Budget proposal: Change of X11 mining algorithm because of ASICs

Is this a good idea?

  • Total voters
    68
SnowHater said:
What about the possibility that the alleged botnet you mentioned was in fact secret ASIC mining?
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THIS!
this has got me thinking, and someone said ASIC is like cancer to miners, i am starting to agree that maybe we should talk about changing something to at least resist large hash centralization somehow if its not changing the algorithm. as a miner i paid attention to global hash and i would watch the hash rates rise and drop sometimes 50% and blocks would take much longer to confirm. i changed my view when i realized i would be allowing dash creation centralization. I felt it should be against my naturally decentralized view to want to allow this to be out of the reach of more people. This is the problem how do we keep mining decentralized while allowing the technology to grow...
 
It's called PROGRESS my friends.
If you don't want people creating and than using, new technology's, in the DASH environment, maybe, you should sell the DASH you hold and look for another coin/token/crypto.
 
MangledBlue said:
It's called PROGRESS my friends.
If you don't want people creating and than using, new technology's, in the DASH environment, maybe, you should sell the DASH you hold and look for another coin/token/crypto.
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Look at bitcoin and it's asics. A few big mining giants rule the whole bitcoin environment. Is that a progress?
 
Then maybe more people should invest and/or design better technology to broaden/widen that field
Pretty sure nobody just GAVE those people the technology to be in the position they are in
Either you want to get involved or you don't.
BUT
Bitch'n about the grass being greener on your neighbors lawn, is not going to get you anywhere
 
It's a tough game Blue, economy of scale dictates the deepest pockets push out competition and from there it's cartels and who can keep going at a loss the for longest, given enough time it always plays out that mining becomes either a monopoly or a very exclusive club.
 
MangledBlue said:
Then maybe more people should invest and/or design better technology to broaden/widen that field
Pretty sure nobody just GAVE those people the technology to be in the position they are in
Either you want to get involved or you don't.
BUT
Bitch'n about the grass being greener on your neighbors lawn, is not going to get you anywhere
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You see. I am only trying to discuss the problem we face here and you are telling me to find a different coin to invest. The decision about avoiding Asics has not been made yet right? So it's not like "if you don't like it then go away". Evan wrote in other post he found a solution to this so we should find out soon.
 
ASIC is like a virus, X11 changing is like an antivirus. Both are progress, but intentions of them are different.
 
I know Evan says he has some kind of solution that they're working on. But I'm wondering, is there another algorithm available that's proven that we can use?

Also, since MN can reject blocks not made with the correct wallet, and can force miners to switch, is there the same risk?

I'm personally not convinced if it's about "fairness". Life simply isn't fair. I can't/couldn't afford a special video card, and have been mining on an old 5750 which doesn't give me much, but I mine anyway because it's fun.

And if we wanted to build ASICs in the USA, they have capable companies in Texas, I believe? It would cost more, but you'd be the first to own them :)

Seriously, though, if they can't control the network, I don't have a problem with it. Though I admit I may not be seeing an issue. I'll have to re-read this thread to see if I missed something.
 
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Cowan said:
I`m in favor of ASIC resistance because that`s what DRK/DASH was supposed to be, when I got into it in april 2014. I hope the masternodes rule accordingly.
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Do keep in mind, at the very beginning Evan said his goal was to keep ASICs at bay until the coin matured (not exact words) He was hoping for 2 years, and I find it a bit uncanny that he got just over 2 years. (well, they've probably been in use longer though)

I'm not saying we shouldn't change algorithms, but I don't want to change to an unproven alogorithm, and even when we change, it'll probably end up with a single algo, which means it'll probably be replaced by an ASIC much easier next time around. So is it worth it to constantly fight this? Maybe it is, maybe not.
 
