Well. It sure makes a 51% attack way easier
And what happens to monero the other day
And verge with has many algos, which someone was able to 51% one of thier algos
It happens. And it will if you drop the net hash.
Why do you think so small? the world is big place how many people seriously have access to bitmain or any other ASICS 1% ?. The main issue here is the ZcashCo have a defective POW (or if more nefarious a mathematical back door in Equihash POW) that is obviously not ASICS resistant at all (see ‘Ethash’ now that is an ASIC resistant POW) and these Equihash ASIC’s have been around (but not advertised) for over a year now…this suggest some collusion between ZcashCo and ASIC manufactures during development of ZCash Equilhash POW (note this is just what is appears to be to knowledgeable people about ASIC’s and POW development) so how the Zcash global hashrate and price have now started to go down.
From what I understand it had nothing to do with a 51% attack or hash rate, So that is just misinformation.
Verge had a bug in their code that allowed Timestamps to be changed allowing the same algo to be used over and over submitting empty blocks and instantly mining them for the reward.
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Touché, but its extent is why other countries have trouble doing business with them
Different laws and ethics
Edit- I’m not saying I agree with it, it’s difficult to take a stance when you don’t abide by the same laws and ethics
It is resistant as in hash/watt ratio is not much better than current mining GPU’s, unlike Equihash ASIC’s
I’ve been thinking about how a fork might play out.
Assume there’s already significant ASIC hash on the network and it increases massively, difficulty goes through the roof & GPU miners wander off to somewhere more profitable. Then we fork and it bricks the ASICs.
I think we can look back at the BTC/BCH war to see how hashpower was weaponised - the effects were ugly, but I don’t think it applies to Zcash.
Correct me if I’m wrong but our mining difficulty adjusts very quickly, I think its daily compared to every two weeks with BTC, so network impact would be short lived.
[Edit by @daira: it’s adjusted per block, with an effective latency on the order of less than 20 blocks. The rate of change is damped so a sudden large change in hash power may take a little longer to adjust for, but still less than a day.]
I also think many GPU miners would be pointing their gear at ZEC when such a fork happened, wanting to profit from a sudden drop in difficulty and to get back in early. There would be plenty of notice while the fork was being planned & only takes minutes to retask a rig.
Thoughts? Comments?
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This is still closed source boxes where we have no idea whats going on inside. It is also shipped out of one global region, and most likely using bitmains chips. That’s why the “competition” is always more expensive than bitmain. Looks like they just put a “water cooler” spin on bitmain’s product.
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Offtopic and just generally:
I agree, but that’s often how things work nowadays. I’am living in the EU and some monopols even with huge fines come immediatly in my mind:
- Google fined 2.42B Euro for Monopoly
- Microsoft, fined 280M Euro for Monopoly
- Microsoft again, fined 561M Euro for Monopoly
- Intel fined 1B Euro
Endless list of kartells and Monopoly fines issued by the EU.
I guess there is not much someone can do against it in generally. I still use all of the above companies products above …
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Bitmain does NOT produce the chips. It’s Texas Instruments that produces them. Just to correct another Myth.
I agree with you. It would be just like you it describe.
However, you won’t get much feedback on this one. None of the proposals in the whole thread is worth of commenting by the community it seems. I as well made a more or less proposal that even would fit gpu miners as well. 0 interest, here it’s only about defending 100% profit immediatly.
While we have this debate, I was compelled to create an account just to say the ASICs aren’t playing the waiting game. See below:
ASICminer Equihash 40,000 Sol/s. Please read… 40,000 Sols
https://asicminer.co/shop/asicminer-equihash
I buy and also GPU-only mine crypto, just about 3 years now and I have been mining Equihash 90% of the time, because I believed in ASIC resistance, as touted by the developers and the various coins that utilize this algo.
As I have learnt time and time again, change is inevitable; responsible change however is golden. It defines the very fabric of our ability to exist in the world as an example or influence, and being able to withstand the ongoing scrutiny and criticism. I’m here because I believed in the “no ASIC” promise.
I will not be waiting months to decide whether I continue to mine or buy ZEC, but just as I came out of the shadows to make this post, I will effect change in my own world and carry on. It’s not a matter of if, but when.
I will continue to learn by reading and listening to the varying debates. Thank you all for a great journey so far.
CE
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How do you know what is inside? The website only lists basic specs (if even true) plus orders aren’t shipping until July.
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All Bitmain products use the Texas Instruments chips so far. There are not many chip suppliers that can manufactur chips their own, you can count them at one hand mostly and Bitmain is not one of them for sure.
Of course i do not know it 100% what is inside, but it’s a 99,9% chance it’s again Texas Instruments chips. Making chips is not as easy as it may sound to you.
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Ah ha! It is a less useful pocket calculator! 
How is Texas Instruments involved?
For example, Bitmain designs the S9 chip and then contracts a foundry to manufacture it, which in this case is Taiwan’s TSMC.
Bitmain’s BM1387 chip is built using TSMC’s 16nm FinFET technology and, delivering a record-breaking 0.098 J/GHs, is the world’s most efficient bitcoin mining chip in the consumer market. https://shop.bitmain.com/antminer_s9_asic_bitcoin_miner.htm?flag=overview
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Right, and since they are the only ones with an agreement with TI or whoever makes their chips, Bitmain license and sell them to other specialized mining companies, who’s prices will always be higher because they depend on Bitmain
[Edit by @daira: Texas Instruments is not a foundry. TSMC is the foundry in this case, and they are a Taiwanese company. Texas Instruments in fact uses TSMC as one of its foundries, or did (see https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1176804 ), but that’s not particularly relevant here.]
Exactly, Bitmain is designing it mostly their own, even it could be possible to hire another company as well for the designing, anyway, doesn’t matter much which of both it is. And yes, the design than gets manfucatured by
the chip factory, in this case Texas Instruments and hence the reason i bet again on TI.
That’s why i said that Bitmain is NOT producing them their own and i doubt they ever will.
This is something we do not know. It absolutly could be like you say but it could be totally different.
Comparing so far most Asic producers it seems more that they have their own designs actually, but it’s not a must and you could be absolutly right.
For example the hashrate of the cryptonite algos are too different that i believe it’s the same manufactor, but that’s not a garantee either of course. So i’am far away to argue with you on that one, we simply do not know.
Doesn’t look like a scam acutally. Their facebook page is full with demonstration videos of their Asics, of course it can always be an scam even with some working machines, someone never knows with new companies on the horizont, but calling it a scam without proof isn’t right either.
But someone could/should be cautious of course, doing this is never wrong.