Ethereum Community Mulls Hard-Fork to Make Bitmain ASICs Obsolete

Ethereum developer Piper Merriam has opened up Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) #958, which requests community input in regards to whether or not the cryptocurrency’s blockchain should render the rumored Bitmain ASICs virtually obsolete. In doing so, Merriam has also suggested that Bitmain may already be mining with said ETH ASICs.

To Fork, or Not to Fork?

The Ethereum community has been stirred into action following reports that cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain has developed — and may already be using — Ethereum ASICs. Such hardware would effectively diminish the ability for GPU miners to compete and, in doing so, drastically increase centralization. Wrote Ethereum developer Piper Merriam in Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) #958:

“[…] BitMain may already running these miners. I believe it is the accepted wisdom that ASIC based mining leads to increases centralization when compared to GPU mining. This leads us to two questions: Should we hard fork to make ASIC mining harder and to demonstrate a willingness to hard fork any future ASIC based ethereum mining? What specifically changes do we make to implement this increased ASIC resistance?

Plenty of influential members in the community, like Nick Johnson, have already lent their two cents to the proposal.

Yes, absolutely. Nobody was promised a stable PoW algorithm for Ethereum, and the present one was deliberately designed to be hostile to ASICs.

ASICs result in more centralisation of mining power; forking them out seems like a good idea to me.

— The developer formerly known as Nick Johnson (@nicksdjohnson) March 28, 2018

However, the cryptocurrency’s potential (and controversial) shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake could render the entire debate surrounding Bitmain’s ASICs irrelevant, and developer Lefteris Karapetsas has gone on record to claim the hard fork would be a waste of “manpower/resources on such research if PoS is going to render this obsolete anyhow.”

Others in the community, like Philip Daian, believes developers of the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization should do nothing — or simply lower block rewards.

To be clear what I actually support doing is absolutely nothing in this case.

But perhaps moving to PoS reward curves anyway would kill longer term ambitions of any ASIC purchasers if people really hate ASICs this much. Start by halving?

— Philip Daian (@phildaian) March 28, 2018

Core developer Vlad Zamfir, meanwhile, hasn’t expressed an explicit stance on the matter — though he claims users’ interests should take precedence over miners.

I’m not sure that’s a good analogy here – usersl and miner are very different roles.

I have no issue with trading off miner interests for user interests. Imo the protocol is for users, and ought to be controlled by users for their benefit.

— Vlad Zamfir (@VladZamfir) March 28, 2018

It is clear that Ethereum is currently at a crossroads — and the community must soon decide whether or not the risks of a hard fork outweigh those of letting Bitmain potentially centralize the ETH mining market. If early polls are any indicator, a hard fork may be on the horizon.

Would you support a hard fork that obsceletes ETH ASICs? (Just wondering, this is not a proposal)

— Vlad Zamfir (@VladZamfir) March 28, 2018

What do you think about Ethereum’s current predicament? Do you support a hard-fork or a switch to proof-of-stake? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Twitter/@nicksdjohnson, Twitter/@phildaian, Twitter/@VladZamfir, and Bitcoinist archives.