Beacon Chain
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The Beacon Chain was Ethereum's Proof of Stake coordination layer, running in parallel with the original Ethereum mainnet from December 2020 until September 2022. It managed validators, staking, and the PoS consensus engine before the two chains merged.
The Merge
In September 2022, Ethereum completed The Merge — the Beacon Chain became Ethereum's consensus layer, replacing Proof of Work entirely. This event ended Ethereum GPU mining. Miners who had dedicated GPU rigs to ETH mining had to switch to other GPU-mineable coins (such as Ergo, Alephium, Kaspa, and others).
Impact on the mining industry
The Merge was one of the most significant events in mining history:
- ~800 TH/s of GPU hashrate suddenly had no primary coin to mine
- Many miners shifted to ETH-compatible coins (Ethash, Etchash, KawPow)
- GPU mining profitability dropped sharply across the board
- Some miners sold hardware; others switched to Kaspa and other emerging coins
Beacon Chain vs BNB Beacon Chain
Note: BNB Beacon Chain (by Binance) is an entirely different project — a separate blockchain used for governance and staking in the BNB ecosystem. It shares only the name "Beacon Chain" with Ethereum's layer.
