This chart is already out of date. Flypool now only has about 25% and that is the largest piece.
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So root you are telling us that a hand full of ppl decide what will happen to zcash . That is not centralisation ? Banks are not doing the same ? I really dont get the zcash team at all 
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@Viper4o93 A vote of 64+ community members canāt be considered centralized in terms of protocol development. This is worlds better than other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin that are controlled by just a few gatekeepers.
@root we are also comunity members and no one gives 2 cents what we think 
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Nice example Root, since Bitcoin also was mined with CPU and even Raspberries could make nice amount of coins. Asics in the end drove away everything, and now for the fun part, Asics after that drove away other Asics, see where we are heading ?
This is what will happen to Zcash too, all miners will be droven off by the big players it will become like Bitcoin a small mining operation, probably in the free republic of China with a few players.
Why ? the 10 0000 that does 15 0000 sol /s will be nothing compared to what is coming, the first taste we allready had with a 100 000 sol machine. In a few months that wonāt make any money no more, the small miners that didnāt roi are gone. the GPU miners are gone, what is left is only the big players.
I allready have my Popcorn ready for the time Bitmain and the others are going to compete to deliver the first 1000 000 Sol miner, a Z9 then will look like, a well, the difference between a 12 1080 Ti rig and a single 1050 ( nobn Ti 
)
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I suspect everyone that voted to move away from the ASIC resistance promise are in fact heavily investing in Asics, or are planning to profit from them. With Asics itās always a race to the bottom.
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@root Frankly, 64 people is no where near the sample size required to get an accurate assessment of how the mining community feels about ASICS. Itās clear that very little thought was put into how we collect the opinions and feelings of the mining community. This reeks of someone just throwing together a quick and dirty poll to support their agenda of an ASIC centered future. In fact, it doesnāt get anymore centralized than a āhand pickedā group of 64 people who supposedly speak for the entire community. The whole process of how these folks were selected clearly wasnāt well thought out either if hundreds of people are here expressing their displeasure on these forums. Never mind that though, please continue selling your salt to slugs.
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what are you suggesting then a public poll?
if there was ever going to be a public poll that actually mattered, iād farm that out to india to click for me. this private off poll prevents assholes like me from doing just that.
I totally agree. I think itās clear that at least 60-70% of miners here are against ASICs, which makes sense because those miners have put significant resources and time into GPU mining.
The Zcash Community Governance Panel is made up of more than just miners. Itās made up of developers, business owners, investors and other people influential to helping Zcash succeed. Miners are only one faction of the larger Zcash community. This allows for the entire community to have a say in the direction that Zcash grows, not just miners.
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Yes, yes stack the governance panel with people who have no clue or qualification to make decision it is like getting a bunch of people on the street to decide if you should go ahead with heart surgery or not give patient data.
I suppose instead we should let random, anonymous forum users to decide via a collection of brigaded twitter and forum polls [sarc]?
How will we figure out what qualifications they have, since none of that information is public?
Please propose a better alternative if youāre seriously suggesting that the current community governance panel made of 64 members has been unfair. Further, if you want to be on that governance panel, you have had the opportunity to apply for some time - well before the voting took place.
Here is some general info you might want to read: GitHub - ZcashFoundation/Elections: A space to describe and run the Zcash Foundation's elections.
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@root While I agree that there is a larger ZCash community than just miners, I feel miners should have more voice and voting power as they represent the largest group of stakeholders. Many miners have invested substantial capital to support the ZCash network and believed in the project long before ZEC was worth a penny.
Yet, as I read these forums, I see many folks diminishing the importance of the mining community. Itās clear that a lot of folks are here for one thing and one thing only, profits. Today there is a bunch of new stakeholders who want to get involved because they see a financial opportunity. These stakeholders are the big investors, corporations and hardware manufacturers. Once all the ābig moneyā showed up, the ZCash Company and Foundation have seemingly turned their backs on GPU miners, the same people who believe in this project when it was just a pipe dream.
ZCash will grow a a whole lot faster and stronger if we start taking care of one another and finding solutions that work for the entire community instead of kicking loyal community members to the curb for greed. This is the only way to achieve complete adoption. The problem is that most folks are short sighted, seeing only the short term financial gains. If we continue to fail at seeing the big picture, ZCash is doomed.
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I agree with this statement, as one of those miners myself. Iām still GPU mining Zcash and I donāt feel like the natural evolution of mining has caused the Zcash company or the Zcash foundation to turn their backs on me. I have significantly more hashpower from GPUs than the single test Z9 mini. All things being equal, I would rather the network have a higher difficulty (more security) and I would like to pay less for electricity.
kicking loyal community members to the curb for greed
Cryptocurrencies are about seeking profit. Itās why miners started mining gpus. Is that greed? What is the difference between profit seeking and being too greedy? It seems like a subjective marker in someoneās own opinion than a clear fact.
