Ethereum proof-of-work token has fallen by 80% since its launch; What will happen to this token?
The price of the Ethereum Proof-of-Work (ETHW) potential fork has plunged by 80% despite reaching close to $200 after being listed on multiple exchanges. Meanwhile, the release of a report that estimated the price of the token at $18 post-merger has fueled speculation that Ethereum’s proof-of-work token will fall further.
To Report Cointelegraph, the price of the Ethereum proof-of-work fork token dropped by more than 80% more than a month after its launch and reached $25 on September 10.
Currently, the Ethereum Proof of Work token is only offered as a trading symbol in the futures markets; Anticipating that an upcoming update to the Ethereum network could lead to a split of the blockchain (hard fork).
The Ethereum protocol will undergo a major change called Merge in mid-September and will change its consensus mechanism from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS).
After this update, the Ethereum Army will retire its miners and replace them with validators. This group is nodes that perform the same tasks as miners by staking a certain amount of tokens in the network.
As a result, current Ethereum miners will be forced to migrate to other proof-of-work blockchains or shut down. Ethereum Classic has similar code to Ethereum Proof of Work, which is why it has benefited the most from the merger so far, becoming a haven for these miners.
For example, the graph below shows the increase in the hashrate of the Ethereum Classic network and the decrease in the hashrate of the Ethereum network in the days leading up to the merger.
However, Ethereum Classic probably won’t be the only option available to Ethereum miners.
Chandler Guo, one of the most prominent figures active in cryptocurrency mining, has suggested that miners continue to validate and add blocks to Ethereum’s current proof-of-work chain after the merger. Go and its backers have dubbed the controversial hardfork “ETHPOW,” which keeps Ethereum’s current proof-of-work chain alive.
Just as the Ethereum blockchain has a native token called Ether, the new Proof of Work chain will have a token called ETHW. Anyone who had ETH tokens prior to the merger will receive the same amount of Ethereum Proof of Work tokens after this possible hardfork (which may never happen).
However, given the risk of a significant fall in the value of Ethereum’s Proof of Work token, traders seem to be more comfortable holding Ethereum itself; Because it allows them to receive ETHW token in case of a crack in this blockchain.
Additionally, the drop in the ETHW token price could be a sign that traders are counting on the reduced probability of the Ethereum network fork.
Read more: After the Ethereum update, which digital currencies will miners mine?
Paradigm report another blow to ETHW token price
Paradigm Investment Company (Paradigm) in Report On September 1, he argued that the value of an Ethereum proof-of-work token after the launch of this fork should not be more than $18. This figure is almost 90% lower than the record price of 198 dollars for this token on August 9 (August 18).
In its argument, this company points to the formation of a backwardation situation in the market; When futures transactions are done with a value lower than spot market prices. In fact, the price of 18 dollars of ETHW token is calculated based on the status of futures transactions, which expire on September 30 (8 Mehr).
The report shows that some exchanges, including Deribit and FTX, measure their Ethereum futures/perpetual contracts by reference to the underlying or proof-of-stake-based Ethereum price.
Based on the fact that Ethereum futures are traded at a discount of $18 compared to spot prices, the potential fork token of this network will also be worth at least $18.
It is said in this report:
With a simple look at the basis [قیمت] Futures-Spot Trading We can estimate how much the Ethereum Proof of Work Token is worth. With the argument that the price of spot transactions = price of proof-of-stake token + proof-of-work token, while the price of futures transactions is determined based on the value of proof-of-stake token. Currently, taking into account the argument that the proof-of-work fork has taken about 1.5% of the Ethereum market value, it is worth $18.