The complete switch of Ethereum from PoW to PoS elicited a range of reactions from the crypto community. Ethereum investors and stakeholders were overjoyed as the Ethereum Merge aimed to increase scalability, slash gas fees, and minimize energy consumption, among other important changes.

The Ethereum Foundation replaced miners with validators during the shift from PoW to PoS. Because of the network’s transformation, miners will be left with expensive and ineffective mining hardware.

Is ETHW genuine or a shady scheme?

Chandler Guo, a notable Chinese miner, came out against the shift, claiming that it would leave miners with expensive equipment. Chandler was a strong supporter when developers split Ethereum in 2016, with the resulting fork becoming Ethereum Classic.

A long series of tweets from the ETHW account indicates that it is gaining significant support from multiple large Ethereum mining pools. However, the cryptocurrency Miners Community believes otherwise, which is why ETHW is most likely a scam.

The mining chamber claims that, despite the fact that the hardfork has received significant support from mining pools, the creators are unknown. Notably, developers’ anonymity in the cryptosphere is still widespread. However, that could be a red flag for an ETH replacement.

The bitcoin mining community claims that the ETHW account advertised limited connections with mining pools. According to data from one of the mining pools, flexpool io, no one from their prior website Ethereumpow[dot]org reached out to them for communication.

The Twitter account, which has 2,873 followers, claims that the first website, ‘Ethereumpow[dot]org,’ included no information useful to traders. The second website offers much less information. Nothing to do with ‘tokenomics.’

The team also claims that the ETHW is a carbon replica of the original ETH, sans the development staff.

Do cryptocurrency exchanges support ETHW?

After the transition event, crypto exchanges must decide whether to list this contested attempt to fight the shift. Late last month, the largest crypto exchange in the United States hinted that it might be willing to list ETHW.

Should an ETH PoW fork arise following The Merge, this asset will be reviewed with the same rigor as any other asset listed on our exchange.”

Chandler’s push to create ETHW, a mineable form of ETH operating on PoW, has received backing from Poloniex, Huobi, BitMEX, and Bitrue in the quest to maintain ETH mining. These cryptocurrency exchanges have begun to list ETHW-related financial instruments such futures and exchange-specific tokens.

Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, did not provide specifics on whether it would list ETHW. Binance claimed that it would consider listing ETHW on a case-by-case basis dependent on “the same strict listing evaluation process” used for other coins.