Just cross posting some valid arguments over from the zencash gifthub channel
From an infrastructure PoV, no… absolutely that is true. Hardware dedicated to a singular purpose, to perform a required action within the network, has more intrinsic value in the network than your programmable GPU rig that could abandon any network at any time. Dedicated hardware shows dedicated resources and $$$ whereas GPU miners consistently move to the next best thing. How many ETHlargement users left Equihash this last week… SOOOOO many! Once hashrate is replaced with ASICs, confidence in the longevity of the network infrastructure is secured. While GPUs have been able to supply something close, it is a measure below the dedication of ASICs. In this sense how are ASIC farms any worse than present day GPU farms?
Cutting ASICs out of the network is uncalled for and history is on their side… Bitmain now sells 6 unique algo ASIC miners. That means 5 times now someone made an algo to try and get away from huge hashrate hardware schemes… and 5 times Bitmain has shown us all we know nothing. Every time a forced new algo is put in place, and it becomes profitable, Bitmain et al will be there to make a better version.
I never said ASICs make coins profitable, just that they build more value into them intrinsically.
ASICs always follow foreseen profit… no reason to make an ASIC until an algo has backing… putting the cart before the horse. Massive CPU and GPU backing make a coin profitable, ASIC backing pushes a coin into a different level of value.
Variable difficulty? That gives a fixed reward over time but it varies the total reward earned PER watt based on total hashrate of the network. To say miners joining and leaving has no bearing on a coins value is ridiculous. It is exactly why coin switch pools exist and places like WhatToMine show which coins make the most at the moment. You made a completely self sustaining statement…
So the sell price influences the price… it is more like the volume of hashrate relative to the difficulty and current liquidity determine the current price. Do you think ZEC would maintain it’s price if hashrate fell to ZEN levels? Not a chance. You think ZCL stays at a low hashrate when it’s price pumps? Nope… drives straight to the roof.
Also GPU miners didn’t leave because an ASIC due in late June was announced… they left because their 1080TIs all get 50 MH/s on ETH using ETHlargement pill… they are earning way more than they were on Equihash… hence why ETH continues to rise while other coins are falling.
Check the last 7 day calcs for ETH to ZEC… only today did Equihash claw back 24 hr top profits. All Equihash coins have a less than 100% 3 and 7 day calc.
I have no love for auto pools… I am a dedicated miner and Suprnova is my home. I prefer to promote loyal mining and payout schemes that reward it. I simply imply coin switch pools and site stats as evidence of coin prices moving as hashrates increase and decrease, both as drivers and in response to it.
While daily total supply created has a standard, no reward method gives your miner the same coin per hash every block… none.
To put ALL of that into perspective, because you have to include ALL VARIABLES, adding ASICS to a network displaces GPUs completely and THEN SOME. Yes big mines grab them up, but plenty of individuals do too. ASICs are only a threat to your GPU rig ROI… trying to lock out innovation just drives it. The price of a solid coin with solid leadership only goes up with ASIC infrastructure backing it.
Nobody intelligent bought GPU thinking they will get 5 years out of the card, everyone knew it will be superseded by new GPU, ASIC, FPGA, or PoS, lucky for them, at least GPU owner has resale to gamer as fallback.
Although PoW is proven it’s not flawless, being environmentally unfriendly for one and has shown that it also suffers centralization concerns, bitmain being one of them, but even zen has its concern with supernova holding over 50% of the hash power… 51% attack anyone?
ZenCash absolutely should not fork in response to Bitmain’s announcement. A fork is an action that should not be taken lightly or as a knee-jerk reaction to the natural progression of technology. There is nothing inherently bad about ASICs. Every single GPU is technically an ASIC. Bitmain has simply produced a piece of hardware that is more efficient at the task than those currently in use. Why shouldn’t Bitmain be allowed to compete with nVidia and AMD?
Efforts to promote decentralization are not without merit. It is known that CPUs and GPUs are more widely available than specialized ASIC hardware for numerous reasons. An effort towards decentralization in the form of accessibility is an approach that may warrant the effort. If algorithm changes are to occur specifically to promote decentralization, then should occur on an expected schedule, not in response to technical advancement.
ZenCash is already conducting research in DAG based technology. Since this will undoubtedly change the way the PoW system works, and algorithm change would be a more natural addition at that time. Efforts could also be made to investigate alternative PoW based systems which utilize the computing power for math or science in addition to securing the chain. There are already numerous papers that exist, but few have been implemented. Adopting this direction would undoubtedly be an advantage for the ZenCash ecosystem as a whole.
tldr; Bitmain’s ASICs are not a problem. Don’t rush out an algo change. If you want to promote decentralization, do it right, or don’t do it at all.
10 kH/s at 1/5th the price of a GPU rig is lowering the barrier to entry, not raising it. Bitmain has done some shady stuff, no doubt, but their objective is to release hardware and profit from it… not dictate direction for projects (except maybe BCH and now BTM).
Whether or not ZEN forks won’t matter to Bitmain. There will be a handful of Equihash coins that won’t fork and those Z9 minis will be pointed there, and those projects will benefit from it. The question becomes, “How does ZEN get ready for the future?” Does the Z9 mini help ZEN get there? I think yes, but I realize that’s not a popular thought.
If a project is profitable to mine, specialists will specialize. Why is no one upset about GPUs vs CPU mining anymore? That was truly one-cpu-one-vote if we want to be decentralization purists. Let’s be perfectly honest that most pro-fork people are protecting their own interests. That’s not a judgement, it’s rational human nature, but I think it’s a bit short-sighted.
I could run one of these with much less specialization than I currently had to do for my 8 GPU rig, and by the way, I can’t even buy any for reasonable prices from NVidia (the “centralized” provider for Equihash). I wouldn’t need a 240V line and the noise should be much less than your typical ASIC due to the fact they are only dissipating 300W.
I’ve never understood hurling the way-too-often-used “decentralization” maxim as an argument against more efficient mining. Bitmain is offering to sell these to people, one per person, for much less money and operating costs for the same hashrate. What would be centralized is if they didn’t offer to sell them. A result which is much more likely if they know projects will fork when they offer them publicly.
I would much prefer the dev team to keep their eye on the ball and continue to deliver on adding value to the actual platform, the reason the project exists. I don’t think a lot of time should be spent playing whack a mole.
My bet is that the last four memory intensive machines will all be based on the same chip architecture (ETHASH, EQUIHASH, CRYPTONIGHT, BYTOM). Since they have advertised Sophon, their own AI architecture, I would say they are utilizing that. And I would further point out that forking to a similar cryptographic algorithm would have only a delaying effect on the adaptation of “ASIC” machines.
This new miner is either an FPGA with on board RAM (quite likely) or a full blown ASIC with some kind of very fancy (and expensive) linked memory module.
If it’s an FPGA we’re dealing with, finding an algorithm that you couldn’t just reprogram the FPGA to mine will be extremely difficult. If it’s an ASIC, the task of creating some kind of incompatibility by modifying or switching algo’s would obviously be considerably easier.
Problem is, we have no technical specs for the Z9 so we could potentially put a load of effort into something that would only take a few days to reconfigure the Z9 to mine…
So I think we should spend some time trying to figure out what we’re actually up against before trying to formulate a plan.
But seriously, it is very upsetting to me that our long, proud tradition of open, collaborative, constructive discussion has been marred by this ill-tempered and exhausting thread. 
I’d like to see the mods make an example of this and demonstrate to people that (a) productive discussion is possible (see all the rest of the threads on this forum!) and (b) unproductive discussion, ad-hominems, and repetitive campaigning can happen somewhere else (like reddit).