Is there a link to the research paper of EcoPoW?
I have same question since i have hard time understanding this work. But it looks like it's not published yet since i didn't find it on University of Liverpool repository[1].
I think it is risky/difficulty to change Bitcoin into a storage blockchain now. But Im planning to make a storage chain with this design.
IMO it's very unlikely Bitcoin community would agree to such idea. Especially when it need hard fork, making SHA-256 ASIC become "expensive heater" and other coin (such as Filecoin) already do such thing.
[1]
http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/