Bitmain to Start Selling New Ethereum Mining Rig Model Wednesday

MIAMI — AntPool, the mining pool affiliated with mining rig giant Bitmain, has invested $10 million to support the Ethereum Classic ecosystem and plans to continue investing more, the pool's CEO, Leon Lv, said at Bitmain's World Digital Mining Summit (WDMS) on Tuesday.

While the Ethereum network is working to convert to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model, Ethereum Classic is slated to remain proof-of-work (PoW). PoS will drastically change how Ethereum validates blocks, adds them to the blockchain and issues new ether (ETH). In doing so, it will eliminate the need for specialized mining rigs, such as the ones Bitmain makes.

Ethereum Classic, however, will continue to mine its native ETC cryptocurrency using these rigs.

"Our goal here is not you make the one stronger than another one [ETC vs ETH]. Our purpose is just to simply support PoW because we think pow is better than PoS," Lv told CoinDesk on the sidelines of the conference.

The initial $10 million investment will go to the development and exploration of applications of the Ethereum Classic mainnet, as to promote the overall performance of the network.

The funds have been earmarked in a separate wallet and AntPool hopes to bring together a "community" to decide on how to best invest them, Lv told CoinDesk at the sidelines of the conference. That could take the form of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) or an informal community with open participation, Lv said.

While Bitmain and AntPool are primarily focused on bitcoin, this PoW community will become one of AntPool's core businesses over the next few years, the CEO said.

Bitmain started selling its latest Ethereum mining model (the Antminer E9) earlier in July. The mining rig manufacturer also announced at the World Digital Mining Summit in Miami that it will be accepting payments in ETC for all of its Antminer models.

AntPool is the third-biggest bitcoin mining pool according to data from BTC.com, close after F2Pool.

UPDATE (July 27, 15:46 UTC): Adds quotes from Lv and information about AntPool's market share.

Read more: GPUs Get Cheaper as Ethereum’s Switch to Proof-of-Stake Gets Closer