Mark Mason
Well-known member
Can ASICs Be Avoided? Centralized Cryptocurrency Mining May Be Unavoidable
Cryptocurrency mining may be prone to both industrialization and centralization, despite attempts to keep the field decentralized.
A new post by Sia lead developer and Obelisk mining founder David Vorick goes into detail on the current state of specialized cryptocurrency mining machines known as ASICs. According to Vorick, ASICs can be developed profitably for just about any mining algorithm in existence, and flexible machines can still be built that can adapt to a network with frequent algorithm changes mean specifically to throw ASICs off:
“The ultimate conclusion here once again wraps back to the capabilities of ASICs. I think there are a lot of people out there who do not realize that flexible ASICs are possible, and expected that routinely doing small hardforks to disrupt any ASICs on the network would be sufficient. It may be sufficient sometimes, but just as algorithms can attempt to be ASIC resistant, ASICs can attempt to be hardfork resistant, especially when the changes are more minor.”
The post goes into detail about the manufacturing process, as well as the manufacturer-skewed mining market that allows large companies with quick turnaround times to continually make profits even on machines that are quickly obsoleted. The sum message is of the relative futility of attempting to resist the industrialization of mining, and with it the rise of a few relatively centralized players in both mining and the manufacturing of mining equipment.
Read more: https://www.dashforcenews.com/can-a...zed-cryptocurrency-mining-may-be-unavoidable/
Cryptocurrency mining may be prone to both industrialization and centralization, despite attempts to keep the field decentralized.
A new post by Sia lead developer and Obelisk mining founder David Vorick goes into detail on the current state of specialized cryptocurrency mining machines known as ASICs. According to Vorick, ASICs can be developed profitably for just about any mining algorithm in existence, and flexible machines can still be built that can adapt to a network with frequent algorithm changes mean specifically to throw ASICs off:
“The ultimate conclusion here once again wraps back to the capabilities of ASICs. I think there are a lot of people out there who do not realize that flexible ASICs are possible, and expected that routinely doing small hardforks to disrupt any ASICs on the network would be sufficient. It may be sufficient sometimes, but just as algorithms can attempt to be ASIC resistant, ASICs can attempt to be hardfork resistant, especially when the changes are more minor.”
The post goes into detail about the manufacturing process, as well as the manufacturer-skewed mining market that allows large companies with quick turnaround times to continually make profits even on machines that are quickly obsoleted. The sum message is of the relative futility of attempting to resist the industrialization of mining, and with it the rise of a few relatively centralized players in both mining and the manufacturing of mining equipment.
Read more: https://www.dashforcenews.com/can-a...zed-cryptocurrency-mining-may-be-unavoidable/