When Ethereum flipped to proof-of-stake in September 2022, not everyone celebrated. A faction of miners, developers, and true believers refused to switch off their GPU rigs and walked away with their own version of the chain. That chain is ETHW — a hard fork that kept proof-of-work alive long after The Merge rendered it obsolete on the mainnet.

ETHW pitched itself as the "true" Ethereum — the chain that honored the original whitepaper vision of decentralized mining. Two years later, it survives as a curiosity, a cautionary tale, and for a small band of loyalists, a stubborn bet that proof-of-work still has a place in a staking-dominated world.

What Exactly Is ETHW?

ETHW is the native asset of EthereumPoW, a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain that split off at block 15,537,393 on September 15, 2022 — the same block where mainnet transitioned to proof-of-stake. Anyone holding ETH at the time received an equal amount of ETHW on the new chain, mirroring the airdrop model used in earlier splits like ETC.

The fork was spearheaded by miner Chandler Guo and a group of PoW loyalists who argued that the move to PoS centralized validation in the hands of large staking providers like Lido and Coinbase. ETHW's pitch was simple: keep mining, keep decentralization, keep the original ethos.

Technically, ETHW launched with the same EVM as Ethereum, meaning existing smart contracts could redeploy with minimal changes. It also kept the same addresses and private keys — a convenience that quickly became a security problem.

The Rough Start: Chain ID and Replay Drama

ETHW's launch was almost immediately chaotic. Because the fork preserved Ethereum's chain ID before a patch, attackers executed a replay attack that drained thousands of dollars from users who thought they were simply bridging ETH to ETHW.

What Went Wrong

  • The forked chain didn't change its network identifier early enough
  • Transactions signed on one chain could be broadcast and executed on the other
  • Several DeFi users lost funds by interacting with unfamiliar bridges

The team scrambled to set a unique chain ID (10001) and pushed emergency patches. It was an embarrassing debut for a project claiming to embody Ethereum's original spirit of "don't trust, verify." Critics pointed to the incident as evidence that the fork was rushed and under-engineered.

The State of ETHW Mining

ETHW's original pitch centered on miners. After The Merge, GPU mining on Ethereum became instantly unprofitable — the network's hashrate cratered as rigs were redirected to Ethereum Classic, Ravencoin, and Ergo. ETHW offered a familiar home for displaced miners.

In practice, ETHW mining has never come close to matching the economics of pre-Merge Ethereum. Block rewards are modest, transaction fees are tiny, and the price has struggled to hold meaningful value. Most former ETH miners moved on; only a small dedicated group continues to mine ETHW today.

Who Still Mines ETHW?

  • True believers in proof-of-work as a security model
  • Small-scale hobbyists running GPU rigs at low electricity cost
  • Operations hedging against a hypothetical return to PoW on Ethereum

Can ETHW Survive Long Term?

Honest assessments of ETHW's future tend to land in the same place: bleak, but not zero. The chain technically works. It runs smart contracts. It has a handful of dApps and a small community. But it lacks the network effects, developer mindshare, and liquidity that make a blockchain actually useful.

Newer proof-of-work chains like Kaspa and Bitcoin Cash have outperformed ETHW on both technology and adoption metrics. ETHW's main differentiation — being "Ethereum, but with mining" — is also its biggest limitation, because the Ethereum ecosystem moved on without it.

That said, hard forks rarely die completely. Ethereum Classic, often written off for years, still processes transactions and supports a small but real ecosystem. ETHW could follow the same trajectory: a niche chain serving a specific community, rather than a contender for top-tier smart contract dominance.

How to Get and Store ETHW

Acquiring ETHW is straightforward. It trades on a handful of centralized exchanges and a few DEX pairs. Users who held ETH at the fork block can still claim ETHW through supported wallets, though most major wallet providers have since de-emphasized support.

If you're experimenting with ETHW, treat it like any other altcoin: use a self-custody wallet you control, double-check contract addresses, and never bridge funds without understanding the replay risk that still lurks on less-tested forks.

Key Takeaways

  • ETHW is the proof-of-work hard fork of Ethereum created during The Merge in September 2022
  • It launched with a major security mishap involving replay attacks before its chain ID was properly set
  • The mining community it targeted largely moved on to other PoW chains
  • ETHW still functions as a small, EVM-compatible chain but lacks the ecosystem and liquidity to compete with mainnet Ethereum
  • Like Ethereum Classic before it, ETHW is more likely to survive as a niche chain than to challenge the original