Chainlink will not support Ethereum’s Proof of Work

After the Merge, scheduled for 18 September, Chainlink announces that it will no longer support Ethereum’s Proof of Work on its network.

Chainlink will not continue to support Ethereum’s current Proof of Work

The Chainlink protocol announced that after the Ethereum Merge, which is expected to see a shift from the consensus system of Proof of Work to the more sustainable Proof of Stake, it will no longer support the old system.

Chainlink is a protocol that allows smart contracts to interact with data outside the blockchain, through a complex network of nodes and by retrieving – and connecting – data from any type of API. 

A company note reads:

“The Chainlink protocol and its services will remain operational on the Ethereum blockchain during and after the Merge to the PoS consensus layer. Users should be aware that forked versions of the Ethereum blockchain, including PoW forks, will not be supported by the Chainlink protocol”.

The company also urged developers who are not ready to adapt to the new system to suspend their activities to avoid unpleasant disruptions and unforeseen events.

Then again, many doubts still exist around this major update, expected to see its final launch on 19 September, even among the Ethereum community itself. 

Some predict that the two systems could coexist for much longer, which will make the network less secure and more susceptible to privacy and security breaches. To dispel doubts in this regard, blockchain service provider, Oracle, assured users of the Ethereum network that this could inevitably lead to issues in the early stages for dApps and developers:

“dApps operating on forked versions of Ethereum, including PoW forks, might behave in unexpected ways due to both protocol and application-level issues, introducing increased risk for users”.

Debate between Proof of Work and Proof of Stake

And someone like Tron founder Justin Sun is also betting on the “old” Ethereum based on Proof of Work.

We currently have more than 1 million #ETH. If #Ethereum hard fork succeeds, we will donate some forked #ETHW to #ETHW community and developers to build #ethereum ecosystem. https://t.co/ee4kGSuVoK

— H.E. Justin Sun??? (@justinsuntron) August 4, 2022

However, Sun’s planned Ethereum fork, dubbed Ethereum PoW, is having little success so far among investors. The new fork has recorded only $3.6 million in trading volume on all three pairs on the Poloniex exchange backed by Sun.

These attempts to keep the old Proof of Work system alive have been described by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin as a:

“Couple of outsiders that basically have exchanges, and mostly just want to make a quick buck”.

Buterin himself said he thought it highly unlikely that the new update would not have substantial long-term adoption.

Chainlink’s decision seems to be going in the exact opposite direction from Sun’s and is betting, like Ethereum’s developers, on the new update, which is expected to reduce network power consumption by 99.5%.

At the same time, all of Ethereum’s competing blockchains, such as Solana, Polkadot and Cardano, operate under the PoS consensus. The fact that the DeFi Chainlink protocol, which does a lot of work in NFTs and gaming, has decided to opt for PoW could give a significant boost to the adoption of this new consensus system on the Ethereum network.