Ethereum: More than half of miners voted in favor of implementing ProgPow

According to Ambcrypto on March 5, in the recent Ethereum core developer meeting, the development team discussed the development of the ProgPow algorithm with Hudson Jameson. In addition, topics such as the Istanbul roadmap, the virtual machine project eWasm, Pruning, and Ethereum client updates were also discussed.

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The ProgPow algorithm was proposed by the IfDefElse development team to reduce the control of ASIC miners on the Ethereum network. The rise of ASIC miners has made it almost impossible for GPU miners to make profits on the Ethereum network. The ProgPow protocol is an extension of Ethhash, and the main function of the current Ethereum algorithm and protocol is to improve the competitiveness of graphics cards.

The two miners said in a blog post that ProgPow has two main features. First, it regularly changes the mining problem statement. Second, it ensures that all components of the graphics card can function to the maximum extent, which is different from ASIC mining, which only focuses on one function of the chip. Currently, the IfDefElse team is working with leading graphics card manufacturers Nvidia and AMD to jointly test and implement ProgPow.

The Ethereum development team has not yet decided on a specific implementation date for ProgPow. The proposal is currently undergoing a third-party audit. During the meeting, Hudson explained that the audit will be divided into “two parts.”

The first part is benchmarking and raising money for ProgPow. The second part is figuring out how long it takes an ASIC chip maker to build a ProgPow ASIC, and how the ProgPow ASIC performs compared to a GPU that is 1x or 10x better.

Hudson said:

We want to understand if ProgPow is worth implementing. If someone comes out with another ASIC three months later, then all our work will be for nothing because the work is not done. I think this will be a more important factor in deciding whether ProgPow will continue.

Afterwards, Hudson talked about the miners’ preferences for the project. According to EtherChain, 57.8% of miners participated in the vote on “whether to proceed with the implementation”. The results showed that all of them were in favor.

Voting results for the past 24 hours (the above data is as of 16:00 on March 5; source: Etherchain)