Aave May Shun Post-Merge PoW Ethereum Forks

Aave may shift exclusively to the Proof-of-Stake version of Ethereum that will be rolled out after the completion of The Merge.

According to a proposal floated Tuesday by members of the DAO governing the DeFi money market, the organization will consider whether to commit to the new version of the Ethereum mainnet and shun any forked versions that continue to use the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism that has maintained the blockchain since it went live in 2015.

In other words, if passed the Aave protocol will be shut down on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) Ethereum chain.

With $7.45B in total value locked (TVL), Aave is the third-largest DeFi app in the world. Headquartered in London, it runs a decentralized non-custodial lending protocol where users can participate by borrowing or depositing assets. It was founded by Stani Kulechov and launched initially as ETHLend in a 2017 ICO, but rebranded to Aave in September 2018.

The move comes amid a push by Ethereum miners to keep the current PoW consensus mechanism going. This comes as no surprise, as the switch to PoS will make their expensive mining rigs redundant.

PoW Die-Hards Plan to Fork and Mine Their Own Ethereum Chains After The Merge

It Won't be Easy to Operate in a PoS World

The Defiant

Indeed, several crypto exchanges like Bitmex and Poloniex have already listed PoW ETH in anticipation of activity on the forked chain. It’s currently trading around $63.

PoW ETH Price. Source: Poloniex

The Merge Goes Live

The long-awaited Ethereum upgrade is predicted to occur sometime on Sep 15. The Merge will kick energy-intensive miners off the PoW network in favor of PoS validators and is expected to drastically reduce the network’s energy consumption.

Dev Estimates Exact Timing Of The Merge

Analysts Expect ETH to Go Deflationary post-Merge

The Defiant

Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, appeared on The Defiant Podcast and predicts The Merge will scale down Ethereum’s electricity utilization by more than 99.9%.