Ethereum’s next system-wide upgrade, Istanbul could include the controversial mining algorithm, ProgPoW which is apparently could allow for more extensive participation on the network.

This was discussed on Tuesday during a project manager meeting at Ethereum. The Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1057 aka Progressive Proof-of-Work or ProgPoW has long been the topic of discussion between developers at the world’s second largest blockchain.

On one side of the debate, many believe this would limit miners from dominating the $655 million annual market for new ETH issuance while others argue that it would not go far enough in terms of levelling access.

In light of the recent successful hard fork which was implemented late last month, the discussions about ProgPoW seem to be back in full swing. ProgPoW will be included as a formal item on the agenda for a core developers call taking place this Friday as suggested by Tim Beiko in Tuesday’s call.

The parties involved during Tuesday’s call stated that they have plans to push for EIP 10557 to be included in the case of the two third-party audits finding no technical issues that could cause a delay.

Beiko stated:

“In the worst case, if the audit comes with a huge red flag in it, we can pull that EIP out before Istanbul but assuming that everything goes well, we’ve already done the work … and the audit is just validation afterwards.”

Lane Rettig, in encouragement of raising this suggestion to ethereum’s core developers, estimated that the final EIP approval deadline for code changes to Istanbul would be in mid-May.

Rettig added:

“That’s something that would have to be brought up in the next all core devs call.”

The Two-part Third Party Audit:

However, as per the call, the audit results which will be aimed at bolstering the quantifiable benefits of a change to the mining algorithm, remain to be seen.

Hudson Jameson, community relations manager of the Ethereum Foundation, wrote in a developer chatroom, “As far as the audit goes there are two components: benchmarking and examination of how long/efficient a ProgPoW ASIC would be.”

Jameson went on to explain that the audits would serve to “make sure it is even worth it to implement ProgPoW or if ASICs can be made super quickly (like less than nine months) and with more speed increase.”

These sort of statements further solidify criticisms which are shared by investors such as Dovey Wan and Martina Long who have argued that the growing number of ASICs on the ethereum blockchain “is largely a non-issue for ethereum,” especially if one considers the planned switch to the new consensus protocol which is known as proof-of-stake (Pos).

In addition to this many other community members also view the ongoing scrutiny of ProgPoW as an impediment to an issue which has already received consensus.

A user going by “Anlan” from the Ethereum Magicians forum warns:

“The whole point of ProgPoW on [ethereum] is to slow down incoming wave of ASICs and to prepare a more leveled field for any mining device. All [these] delays only give room to ASIC manufacturers to organised a counter-offensive move and prepare for a contentious [hard fork.]”

At this stage, only time will tell what the Ethereum core developers decide to do with regards to implementing ProgPow with the Istanbul upgrade, keep a watchful eye on our social updates as we provide more coverage of the story.