TL:DR Breakdown:
- Thanos upgraded has been successfully activated on the Ethereum Classic blockchain.
- The network is believed to be more secured, as the upgrade will allow more miners on the network.
More room has been created for miners with graphics processing units (GPUs) to participate in the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain, following the successful activation of the planned major upgrade dubbed “Thanos.” The upgrade is aimed at enabling more security for the ETC blockchain, as more miners can now participate in the network. Already, the Thanos fork is seeing a significant number of miners, according to reports today.
Ethereum Classic Thanos fork is active
The Thanos upgrade was successfully activated on the ETC blockchain at 3:45 UTC on November 29, after the mainnet reached the block height of 11,700,000, as per the Blockscout’s ETC network explorer. Basically, what the Thanos upgrade did was to reduce the size of the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) file. Before the hard fork, the DAG nearly 4GB (3.94 GB). However, the DAG file size has been reportedly reduced to as low as 2.47 GB.
The development opens the door for more miners to participate on the network, as machines with about 3GB and 4GB GPUs are now compatible with mining Ethereum Classic. According to ETCLabs CEO Terry Culver, the activation of the Thanos upgrade on the ETC blockchain is an “important milestone.” As the blockchain can now support more miners, Culver said it will increase the blockchain security while still ensuring a “more distributed and healthy mining ecosystem.”
ETC becomes more secured
On the issue of security, the ETC blockchain suffered multiple 51% percent attacks in recent months. As a solution to the attack, the ETCLabs came up with the Modified Exponential Subjective Scoring (MESS) initiative, which Culver said was the initial move to protect not just the network but also exchanges and miners.
Currently, the Ethereum Classic hashrate has gained notable points, following the increase in miners’ activities. More so, Culver disclosed that about 90 percent of ETC miners have switched to mining from the Thanos fork.
