Another blow to Bitmain, Ethereum Developers Tentatively Agree To Algorithm Blocking ASIC

Ethereum’s open source development community have tentatively agreed to an algorithm which will block ASIC. Hence specialised cryptocurrency mining hardware will be blocked, while only GPU hardware will be allowed. The code change is called ‘ProgPoW.’

According to the security lead of Ethereum, Martin Holst Swende the switch will help Ethereum’s switch to proof-of-stake. If completely agreed upon it will hurt the likes of Bitmain which have a range of ASIC mining products.

The implementation of ProgPoW looks almost certain as per the communications officer of Ethereum, Hudson Jameson. He disclosed that unless there is a problem when testing, the blocking of ASICs will take place.

PropPoW’s implementation is still not confirmed, and will most probably be discussed in the next developer call on January 18th.

Su Zhu, the CEO and CIO of Three Arrows Capital, stressed the need for ASIC blocking for core development governance. However Twitter user Nic Carter explained that it gives rise to lobbyists.

exercising arbitrary discretion is a unilaterally bad signal to me, always shows that the dev team is picking winners (or can pick winners.) it's encouragement to lobbyistshttps://t.co/u8f8RET6JC

— nic carter (@nic__carter) January 4, 2019

Blockmanity’s Take

Ethereum has a lot going on for the first quarter of 2019. The most awaited upgrade is Constantinople which will be Ethereum’s fifth major upgrade. Constantinople is aiming to delay the difficulty bomb along with reducing the mining reward from 3 ETH to 2 ETH per block. It is said to take place at around 7 AM UTC on January 16th, 2019.

At the time of writing, it is noted that Ethereum has finally regained its second position from Ripple. It currently has a market capitalisation of $16,454,495,472 while being in the green valued at $157.90.

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