a nonfungible token (NFT) and Web3 gaming division in January, as well as the launch of its NFT marketplace on July 11 in partnership with Ethereum scaling solution Immutable X.

Furlong noted during the earnings call that the launch of its marketplace “supports GameStop’s pursuit of long-term growth in the cryptocurrency, NFT and Web3 gaming verticals,” which they expect to be increasingly important for gamers and collectors.