ETH miners using ASICs have the next may need to switch to GPUs since the Ethereum blockchain will be upgraded to resist ASICs.

This has been indicated by the Ethereum developers during a developer call today Jan 4. The upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain and which is known as ‘ProgPow’ will reverse the power back to ETH miners using GPUs as the upgrade will change the code so that devices dubbed as application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) will not be eligible to earn rewards for verifying transactions on the Ethereum blockchain.

However, when the upgrade will take place will depend on the users on the ethereum blockchain. But, according to Hudson Jameson, the communications officer at Ethereum foundation, the developers seem like already set to launch ProgPoW.

According to the officer:

[It] 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.

Hudson was speaking during the developers call. The call also captured Martin Holst Swende, Ethereum’s security team leader, saying that baring ETH miners using ASICs will greatly contribute to when the Ethereum blockchain finally abandons the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm and shifts to the Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm.

As noted by Coindesk, ETH miners using ASICs are expected to be out of business by April of this year. That is if there are no unforeseen obstacles to hinder the upgrade.

The developers are set to hold another call before the end of January to discuss the ProgPow will be implemented into users frameworks.

If ETH miners avoid using ASICs will this considerably affect the ASIC manufacturers like Bitmain?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.