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ProgPoW has been provisionally given the go-ahead, but the debate is all but finished.
- ProgPoW intends to level the playing field between ASIC and GPU extraction.
- People are worried that a sufficiently powerful ProgPoW mining could be equivalent to ASIC mining.
- There are valid points on most sides of the debate.
A March 28 survey of last year clearly showed the general sentiment towards the ASIC miners in the Ethereum community, with the overwhelming majority of nearly 7,000 respondents advocating "bricking" high-powered mining devices.
The debate has evolved since then with the dramatic introduction of "ProgPoW". While ASIC miners are chips that have been adapted to certain data mining algorithms, ProgPoW essentially works by adapting mining algorithms to certain chips. The end result is that both ASIC mining and GPU extraction are fairer.
The implementation of ProgPoW in Ethereum is now provisionally proposed for June this year, based on the Ethereum Magicians developer bulletin.
It is conceived, in a perfect world, as an advantageous compromise for the potential risks posed by ASIC miners. Unfortunately it is not a perfect world.
pros and cons
For some background, the relationship between public blockchains and the miners working on them is often difficult. The problem is that you need miners to make the network work, plus a certain level of support for miners to implement the changes, for fear that they "rebel" by bifurcating the network or refusing to upgrade. This makes it extremely difficult for developers to make changes to the miners' interests.
The problem is that miners' interests are not always in line with the best interests of the network as a whole and they are more concerned with advancing their interests by damaging competing miners.
When you let the miners manage the show, your network ends up centralized around the interests of a single business clique. You also tend to get the fragmentation and competition between miners that is completely separate from the effective and meaningful development of a functional network. This is an important part of why the bitcoin is so fragmented in BTC, BCH and then in BSV.
Ethereum does not want to go the same way, and was built specifically with some anti-mining elements, such as a "difficulty bomb" that reduces mining premiums over time to force the passage to the pole test. This anti-mining and pro-decentralization story could be the reason why the discussions on ProgPoW are now so controversial.
The reason ASIC miners are so potentially threatening is because they are generally much more powerful than anything else out there, and will typically be secretly used by the producers themselves before they are publicly sold. This naturally orients networks towards centralization by increasing the risk of an attack by 51%. Some networks try to implement ASIC resistance, but evidence to date suggests that this is a long-term dead end.
All roads lead to ASIC, but ASICs are scary and imperfect. ProgPoW, therefore, is designed as a clear potential solution.
Conspiracies and theories
One of the main objections to ProgPoW is that miners should not have a say in the decision-making process for the network. As developer Scott Lewis described it on Twitter, asking miners about their contribution to the development of Ethereum is how to invite a real estate agent to a family discussion about the opportunity to buy a home – they have their goals that do not necessarily coincide with those of Ethereum Rete.
By bringing the miners into the decision-making process and concentrating too much energy on the development of the hardware, the idea goes, it is turning its back on one of the key points of Ethereum and one of its strongest forces for decentralization.
The decision to move to the implementation of ProgPoW is evidence of mineral infiltration in the decision-making process of Ethereum, Lewis suggests.
Miners are not real stakeholders in the Ethereum network, he emphasizes. Rather, they are only service providers who are paid for their work, and the opinions of miners should be ignored to the extent that this is possible.
The debate has been exacerbated by allegations that NVIDIA has funded the development of ProgPoW as a way to strengthen its revenue and rework the cryptocurrency boom, and that it is somehow pulling the strings behind the decisions of the developers of Ethereum in this sense. But these accusations have not yet been proven and there seems to be no evidence to support them. For their part, ProgPoW developers have denied being funded by NVIDIA.
And in any case, it probably does not make a big difference to the opinions of most people in one way or another.
It is worth noting that ProgPoW is designed to be independent of hardware, so even if NVIDIA financed it, it would not necessarily benefit more than others. This is crucial, because the crux of the argument against the involvement of large chip manufacturers is that Ethereum can not afford the centralization that would result from giving such a high level of control to a brand.
Enter the ASIC
David Vorick, a developer of Siacoin and perhaps one of the world's most expert mining encryption authorities, has raised some concerns about ProgPoW in a discussion with other Ethereum developers recently.
Specifically, a sufficiently advanced ProgPoW miner would be basically comparable to a high-powered ASIC miner, as it significantly exceeds the standard GPU mob. And then you have to face the same identical concerns that have alienated the Ethereum community from the ASICs in the first place.
Firstly, the trend towards centralization would be under a single well-established producer, just like the ASIC extraction. And second, the potential for abuse that occurs when a party has a huge amount of hashrate, without the knowledge of the rest of the community. If a mining company is secretly in possession of powerful mining hardware when no one else is, it may be able to take control of the network. This has happened many, many times in the past, more recently right now at Ethereum Classic.
When the goal is decentralization, you can not really have a secret producer running super-powerful hardware. Unfortunately, the main reason why you choose to remain secret is because they know their presence would not be well received. This is one of the catch-22 of cryptocurrency mining. Its sole purpose is to promote decentralization, but all that is behind the industry is naturally oriented towards centralization.
ProgPoW is conceived as an alternative to the evils of ASIC extraction, but it could function functionally and end up being the same thing in different clothes, says Vorick.
It proposes a solution that provides transparent EU guidelines for what constitutes a "good" mining equipment, and a more collaborative approach to leading to work with miners.
Return to the starting point
That proposal, then, reports Ethereum to the starting point and to the objections raised by people like Scott Lewis; that miners are just service providers, rather than network participants, and there are only for the money.
This concept could be the reason why it is so interesting that Linzhi, an extraction producer ASIC Ethash, recently contacted the Ethereum community for guidelines on how it can work better and more transparently with developers to advance network goals. Amusingly, given Vorick's speculation that hostility towards miners only promotes secrecy, Linzhi also said that they have not contacted before because they thought no one would listen to the great evil ASIC producer.
So, where does Ethereum leave? The debate is still actively raging – for a kind and civilized value of anger – and there still does not seem to be ideal roads.
After the debate takes you around in a circle:
- Anti-miner: it is necessary to keep miners out of the loop to ensure proper decentralization.
- Anti-ASIC: discouraging the extraction of ASIC is a good way to prevent miners from accumulating too much energy.
- Pro-ProgPoW: ProgPoW could be a good way to keep the ASIC under control.
- Pro-ASIC: ASICs could be a good way to monitor ProgPoW.
- Anti-miner: you still need to keep miners out of the loop to ensure proper decentralization.
Where your opinion falls at the end it may depend on where you choose to go down.
Disclaimer:
This information should not be interpreted as an approval of a cryptocurrency or a specific supplier,
service or offer. It is not a recommendation for trade. Cryptocurrencies are speculative, complex and
involve significant risks: they are highly volatile and sensitive to secondary activities. Performance
it is unpredictable and past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Consider yours
circumstances, and get their advice, before relying on this information. You should also check
the nature of any product or service (including legal status and relevant regulatory requirements)
and consult the relevant regulators' websites before making any decision. Finder, or the author, can
have participations in the cryptocurrencies discussed.
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