Ethereum Classic jumps nearly 12% as hash rate hits all-time high

Ethereum Classic (ETC), a hard fork of Ethereum executed following the Hack DAO 2016reached an all-time high hash rate of 48.82 terra hashes per second (TH/s) yesterday, according to data from 2minors.

ETC, the native token of the Ethereum Classic network, has since jumped nearly 12% in the past 24 hours and is trading at around $35.6, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

The coin has jumped over 60% in the past 90 days from $21.40 to $35.6 today.

Hashrate is the total computing power used to mine and process transactions on a blockchain network.

Over the past month, Ethereum Classic hashrate has increased by 62.04%, from 30.08 TH/s on August 6 to its all-time high on Sunday.

Stepping back even further, the numbers are even more dramatic. The hashrate growth over the last 12 months is 105%.

The higher the metric, the more secure the blockchain, as high hash rates require extremely high computing power to compromise the network through a 51% attack.

In August 2020, for example, Ethereum Classic suffered its third attack at 51% when the total hash rate was 2.90 TH/s. Since then, the hashrate has increased by 1,606%, making the network more secure than ever.

Besides the hashrate, ETC’s mining difficulty hit an all-time high of 626.02T yesterday, according to data from 2minors.

The mining difficulty indicates the number of times a miner calculates the hash to mine new coins. The increase in mining difficulty is associated with a growing network of miners.

Merger event powering Ethereum Classic

The main reason for the increasing activity of Ethereum Classic miners can probably be attributed to the upcoming Ethereum merger later this month.

The merge event will take the network from a proof of work (PoW) one-to-one consensus proof of work (PoS) to reduce its carbon footprint and improve its efficiency.

However, the event is not without drawbacks.

The merger will render obsolete the current mining hardware deployed by crypto mining companies, forcing them to seek alternatives like Ethereum Classic, which continues to operate on traditional mining mechanisms.

In July, the crypto mining platform Antpool added $10 million support for Ethereum Classic to support its PoW consensus.