What is ProgPoW?

An updated version of the Ethash consensus algorithm is known as ProgPoW, which is an abbreviation for “Programmatic Proof-of-Work” (programmatic proof-of-work). The term is also sometimes jokingly referred to as PorgyPoW, which comes from the name of the porg birds that appear in the fifth episode of the film Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

What is ProgPoW?

The purpose of the ProgPoW algorithm is to improve the performance of mining done on CPUs and GPUs, which will in turn provide them a competitive advantage over mining done on ASIC devices.

The widespread availability of ASIC devices poses a possible risk for:

• A fall in the income of CPU and GPU owners, as well as a decline in their willingness to continue maintaining the network; manipulation of the protocol by large miners; centralization of mining.
• The development of additional variations of the original PoW (also known as “proof of work”) algorithm, which were intended to be “ASIC-resistant,” began shortly after the introduction and subsequent proliferation of ASIC processors.
• Developing an algorithm that is resistant to interference from hardware that has been carefully chosen for its optimal properties has always been a challenging endeavor. The Ethash method, which is used for mining Ethereum, was similarly meant to be resistant to mining by ASICs; nevertheless, it turned out to be inefficient.

ProgPoW’s specialized technical aspects

Ethash has been improved to become ProgPoW. A randomly generated program that is based on the block number is used in each iteration of this algorithm’s search for a solution to the problem of an internal memory access loop.

This is done as part of the functioning of this method. For such a model to be operational, it is necessary to make complete use of the GPU’s resources and capabilities (with the exception of floating point operations and graphics pipelines, which had to be abandoned in order for the algorithm to be suitable for equipment from different manufacturers).

ProgPoW makes the mining task requirement non-permanent. Because the ASIC miner is only capable of executing one specific task, as its very name says, “Application-Specific Integrated Circuit,” it is not flexible enough to work with ProgPoW. In contrast to ASICs, GPUs can quickly adjust to the constantly changing conditions of mining tasks. By using ProgPoW, the GPU is able to reach levels of performance that are similar to those of ASICs.

ProgPow Development

Miss If (Christy Lee-Minahan, also known as OhGodAGirl), Mr. Else (also known as RadixPi), and Mr. Def were all members of the ifdefelse development team when they came up with the idea for ProgPoW in 2018.

The discussions on ASIC resistance that took place on the internet in March 2018 served as the impetus for the development of the ProgPoW protocol. EIP958 (Ethereum Improvement Proposal, “Ethereum Improvement Proposal”) was written by an Ethereum developer by the name of Pipermerriam, and it was published with the intention of making Ethash resistant to ASIC mining.

The start of sales of the Antminer E3, which is an ASIC miner that uses the Ethash algorithm, sped up the process of development. Even though it eventually became clear that the Antminer E3 is a relatively “raw” device, users’ feelings about ASIC stability started to get worse.

A poll titled “Will you favor a hard fork that will make ASIC miners inefficient?” was conducted by an Ethereum developer named Vlad Zamfir in April of 2018. 57% of respondents said that a hard fork would be beneficial.

A tweak to Ethash was the subject of a proposal called EIP 969 around the same time. IfDefElse members were encouraged to begin building a fully hardware resistant algorithm as a result of these two EIPs, the ongoing discussions about ASIC robustness, and the fact that approximately one thousand individuals voted on GitHub for the ASIC robustness study in 2018.