The link was meant to provide some definition of the differences between hard, soft, user activated forks etc, and if thats off topic then I apologize
Edit- and to answer your questions, this is the best I could find, according to this Why Equihash? - Electric Coin Company
"Equihash is a memory-oriented Proof-of-Work, which means how much mining you can do is mostly determined by how much RAM you have. We think it is unlikely that anyone will be able to build cost-effective custom hardware (ASICs) for mining in the foreseeable future.
We also think it is unlikely that there will be any major optimizations of Equihash which would give the miners who know the optimization an advantage"
“Nevertheless, we can’t know for certain that Equihash is safe against these issues, and we may change the Proof-of-Work again, if we find some flaw in Equihash or if we find another Proof-of-Work algorithm which offers higher assurance.”
Nothing about Asic resistance other than the foreseeable future
Changing if it offers higher assurance ( which I assume means cryptographically)
Equihash has done good so far, parameters changing and when idk
We are currently using Equihash as the proof-of-work for block mining in Zcash…The algorithm is currently not economically implementable in ASIC. Learn Zcash - Z.Cash
Mining should be available to everyone, regardless of their access to specialized hardware; anyone should be able to use a computer to “mine” by using open source software, and add more transactions to the Zcash ledger to possibly get Zcash coins in return for their effort. https://zcashminers.org/ (Zcash sponsored equihash competition)
I’m going to read those, but it’s late, and I know I go off on tangents sometime, I just try to look at things from different viewpoints (like this)
Lets personify the hypothetical Asic zcash situation (real situation for other coins, probably attribute this grace period to equihash), its not a perfect equation (may not really personification but whatever)
Let’s say zcash is a Small Town store and Asics are Walmart who just showed up
As it stands like that, its only a matter of time before walmart swallows you up, forget it, you have zero chance
So what do ya do?
You can hard fork by quitting and moving to where walmart isnt…yet
You can soft fork by doing business through them, but soon they grow tired of your inefficient cost and swallow you up
The daisy-chain is freaky because its real equivalent may not exist
This is where you change the rules so no matter what, you and walmart do exactly the same
The more walmart business, the exact same amount zcash business, walmart weighs itself down while propelling zcash forward for a much longer more prosperous time than the other 2
Imagine the stores are right next to each other and no one can check out from one until somebody is checked out from the other, makes business for Walmart insanely difficult and zcash business very very easy (in order to keep the block target time)
I guess implementing this protocol change before asics would be like constructing the building Walmart will eventually move into and have zcash doing business in both prior to
So just to be a clear, is fork considered hard anytime it is not backwards compatible? Compared to a soft fork which is compatible with existing nodes? Therefore a POW algorithm change is always a hard fork? With that said, does the scope of an algo change only involve mining software and the core POW code ? Don’t other endpoints (wallets, block explorers,etc) only interact with the results of this core process?
Does the scope of an algorithm change only involve mining software and the POW algorithm node code? Are other endpoints (wallets, block explorers,etc) not affected and not require modification? I am just trying to understand the scope of an algo change…
“While the lasting effect of ASIC resistance is, at least at this stage, unpredictable, the more people participating in mining, the stronger the network will be against any future growing disparity and centralization in mining power. We fully anticipate a variety of mining abilities but hope for an improvement in previously implemented protocols such that the “small” miners can keep the “big” miners in check by experimenting early on in Sprout and contributing in the name of the network and community rather than the profit-driven motives of the larger miners.” (Lil zcash big walmart?)
“Yes, since launch, Zcash has been based on proof-of-work. Maybe the community will choose to change it to proof-of-stake or something someday. We cannot predict what the community or communities will ultimately decide about such things but are very much open to improvement and evolution.”
“The algorithm is currently not economically implementable in ASIC. We’re still evaluating whether we think it will resist custom hardware (“ASIC”) implementation long-term.”
There are over 600 comments on this thread, but the ballot has yet to receive a single comment from the community (other than comments from Zcashco folk).
If you’re not comfortable using Github or prefer other platforms, please let @acityinohio know, so that the Foundation is better able to capture the community’s voice.
Since the promise of ASIC resistance was made at the beginning, this lowly ZCash user and miner expects you folks to keep your word. Just do what you promised. All this talk is just noise obfuscating things.
Using Github is a great way to keep out a “regular user”. How about an informal poll on Survey Monkey?
This IS off topic but I get the feeling as though were working through the stages of mouning here, lotta greif and denial which is understandable I guess
Wash the hate out of your eyes and prove an asic resistance hard fork is better instead of diverting the subject
Edit- rushing people off to vote on something that aligns with an opinion of yours? Tisk
I didn’t say you created it, im saying we need proof its the right vote
If i felt it was, i would debate for it as intensely
But for me too much information points against
Edit2- so youre gonna have to prove it to them too and like i said if i felt the same, id be right at it, im dedicating alot of thought to this
Edit- prove is a pretty strong word considering my idea is only theoretically sound so maybe present evidence to support is what should have been said
Edit4- also my is a pretty strong word considering the idea spawned from Zooko’s Myriad mining suggestion way up earlier which I guess came from a zcash new hire in Singapore and he got it from who knows
Lets try this and I dont know if it will mean anything, but im going to explain (as non biased as I can) your idea of asic resistance to you and then you explain the daisy-chain idea to me and then we’ll check to see if we missed anything
At the very least I can reassess my position on it, I just feel as though I only have more metaphors for which to elaborate with
In the next few days, i was planning on another summary anyway
