This thread is now on the front page of Coindesk:
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https://www.coindesk.com/anti-asic-revolt-just-far-will-cryptos-hardware-war-go/
@Shawn already posted it, but it’s worth posting again.
I think I can understand the benefit of ASIC mining from the perspective of transaction processing efficiency. Since that is a main benefit to using ZCash (and other coins), I get why @zooko appears somewhat pragmatic on the whole thing. Though transaction processing efficiency should not come at a cost mining consolation into fewer and fewer hands.
Yes, why? That should have some clear explanation to go with it.
Why does he believe this??
Zooko - I also think that ASIC mining is better than CPU/GPU mining in one important way, which is that it aligns incentives between the users of the network and the miners. That’s important, and it might turn out to be the most important factor!
But the need for ASIC devices means that miners can only get them from possibly one seller…that is not a good choice to have to make.
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Are you and Zooko thinking “Big Picture?” - OR - Is handing over hash rate superiority to one manufacturer honestly the best move? I think we all know the answer to that. Don’t you?
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Isn’t there at least anecdotal evidence to suggest that ASIC transaction processing may not be very good anyhow? My example would point to Bitcoin and how long it takes to process a transaction using that coin…and the fees are far from economical. Moreover, didn’t that very problem give rise to the Lightning Network project? Segwit?
Since ZCash really is the crypto that can offer the world truly private transactions, @zooko and crew need to tread very carefully to act in its best long term interest. A critical misstep, especially so early in its life, can cause serious unintended consequences.
And since it is truly a private value transfer system, that should concern any Lover of Privacy that its very creator may be willing to expose it to potential exploitation or worse.
Does ASIC mean only one - potentially dubious - maker will sell hardware to mine it?
Does ASIC mean that only those who have deep, deep pockets will be the ones who mine it?
Does ASIC mean the “indie” miners - there are lots of us - will get shut out of the effort?
Does @zooko really want the taint of turning his back to the very ones who got ZCash this far?
I dunno…
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Please take your side blinders off and read. All I did was report the probable answer to a question that 2 forum members asked. Where in that am I pro ASIC or failing to see the “Big Picture” ?
I may need to reconsider my stance if I’m fighting for one dimensional thinking.
I’m simply somewhat adding to what you failed to mention.
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not a pretentious comment at all i must say…
There is nothing “multi-dimensional” about your stance. Your previous statement of “it aligns incentives between the users of the network and the miners” makes absolutely zero logical sense. Also, you have not provided a single argument to why ASICs are in any shape or form better than GPU mining.
Meanwhile, other comments and miners here have shown 5-10 dimensional bullet proof arguments to why ZCash fighting ASICs to the end and staying behind its promises and the miners that supported it is 1000% MUST DO action.
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OMFG – “I” did not say that… that is a direct quote from Zooko. all I did was copy and paste it here, I even put his name beside it. What is wrong with both of you?
Now the “I may need to reconsider my stance if I’m fighting for one dimensional thinking” that one is all me… I said it! I think the both of you have proved what another long time member of the forum said recently, miners are more concerned about their hardware and money spent than they are about the future of Zcash if ASIC is released.
I’m going to make a Al888 speculatory prediction Zcash will become ASIC!
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This is the main argument against ASICs IMO. Decentralized distribution, rather than decentralized mining is a better argument against them.
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You both need to stay on topic and refrain from personal attacks. This back and forth is not furthering the discussion, continue and I will have to suspend your accounts.
Please see the Forum code of Conduct.
https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/faq
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You’re right.
My Apologies…
Why does what does Zokoo says (an opinion at that) carry so much weight with you? A lot of these replies are addressed personally to him, which I think stems from thinking maybe he’s cool and maybe would like to meet him, but he’s not zcash King. He probably doesn’t even like being thought of as a central figure in the zcash community at all.
It’s been stated multiple times for a long time that if a community majority consensus desires Asic resistance, then that’s what will happen.
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I’m all for ASIC resistance. I’ve been mining zec since the middle of last year, and was under the impression it was then.
Just my 2cents from a small home farm
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Hey folks! Wow, this is obviously very important to a lot of people. Unfortunately I don’t even have time to read this thread! I’ve been thinking about what we should do about this issue. It is too late to make any changes for Overwinter or Sapling (visual timeline, so the earliest we could deploy a Network Upgrade that changes the PoW (or other related changes) would be in the post-Sapling Network Upgrade, which we currently haven’t scheduled. I want to learn from Overwinter and Sapling about how long these things take before committing to the schedule for Sapling+1. I figure Sapling+1 will probably not activate until the beginning of 2019.
I’m resolutely opposed to rescheduling, changing, or destabilizing Overwinter+Sapling. I think by far the most important thing the ZcashCo dev team can do for the next six months is ensure that Sapling activates on time, and without any security or stability failures that harm our users. The second most important thing that we can do for the next six months is work with other companies to add Sapling shielded addresses into the vast array of products and services made by them — wallets, exchanges, OpenBazaar, hardware wallets, new third-party services that haven’t announced yet, etc. etc. etc…
Therefore ZcashCo cannot provide engineering and support for any major protocol change such a changing the mining algorithm until late 2018 or more likely early 2019.
I got quoted in this article in Coindesk yesterday. Below is the full text of what I told the journalist, Rachel Rose O’Leary.
She said “Broadly the article states that you’ve spoken out against the idea of a fork due to technical challenges, but are also willing to assist the community if they are strongly against. Can you confirm that this is correct?”
I replied:
Not technical challenges. We are asking: what serves our mission? Our mission is to empower all people with economic freedom and opportunity. The purpose of proof-of-work mining is decentralization, security, and a wide distribution of the newly generated coins. Maybe tweaking the proof-of-work algorithm isn’t the best way to serve that. It could even do more harm than good. Maybe instead we should work on some other solution, such as switching to proof-of-stake, or getting major hardware companies like Nvidia and Huawei to sell hardware miners to anyone.
Another thing: ASIC mining is good for attack-resistance! If your investment in mining cannot be used for anything other than mining, then you want to preserve and increase the value of the coin. Specialized hardware (ASIC) is good for this. If you don’t have such an investment then there is no economic incentive for you to defend the network from attacks. For example, if your mining setup is that you just rent a botnet by the hour to mine a CPU-mining coin, then you don’t really lose much if the coin drops in value, so you might be willing to participate in an attack on the coin if doing so can profit you.
Choosing ASICs for Sia. We recently announced that we would be… | by David Vorick | The Sia Blog
I think it is too bad that she didn’t mention my claim of the benefits of ASIC mining in her article. I sent that part later, so maybe she didn’t see it by the time she wrote the article.
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Just to add: this ASIC debate is still speculative. We don’t know one exists yet. It wouldn’t make sense to schedule an update of the parameters before knowing one exists, ASIC manufacturers would just produce one for the next parameters.
““It’s been stated multiple times for a long time that if a community majority consensus desires Asic resistance, then that’s what will happen.””
IMO the only way that the Zcash will remain GPU based is if a developer or group of developers that wish it to remain ASIC resistant start their own fork from Zcash.
Nothing is stopping anyone at anytime from doing just that. Zooko and his team forked from Bitcoin and made this. You can fork from Zcash and make …
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Also, it seems like the community is very strongly, something like 80%, interested in keeping Zcash ASIC resistant. Personally I’m in the other 20%, but the Zcash team should think about putting resources towards this. I think that was the point of the founders reward, to support and grow Zcash and that should include keeping miners happy - the ones doing the work. 
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