Ethereum Classic books 12% rally as mining support for ETC gains pace

ETC price secures a double-digit gain as its hashrate hits a record-high and BTC.com adds a Ethereum Classic mining option to its services.

Ethereum Classic (ETC) price rallied on Sept. 5 on back-to-back positive reports concerning its adoption among crypto miners.

Top mining pool supports Ethereum Classic

On the daily chart, ETC’s price surged 14.5% to nearly $37.25 per token. Its massive gains came days after BTC.com, a blockchain explorer and crypto mining pool, launched a specialized Ethereum Classic pool with “zero-fee” mining for three months.

The announcement appeared after “the Merge,” a long-awaited network update that would switch Ethereum’s energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) protocol to a “cost-efficient” and scalable alternative, the proof-of-stake (PoS), on Sept. 19 or before.

But the switch to PoS will make Ethereum’s PoW miners futile. On the other hand, Ethereum Classic, the original version of Ethereum, which still uses PoW, could become a haven for the miners affected by the Merge.

The network is already attracting PoW miners en masse, confirmed by its hashrate, which touched a record high of 41.81 Terrahash per second (TH/s) on Sept. 4. For the unversed, hashrate is the total computational power used to mine and process transactions on a PoW blockchain.

This migration has helped ETC rally incredibly in recent months; it is up 200% since mid June.

ETC price could rise another 60%

From a technical perspective, Ethereum Classic looks ready to undergo a circa 60% price rally in September.

Notably, ETC’s price has formed a “bull flag” in recent weeks. Bull flags appear when the price consolidates lower after a strong uptrend. Meanwhile, they resolve after the price breaks out in the direction of its previous trend and are thus considered bullish continuation patterns.

As of Sept. 5, ETC tested its bull flag’s upper trendline for a potential breakout move. Suppose the token does it. Then, its likelihood of rising further will be higher. Also, as a rule of technical analysis, the price could rise by as much as the previous uptrend’s length, as shown below.

In other words, the ETC bull flag’s profit target comes to be at around $58.50, up almost 60% from Sept. 5’s price.

Related: ETH Merge: CoinGecko co-founder shares strategy for forked tokens

Conversely, a decisive break below the bull flag’s lower trendline risks invalidating the upside setup explained above.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.