What is EthereumFair and What Can We Learn From It?

As its own take on the Ethereum blockchain, EthereumFair is a response to recent transformations that have turned the Ethereum mainnet into a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain. It is one of several Ethereum forks that exist today. 

This article provides an overview of the EthFair chain and explores the project’s goals and current potential shortcomings.

What is EthereumFair?

Ethereum Fair (ETHF) is a fork of the incredibly popular Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Specifically, when the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade occurred, subsections of the community split off and forked the ETH blockchain in order to create their own chains.

EthFair is one of these forks. It is based on how Ethereum used to work prior to the launch of Ethereum 2.0. 

Importantly, the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade saw the Ethereum network adopt a consensus mechanism known as Proof of Stake (PoS). In a PoS network, the network is powered by users who run validators and have a proven stake in the network. 

Prior to this upgrade, Ethereum made use of a different consensus mechanism known as Proof of Work (PoW). Unlike PoS, PoW means rewarding users—known as miners—for helping validate transactions through an automated process.

Ethereum switching from PoW to PoS had been in the works for years, but finally took place in September of 2022. Proponents of the upgrade believe the adoption of PoS can help mitigate Ethereum’s high energy consumption and bulky transaction fees.

While this decision was broadly popular, some users—especially miners—felt left behind. Whereas they had previously received financial rewards for helping keep the network decentralized, the upgrade meant that miners became a footnote in Ethereum’s ongoing story.

Here is where EthereumFair’s own story begins. Its developers are largely anonymous, with little in the way of a strong online footprint being uncovered by our research. On their website, they merely refer to themselves as a “group of tech geeks in Silicon Valley.”  

Core to EthFair’s features and principles, the project says it is dedicated to maintaining the PoW consensus algorithm that once powered Ethereum. This, its developers believe, allows for a system in which individual users maintain equal power regardless of their stake. At the same time, it means that miners can continue to be rewarded.

However, when comparing EthereumFair (ETHF) to other chains, the project appears to be struggling when it comes to adoption—the area that is arguably most important for the success of a decentralized network.

What is the EthereumFair Coin?

EthereumFair’s native token, ETHF, powers the transactions that occur within the network. 

As a governance token, the project’s documentation states that ETHF will be the coin used in all applications that take place inside the EtherFair ecosystem.

ETHF can be obtained in two key ways: it can be purchased or mined. In line with the project’s ambition to maintain a Proof of Work (PoW) ecosystem, users who temporarily donate their device’s resources to the network are rewarded in the form of ETHF tokens.

EthereumFair DEXs

EthereumFair can currently be purchased from decentralized exchanges such as MemorySwap, OriSwap, ChaingeFinance, and NetaSwap.

EthereumFair Bridges

Orbit Chain calls its bridge, Orbit Bridge, the first to support PoW-based Ethereum hard forks. It is used by EthereumFair as a way to allow the network to communicate with other blockchains.

Bridges act as a crucial way for projects like EthereumFair to survive. Without them, the process of interacting with more popular chains—such as to conduct trades—can become prohibitively complex.

How does EthereumFair Mining Work?

As EthereumFair is a hard fork of the Ethereum chain, its mining system is a fundamental copy of the PoW mining system that was used prior to the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade.

While mining has been phased out by the current Ethereum mainnet, documentation of how PoW mining works can still be found on Ethereum.org. 

However, EthereumFair has made slight tweaks to the process—specifically when it comes to mining difficulty. 

While Ethereum’s mining difficulty increased over time prior to the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, EthFair claims to have minimized the mining difficulty coefficient. This was done as an attempt to encourage miners to adopt the network through the possibility of it being easier to receive rewards for mining.

How to Add EthereumFair to Metamask

EthereumFair can be added to MetaMask in just a few steps, by using MetaMask’s “add a network manually” feature.

On your MetaMask wallet, simply navigate to ‘networks’ > ‘add a network’ > ‘add a network manually’ and input the information listed by the official EthereumFair Twitter account.

Add ETF Network to Metamask
===
Network Name : EthereumFair
New RPC URL: https://t.co/tnE8Uuca4A
Chain ID: 513100
Currency Symbol: ETF
ETF Explorer: https://t.co/9vGw904PNj

— EthereumFair($ETHF) #PeoplePOW (@EthereumFair) September 15, 2022

For your own safety, always check official sources when adding any custom network to your MetaMask wallet.

Ethereum Fair Price

As of press time on June 5, 2023, EthereumFair (ETHF) is valued at $0.1178 USD per token according to CoinMarketCap. 

Maybe add something here about its price performance thus far

What Can We Learn From Ethereum Fair?

Observing EthereumFair’s official channels at the current point in time may not promote a lot of optimism about the project. In our research, we could not find concrete details about its developers. Nor could a whitepaper be found on the official site—which is riddled with dead links. 

At the time of reporting, the project’s Medium account is suspended. Its official site shows that it was last updated in November 2022, and its technology roadmap does not feature any concrete dates.

For a project early in its lifecycle, the degree to which these factors matter will differ between individuals and could potentially change in the near future. For now, one factor that is unanimous is the importance of adoption.

As we have covered in our past article on Metcalfe's law, blockchains are only viable when they have strong communities of users. At the current point in time, EtherFair has a low volume of transactions compared to other chains.

Through OKLink’s block explorer, hiding zero value transactions reveals that just 621 transactions took place in the last 24 hours.

For comparison, PulseChain—an Ethereum 2.0 fork—had over 300,000 transactions on its first day alone.

As a result, EthereumFair currently serves as yet another reminder of the fact that a project’s goals are only a fraction of the battle. Adoption is crucial to the survival and success of any Ethereum fork.

FAQ

Is Uniswap on EthereumFair?

Yes, since EthereumFair is a total system-state fork of Ethereum, all contracts were copied over, including UniSwap. All that was left to complete was a front-end for the project which can be found here:

https://dex.etherfair.org/#/swap

Does EtherFair have NFTs?

Yes:

https://etherfair.org/dapps

Does EtherFair have GameFi?

Yes:

https://etherfair.org/dapps