Announcing Zcash Blossom and proposed feature goals

General
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Just some quick update for the situation right now and today:

Profitability:
Z9 mini stock ZEC profitabillity at 0.14$ per kw/h: 1.28$, compared to ~10$ around 1.September
1080ti stock ETH profitability at 0.14$ per kw/h: 0.01$

ROI to get even:
Z9 mini stock: Price ~800$ incl. Shipping/taxes. 625 days or in other words … never as difficulty will rise further.
1080ti: Price ~800$ (best i found on Amazon!), 80,000 days = 219years, lol. never again.

All we do with POW at the moment is feeding/sponsoring hardware producers and electricity companies, nothing else…

Let’s break it down who gets what within 1 year if we buy hardware today:

Z9 mini stock:
Bitmain: ~800$ in FIAT
Miner: <467$ or around 4ZEC (that’s best case IF difficutly won’t increase, but it will for sure!)
Electricty Company: ~368$ in FIAT

Asic Conclusion: First of all for every ZEC we mine at the moment we pay around the same amount in FIAT to electricity companies, this alone makes no sense at all. We pay double the amount we mine to the hardware producer again and mostly in FIAT, makes no sense at all by now…

GPU 1080ti stock:
Nvidia/Reseller: 800$ in FIAT
Miner: 3.65$ = ~ 0.023ETH
Electricity Company: 230$ in FIAT

GPU Conclusion: Looks worse, but only because we have Asics for a short time on equihash. A look at SHA256, Scrypt, X11 shows that it’s compared the better solution. But how much better? Expect some hardcore gpu pow believers and fans nobody will buy a gpu for mining right now. We feed again non crypto related companies in FIAT.

It’s even extreme with GPU:
In first year 1030$ have to be paid in FIAT to generate 3.65$ in crypto, that’s 0.35% crypto in return of our FIAT. Total joke…

All we do with POW at the moment is driving money out of crypto instead of investing indeed into crypto.
Why are we (personal & private miners) still mining? It’s just in hope that we see a new, even better price rise like in Dec/Jan 2017/18, but will it really happen? I doubt it will happen soon and the longer we mine with POW the more capital/investments are used to pay in FIAT and driven out from crypto. With each day POW mining we cut the possibility of new highs as the only thing we do is driving/forcing money out of crypto, simple as that …

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It’s not a cult and the split had very little to do with differences of opinion around technicals or economic ideology. The split was a hostile takeover attempt funded by a billionaire with Craig Wright leading the NPC parade on his behalf.

There’s a recurring pattern where leading cryptocurrencies are attacked at opportune times. Sometimes it’s an ideological difference, but more often it’s a hostile takeover financed by wealthy incumbents. We’ve seen mass censorship, social media manipulation, employment of / smear campaigns against developers and “thought leaders”.

The recent BCH split was the most brazen attack yet, because this time it included a hash power based component on a major cryptocurrency.

The Zcash community needs to be aware of what happened with the Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash split, the Ethereum / Ethereum Classic split, and now the Bitcoin Cash / Bitcoin SV split. Don’t write it off as a “cult”. You should prepare for similar or worse attacks in advance. It’s only a matter of time.

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You are very strongly recommending POS. I would like to recommend You to find a POS-coin and forget about Zcash.

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Vertcoin (VTC) is currently being 51% attacked

While a full exploration of ASIC resistance is out of scope of this article, the observations above strongly suggest that pursuit of ASIC-resistance in a coin is counterproductive to the coin’s security.

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  1. WHEN, but more importantly, IF Ethereum switches to POS, the following will occur:
    First, there will be a short-term splash in the value of the coin, because many will want to have profitability from their node. By the way, this will be the best time to exit from ETH. After, its price will constantly decrease, because even theoretically, the yield of the node will not exceed the set annual inflation rate, but in practice, the owners of 32 coins will see even lower returns, not at all what they expected, because with a higher probability, the reward will go to the addresses with more the number of coins. This is what concerns Ethereum - POS will kill it precisely because such emission does not incur any costs and has no value. POS is pure inflation of existing volume with no added value and no more.

  2. What will happen to GPUs. I would like to start by saying that ZCASH no longer needs a GPU at all, and its algorithm is currently the most popular among ASIC manufacturers. Produced devices are crazy in power and their performance characteristics even today are delightful. But all the other GPU powers that will come out of mining ETH will switch among other popular coins. Nvidia devices with a great desire will move to ETC - and Classic as a result of this significantly add to the cost. AMD card owners will most likely choose the CryptoNight. And this will also increase the value this coins on the market. I don’t see the point of worrying about universal devices. They have a huge number of options. Maybe some coins will can become very popular.

