Your second quote totally contradicts your first quote.
You cant have decentralization if a centralized company is in charge of who can mine and who cant. That dont even make sense if you stop and think about it for 1 second. And to trust Facebook of all companys…
It contradicts it if a centralized company is in charge. And I haven’t said that. It has nothing to do with Facebook dictating who gets access to mining and who doesn’t. What I’ve said is that since Facebook seems interested in jumping into crypto and help supervising it in consensus with the community. They might be interested in assisting in creating a system where each invested individual could hold a small piece of the mining process. Such a thing can be beneficial for them as well.
If we take the article zooko posted at face value, it suggests that the issue isn’t between GPU/ASIC or POS… If we take the article at face value, either of the former methods seems ineffective in preventing one or two large players from slowly devouring and centralizing the crypto market. Mining, fiat and coins, all of those.
So I urge all of us to think beyond the scope of what we currently have available, so that we can come up with a solution.
You won’t believe but many times in the past and since i write here in this topic i had this idea all the time, but was afraid to post it. I’am happy someone (you) posted it and personally me is all for it. Seriously, i had the very same idea and i as well think it’s a perfect solution.
I admit that i personally admit that i have no idea how such thing could be implented, but i guess if there is a will, than there is as well a path.
How it comes than that there are hidden Monero Miningpools and that the new X3 software, compiled 10 days after the monero Hardfork contains tracks to XMR and 1 such mining pool?
Someone checked so far IF the X3 would be theoretical and technical be able to do?
Just while writting 2x X3 arrived, i will take them out of customs in a bit and will tonight try one of these mention Asic pools for XMR.
Just some bit off topic example, but on topic about the dirty business.
A decade back i had the idea to investe in a taxi company as in my local city all taxis, old Ladas at best, all self employed, no standard no nothing it seems as a good business opportunity. Even more a winter resort is only 10km away.
I explored the way of licenses and all needed, you need a whole bunch of them, but the last one, most important one you need is from the city mayor AFTER and only than, you have all the other paperwork and licenses. Having allready dealt with corruption whatever not i forsighted that this might be a problem and so, bevor making any steps in the business, i went to the mayor of my city. At this time a post communism country with post communism communistic mayor, lol.
I was asked how many employees my investement will make and i said about 100 employees, mostly 110. And after discussion it a bit further that it will be brand new cards, that i have to pay taxes honestly, that the come with air condition, that i will even lower costs for the clients as the current ones the Mayor (a women by the way) said: “Hey, that’s what we need, young people with a vision, with commitment, investements, opening working places. You have our FULL SUPPORT”.
This made me happy and confident and i purchased 35 new cars, being warned by friends and business partners as well that it will not going to be that easy and i shouldn’t be too confident but cautious. But i did not hear them, i was confident about that “FULL SUPPORT”. Than the Taxi cars arrived, i went through all licenses, hired about 100 employess, garages, offices, whatever not, to be ready to apply to the very last license i need, the one i need from the mayor.
A sudden i wasn’t able to speak to anybody there anymore for a whole month, having finally the vice-mayor saying to me “Hey, you are not one of us, if you want to be it will cost you and you have to pay for that”.
In the first month i as well thought it’s the local taxis drivers that incluence things, just to realize it’s the greed of these authorities and that they expose every piece of power they have.
You may see some similarities in the case the SIA/Obelisk CEO posted i guess. Hence i’am writting this, there is a good chance it’s similar case …
Writing this so someone from the pure Western gets an idea how things work there in the Eastern
As of now, both are extremely hard to get and alot of scam on both! While GPU manufacturers had a clear F***OFF to the miners community I really dont see why all the hate against Bitmain! They are monopolist, I see that, but let’s change that, demand more ASIC dont hate them, else NO other manufacturer will risk it! Hell, Bitmain is playing pretty cool for the monopolist they are ! Unlike American CORPS !
I don’t care for the author’s defeatist attitude. I am sympathetic as to why they are that way after having gone through so much to try to compete only to be blocked by Bitmain but I don’t believe they give enough consideration and credit to real solutions that enhance PoW to be ASIC resistant. I think this is mainly because it doesn’t support their goals of becoming an ASIC manufacturer.
Everyone keeps looking at GPU or CPU as “non-progressive” options and that fighting ASICs is fighting progress. Why are we not seeing more effort into progressing more minimized hardware PoW??? Ultimately I believe the dream of “your cell phone is mining while idle charging at night” is the real goal and that is absolutely NOT possible in an ASIC driven world.
I think people lose sight of the fact that decentralized PoW mining is not a necessary evil, it is purposefully designed to be what it is.
GPUs are WAY more available to get then ASICs. To say GPUs are currently hard to get is incorrect. Sure there was a month or 2 when they were overpriced, that was due to the high demand when they had a ROI of 90 days.
Even then you could still buy a smaller graphics card, they were not ALL sold out. The 1070/1080 TIs were the hard ones to get, other models were more available.
What advantage would we have if everyone moved to ASICs? It would just raise the current bar for everyone, reduce us to one supplier of hardware, and starts a arms race. Atleast with GPUs we are all on a level playing field without having to worry someone will have a GPU that does x100 the hashrate for 1/10th the power. All the hardware is relatively close to each other in terms of performance, keeping the difficulty from ramping up x10-x100.
