The EthereumPOW (CRYPTO: ETHW) price is down another shocking 38% over the past 24 hours, trading for US$5.17.
That compares to a 10% 24-hour loss in the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) price. One Ether is currently trading for US$1,299.
But the losses in EthereumPOW price since Friday, when Ethereum's merge went fully active, are even more sobering.
On Friday morning (Aussie time) the spinoff token was trading just north of US$36. Meaning it's down a gut wrenching 86% since then. The Ethereum price, by comparison, has lost roughly 18% over that same period.
Image source: Getty Images
What is this new spinoff token?
EthereumPOW came about as the result of last week's merge of the Ethereum blockchain.
That Merge saw the network transition from a proof of work (PoW) protocol to a proof of stake (PoS) protocol.
Under PoS, validators stake some of their Ether holdings and are rewarded for validating transactions and maintaining the security of the blockchain. The biggest immediate benefit is a massive reduction in the number of computers required, slashing energy use by more than 99%.
Not everyone was happy with the merge though.
Enter EthereumPOW, a new crypto that mimics Ethereum under the old PoW protocol, with miners functioning to maintain the blockchain as before.
Why is the EthereumPOW price crashing?
The EthereumPOW price has fallen far harder than the Ethereum price as it looks to be lacking material support.
According to Kunal Goel, a research analyst at Messari (quoted by Bloomberg):
Ethereum proof-of-work does not have support from users, developers, institutions, and even most miners. It is likely going to fade to irrelevance as all other forks without community support in history like Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision, and Ethereum Classic.
Joseph Lubin, CEO of ConsenSys and a co-founder of Ethereum had his own unique take on why the EthereumPOW price is plunging. According to Lubin:
It's hard to imagine people putting valuable tokens on that network or trading or deploying new software when so much is broken on the network. Essentially, it's the work of opportunists who are likely interested in convincing people that this cargo cult blockchain is really functional.