  3. What we see today, I mean the decrease in hashrate on top coins, is not the collapse of POW at all. This is a war of effectiveness. At current prices, the key factor is the hash/watt ratio and, of course, less efficient devices come out of mining. This is the evolution of mining. This is an absolutely economically natural phenomenon.

But others ASIC will come even more efficient to replace that devices that are today the most effective. This is an ongoing technological process and cannot be changed, because it is natural and conditioned by the decentralized participation of all subjects Mining made a technological revolution in the world of chips. And exactly POW-mining made Bitcoin what it is. Most of its current value came through the cost of electricity, and not at all through the exchange. And this is guarantees to save its value from collapse, forever and ever.

Please don’t ask to make POS-shitcoin out of ZCASH.
ZCASH - will potentially “become” Bitcoin, but with more popular blockchain because of it privacy
ZCASH is the best thing that happens today with blockchain technology.
No need for shocks.

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47

I am an active GPU miner and I mined Zcash for years. But plans to revert back to serve a tiny tiny group of people that want to mine with GPUs is mind bogglingly bad for Zcash’s future.

GPU miners help bootstrap a network until ASICS come online that provide better security and energy efficiency for a POW chain. After a few years ASICS advancement will plateau and prices will drop once again making it accessible to more people. We know this and it’s on the cusp of happening for bitcoin.

Why is there any reasonable case that rolling BACK zcash to decrease its hashpower, use valuable and scarce engineering resources of Zcash Co is in any way a good idea for ANYBODY that wants to use Zcash now or in the future. Miners matter, but what really matters more is trust and use in the underlying financial asset - ZCash coin.

All engineering efforts should be focusessed on making Zcash become a valuable (and thereby useful) money. That means - eliminating the trusted set-up, moving to privacy by default and aiming for more efficient privacy, and empowering the community to decentralize and take ownership of Zcash, rather than Zcash Corp owning everything (perception).

Please don’t waste resources on the few GPU miners that are mad for this month when you should be playing the long game. This is such a silly project to waste time and money on.

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Now that statement is probably true, most likely non-existent group. I don’t see any viable economic scenario to use GPU’s on Zcash with ASIC in the game now…heck they are competing for scraps now…so what is the point now??

I would actually be alright with that scenario if that was the actual intention all along instead of shaping the narrative to fit the current reality. The reality, as outlined in the original Zcash announcements was they would be ASIC resistant…so no, these statements are not true in the case of Zcash. The only price dropping anyone is seeing in hardware is in proportion to the value of the coin itself and the anticipated revenue a single mining unit can generate. which is almost nothing at this point for anyone who doesn’t have a large operation and exceedingly cheap power.

I agree on these points entirely. It too late to try to try to mend ties with GPU miners…either they switched to ASIC or they moved onto another coin already. Half measures aren’t going to generate any good will in the GPU mining world to be honest, you burned that bridge already. However, you will most likely never see a day where Zcash is free from the Zcash Co. control. They own the mark and logo, and they control the dev team. Why would they ever give their source of recurring revenue?

Have to agree. Don’t waste your time on the GPU miners, because I seriously doubt any of the serious GPU miners are going to waste their time on you. Maybe if the coin value increases they will mine and dump for profits…but that will be about it.

By the way I’m still sitting on my coins waiting for the magic pump all the pro ASIC folks said was coming with the introduction to ASIC…as we sit at ~$66 a coin. Funny I remember it still being worth 8 times that value before ASIC went full swing…where did that magic pump go? Speaking of which what happened to the message of careful consideration of the ecosystem to ensure mining was not diluted to the point of being a losing venture? That didn’t seem to happen either. The opposite happened. Bitmain came, they flooded the market with their miners, so did Innosilicon. Now Bitmain doesn’t seem to have “any” equihash miners for sale (too busy chasing the big coin), and Inno says…well maybe we have one…maybe we don’t. Guess you have to give us your money and wait and see. Yeah…that solved the GPU shortage…everything is so much more accessible now…not /sarcasm.

Remind me again how this ended up for the better???

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So if the GPU mined part of the algorithm pays well you don’t think the miners will switch back to ZEC?

