Frequently Asked
Questions

    What is PoWDump?

    PoWDump is the prime venue for the Ethereum community to dump their PoW ETH, sunset the PoW chain faster, and save the environment without having to go via a centralized exchange!

    We are proponents of the Proof-of-Stake Ethereum, and we can’t wait for The Merge to happen. Still, we must deal with the reality that there will be a Proof-of-Work fork. This leads to sort of an “airdrop” situation for ETH holders. Due to the fork, they'll receive PoW ETH, which they probably don’t even want to hold.

    PoWDump is a simple DApp that lets PoW ETH sellers create atomic cross-chain swaps. This makes it a secure, on-chain way to sell your PoW ETH, which doesn’t rely on centralized exchanges or trusted (wrapped) bridges.

    When is The Merge / when can I use PoWDump?

    A soft deadline for The Merge was initially set to the 19th of September, 2022. The exact time and date fluctuate as The Merge is based on the TTD, which stands for Total Terminal Difficulty. The Merge will take place at the Total Terminal Difficulty of 58,750,000,000,000,000,000,000. The Merge should take place between Wed Sep 14th, 2022, UTC, and Thu Sep 16th, 2022, UTC.

    PoWDump will be available shortly after The Merge, but we do need to have the smart contracts deployed on the forked chain before you can start dumping.

    You can follow the progress of the increase in TTD and the expected time and date for The Merge at https://bordel.wtf/ or https://797.io/themerge/.

    Why are you creating this?

    We want to build a safe way for people to swap PoW ETH to ETH without going through a centralized exchange.

    By developing the tools that enable the community to create a more liquid, transparent market, we think this helps sunset the PoW ETH chain faster, ultimately supporting the transition to Proof-of-Stake.

    What happens if the PoW ETH fork doesn’t implement a chainId?

    That would complicate things. In that case, we would need to evaluate things, and it would be possible that PoWDump would need to be delayed or even aborted to protect the users from replay attacks.

    Couldn’t I just dump my PoW ETH on a centralized exchange?

    As per usual, you should not have any ETH or ERC-20 tokens in a centralized exchange during a hard-fork, in this case, during The Merge.

    Currently, as far as we are aware, none of the major exchanges have clearly stated what will happen to the forked PoW ETH and tokens you might have at a given exchange. Nor have they stated that PoW ETH will be listed at their exchange.

    • It is possible that an exchange doesn’t reward you the sum of the forked PoW ETH or tokens at all.
    • Even if they reward you for the forked assets, it’s possible that you’ll only be given the ability to withdraw those assets from the exchange.
    • If an exchange eventually does list the forked asset(s) for trading, the trading pairs might not be for ETH.

    Can I buy PoW ETH with PoWDump?

    Yes. Since PoWDump uses cross-chain atomic swaps, there always has to be a counterparty on the Ethereum side selling ETH for PoW ETH. There is no UI for doing this, but you can do this by running a bot to match the dumps. More information on the bots can be found at https://docs.dump.today/getting-started/buyer.

    Why should I use PoWDump and swap PoW ETH for ETH?

    • Sunsetting the PoW Ethereum
    • The switch from a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake has been in the Ethereum roadmap since the beginning.

    • Better for the environment
    • After The Merge, Ethereum will consume 99.95% less energy. The Bitcoin Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism consumes the amount of energy of a small nation. Ethereum will have an immensily smaller carbon footprint.

    • More ETH to stake
    • By swapping your PoW ETH to ETH, you'll have more ETH to stake!

    • Supporting charitable causes
    • Approximately a third of the collected fees go to charitable causes. Every ETHW you dump helps support various causes in the Ethereum ecosystem.

    Doesn't this bring more awareness to PoW ETH?

    On the contrary, we’re bringing awareness to the fact that Proof-of-Stake is the future. Also, for this specific reason, we’re not providing an easy way to buy PoW ETH through the DApp UI.

    What happens when I hit “Dump” in the DApp?

    When proposing a swap on the PoWDump DApp by entering a PoW ETH value to dump and a minimum price, a transaction will be sent to a contract on the PoW chain. This transaction locks the PoW ETH you wish to dump and commits to a lock duration, as well as to a secret value only known to you.

    Counterparties interested in buying your PoW ETH will pick up the swap offer and match the swap on the Ethereum chain by committing to the same secret and values. You can then withdraw your ETH on the PoS chain. The withdrawal happens by revealing the secret value.

    The counterparty matching your trade will need to claim their PoW ETH using the same secret value you revealed, finalizing the swap.

    What are the fees for using PoWDump?

    The PoWDump DApp may collect a fee only on the Ethereum side of the swaps. The one matching a dump on the Ethereum side has to deposit the amount of the swap + the fee. The fee is locked when the buyer commits to a swap on the PoS side. As a result, the users dumping PoW ETH will receive precisely the ETH they committed to.

    What will happen to my PoW ETH if I don’t want to dump them?

    Nothing. They will just sit in your wallet on the PoW chain.

    What will happen to my PoW ETH after I dump them?

    PoWDump uses atomic swaps; thus, there’s always a counterparty to your dump. Thus the dumped PoW ETH goes to a buyer. We think it is most likely an arbitrageur or a speculator who might sell it at a later time.

    Wouldn’t dumping my PoW ETH be like throwing away money?

    No, you’re getting ETH in return.

    Could Proof-of-Stake Ethereum fail, and then I would have lost all my ETH to the losing fork?

    Yes, and no. Even if a catastrophic disaster, a black swan event, would take place on Ethereum due to The Merge and the switch to Proof-of-Stake, the bug would just get fixed, and Ethereum would adopt Proof-of-Stake a little later than expected.

    So in that regard, your ETH isn’t at risk of being lost.

    I want to dump 10 PoW ETH. Is it possible that only a part of the dump gets executed?

    No. PoWDump only does exact matches. The amount of PoW ETH and the minimum price you set have to be exactly matched by the counterparty in order for the swap to go through.

    A chunk of the collected fees will be donated. Where are these going?

    Helping with this is the top community in giving, Giveth, guiding to steer the donations towards public goods.

    Giveth is a community focused on Building the Future of Giving using blockchain technology. Their intention is to support and reward the funding of public goods by creating open, transparent and free access to the revolutionary funding opportunities available within the Ethereum ecosystem.