It seems that Ethereum developers could soon implement a new algorithm that would block ASIC miners from participating in the network. However, the new proposal has to be tested and reviewed before being implemented.

If the proposal ends up being accepted, major firms mining Ethereum (ETH) using ASIC miners would have to switch to GPU mining. The new code change is known as ProgPoW and it will be blocking those ASIC devices specifically built for Ethereum to operate n the network.

According to security-lead Martin Holst Swende, if the network switches to ProgPoW it will make it easier for Ethereum to switch towards Proof-of-Stake (PoS). Ethereum’s network is going to be evolving towards a full PoS consensus algorithmic the future to make the network more efficient.

Apparently, the consensus among developers has been reached according to Ethereum Foundation communications officer Hudson Jameson. He said that it seems that they have an agreement to develop ProgPoW.

About the new implementation he said:

“Sounds like we have come to an agreement that we are tentatively going ahead with ProgPoW, which means we are going ahead unless there is a major problem found with the testing or things of that nature. We will be going forward with ProgPoW.”

Unless developers believe that it is difficult to implement this solution or there are other unexpected issues, ProgPoW would be released as well. Additionally, there will be no other software changes in the next upgrade.

On January 16, Ethereum is going to experience a hard fork in which the network will be reducing the block rewards given to miners from 3 ETH to 2 ETH per blocks. Although the hard fork was planned for November, there were some issues that must be addressed before.

In the future, there will be another hard fork called Istanbul that could take place in October. This would allow the network to maintain the regularity of upgrades, according to Afri Schoedon. There are other cryptocurrencies that have blocked ASIC miners such as Monero (XMR) and that can only be mined with CPU or GPU power.

At the time of writing this article, Ethereum is being traded close to $149. It has a market capitalization of $15.54 billion. The virtual currency has experienced an important growth during the last weeks due to the positive sentiment regarding the upcoming hard fork on the network.

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