Exploring the next hot sector after Bitcoin inscriptions: POW mining coins
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Exploring the next hot sector after Bitcoin inscriptions: POW mining coins
Is POW mining entering a golden era of great potential?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Daniel Li
In 2023, one of the most prominent projects has undoubtedly been Bitcoin Ordinals. As a rising force, Bitcoin Ordinals have become a key driver behind current market trends. However, while new projects emerge rapidly, traditional ones are also regaining vitality. In recent months, Kaspa (KAS) has seen its price surge dramatically, reigniting interest in "POW mining coins."
As an established blockchain, Kaspa launched in 2021—just as the cryptocurrency market transitioned from bull to bear conditions. Unlike other cryptocurrencies that plummeted nearly 90% during the bear market, Kaspa’s token KAS demonstrated exceptional resilience and rose against the trend. Over the past year, KAS has surged more than 800-fold, significantly outperforming other digital assets. With the upcoming Bitcoin halving event, it is expected that even more miners and capital will flow into the POW mining coin sector.
01 The Revival of the POW Mechanism
POW mining coins refer to cryptocurrencies based on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism. PoW requires miners to invest substantial computing power and electricity to create and validate blocks. This method has long been criticized for wasting energy. After Ethereum's shift from PoW to PoS, skepticism toward PoW reached its peak. Yet, contrary to popular expectations, PoW has not gradually faded away—it has instead undergone rebirth and regained new vitality, closely tied to the enduring necessity of PoW.
First, the PoW mechanism is renowned for its security and reliability. By consuming significant computational resources and electrical power, PoW ensures the security of blockchain networks. This energy-intensive nature gives PoW high resistance to malicious attacks and tampering. In today’s digital asset landscape—rife with threats and risks—security has become a critical concern for users and investors alike. Thus, the robust security features of PoW have contributed significantly to the resurgence of new projects.
Second, PoW offers stable infrastructure. As the earliest consensus mechanism applied to projects like Bitcoin, PoW has undergone years of development and testing, earning broad validation and adoption. This maturity allows new projects to leverage proven infrastructure, reducing development and deployment risks. Moreover, there exists a longstanding industry belief that “bear markets favor PoW,” because PoW coins require real-world electricity expenditure, giving them intrinsic value and greater stability compared to PoS coins.
Additionally, fairness and decentralization are key attributes of the PoW mechanism. By allowing competition among participants to determine the next block producer, PoW ensures equitable opportunities to earn rewards. This fairness attracts users and developers who value community consensus and decentralized principles. Amid growing demand across the crypto space for fairness, transparency, and decentralization, PoW is once again gaining recognition as a distributed consensus model.
Furthermore, beyond its strengths in security, stability, fairness, and decentralization, the revival of PoW has also been fueled by integration with emerging technologies. Some new PoW projects incorporate current technological trends—such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things—to propose innovative use cases and solutions, attracting heightened attention from developers and users.
As a time-tested consensus mechanism, PoW has once again become a focal point. Compared to PoS, PoW holds advantages in security, stability, fairness, and decentralization, providing a solid foundation for new projects. Through creative integration with cutting-edge technologies, PoW is driving blockchain toward greater decentralization and enhanced security.
02 The Boom in "POW Mining Coins" May Be Key to Fueling the Next Bull Market
After Ethereum transitioned from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) in September 2022, the miner community within the Ethereum ecosystem became fragmented. Due to whales controlling most staking nodes through concentrated capital, ordinary participants found it difficult to enter the market, resulting in large amounts of mining hardware being idled. At this juncture, however, new-generation PoW mining coin projects such as Kaspa emerged, offering the perfect destination for this idle computing power. The influx of numerous miners created the legend of Kaspa and sparked a broader boom in PoW mining coins.
While Bitcoin Ordinals were a key force behind the previous bull run, they may not play the same role in the next market cycle. Particularly, current BRC20 projects have yet to demonstrate the kind of sector-wide wealth effect seen in DeFi. The total market cap of Bitcoin Ordinals stands at just $500 million, with limited liquidity within their ecosystem. In contrast, PoW-based coins require physical mining equipment, creating a natural moat. This gives PoW mining coins perceived long-term value and potential, making them attractive to investors who believe these assets are better positioned to drive the next bull market.
By market capitalization, most new PoW mining coins currently sit below $100 million, with the largest—KAS—at around $1.9 billion. Compared to established PoW coins like BCH and LTC, these newer entrants have much greater upside potential. For example, PEPEW—a PoW mining coin combining GPU mining, DASH-style anonymity, and meme characteristics—has a market cap of only $100,000. Compared to Dogecoin, it has room for 100,000x growth; versus Pepe coin, it could rise 5,000x. Clearly, PoW mining coins are now entering a golden era of immense potential.
