BTC.com Launches New Ethereum Mining Pool

Amid a multi-month bear market, cryptocurrency mining has fallen to the shadows as a key player in industry growth. However, one of the largest bitcoin mining pools, BTC.com, is launching a new mining client for Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

BTC.com Produced 21 Percent of All-New BTC Last Year

Bitcoin mining pool BTC.com is extending its mining portfolio for the first time with the addition of GPU/CPU mining options for Ethereum (ETH), according to a press release.

Through the new Ethereum and Ethereum Classic mining client, users will have the ability to switch hashing power between pools, depending on changing market conditions.

BTC.com also plans to release an “integrated Etherum block explorer and API to accompany the mining pool” in an effort to scale Ethereum’s mining infrastructure.

In the official press release, Zhuang Zhong, director of BTC.com, said:

“Because contracts are charged per line of executed code and miners are rewarded for dedicated hashes using Ghost, Ethereum provides multiple different reward incentives to contribute hash power to the network. We hope to expand Ethereum’s network by relaying those rewards through our FPPS system. By competing to provide the best reward margins along with our product development, we expect mining operations to grow to 12 percent of ETH total hashrate in the next 12 months.”

Related: Ethereum Developers Discuss Hard Forks and Block Issuance Reductions

BTC.com uses a Full Pay Per Share (FPPS) accounting system that calculates standard transaction fees within specific intervals.

According to the press release, the “shares are calculated from the block reward, associated transaction fees set by gas prices, and up to two uncle blocks.”

Despite the Ethereum network’s transition into a hybrid proof-of-stake (PoS) and proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism via the “Casper” update, Zhong stated that BTC.com’s Ethereum mining pool will still be functional:

“It’s still possible to host a mining pool in PoS mode. It will increase the complexity to design such a pool since miners need to deposit ether to the mining pool, but we have a lot of hands-on experience with wallet and Ethereum smart contracts to make a PoS mining pool possible.”

BTC.com plans to launch the new Ethereum mining pool on Aug. 30.

Cover Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash

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