• Forum has been upgraded, all links, images, etc are as they were. Please see Official Announcements for more information

Budget proposal: Change of X11 mining algorithm because of ASICs

Is this a good idea?


  • Total voters
    68

SnowHater

Active member
Dashwhale page of the proposal

Voting dynamic graph

Manually vote on this proposal:

dash-cli mnbudget vote-many b61ed8c9f55a6c13b3f14e0ff767b075f7593f818715370a79dea7acd2c40cf1 yes

Please, write your opinion in this thread instead of the old one, which was made before actual budget proposal.


Gist of the proposal


We propose a change of the current X11 mining algorithm in order to prevent inevitable centralization of DASH network through supplant of numerous and friendy community of regular miners- enthusiasts with a really narrow and exclusive group of brand new ASICs users. Mining centralization spoils Bitcoin network a lot nowadays, we don't want to repeat the same scheme here in DASH.


Why?

Mining in cryptocurrencies serves two main purposes:
1) initial incentivisation new users to come in and bootstrap the network growth;
2) securitizing the network (decentralization).

At the dawn of X11 implementation this algorithm was new and unique. It helped our network to survive in wild cryto jungles while it was a newborn child. It protected us from attacks of more powerful network miners like bitcoin miners and ASICs. But nobody can stop the progress from happening. So now we have new threat for our decentralization, ASICs. Invisibly and secretly they creeped here. Price of the ASICs that are publicly listed on the market for the moment (and therefore are already outdated in their performance) is 20 times higher than price of regular videocard (GPU). ASICs have 8 times higher hashrate per USD than GPUs have. Energy consumption per USD is pretty much the same. Next generation of ASIC will be more and more expensive, and that fact will squeeze out more and more ordinary miners from the DASH community. We described just few bad consequences of ASICs introduction. Let's give you more of them.


Harm of the ASICs:

- minimum 8 times decrease in the network attack costs for an adversary;
- long term price decrease, even with the possibility of temporal peak;
- decreased numbers of live human beings involved in the community, increased threshold to opt-in for ordinary miners, massive miners migration to ASIC-resistant currencies such as Ethereum;
- narrow group of people which secretly uses latest generation of ASICs will get up to 45% of all blockrewards from the network. They can supplant the rest of the miners (GPUs and old ASICs) gradually without even visible peak in the network overall hashrate;
- the same narrow group can easily buy new masternodes instead of dumping their reward on exchanges, so that they can corrupt the governance by lobbing its will,
- centralization of the network, increased possibility of attacks via raw force or financial seizure of big mining farms.


Pros for algorithm change

+ increased security, increased level of decentralization
+ increased popularity, new users to come
+ really huge resonance in the world of crypto. DASH could be the first cryptocurrency in the world which decides in decentralized way that it should become ASIC-resistant again. News titles could be something like that: "Collective mind of DASH proved to be smarter than ASIC manufacturers", "DASH didn't give up like Bitcoin", "DASH is stronger than ASICs", "DASH hits back" and so on.


Pool centralization

There is pool centralization threat also. It is not the object of this proposal though. Maybe in future we will bring this problem as an proposal too. Moreover, we hope that someone else will do it before us. Indeed, security and network decentralization should be a very hot topics here.


What do we want?

We want really detailed discussion of the problem within DASH community. We should consider all pros and cons of the possible solutions to it. Please describe your thoughts about the proposal here or on the Dashwhale.org.

We have detailed publication on the topic here, but unfortunately it is in Russian language. Sorry for my poor English, I'm not native speaker.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry about that. Can we merge these two topics? Or maybe just delete the old one.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I just noticed that there has been submitted a proposal to the masternodes questioning if we should change X11.

I am not sure what my opinion is yet, but the budget system truely is revolutionary in crypto. We just ask the network what to do. No fucking around like they do in bitcoin. Make a proposal, get consensus, funding, action, go. Dash is going to be a beast, unstoppable because we are agile and can make important decisions.

Good times ahead
 
Glad this has been brought up, pros and cons on both sides but I'm firmly against. I don't want to see the same kind of crazy situation as Bitcoin with mining power rising to ridiculous levels and pushing small miners out of the loop but there's better ways of doing that that fixing something that 'aint broke (X11). Something like a dynamic adjustment of distribution could keep a cap on it, as mining power rises a greater and greater percentage is diverted into the budget.

That's just an example and there are certainly more elegant ones, changing X11 would be clunky and would also be like a slap in the face to the hardware manufactures that have given a vote of confidence in Dash by developing dedicated hardware.
 
