Ethereum Proof-of-Work Fork Will Debut 24 Hours Following The Merge

The fork of Ethereum proof of work, ETHW, will go live 24 hours after the Merge completes marking the transition of the Ethereum Network from proof of work to proof of stake.

In a series of Twitter posts from @EthereumPoW, the official handle of the forthcoming ETHW mainnet, a detailed strategy was laid out for the new network and its launch. The Merge is expected to take place Thursday.

"ETHW mainnet will happen within 24 hours after the Merge. The exact time will be announced 1 hour before launch with a countdown timer and everything including final code, binaries, config files, nodes info, RPC, explorer, etc. will be made public when the time's up," revealed EthereumPoW.

According to the thread, the ETHW chainID will switch to 10001 and this will mark the beginning of the new network. ChainID is a way introduced in EIP-155 which makes each blockchain distinct from the other.

However, to let the switch occur without any errors, the mainnet of ETHW is scheduled to go live at the height of the Merge block plus the time taken to process 2048 empty blocks.

This practically means that the first block to hold any value in the ETHW Network will be the Merge block plus 2049 network which will contain the first transaction of the new chain.

"The Merge block + 2049 will be the 1st block on ETHW that may contain any transactions. Block rewards for the empty blocks will be directed to the 1559 multi-sig wallet," revealed ETHW in another Twitter post seen below.

The initial mining rate can be no lower than 15 TH/s and soon, the node data will be made available publicly so that those who aim to operate ETHW nodes and validate transactions can do so.

Ethereum's Merge is possibly one of the most anticipated events in the history of the crypto industry and the situation post Merge might be similar to the scene following Bitcoin's Taproot upgrade on Nov. 14, 2022, which was a major reason for the world's biggest cryptocurrency's all-time high on Nov. 10 at $69,000.