Ethereum Core Devs greenlight ASIC-resistant update, but launch timeline still uncertain

Friday’s Ethereum Core Dev Meeting agenda discussed the approval of a proposal to update the current Ethereum hashing algorithm. The proposal, referred to as ProgPoW, aims to reduce the incentive to mine ETH with ASICs — a specialized mining chip — by optimizing GPU efficiency and minimizing the gap between ASICs. Leading the call, Hudson Jameson stated that developers are “going ahead with it unless major problems [are] found with it when testing on testnet.”

ASIC chips designed specially for Ethereum are a relatively new trend, with Bitmain’s latest offering, the Antminer E3, launching only about 6 months ago. This prompted community desire to explore ASIC-resistant Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP) to combat ASIC mining. Recently, a former head chip maker at Canann Creative announced a new chip project called Linzhi which aims to develop significantly more efficient Ethereum-focused ASIC chips than Bitmain’s Antminer E3. The company claimed that the power consumption was one eighth the amount of Bitmain’s Antminer.