How long will it be till ETH is not worth mining? (Ice Age)

Question

I believe we recently started a period where difficulty bombs in ETH will have substantial effect, but it is surprisingly hard to find throughout explanation about this online, hence the question.

How long will it be now till there is no point in mining ETH and what can happen if PoS doesn't proof itself i.e. will this bomb be defused or ETH just goes down a lot in value?

Will miners move to ETC mining if they don't want to stake ether, which seems odd to me now as there is not clear future for classic as far as I know.

I will appreciate expanded answer, as this is genuinely interesting to me.

Answer 1

I believe we recently started a period where difficulty bombs in ETH will have substantial effect, but it is surprisingly hard to find throughout explanation about this online, hence the question.

Have a look at these previous threads:

• When will the difficulty bomb make mining impossible?
• What is the "difficulty bomb" and what is the goal of it?
• What if difficulty bomb makes mining impossible before POS release?

How long will it be now till there is no point in mining ETH and what can happen if PoS doesn't proof itself i.e. will this bomb be defused or ETH just goes down a lot in value?

Basic supply and demand would suggest that as fewer coins are mined, the supply will drop, and the demand would increase, thereby pushing up the value. This very simplistic explanation doesn't take into account anything that is generated in PoS.

See: What will the ETH inflation rate be after PoS is released? (Where "inflation" in this sense means monetary inflation, i.e. issuance, rather than price-based inflation.)

Will miners move to ETC mining if they don't want to stake ether, which seems odd to me now as there is not clear future for classic as far as I know.

Any answer to this would be speculative.