Ethereum miners made $756 million in revenue in August ahead of the Merge

Ethereum miners generated $756 million in revenue in August, up 37% from July's$545 million revenue.

Just over $30 million of that amount constituted transaction fees — that is, ETH paid for transactions to be included in the blocks — with the rest as block subsidies to miners, according to data collected by The Block Research.

August was the last full month of Ethereum mining. Between Sept. 10 and 20, the blockchain will shift as part of The Merge from a proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism for block creation to a proof-of-stake (PoS) system, after which PoW mining on Ethereum will no longer take place. Some in the industry have speculated that PoW forks of Ethereum may emerge post-Merge, providing a new source of income for miners. Whether those forks will succeed is unknown.

With proof-of-work, miners generate hashes in a competitive effort to match the hash of the current target block. By contrast, Ethereum's proof-of-stake system involves an array of validators that commit their funds. 

The revenue figures for August were likely buoyed by growth in ETH’s price relative to its performance in June and July, as shown in the chart below:

Daily ETH mining revenue figures rose in August compared to June and July.