Prior to the Merge, Ethereum Mining Addresses Reach 4-year High
“The balance of Ethereum miner addresses exceeded 260,000, with a total of 261,848, which has increased to the level of the same period in April 2018, a record high in four years, and is approximately 415 million US dollars at current prices”, as noted by independent crypto journo Colin Wu quoting information from OKLink. Despite the fact that the price of Ethereum is now falling, the number of addresses is increasing. The growing percentage of Ethereum addresses has highlighted the final attempts made by Proof-of-Work (PoW) miners to gather as much Ether as they can prior to the actual impending The Merge. A “Difficulty Bomb” will be introduced with the Merge, which is scheduled for September 15, making mining more challenging and generally unworkable. Since miners will be required to shift their roles in order towards becoming validators in the relatively new Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, mining will become mostly unprofitable as a result of the difficulty bomb. To participate in Ethereum mining at this time, miners have absolutely nothing to lose. Some people might even view mining as a way to amass Ethereum at a time when the chances are in their advantage. As the Merge date gets closer, there