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As soon as ZEC shows up on the GPU whattomine charts as profitable you will get flooded with gpu traffic, not even talking about the nice hash traffic that will come …

No doubt there are some miners that won’t switch back to ZEC for whatever reason, but these are immediatly and directly replaced by the above mentioned… easy and simple as that…

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You will get exactly the types of miners the PRO Asic camps claimed ALL GPU miners were. Profit hunting auto-switchers. You are never going to see the loyalty from GPU miners Zcash once had, and that is a crying shame, but it’s the projects own fault. You don’t get to spit into the eyes of the community that got you here, then claim we will be back when it’s convenient to you. Life just doesn’t work that way and yes, people will leave money on the table based on principles alone. The purely business types will mine whatever is most profitable, and that’s fine, they will mine and sell as fast as they can to limit risks and maximize profits. That’s what you would get at this point barring an influx possibly of new miners just starting out…until you burn them again.

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No I don’t believe any of the developers lost their jobs. (yes I know you meant the GPU folks). Zcash was and is still an investment for miners banking on an increase in value over time. You can crack jokes, be sarcastic about it, mock it, whatever you want to do, doesn’t really matter to me. I covered my expenses, and I hold a good chunk of coins on the off chance value does go ballistic once again.

That being said, trying to pass off a half effort as “appeasing the other side” is just disingenuous when you already know they are gone. It would be one thing to mine coins with GPU’s at a loss and hold as a long term investment, but when that level of effort yields little to nothing to hold…that is just pointless. GPU miners moved on, at least anyone with a serious involvement. I’m sure there are still a few hobbyist’s who are “just learning” so they aren’t actually trying to make any real progress just yet. But eventually they too will either get bored and exit, or move to a coin that has more promise for a GPU centric miner. Which is perfectly fine. As I said before even the ASIC miners are now facing minimal returns and potential losses to mine depending on costs. So much for the “responsible delivery of mining equipment” that was supposed to ensure the market wasn’t saturated…did anyone really believe that was going to happen? I know I sure didn’t. Played out almost exactly the way I said it would…just happened faster than I expected to be honest. Floooooooood…no profit…done. They didn’t Terk Er Jerbs…they made De Jerbs pay so little only the big big big boys can play and make a profit in the end. Decentralization…ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah ok.

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Excited as a miner? 20chars…

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That’s why I said that @JKDC. They will mine for profits, dump, and move to the next coin. The days of actual support where you had a large group of GPU miners who stayed mined, and held the coins they mined…are pretty much gone. I’m sure you would get some hobbyists who are just starting out and learning, but I seriously doubt you will see the bigger players in any meaningful way long term. Zcash left a bad taste in their mouth when they got pushed out. Some survived and moved to another project, but a lot of them ended up out of business in the end. You would have to be exceedingly naive to believe you would ever garner the same support from a group you damaged like this.

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Per @nathan-at-least :

Hello all, back from vacation. While I support the design requirements both @zookozcashand I laid out above for a Zcash upgrade, I’m going to advocate within our company that we postpone Harmony Mining from NU2-Blossom (with NU3 being the next candidate slot).

There are four logistical/technical (not strategic) reasons for doing so:

  1. We are behind schedule for Blossom / NU2, according to The Network Upgrade Pipeline, Upgrade B 2019. According to that plan we should be in the midst of third party security auditors analyzing our specification while we work on implementation.
  2. There is no clear leading candidate for block selection design (including difficulty-adjustment), and I believe the “rewards ramp-up” + time-locks are inseparable and thus inter-dependent on the block selection design.
  3. @daira’s simulation is precise for two designs, and shows in both cases a reduction in rollback protection. Even though @zookozcash clarified that a regression is acceptable, I want a stronger understanding of how much of a regression a given design introduces (and then to weigh that against advantages we’re trading off for).
  4. I haven’t looked at existing designs yet, and I’m not aware of any company engineers doing so, yet, and our best effort should verify scrutinize similar designs, their security models, and our different requirements and design choices. (Much love to @zawy12 for linking directly into Grin DAA code in this comment! That’s a good start, though I’d want to start by looking for security models / design rationale.)

We’ll continue R&D for these design goals on the NU3 Upgrade A 2020 slot.

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It would be best to research Hybrid Designs or PoS for 2020, seems like a rather near vision approach continuing with the dual mining thing.

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Great stff, Thanks for sharring this information :smile:

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We will research that. It seems unlikely that would be ready for NU3, though.

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Just out of curiousity as i rarely check the gifthub channels. Is only this to be done in 2019? No other improvements?

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