The evolution of the crypto industry resembles a cycle, and mainstream consensus may ultimately return to PoW. Both the recent surge in Bitcoin Ordinals and the renewed popularity of PoW mining coins underscore this point: demand for PoW remains strong. Especially now, when new PoW projects integrate advanced mining technologies that address resource waste issues associated with older models, PoW coins possess greater long-term and sustainable growth prospects.
03 Notable POW Mining Coins to Watch
The explosive rise of Kaspa has ignited enthusiasm for PoW mining coins and drawn massive investor interest into the space. Everyone is searching for the next KAS success story. Below is a list of PoW mining coins with the potential to achieve hundredfold gains.
Kaspa
Features: Leading new-generation PoW coin
Consensus Mechanism: PoW + DAG
Kaspa is an innovative decentralized Layer-1 blockchain project designed to deliver fast, scalable, and secure blockchain solutions. It uses the Proof-of-Work mechanism combined with the Phantom GhostDAG protocol to offer superior performance and functionality.
Unlike traditional PoW chains, Kaspa leverages the Phantom GhostDAG protocol to enhance performance and scalability. This protocol allows orphaned blocks created simultaneously to coexist and be ordered. This innovative directed acyclic graph (blockDAG) structure breaks away from the linear chain model of conventional blockchains, enabling higher throughput and greater scalability. With Phantom GhostDAG, Kaspa aims to produce one block per second, delivering rapid transaction confirmations and a highly scalable network.
KAS is the native token of the Kaspa ecosystem, launched in November 2021 with no pre-mine, no private sale, and no token allocation. The maximum supply is 28.7 billion tokens, with emissions halving annually via a smooth monthly reduction factor of (1/2)^(1/12). Within the past month, KAS has risen 38.55%, with a current price of $0.1219.
Spacemesh
Features: Aims to be "the people's currency," enabling anyone to participate in mining
Consensus Mechanism: Proof of Space-Time
Spacemesh is an emerging blockchain-based project aiming to build a highly secure and decentralized consensus network. Unlike traditional PoW or PoS mechanisms, Spacemesh introduces an innovative consensus model called Proof of Space-Time.
In Spacemesh, participants contribute by allocating storage space on their computers to join the consensus process. They set up a local storage unit known as a Spacemesh node to store and verify blockchain transaction data. A participant’s influence and chance of being selected to produce the next block depend on the size and duration of their allocated storage. To prove sustained participation and contribution, users must provide verifiable proof of committed storage over time. By incorporating the time dimension, the Proof of Space-Time mechanism can detect and deter malicious behavior, enhancing overall network security.
SMH is the native token of Spacemesh. With its slogan "the people's currency," SMH attracted significant attention upon launch. It surged from an initial trading price of $0.10 to a high of $11—an increase exceeding 100x. The total SMH supply cap is 2.4 billion, to be fully issued over 941 years, with 2.25 billion (94.75%) allocated to Smeshers (Spacemesh miners), and no pre-mine. The current SMH price is $2.61.
Conflux
Features: Chinese-concept public blockchain
Consensus Mechanism: PoW + PoS
Conflux is a public, permissionless Layer-1 blockchain designed to build a borderless ecosystem for cryptocurrency transactions and technological innovation worldwide. As China’s only compliant, open, and public blockchain, Conflux plays a pivotal role amid shifting attitudes toward Web3 in China.
Conflux’s main advantage lies in its unique hybrid consensus mechanism combining PoW and PoS. This approach leverages the strengths of both: PoW secures the network and validates transactions through computational competition, while PoS selects block producers based on token holdings, improving transaction throughput and resource efficiency. This hybrid design grants Conflux high scalability and security, effectively addressing challenges faced by traditional blockchains.
Conflux Token (CFX) is the native currency of the Conflux network. CFX was listed on exchanges in November 2020 and has experienced notable price volatility. Despite fluctuations, through partnerships with major brands and evolving regulatory sentiment in China toward the crypto industry, CFX’s value has steadily increased. Over the past year, CFX has gained over 500%, with a current price of $0.1747.
Bittensor
Features: Crypto + AI concept project
Consensus Mechanism: PoW + PoS
Bittensor is a blockchain-based artificial intelligence project aimed at advancing innovation and sharing in AI technology. The platform incentivizes contributors by rewarding their efforts with TAO tokens. TAO serves as Bittensor’s native currency and the core of the entire system. It functions both as a reward for miners and as an access token unlocking the vast potential of collective intelligence within the network.
Bittensor employs a hybrid consensus mechanism combining Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS). In Bittensor, PoW is integrated with AI to mine and compute AI models, forming a decentralized large-scale model network. Miners host AI models and make them available to the network. Validators rank miners based on their "intelligence contribution." Each time a block is generated, one TAO token is minted and evenly distributed between miners and validators through mining and validation processes.
Currently, TAO trades at $321.72, having doubled in price over the past month. Unlike traditional Layer-1 models that derive value from selling block space, TAO’s value is tied directly to the AI services it supports. As these AI services grow more impactful and useful, demand for the TAO token is expected to rise accordingly.
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