Bitcoin mining pool AntPool, affiliated with the mining rig giant Bitmain, has invested $10 million in Ethereum Classic and plans to invest more, said CEO Lv Lei at Bitmain’s World Digital Mining Summit on Tuesday July 26.
As Ethereum works towards the shift to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model with its highly-anticipated Merge this September, the Ethereum Classic ecosystem is to remain proof-of-work (PoW).
In contrast to PoW, PoS would not require the need for specialised mining rigs and equipment – which Bitmain makes. Instead of relying on computational power to validate blocks on the blockchain in PoW, PoS validates blocks by a consensus mechanism that validates coin owners who stake in order to validate their blocks on the blockchain.
Currently, Ethereum Classic will continue mining ETC – its native cryptocurrency – using rigs from Bitmain. The $10 million investment will be directed towards developing and exploring applications that will be developed on the Ethereum Classic mainnet, in addition to improving network performance and efficiency.
Let’s support the ETC ecosystem and incubate high-quality PoW projects together！ https://t.co/AHft6WfGES
— ANTPOOL (@AntPoolofficial) July 27, 2022
In early July, Bitmain launched its latest product – the Antminer E9 Ethereum mining model. While Bitcoin mining requires specific hardware tailor-made for the job, Ether mining requires graphics processing units (GPU), which are commonly used computer hardware.
In 2021, popularity in Ether mining dramatically increased, with computer hardware manufacturer Nvidia catching on to the trend by launching mining-specific GPUs. Prices in GPUs have since decreased following the news of Ethereum’s Merge from PoW to PoS.
LTC Labs, a collaboration with ANTPOOL and the @LTCFoundation explores new paths to support and expand the LTC Ecosystem!https://t.co/x1sv43Yjh0 pic.twitter.com/uwLny25alb
— ANTPOOL (@AntPoolofficial) June 29, 2022
In early April, AntPool announced a strategic partnership with the Litecoin Foundation to form the digital currency research organization ‘LTC Labs’.
According to the partnership announcement, LTC Labs has been attentive to community needs such as challenges in the NFT market. In response, LTC labs has created OmniLite, a layer 2 NFT creation tool that runs parallel to LiteCoin’s main network to address problems such as high transaction fees and low network security.
AntPool is eager to financially support more PoW projects in order to incubate high-quality blockchain development.
