Ethereum GPU miners' sentiment to resist ASIC spreads, ProgPoW may be the solution

Controversy surrounding Ethereum ASIC mining has been heating up since April, with news breaking last Thursday that a new ASIC hardware producer claimed its mining machines were more than six times more profitable than those produced by its main competitor, Bitmain.

After the news came out, some GPU miner supporters expressed concerns that developers had not taken measures to prevent the increasing use of ASIC miners. Many people believed that this would actually swallow up the interests of smaller miners, and they called on GPU miners to hold a full "strike." A GitHub user named "Mdaria510" said:

“The only viable path forward for GPU miners is to ‘go on strike’ and continue to centrally mine the existing chain, gradually chipping away at Ethereum’s move toward surrender by force.”

To support this view, another user named “MoneroCrusher” added that calls from the ethereum mining community to take ASIC-resistant measures have been “blatantly ignored,” and they pledged to join the fight with their own hash power.

Still, in the face of aggressive protests, some Ethereum developers have stated that code changes to block ASIC miners may be implemented as part of a system-wide network upgrade. The algorithm in question is contained in an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) called ProgPoW.

As CoinDesk detailed, the goal of ProgPoW is to minimize ASIC mining on the platform by maximizing the unique features of GPUs, such as memory.

But most developers believe that the ProgPoW upgrade can only be implemented after the Ethereum network's "Constantinople" hard fork, originally scheduled for October or November this year, is completed. Martin Holst Swende, a security officer at the Ethereum Foundation, wrote on Github:

“I don’t think we should have included it in Constantinople. Implementing the algorithm is only one aspect, and there are other things that need to be done to ensure the switch goes smoothly, and those things need to be tested to see the results. My opinion is that we should have switched to a PoW hard fork network shortly after Constantinople.”

Dangerous game?

Even so, there are signs that GPU miners are running out of patience.

Reddit commentator “Bayminer” described the plan as “playing with fire,” with some worried that without immediate action, Ethereum could fall victim to the whims of a centralized group of ASIC miners.

Although large-scale ASIC mining is not yet realistic, the existence of ASIC miners in the Ethereum network, coupled with the recent strong development of ASIC mining machines, is enough for GPU mining advocates to ask the developer community to take action, and the sooner the better. A user named "gfunksound" angrily described it as "a very serious threat to Ethereum" on GitHub:

“We’ve seen a lot of examples where ASIC miners have complete control over the network and are forcing other miners to make decisions at gunpoint, and I think the ethereum core development team would not want to put themselves in that position.”

In fact, some believe that on an ASIC-dominated platform, miners would be powerful enough to prevent or significantly delay Ethereum’s move to proof-of-stake (PoS), a consensus shift that would do away with energy-intensive mining entirely.

GitHub user “Sinabi” added that since this was the ultimate goal set by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin in the early days of its creation, “miner centralization will force the Ethereum team to eventually cater more to the needs of ASIC miners rather than adhering to the neutral vision it was originally established for.”

At the same time, allegations of censorship have emerged. For example, MoneroCrusher accused "Bitmain and other manufacturers" of using social media bots to downvote "every post criticizing ASICs." He also claimed that he was censored, noting that his original Reddit post against ASICs was deleted when it "started to gain traction."

Community attitudes vary

However, the developers refuted the accusation.

Ethereum client developer Afri Schoedon told CoinDesk that the Reddit post MoneroCrusher was referring to was actually “deleted by a moderator by mistake” and there was no “deliberate censorship” at all. According to Alexey Akhunov, an independent Ethereum developer, the chats seen on Reddit in the past few days are “too emotional and not at all on point.”

However, other developers have taken a more open approach to the idea of ​​a hard fork centered around ASIC resistance. After speaking with a major proponent of ProgPoW, Ethereum developer Nick Johnson said he supports the goals of the proposal. He told CoinDesk:

“I’m also fairly confident that this is a useful and necessary change to keep Ethereum mining decentralized until the PoS system is ready to roll out.”

Meanwhile, developers like Shoten are wary of such a hasty implementation, saying that “hasty changes” would jeopardize “the security and stability of the network.” He also reiterated on GitHub that in terms of implementation, ProgPoW will definitely not be considered in time for Constantinople, saying:

“We have been working on Constantinople for 11 months and the hard fork is the final stage. Any other proposals, no matter how small, will have to wait until the next hard fork.”

Johnson agreed, saying: "Constantinople is pretty much a done deal now."

Still, he welcomed its implementation in the near future, reiterating that no other proposed PoW change is as well-thought-out or as likely to succeed as ProgPOW.
On the other hand, developers like Shorten believe the timeline ahead will be longer, estimating that the proposal will take “at least a year from implementation, testing, to mainnet deployment.”

Original article: https://www.coindesk.com/momentum-is-building-to-block-ethereum-asics/
By Christine Kim
Compiled by: Libert
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://v1.8btc.com/momentum-is-building-to-block-ethereum-asics) Copyright statement: The author reserves the rights. The article is the author's independent opinion and does not represent Babbitt's position.