It’s been hanging on miners head for a while, the story could finally find its conclusion in the next few days. The Ethereum Foundation has announced that the so-called “merge” switchover will finally take place in mid-September. Ethereum developers have long planned to move the crypto-currency from its current proof-of-work model to proof-of-participation, but the deadline has been repeatedly delayed. The latest tests this month (August 10) seem to validate a mid-September switchover. The abandonment of the validation by “proof of work” condemns almost completely the mining by GPU for Ethereum. A move already anticipated by most of the big miners who have been practicing for a while on other cryptos. 
The end of GPU mining in a few days?
However, with this shift, mining will no longer be an excuse for soaring graphics card prices in the coming months. Even though prices have already dropped since the crypto crash and the drop in demand, this is another factor that should encourage brands to return to a more “logical” trade in the PC market. The merger process could thus signal the end of massive GPU mining a few weeks before the arrival of the new AMD and Nvidia cards and accelerate the “offloading” of the old miner’s favorite cards on the second-hand market. Even if a delay is still possible, it seems to be a given that the process will take place this year. The other GPU minable cryptos represent a marginal use. All signals are therefore pointing towards the end of a practice that has turned many heads in recent years.