Glad this has been brought up, pros and cons on both sides but I'm firmly against. I don't want to see the same kind of crazy situation as Bitcoin with mining power rising to ridiculous levels and pushing small miners out of the loop but there's better ways of doing that that fixing something that 'aint broke (X11). Something like a dynamic adjustment of distribution could keep a cap on it, as mining power rises a greater and greater percentage is diverted into the budget.
I thought about it too. If quality of mining is lower than it was before ASICs (costs of attack became 8 times cheaper) then it should be rewarded lower nowadays. Why should we pay them the same 45% reward still? But this decision doesn't solve the centralization problem (in terms of hashrate distribution among live humans), though. And change of X11 seems to solve it.

That's just an example and there are certainly more elegant ones, changing X11 would be clunky and would also be like a slap in the face to the hardware manufactures that have given a vote of confidence in Dash by developing dedicated hardware.
I would consider it not like 'givining a vote of confidence in DASH' rather than 'trying to hack the system with profit for themself'. For me it is like viruses vs antiviruses battle. Maybe I'm wrong here. Just my thoughts.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Some early morning random thoughts:
  1. centralization: when I look how easily the big Chinese Bitcoin mining farms influenced a new Bitcoin development (bigger blocksize) I'm absolutely AGAINST ASICs, because history shows that the ASIC-race kills the smaller/medium miners until only a few big ones are left, who in the case of Bitcoin united as one voice. That's usually called an Oligarchy.
  2. we don't have to care much about 1. above because with Dash the Masternode-owners do the big decisions. We're much better prepared, because the Masternode-owners are a powerful Oligarchy as well.
  3. it will be interesting to see what happens when Masternoders vote one direction, but the (then) biggest miners unite and just try to keep the status quo. Will the fork with more hashing power or the one with more Masternodes win?
So far I'm still undecided.
 
I thought about it too. If quality of mining is lower than it was before ASICs (costs of attack became 8 times cheaper) then it should be rewarded lower nowadays. Why should we pay them the same 45% reward still? But this decision doesn't solve the centralization problem, though. And change of X11 seems to solve it.

A would consider it not like 'givining a vote of confidence in DASH' rather than 'trying to hack the system with profit for themself'. For me it is like viruses vs antiviruses battle. Maybe I'm wrong here. Just my thoughts.

Changing X11 wouldn't really solve it, just kick it down the road a little longer and ultimately it would probably lead to development of chips for each individual algo that can be chained together for whatever system is used. I'd agree it puts a barrier of entry onto mining though and pushes out anyone that can't afford to upgrade, then economy of scale comes into it and you end up with big mining farms as the only players in the game.

That's been gone over in a few other threads and there isn't really a solution to it that allows high hash rates, I'd suggested the masternodes as a mining pool with a cap on what they'll accept but it doesn't change the centralisation of hashing power or you could close the loop and only allow masternodes to perform the hashing to secure the network (Stef suggested that iirc) but then the calls of "centralisation" would get much louder. I'd be favour of that one but I don't know enough about mining to understand what's involved and while we shouldn't let the trolls dictate to us we should avoid anything that can easily be turned into bad publicity.

I wouldn't say the hardware manufacturers are trying to hack the system, they're certainly trying to make a profit from it but that's just business but it would make more sense for them to quietly mine with that hardware and say nothing. Maybe they've already been doing just that and know someone else has got in on the same game and the time for making a fast buck is over :/ Idk but I think we should show support for them either way as we could need a lot of hardware at some stage and good relations in the industry could make that easier (I'm thinking point of sale terminals, hardware wallets, DTM's, that kind of thing).
 
Some early morning random thoughts:
  1. centralization: when I look how easily the big Chinese Bitcoin mining farms influenced a new Bitcoin development (bigger blocksize) I'm absolutely AGAINST ASICs, because history shows that the ASIC-race kills the smaller/medium miners until only a few big ones are left, who in the case of Bitcoin united as one voice. That's usually called an Oligarchy.
  2. we don't have to care much about 1. above because with Dash the Masternode-owners do the big decisions. We're much better prepared, because the Masternode-owners are a powerful Oligarchy as well.
  3. it will be interesting to see what happens when Masternoders vote one direction, but the (then) biggest miners unite and just try to keep the status quo. Will the fork with more hashing power or the one with more Masternodes win?
So far I'm still undecided.

