Ethereum Classic prepares for Thanos hardfork to hold miners with 4GB video cards
Ethereum Classic developers will conduct Thanos hardfork to extend their participation in mining video cards with 4 GB of RAM for several years.
The update should take place on block 11,700,000, which will be mined from November 28 to 29. It will reduce the era parameter for Ethash, a mining algorithm used in Ethereum Classic. Ethash uses a set of pre-calculated data – a directional acyclic graph (DAG). The size of this dataset increases by about 1 GB every 18 months, and will soon reach 4 GB. This can cause problems when working with some models of video cards and ASIC miners, they will no longer be able to extract ETC.
The DAG mechanism increases Ethash’s resistance to ASIC miners, the constant growth of DAG prevents large investments in highly specialized equipment. The goal of Thanos hardfork is to halve the size of DAG, which will allow devices with 4 GB of memory to work for another three years.
In August, the Ethereum Classic network was attacked three times by 51%, so increasing the hashrate and preventing further manipulation are one of the main tasks of the community. Developers are also considering a complete change in the mining algorithm, which caused disagreements, because this will take too long. Therefore, the developers consider Thanos hardfork as a short-term solution that allows you to protect the network and “absorb” a significant part of the total hashrate of the graphics processor (GPU).
According to Hive OS statistics, about 24% of users of this service still use 4 GB video cards, but only 2% of devices are used for ETC mining. Today, the Ethereum Classic hashreat is significantly lower than the Ethereum hashreat. Therefore, even a small number of ETH miners ready to switch to ETC will significantly increase the safety of the Ethereum Classic.
Recall that last month, Ethereum Classic specialists introduced the MESS system to prevent 51% attacks. However, IOHK and ETC Cooperative researchers later found that MESS would not provide sufficient network protection against such attacks.