ASICs dont save power, they dont make the network more secure, they are limited in availability, only have 3 month warrantys, and run loud and hot.
This is suppose to be a ASIC resistant coin, why dont you ASIC people go mine other ASIC coins available. Ohhhh ya thats right, you cant make your money back off them ASIC coins anymore because of the difficulty have ramped up so much. So you want to come and ruin Zcash’s difficulty with ASICs to make a quick buck and act like its the future of mining.
Please people, you have your ASIC coins, we have our GPU coins. Clearly yours are not working because here you are…trying to get in over here because the profits are gone from your ASIC coins.
I believe an existential threat to ZCash specifically and crytpos in general is pool centralization:
I can’t find the other link which has a nice pie chart in real time of the mining pool distribution. This should be another topic for discussion since it is the most serious threat.
While it may not be the case where a pool operator acts in a dubious manner to corrupt ZCash, mining pools are physically located somewhere. If Flypool (or any other) is located in a nation hostile to the ZEC (or other privacy coins), it is not above any nation to use any means to render something under its control or exploitation.
That ZEC is being mined on a pool which has 51%+ is a credible and true danger to it. Something must be done to encourage distribution to other pools, and it is the responsibility of either ZCash Co and/or the Foundation to act swiftly to change this.
Since my background is in incentives, I know acutely that if you want humans to behave a particular way, you have to motivate them to change. In this case, maybe there is a way to pay pool operators who are in the minority an additional bump in ZEC which would be paid to the miners (automagically) for any blocks confirmed on those pools?
I don’t know the solution, but actions must happen now…there is no time for proposals, talk and discussions…the threat has existed for 6 months at least - there has been plenty of time to scratch heads about it.
Actions are needed. ZEC can die tomorrow if Flypool’s host nation (I think it is China) says no more to privacy coins.
(Putin’s recent ban of Telegram should be instructive)
Let’s follow that threat for a second. Flypool does something evil (51% attack), nobody can use the coin…everyone moves to another pool. Flypool is now dead. Threat over. Pools “can” do bad things, but it’s in their own interest “not” to do them. They don’t own the miners rigs, they don’t control “us”. We can, and will, move in a heart beat if they start acting all “shady”. Flypool has pools in china, and across the globe. If one country closes down the pool, no big deal really. It’s not like they are the “only” pool in existence, new ones cropping up every day actually. How big they get, how much hash power they have, all depends on the miners, not the pool.
I won’t object to that. Flypool is a huge player and an existential threat at 50%+. Maybe this should be it’s own thread so it can be watched long term. Don’t get me wrong, I’m of the mentality trust but verify on everything. i’m not saying don’t worry about Flypool, I just view that threat possibility as a short lived issue if it occurred.
So, what it was the “…next stage of the process…” of Bitcoin mining. Does that mean it MUST be the next stage in ZCash or any other PoW coin for that matter? Hell no!
So what a manufacturer has developed an ASIC for ZCash. The foundation should simply exercise what it proclaimed in its white paper: “Asic Resistance.” Simply get it done. If they create another ASIC again, then support ASIC Resistance again.
Bottom Line: If ZEC wants to maintain and increase the size of its “community,” it’s accomplished with ASIC resistance. This has been mentioned many times over.
Bitmain has major mining control of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, LiteCoin and Dash. They were making a move towards Ethereum and all Equihash Coins to gain considerably more share of mining world wide. It’s a simple power grab. We (The Community) NEED TO SEND A MESSAGE TO BITMAIN that “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”
Someone can only agree to that. I think as well that there should be a better mining pool distribution.
Eventually it would be an option to work together with other projects on the same algo, just as an other idea, to make it more attractive to the mining pools.
For example on zpool.ca i see some equihash coins, but not zcash …
“The ASIC’s (Red Coats) are coming!” Yes, they are coming but the community who stands for freedom from mining centralization by BITMAIN will rise up and be stronger than the community who surrenders to BITMAIN.
I moved my meager mining operation from Flypool to Nanopool as soon as I learned the former was well over the 51% mark.
Note to ZCash stewards: There will always be threats to this endeavor. They will come in many forms. It is your moral duty to foresee what they can be and move to interdict any potential compromises that can come. Just like the ASIC issue - and the underlying reality that you should have known better - so, too, is the pool centralization threat. There are many others. You must be ready for them and not simply react to them and talk about them ad nausea.
You’re sadly mistaken. The Z9 has BEEN here mining for at least the past 6 months at a minimum by BITMAIN exclusively. It’s also quite obvious they have a faster Equihash rig in the works. I will bet you 1.0 ZEC that you will see at least 50% of the network hash was ASIC if we fork off the ASIC’s.
Those who buy the Z9 will be buying an old rig. BITMAIN wants to take those off the shelf and ship to you as they replace them with a Z11 that you will not hear about until this time next year.
My opinion is that the discussion is between those who have already invested in the GPU and those who plan to buy ASIC.
So if Zcash is the lord then ASIC miners are vassals, and GPU miners are mercenaries.
Imagine that tomorrow they will create a platform where the GPU can engage in a rending with much greater benefit than the mining, which will keep most of the treason.
Will remain only those who plan an attack of 51% and this is possible with gpu.
If the rendering is x10 then everything is possible.
Sorry for my English
