All mainstream mining coins are ASIC, Monero and Ethereum may fork

For many years, high-speed hardware ASICs have been used for mining. For example, Bitcoin ASIC miners are specifically used for the SHA256 hash algorithm to mine Bitcoin. Because they are designed for specific purposes, they usually have greater performance advantages than general hardware such as CPUs, GPUs, and even general-purpose devices such as FPGAs. Industry insiders believe that such mining machines are likely to lead to "the rich getting richer" and make the "decentralized" characteristics of cryptocurrencies disappear.

Mainstream POW mining currencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Monero, SC, and Dash all have ASIC mining machines

Monero hard fork?

Not long ago, Antminer sold Antminer X3 CrytoNight algorithm mining machine overseas, and Monero bid farewell to the era of CPU and GPU mining.

Monero immediately announced on Twitter that it would upgrade the PoW algorithm and stated that it would urgently upgrade the software in April this year to change the system rules to prevent Bitmain from mining.

This means that the X3 mining machine developed by Bitmain will not be able to be used. However, X3 is suitable for all CrytoNight algorithm mining, and can mine other currencies with the same algorithm in addition to Monero.

It can be said that the software upgrade in April is just the first step for Monero to resist ASIC mining. It is understood that the upcoming software upgrade will make Antminer X3 mining machines inoperable. In order to prevent hardware manufacturers from catching up, Monero's algorithm editors plan to upgrade the network twice a year.

Taking a step back, the current mining algorithm used by Monero, Cryptonight, can protect Monero to a certain extent and maintain the equality of mining power. The upgraded algorithm allows miners to mine Monero on ordinary laptops. However, once ASIC joins the mining business, mining based on ordinary laptops will fall into silence.

Spagni said on GitHub:

I will do my best to help the community prevent ASIC "centralization" from occurring on the Monero network.

Given that most ASICs are designed and shipped by Bitmain, and the company is also the only supplier of Antminer X3 mining machines, it is also worried that Antminer X3 may face some attacks, such as mining pools taking over most of the hash rate of cryptocurrencies, creating false transaction histories, double spending and payment audits.

Another voice believes that ASICs are good for the security of cryptocurrencies. However, many people in the Monero community hold opposing views.

According to a core developer “moneromooo”:

If someone mines 51% of a cryptocurrency using Amazon servers, it would not be a wise move to throw away the ASIC hardware.

The developer also said that if you are worried about being attacked by Bitmain, then don’t fork ASIC. Because Bitmain’s mining machines will soon be able to mine 51%.

Will Ethereum also have a hard fork?

Monero vs ASIC is not over yet. Recently, it is reported that Ant will release ASIC mining machine for Ethereum in the second quarter. Ethereum is the second largest virtual currency in terms of market value. Currently, Ethereum is mainly mined by graphics cards. If ASIC mining machine is released, graphics card miners will be forced to mine other currencies. ETC also has the same algorithm, which will also affect ETC mining.

Yesterday, Ethereum researcher Vlad Zamfir tweeted a poll

Content: Would you support a hard fork to resist ETH ASIC? (Just wondering, not a proposal)

Vlad is a researcher of Ethereum casper, working on the implementation of Ethereum POS. Ethereum has always wanted to change the POW algorithm to POS to reduce energy waste and improve performance.

Although the survey was initiated by Vlad personally, Vlad is also an important figure in the Ethereum community and has a certain influence.

Survey results so far: 3,795 votes, 55% agree to hard fork to resist ASICs

Ethereum casper ffg is expected to be launched through a hard fork soon. Will it include resistance to the AISC algorithm when casper is launched?

Summarize

In my opinion, the competition of POW computing power and the emergence of ASIC are inevitable results. People always pursue the maximization of profits and continuously launch faster mining machines. This is all in a fair market environment.

If you think ASIC is bad, you can fork it, which is also your freedom.

Each algorithm has its pros and cons. There is no perfect algorithm that makes everyone fair, but fairness is what we pursue. With the competition among mining machine manufacturers and developers, cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more robust and secure.