The world’s largest Ethereum mining pool has launched a new staking pool for users as the Ethereum (ETH) Merges. U.S miners will not be able to access the mining pool.
The latest service will provide Ethermine members with an opportunity to collectively stake their ETH and earn interest on their deposits. Though, just 0.1 ETH ($159) is enough to enter but the fee is more for the smaller holding. Currently, an annual interest rate of 4.43% is offered to the stakers. As of this writing, the 393 Ether (approx. $626,000) are invested so far into Ethermine’s new pool.
Staking pools such as these are quite significant as they have less barriers compared to solo staking as node operators. In addition, they offer competitive interest rates. To the uninitiated, the solo staking requires mode operators at least 32 ETH ($51,000) to operate a node. As compared to Ethermine’s interest rate, staking on Ethpool as a node operator collects an annual interest rate of 4.6%.
Ethermine as of now operates as a multi-currency mining pool. It allows users to mine Ravencoin (RVN), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Beam (BEAM),ETH, Zcash and Ergo (ERGO). The transition to staking is a huge step for it.
The ETH mining will be stopped after the network’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) staking model, post the Merge. There are 222,657 active Ethermine miners whose combined hash rate of 261.1 terra hashes per second (TH/s). The pool will still be supporting the PoW mining of Ravencoin (RVN), Ergo (ERGO), Beam (BEAM) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).
Mining to be Stopped Post Merge
A Merge countdown clock will be on Miner dashboards and minerscan will continue to mine ETH till the timer hits zero. PoS validators will soon replace the ETH miners leading to a 99% cut in the ETH network consumption.
But some in the ETH miner community have insisted on keeping the current PoW consensus mechanism since the shift will result in making their high powered and costly mining rigs redundant. Other crypto community members too have criticized the high profile members of the crypto community arguing that the changes will result in negative impacts other than the loss of mining.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/08/31/worlds-largest-ether-mining-pool-ethermine-unveils-new-eth-staking-service/