Ethereum [ETH] core dev clarifies acceptance of ProgPow in future hard forks

Programmatic Proof-of-Work [ProgPow] has been one of the most talked-about updates in the Ethereum community. Its implementation proposal saw the support of a majority of the Ethereum community, with some expecting it to go live in the Istanbul hard fork and others claiming that it would have its own small hard fork.

In a Reddit post on the Ethereum subreddit, Hudson Jameson, one of the core devs of Ethereum Foundation, spoke about the future of ProgPow, whether it would go live in a hard fork, and most importantly if it would go live or not. He said:

“Back when we were deciding the issuance reduction at the end of 2018, ProgPoW was brought up a lot. Some considered it a ‘bargaining chip’ for miners to accept the issuance reduction. Some miners believe that it was agreed upon that we would put ProgPoW in a hard fork in exchange for an issuance reduction.”

This was followed by Hudson stating that during the end of 2018, the core devs decided to “investigate ProgPow to the fullest extent” and that there were “no promises” made in terms of its implementation. Further, he stated that even on January 4, 2019, at the core devs meeting, the decision to tentatively go ahead with ProgPow was made after he asked for consensus amongst team members on whether they had any opposition with it. However, no one responded to the question.

Hudson said:

“It’s sort of like accepting a proposal by silence. To be clear, there were some core devs who were in favor of ProgPoW and had been for a long time so there was no need to reiterate their support at that moment. We were only looking for dissenting opinions and otherwise we would go forward with it.”

This was followed by Hudson stating that the Ethereum Cat Herders were working on finding the “appropriate auditor and rising funds” for ProgPow audit, adding that the complete details pertaining to this would be released next week. He added,

“In summary, a decision was made to move forward with ProgPoW, but no timeline was given as to when it would be activated in a hard fork. It may be activated in its own fork or with Istanbul. If an issue is found by the ProgPoW audit, we may not go forward with implementing and activating ProgPoW.”