I think that masternodes and miners aren't completely mutually-exclusive groups. So, let's consider an extremum case. There is one big miner (one human) with 45% blockreward. And 3500 masternodes (3500 humans) with the same 45% blockreward. But if this guy achieved to gain all the hashrate of the network then he is definitely smart and rich guy. But if he is a smart and rich why wouldn't he care about buying some masternodes for lobbying his interests? Moreover, he'd probably done it already. In order to get some profit in USD he didn't spend all his reward to do that, but let's say he has 1000 masternodes for the moment. So there is 1 human with 45% of blockreward out of mining and 13% out of his masternodes. The rest 2500 masternodes gain 32% of blockreward. Because they are all humans they always have different opinions on something. Some of them just have not enough time to vote on proposals. Who will win the proposals then?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I would consider it not like 'givining a vote of confidence in DASH' rather than 'trying to hack the system with profit for themself'. For me it is like viruses vs antiviruses battle. Maybe I'm wrong here. Just my thoughts.

As the first X11 ASIC manufacture, we know these factors;
1) current Dash hardware marketing size is not big enough to justify doing a ASIC chip (It's quite risky to do this investment at this point),
2) potential risk of changing hashing algorithm by Masternodes because of various reasons,
but we still invest this dedicated X11 algorithm only ASIC chip. If this is not the commitment to Dash economy, I don't know what could be called "commitment to Dash growth and success".
 
As the first X11 ASIC manufacture, we know these factors;
1) current Dash hardware marketing size is not big enough to justify doing a ASIC chip (It's quite risky to do this investment at this point),
2) potential risk of changing hashing algorithm by Masternodes because of various reasons,
but we still invest this dedicated X11 algorithm only ASIC chip. If this is not the commitment to Dash economy, I don't know what could be called "commitment to Dash growth and success".
In my humble opinion one of the best commitment to Dash growth and success would be donating huge amount of money into implementation of a technology which makes DASH ASIC-proof. Cheap, easy, automatic and regular algorithm changing mechanism. I understand that you have possibly invested huge amount of money in R&D and manufacturing and I respect you decision. You took really big risks, that is true. But you did it with intention of getting your money back with much more profit. And you probably understand that your invention makes DASH more and more centralized with the time passes up to the exact state in which Bitcoin is nowadays.

What about moving you production line more close to sale terminals, hardware wallets, DTM's and something like that if you wish that DASH become really successful?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In my humble opinion one of the best commitment to Dash growth and success would be donating huge amount of money into implementation of a technology which makes DASH ASIC-proof. Cheap, easy, automatic and regular algorithm changing mechanism. I understand that you have possibly invested huge amount of money in R&D and manufacturing and I respect you decision. You took really big risks, that is true. But you did it with intention of getting your money back with much more profit. And you probably understands that your invention makes DASH more and more centralized with the time passes up to the exact state in which Bitcoin is nowadays.

We do X11 algorithm ASIC chip and miner with expectation of long term profitability, and I believe most of today's Dash investors have the same expectations.There is nothing wrong for business investment seeking for long term profitability. Regarding to your conclusion of ASIC miner equals to centralization, there were several opinions raised in this discussion already, and I am not going to repeat these opinions again. The key point is the innovation of Dash has the right check&balance mechanism built into the two tiers' networks, which could prevent Bitcoin mining centralization and paralyzing decision making.
 
What about moving you production line more close to sale terminals, hardware wallets, DTM's and something like that if you wish that DASH become really successful?

My apple trees are producing too many apples. I am going to pick oranges from them this year.
 
The key point is the innovation of Dash has the right check&balance mechanism built into the two tiers' networks, which could prevent Bitcoin mining centralization and paralyzing decision making.
I hope that this was true. I don't say it isn't. I am just not sure about it. Maybe some detailed explanation of how this mechanism works to prevent it would help.
 
"Investments " in ASIC is not an investment in a Dash

Well. IF a miner (Bob) buys "hundreds" of GPU to mine DASH, will he, the "Bob miner", be "investing" in the DASH network? He may even "mine and dump" without care with the consequences of the network, because he will know that IF DASH dies, he can always jump to the next network. And, in the end, if everything went wrong, he may also sell his GPUs for gamers.

Now, another miner (Joe) will buy "hundreds" of DASH SPECIFIC ASICS. The situation for this Joe miner is VERY different from that of our above mentioned Bob miner: He will always have to be careful with DASH, because the equipment he bought serves nothing if DASH dies. He may never allow himself the easiness of simply "mine and dump", without care with the consequences of the network, because he clearly knows that IF DASH dies, he's investment also dies... no way to jump to any other network. And, in the end, if everything goes wrong, he may only use his ASICs as fancy paperweights. Isn't he, the "Joe miner", seriously invested in DASH?
 
Bob Miner does not violate the principle of "healthy" competition. He uses versatile devices. ASIC miners can also switch to another network with X11 algorithm.


If the game is not Joe that " hundreds " of miners will be able to participate in the division of Dash

1 Joe = 100 Bob = price drop = increasing centralization

visualize cash flow, the number of followers and the degree of decentralization if 1Joe or 100Bob
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top