Ethereum Classic Ecosystem Gets $10M From Antpool As Merge Date Nears

AntPool, the third largest Bitcoin BTC/USD mining pool, has invested $10 million in the Ethereum Classic ETC/USD ecosystem.

What Happened: According to a report from CoinDesk, AntPool CEO Lv Lei confirmed the investment at the Bitmain World Digital Mining Summit on Tuesday.

Lei also said that AntPool plans to continue investing more in the ETC ecosystem in the foreseeable future.

The AntPool CEO’s statements come after Ethereum ETH/USD developers floated a tentative date for the Merge – an event that marks ETH’s transition to a Proof-of-Stake network.

See Also: PROOF OF STAKE VS PROOF OF WORK

When Ethereum makes the switch, Proof-of-Work mining for Ethereum will effectively be redundant and the network’s miners will be forced to migrate to other PoW chains.

Earlier this week, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin suggested that those who preferred PoW chains should use Ethereum Classic, dubbing it “a totally fine chain.”

“It’s a very welcoming community and I think they’ll definitely welcome Proof-of-Work fans,” said Buterin.

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, at press time, ETC was trading at $26.8, gaining 13% over the last 24 hours. The coin was up 13.33% against BTC and 11.96% against ETH.