Justin Sun’s Ethereum fork project, called Ethereum PoW is a monumental flop!

Justin Sun and Chandler Guo’s initiative for a Proof-of-Work Ethereum fork has so far received little interest in the market.

Low interest in EthereumPoW

Poloniex’s EthereumPoW (ETHW) listing saw only $3.6 million in volume on its first day of trading.

The token representing a potential proof-of-work-based Ethereum fork, currently called EthereumPoW has struggled to gain significant support from the broader crypto community, despite strong promotion from TRON founder Justin Sun and Chinese miner Chandler Gou. ETHW was listed on the Sun-backed Poloniex exchange over the weekend and only saw $3.6 million in trading volume.

According to CoinGecko’s data, the most traded pair of the fork, ETHW/ETH, recorded a trading volume of about $1.31 million on the first day of trading, while ETHW/USDT and ETHW/USDD recorded about $1.2 million and $1.1 million respectively. In comparison, the most traded Ethereum pair, ETH/USDT, currently records a daily volume of about $1 billion on Binance alone.

Ethereum is expected to move from a proof-of-work based consensus mechanism to a proof-of-take based mechanism in mid-September. The historical update, The Merge will allow Ethereum to adopt a less energy-intensive security model and make miners obsolete. Under the new model, Ethereum users will be able to put their ETH into play and order, verify and settle transactions, securing the network and receiving ETH rewards in return.

Despite the Ethereum community’s overwhelming support for the merger, some factions in the ETH community plan to support offshoots of Ethereum that would adopt the old Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. The most promising of the proposed forks is the EthereumPoW fork, promoted primarily by Sun and Chandler Gou, which seeks to continue running an older version of Ethereum with the “difficulty bomb“mining removed. Chandler Gou reportedly employed more than 60 developers to prepare for the fork ahead of the merger, while Justin Sun listed ETHW in anticipation of the fork on his crypto-currency exchange Poloniex on Sunday. He said there had been a “strong demand from the community” for the token when the listing was announced.

However, initial interest in Justin Sun and Chandler Gou’s EthereumPoW fork appears to be small relative to the size of the market, with only large miners and some small, mostly Asian crypto exchanges signaling potential support, according to the EthereumPoW website , two of the major crypto exchanges, Binance and FTX, are also listed, although neither company has expressed support for a fork.

Since the listing of ETHW by Poloniex, BitMEX has announced plans to list futures contracts for a potential Ethereum token based on the Proof-of-Work method. Users will be able to deposit Tether’s ETHW as collateral and gain exposure to the token with up to 2x leverage.

Ethereum community denounces forking plans

As it stands, most users, protocols, and developers seem intent on staying and continuing to build on Ethereum and dismiss forking efforts as largely irrelevant. Speaking at a closed press conference before EthSeoul On Saturday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said stated: that proponents of proof-of-work based forking “Own exchanges and are just trying to make a quick buck“.

Meanwhile Chainlink, denounced Ethereum’s fork plans. “Users should be aware that forked versions of the Ethereum blockchain, including PoW forks, will not be supported by the Chainlink protocol“, the company writes on its blog, citing alignment with the Ethereum community’s desire to move to Proof-of-Stake. Without the support of established oracle providers, decentralized applications on EthereumPoW would likely struggle to scale and function properly.

Justin Sun and Chandler Gou nonetheless plan to fork Ethereum following the merger, without presenting any fundamental reason or possible benefits other than providing existing Ethereum miners with an alternative chain to mine and continue to make money. Chandler Gou expressed support for the fork in an interview Saturday on Bloomberg, saying that everyone “will be happy” because “everyone will get free money” – alluding to the possibility of a token airdrop for current ETH holders.

Justin Sun, on the other hand, has previously reported a financial contribution to EthereumPoW builders to support the perceived fundamental value of the fork. “We currently have over 1 million #ETH. If the #Ethereum hard fork succeeds, we will donate part of the forked #ETHW to the #ETHW community and developers to build the #ethereum ecosystem“, he said. tweeted last Thursday, as Poloniex announced the listing of a Proof-of-Work token.

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

ETHW, the future native currency of the EthereumPoW blockchain, currently trades at about $141, while Ethereum trades at about $1,800.