ASIC Resistance

[str4d]

(Repost because the forum tagged the wrong post as the reply-to.)

@boxalex

(Ycash) can fork with ease to a new algo parameter within equihash and obviously, at least it looks like that, without problems after as well.

It is significantly easier to make those kinds of changes on far shorter notice when the resulting ecosystem is much smaller in terms of deployment and integration (being a new cybercoin).

@boxalex

they on the other side don’t have a ~50 engineer team at Ycash.

Neither does ECC. IIRC we had no more than around a dozen engineers in 2018, including dev-ops. Currently we have ten, only seven of whom work on zcashd, and several of them (such as myself) also work on other teams (e.g. reference wallet team).

[boxalex]

@boxalex

they on the other side don’t have a ~50 engineer team at Ycash.

@str4d

Neither does ECC. IIRC we had no more than around a dozen engineers in 2018, including dev-ops. Currently we have ten, only seven of whom work on zcashd , and several of them (such as myself) also work on other teams (e.g. reference wallet team).

Seriously? I somehow had the impression that there are 40-50 employees at Zcash? Maybe i got that number from a wrong stats page about Zcash.
Sorry, really thought that this number is right and that the majority of these employees are engineers.

[garethtdavies]

See Team - Electric Coin Company - Electric Coin Company

[sonya]

ECC currently has 25 employees and ~16 are tech-focused. Source: Team - Electric Coin Company - Electric Coin Company

Edit: ZF has 6 employees, and exactly half are tech-focused.

[str4d]

@sonya

ECC currently has 31 employees

I count 25 on that page. 31 sounds about right for 2018 though.

[sonya]

Derp you’re right, I multiplied the rows by 5 instead of 4. My bad. Fixing the previous comment.

[boxalex]

@garethtdavies

See https://electriccoin.co/team/

I know the site, but this doesn’t mean that every assistent or employee is listed there neither that it’s always up to date. As said, i was absolutle under a wrong impression that there are 40+ employees at Zcash/ECC …

[tromp]

@daira

Overwinter couldn’t possibly ever have included a PoW change. It would have been far too risky.

The 20 months from launch to overwinter seems to provide plenty time to prepare, test, and safely roll out a PoW change that was recommended by both the Equihash authors and PoW auditor solardiz, and would be welcomed by the community as strengthening the promise of ASIC resistance.

Other major coins, with less resources than ZCash, routinely roll out PoW changes on much tighter schedules.

[dontbeevil]

Zcash community, can someone create a ZIP @tromp @mistfpga @arielgabizon for changing equihash parameters? Let’s get it activated by 2020.

[boxalex]

Lol, you can remove my name from that list, i’am the least one that could make a zip, unfortunatly or i would have submitted allready 20+ ones, lol.

[Autotunafish]

Anything other than an asic-proof solution is a waste of time (sorry)
When we fix the mining problem and needs to be once and for all

[dontbeevil]

@boxalex

you can remove my name from that list

done! …

[mistfpga]

I already am.

I am working on a RandomX and ProgPoW variants. once I have the bits nailed down I will create a zip. I don’t think changing the parameters now will do much good - it would have to be a new proof of work.

The previous governance wanted to change the pow for 2020 anyway (between September 30th 2020 and December 31st 2020), but it has few extra bits and is quite badly worded. So I am not sure how the proposals will go. but I certainly plan on making them.

• https://www.zfnd.org/blog/governance-results/

I have lots of reading to catch up on.

@arielgabizon

One additional reason for this that I haven’t mentioned yet in this thread but @mistfpga mentioned is that there was a mitigation to the vuln that didn’t require sapling.

Yes this was my reasoning for starting the thread. the parameter fork, that I believed you suggested, would have happened before the asic question arose.

Thanks to everyone for taking part in this thread. especially @daira I hope you don’t feel I threw you under the bus. It has been a clarification that I have been seeking for a long time. I can see both sides of the argument.

@arielgabizon would you please pm me a link to the podcast where you talk about the downsides to emergency forking? I am very interested in what you have to say.

[arielgabizon]

Why miss a chance to plug my podcast and not just post it here Episode 86: Ariel Gabizon on his work with zkSNARKs and the beauty of math - ZK Podcast
This topic is discussed around minute 17.
Though in hindsight, I made it seem a little simpler that it would’ve been in that podcast.
I say we could have easily put it covertly into overwinter, but since the overwinter rules were initially committed to a day after discovery, we would have had to do another upgrade, or
at least extend the date for overwinter changes (and give a covert excuse for doing that).

[artkor]

When will everyone get tired of discussing the same thing? ASIC for Zcash and GPU for Ycash. It’s not difficult to remember.

[Autotunafish]

Ycash is a separate project, it has a copied version of the current protocol but it is not GPU Zcash
We all like Ycash and Monero and Bitcoin but none of them are Zcash