Could someone explain to me in simple words: How exactly is dash going to be better with a centralized Asic mining? Is it going to be safer? Faster? Would there be any advantage over the present situation? Why do so many of you want this like it was some kind of promotion to another level or something? The history of BTC shows it's nothing good. We have that advantage to dodge this bullet. Shouldn't we avoid bitcoin's mistakes?
 
jpr said:
Could someone explain to me in simple words: How exactly is dash going to be better with a centralized Asic mining? Is it going to be safer? Faster? Would there be any advantage over the present situation? Why do so many of you want this like it was some kind of promotion to another level or something? The history of BTC shows it's nothing good. We have that advantage to dodge this bullet. Shouldn't we avoid bitcoin's mistakes?
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The positives of ASICs is that it becomes more and more difficult to change a block. Lets say you want (and this is super simplified) to change a block to include a double spend or take a transaction away. If you could pull enough hash, you could possibly win the next two blocks solidifying the change and insert your changes. then, having the longest block, your fork should win. But you would have to pull a heck of a lot of hash in order to do this, and that is why the more confirmations a transaction has, the more secure and solid it is. To find 2 blocks before the network finds the next block you would essentially have to have double the hashing power. 3 blocks, tripple, etc....

How do you get double/tripple, etc... the network hashing power? Well, it isn't easy, that's for sure. But you'd have to expect that ASICs are not kept idle which would mean that they are almost always working. On the other hand, only a very few people use their GPUs to mine in the world, so the possibility of getting a successful botnet attack going and controlling them for short periods of time to attack a blockchain, heck, even the infected wouldn't realize they had a botnet on their computer if the attackers didn't try to mine all the time. And they can sit there quietly until they have an attack plan ready to go, then fire it up, and voila, get 2-3 blocks and control the blockchain.

So ASICs make that far harder to do and thus make the network safer.
 
TanteStefana said:
I know Evan says he has some kind of solution that they're working on. But I'm wondering, is there another algorithm available that's proven that we can use?

Also, since MN can reject blocks not made with the correct wallet, and can force miners to switch, is there the same risk?

I'm personally not convinced if it's about "fairness". Life simply isn't fair. I can't/couldn't afford a special video card, and have been mining on an old 5750 which doesn't give me much, but I mine anyway because it's fun.

And if we wanted to build ASICs in the USA, they have capable companies in Texas, I believe? It would cost more, but you'd be the first to own them :)

Seriously, though, if they can't control the network, I don't have a problem with it. Though I admit I may not be seeing an issue. I'll have to re-read this thread to see if I missed something.
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It would make no sense, IMO, an algo change as proposed here. If that's what Evan meant, then I hope he is very sure of what he is doing, because it will be a very dangerous move for DASH to thoughtlessly mess with this kind of thing.

Geert said:
We need to wait and see. Coinmine.pl is mining 60% of the blocks. Maybe ASICs will change that.
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Agreed: It makes no sense to say that ASICs are provoking DASH's centralisation, as I have already said in this same discussion.

Finally, to say that DASH will be less secure with ASICs' bigger hashrate is a clear demonstration of scaremongering ignorance on what PoW is.
 
If the plans for Evolution haven't changed, then I'm not worried about mining centralization, as long as there is enough hash power to keep the chain secure. So I agree with you raganius , changing the algorithm could be a very bad move.
 
If we need to change algorithm, is there any way to incentivize people to provide liquidity for Privacy Protect?
 
I think that overall hashrate of the network != security of the network, but overall cost to attack it is. Regular antivirus should easily deal with any botnet on regular PC, shouldn't it?
 
SnowHater said:
I think that overall hashrate of the network != security of the network, but overall cost to attack it is. Regular antivirus should easily deal with any botnet on regular PC, shouldn't it?
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Sure, but there are a TON of people who don't bother with it. I have friends, who come to me for help with their computers all the time, complaining that they're so slow. First thing I do is run malwarebytes, I find a few hundred to thousands of trojans, etc... clean them out, beg them to at least use Malwarebytes free once a week, but they don't. Or they buy the computer with norton's and don't notice that it expired 3 years ago. This is super typical. Since every household in America pretty much has a computer, and if you can get 20% of them infected (no easy feat, actually) but if you could, you'd have MASSIVE power.
 
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