Momentum Is Building to Block Ethereum ASICs

Several ethereum miners and developers have come forward with the goal of stopping specialized mining hardware from effectively operating on the network.

Underway since April, the controversy surrounding application-specific integrated circuits on ethereum rose after news broke last Thursday of a new line of specialized mining hardware that claims to generate more than six times as much profit as that of the product of its main competitor, mining giant Bitmain.

Following the news - and citing concerns regarding the lack of action taken by developers to stop the growing use of ASICs on the network, which many believe would effectively price out smaller miners - some proponents called for an all-out "Strike" by GPU miners.

"The only plausible way forward for GPU miners is to 'go on strike' and commit to continuing to mine the existing chain and undermine the unity of ethereum and force compromise."

In support of this sentiment, another user by the name "MoneroCrusher" added that requests from the ethereum mining community to implement ASIC-resistant measures have been "Blatantly ignored" and promised to join the revolt with their hash power.

Still, in the wake of the outcry, certain ethereum developers have stated that a code change targeted at blocking the growing number ASICs could perhaps be implemented as part of a system-wide network upgrade.

Described as "Playing with fire" by Reddit commentator "Bayminer," some have voiced concern that without immediate action, ethereum may fall prey to the whims and wishes of a centralized population of ASIC miners.

Though not a reality just yet, the mere existence of ASIC miners on ethereum, coupled with the more recent development of even stronger ASICs, have been enough for GPU mining advocates to demand action by the developer community - and soon.

"We have many instances of ASICs completely dominating a coin and forcing them to make policy decisions at gunpoint, and I don't think Ethereum core devs want to put themselves in this situation."

Ethereum client developer Afri Schoedon told CoinDesk that the Reddit thread in question had been "Mistakenly removed by a fellow moderator" and that there was no "Deliberate censoring going on." And according to independent ethereum developer Alexey Akhunov, the chatter on Reddit seen in the past few days have been "Way too emotional to actually be going anywhere useful."