On Friday, October 02, 2015 8:02:43 AM Daniele Pinna via bitcoin-dev wrote: > I am however interested in the dev-list's stance on potentially > altering the bitcoin PoW protocol should an algorithm that guarantees > protection from ASIC/FPGA optimization be found. > > I assume that, given the large amount of money invested by some miners into > their industrial farms this would represent a VERY contentious hard fork. > > It is, however, also true that a novel optimization-resistant algorithm > could greatly ameliorate decentralization in the bitcoin network due to a > resurgence of desktop/cellphone mining. > > Where do the core devs stand on this matter, hypothetical as it may be?
Besides ASIC-proof being even tehoretically impossible, assuming we had a PoW that worked using mere RAM-as-the-ASIC, this would probably not be good in the long term for decentralisation, as it is only a matter of time until botnets would bankrupt all the legitimate miners out of operation. Restarting the mining with a new algorithm as a reaction and defence against centralised hoarding of mining ASICs (as we are seeing now), would be acceptable. It would not necessarily be contentions *to the economy*, as such hoarding-miners do not participate in the economy in any meaningful way (they do not accept payments from other bitcoin users). Luke _______________________________________________ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
