ETHW is the native coin of EthereumPoW. EthereumPoW is a separate blockchain that split from Ethereum on 15 September 2022, when Ethereum switched from proof-of-work mining to proof-of-stake in the Merge. EthereumPoW kept mining. It runs as its own network with chain ID 10001, and its coin is unrelated to ether (ETH). On 25 October 2026 CoinGecko listed ETHW at about $0.22, with a market capitalisation of about $24 million. Its all-time high on the same page is $58.54.
The ticker ETHW is also used by the Bitwise Ethereum ETF, a US-listed fund that holds ether. That fund has nothing to do with EthereumPoW.
Two different things called "ETHW"
If you search for ETHW today, you will see results for both of these:
- EthereumPoW (ETHW): the proof-of-work fork coin covered in this article.
- Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ticker ETHW): a Delaware statutory trust that holds ether. Its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission say it began trading on NYSE Arca on 23 July 2024. Its 2026 quarterly filings (10-Q) carry the "ethw" file prefix.
Fund flow headlines in 2026 about "ETHW" usually refer to the ETF. They say nothing about the EthereumPoW chain.
How EthereumPoW started
- July 2022: Chandler Guo, a Chinese crypto miner who had backed the 2016 split that created Ethereum Classic, said on Twitter that he would fork Ethereum again so miners could keep working after the Merge. He wrote: "I fork Ethereum once, I will fork it again." The Block and Decrypt reported this at the time.
- Early September 2022: The team planned to launch within 24 hours of the Merge. According to The Block, the chain would process 2,048 empty blocks first, so the first block with transactions would be the Merge block plus 2,049. On 9 September the team confirmed chain ID 10001 instead of Ethereum's chain ID 1. This followed public warnings that keeping the same ID would leave users open to replayed transactions.
- 15 September 2022: Ethereum's Paris upgrade (the Merge) took effect at 06:42:42 UTC. The last proof-of-work block on Ethereum was block 15,537,393. EthereumPoW's mainnet went live hours later, as Decrypt reported the same day.
Because EthereumPoW copied Ethereum's history up to the fork, any address that held ETH at that point held the same balance of ETHW on the new chain.
Which ETHW are you looking at?
Answer up to three questions to tell the EthereumPoW coin apart from the fund that uses the same ticker, and to see what the fork meant for an old ETH address.
Where did you see "ETHW": in fund news (fund flows, SEC filings, a share price), on a crypto coin page, or are you not sure?
- Fund news, SEC filings or a share price → This is the Bitwise Ethereum ETF
- A crypto coin on its own blockchain → next question
- Not sure → next question
Does the source mention EthereumPoW, mining, chain ID 10001 or the September 2022 fork?
- Yes → next question
- No, it mentions Bitwise, an ETF or 10-Q filings → This is the Bitwise Ethereum ETF
Did an address you control hold ETH when Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake at the Merge on 15 September 2022?
- Yes, it held ETH at the fork → Your address carried over to EthereumPoW
- No, or I am only reading about the coin → This is the EthereumPoW coin
The ticker ETHW also belongs to the Bitwise Ethereum ETF, a US-listed fund that holds ether. SEC filings say it began trading on 23 July 2024, and its 2026 10-Q filings carry the "ethw" file prefix. Fund flow headlines in 2026 about "ETHW" usually mean this fund. They say nothing about the EthereumPoW chain.
EthereumPoW copied Ethereum's history up to the fork, so an address that held ETH at that point held the same balance of ETHW on the new chain. That chain uses chain ID 10001, not Ethereum's chain ID 1. At launch, scammers posing as wallet support used the confusion over adding the network, and a bridge that checked a saved chain ID instead of the live one was exploited with replayed messages.
ETHW is the native coin of EthereumPoW, a proof-of-work chain that split from Ethereum on 15 September 2022 and kept mining. It runs on chain ID 10001 and is unrelated to ether (ETH). On 25 October 2026 CoinGecko listed it at about $0.22, with a market capitalisation of about $24 million.
This only sorts out which "ETHW" a source means and what the fork copied; it does not check any wallet balance, value either asset or say whether to buy, sell or hold.
What went wrong at launch
- Chain ID clash: Decrypt reported that chain ID 10001 was already used by a Bitcoin Cash-related test network. Chain IDs are chosen freely and have no central registry. Users also reported trouble adding the network to wallets, and scammers posing as wallet support used the confusion.
- Bridge replay exploit (16–18 September 2022): Security firm BlockSec found attackers abusing the Omni bridge on the EthereumPoW chain. In the example BlockSec published, an attacker moved 200 WETH through the bridge on Gnosis Chain. The attacker then replayed the same cross-chain message on EthereumPoW and received an extra 200 ETHW. The root cause was that the bridge checked a chain ID saved in contract storage instead of the live chain ID. After the fork, the saved value still matched, so replayed messages passed. The EthereumPoW developers said the flaw was in the bridge contract, not the chain, which enforces EIP-155 replay protection.
- Price: Decrypt reported that ETHW traded at about $60.68 around the Merge and fell to $15.33 after launch. After the bridge exploit it dropped about 37%, to a low of $4.22.
How EthereumPoW differs from Ethereum
| Ethereum (ETH) | EthereumPoW (ETHW) | |
|---|---|---|
| Consensus since 15 Sep 2022 | Proof-of-stake | Proof-of-work (mining) |
| Who produces blocks | Validators who stake ETH | Miners with hardware |
| Chain ID | 1 | 10001 |
| Shared history | Full history | Ethereum's history up to the Merge, then separate |
| Energy use | About 99.95% lower than before the Merge, per ethereum.org | Still mining-based |
Ethereum's validators lock up ETH as collateral. Ethereum.org describes the full validator stake as 32 ETH, while running a node that does not propose blocks needs no stake. Forkast reported in 2022 that the EthereumPoW code changed little apart from keeping mining, and that it retained EIP-1559. We could not confirm the chain's later protocol changes from the project's own pages.
Where things stand now
- Market: On 25 October 2026 CoinGecko showed about $0.22 per ETHW, a market cap of about $24 million and 24-hour volume of about $1.6 million. Its circulating supply figure on the same page is about 107.8 million.
- Development: The project's main client is a fork of the Go Ethereum (geth) code, published at github.com/ethereumpow/go-ethereum. The repository lists no formal releases. In searches covering 2026 we found no protocol or governance announcements from the project.
- Risks: Many fork-era concerns still apply. These include thin liquidity, few stablecoins or applications on the chain, and bridges or contracts that may not check chain IDs correctly. In 2022 The Block noted that a forked proof-of-work chain may lack the stablecoins that decentralised finance applications rely on.
Limitations: EthereumPoW's official website did not load when this was checked, so the chain's current parameters come from reporting, block explorers' conventions and the code repository, not from the project's own documentation.
