The core development team responsible for the proof-of-work (PoW) fork of Ethereum announced on Tuesday their intention to dissolve the centralized structure of EthereumPOW in favor of achieving complete decentralization.
Transition to Fully Decentralized EthereumPOW Underway
As per the announcement, the EthereumPOW core team will disband to facilitate full autonomy. Going forward, EthereumPOW will exclusively rely on PoW consensus and decentralized governance to transform into a deity-less public chain. This shift entails transferring governance of the EthereumPOW blockchain to its community of users and miners.
The network’s supporting servers will be transitioned to OneDAO, a decentralized protocol on the Harmony blockchain. OneDAO will offer transitional maintenance for EthereumPOW until long-term ecosystem partnerships can be established.
Jadal Page, the lead developer for EthereumPOW, elucidated the rationale behind relinquishing centralized control, stating, “We have explored and validated the feasibility of ETHW operating independently without Core’s support, confirming the fundamental technical and operational conditions for ETHW in such a scenario.”
Decentralization Hoped to Reinvigorate the Ethereum Fork
The Ethereum hard fork occurred in September 2022, just prior to the main Ethereum blockchain’s transition from proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to a more energy-efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) model following the Merge upgrade.
Concerned about perceived centralization and revenue loss, some developers and miners created EthereumPOW to preserve the original PoW-based Ethereum. However, since its launch, the forked token ETHW has faced challenges in gaining adoption.
In September, Grayscale opted not to support ETHW, citing issues like a lack of liquidity and custodial support, which removed a significant potential source of demand. Consequently, ETHW’s price declined from its initial launch value of $100 to approximately $2.59.
By dissolving centralized control and embracing community governance, the EthereumPOW team aims to revitalize the network. OneDAO will offer technical assistance during the transitional phase as the developers step back. However, the success of EthereumPOW will ultimately depend on whether the cryptocurrency community chooses to adopt it over the dominant Ethereum PoS blockchain.
