HIVE Blockchain: Navigating 'The Merge'

SummaryThe long-awaited Ethereum merge has a target date. And it's fast approaching.Almost 40% of HIVE's mining production comes from Ethereum mining. Ethereum changing from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake eliminates that revenue source.HIVE's post-merge strategy is a shift to other GPU mineable coins and computing services.HIVE's crypto-specific options for the GPUs are very limited.One of the biggest narrative trades in crypto since the market stopped going down in mid-June has been the renewed optimism in a merge of Ethereum's (ETH-USD) proof of work mainnet and proof of stake Beacon Chain; now scheduled for mid-September. But a slightly underappreciated component of moving from proof of work to proof of stake consensus is the miners who were previously securing the PoW network no longer have the same incentive in a PoS model because the transaction validation mechanism is completely different.For Ethereum miners, this is particularly problematic because ETH mining is still done with GPUs rather than with the ASIC machines required by most other PoW networks. Ethereum miners can't simply switch to securing Bitcoin (BTC-USD) because their machines aren't capable of profitably mining it. Some of the ETH miners are now upset about the change to a PoS model, and there is a proposed fork of Ethereum that is reportedly picking up a little bit of steam. According to Decrypt:Ever since a prominent Chinese Ethereum miner announced h...