The problem is that most folks are short sighted, seeing only the short term financial gains. If we continue to fail at seeing the big picture, ZCash is doomed.
I completely agree, and I have come to believe over the last few weeks and months that Zcash is growing up to play with the other major cryptocurrencies (BCH, ETH and BTC). ASICs are part of this āgrowing upā. They are more efficient and gpu mined coins will be at a constant risk of being taken over or destroyed by the secret development of ASICs. Over the long-term, Zcash is better off going away from GPUs.
agree with you on the whole sentence
@root I canāt dispute that a majority of people are here to chase profits, however thatās not my reason. Iām a believer in financial freedoms and privacy, the idea that itās not some government entities business to control what, where, how or why I transact. To me, this is about defeating fiat banking systems that line the pockets of the top 1% and control todayās stock exchanges.
To be clear, Iām not advocating for the elimination of ASICS or a continued effort to be resistant to them. Iām advocating for an algorithm change that makes it possible for anyone and everyone to participate in mining without the need for specialized mining hardware like ASICS or FPGA. Academics, mining and trading are basically the only three things that get folks interested in crypto currency at the moment. To grow ZCash we need to give as many people as possible the opportunity to join the community and participate if they choose to consent.
This will lead to adoption as people tell their friends and family about it and introduce them to ZCash whether through academics, mining or trading. The advantage of including ALL hardware types is that a person doesnāt need to go spend $1000 on an ASIC or other specialized hardware, they could get started today on their mobile phone, desktop computer etc. thereās so much power in inclusiveness and I feel itās being grossly undervalued by most folks in these forums who are to caught up on short term financial gains.
Whatās the ultimate goal here? Is it to make a few quick bucks or is it to make ZCash the first crypto currency used all around the world at any and every merchant you can imagine? Right now it seems like the ZCash Company and Foundation as well as many community members are hung up on making a few quick dollars. If thatās the case, ZCash is destined to fail. It has to be about more than making a few bucks to be successful.
For all the years Bitcoin has been around they sure havenāt been very successful at adoption. Sure, thereās a good portion of merchants that accept it now, but itās a very small percentage of people that actually transact with it. In my opinion, thatās a direct result of failing to create a completely inclusive community from the beginning. Is it the only reason? No, but itās definitely one of the major contributing factors.
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Believe it or not, I do agree with a lot of that.
How we get there is the problem. Also, not saying this is a bad thing, but by locking people into commodity equipment you also disincentivize r&d to optimizing hardware.
Weāve seen 1000+ GPU farms out there. Again not saying itās a bad thing, but like I said previously deterring specialty equipment wonāt raise profits on a 1080ti to $3.
A 1080ti sitting at $1.25 a day doesnāt people the incentive to march on. Only farms with plane loads of GPUs that have already minmax electric and infrastructure stand to win.
Look at RVN GPU only and barely a buck a day per 1080ti. Look at the top users on suprnova 1000 GPU right on the top. How is that decentralization.
How is someone living in NYC supposed to setup a mining rig in their tiny rat house paying $.18 kWh going to compete with that.
I donāt think any of should pretend we know the secret sauce to answer everything.
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@amanalar I definitely donāt have the answer to it either, but I feel the conversation mostly ended when the ZCash Company and Foundation decided to no longer make ASIC resistance a priority. Thereās many changes that could be made to level the playing field for miners regardless of what type of hardware is used.
As the title of this thread says, you could increase the memory requirements. This doesnāt prevent ASIC development it just makes them run slower, it may render the current generation of equihash ASICS useless for ZEC, but when next generation models are designed, manufacturers will just use slower removable memory sticks so that they can be swapped out should memory requirements increase.
Thereās also the idea of changing from a PoW to a PoS, this would also level the playing field as well, but in a much different way. I wonāt dive into the argument for and against PoS, itās all over the forums if you want to read up.
Needless to say there are many ways to modify the algorithm to make it more inclusive for all miners regardless of the hardware they choose to use. In order to accomplish this the focus must shift from short term profits to long term security, stability and scalability. An inclusive community will lead to adoption much faster.
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Hereās my 2 cents and sorry if I repeat anything that has already been said as I havenāt thoroughly read the whole thread. I was really surprised by the results of the community Foundation vote in which I participated. I voted in favour on question 2 and against question 3 (so against consensus both times).
With regards to the second question as many have pointed out, I think it was badly phrased (though I still voted in favour of it). I canāt find the discussion now but I favoured a more general approach to something like ādedicating resources to researching consensus algorithms that best achieve the stated aims of decentralisationā (which in my opinion would be a World where ASICS and GPUs can compete on more equal terms). I donāt want to discourage ASIC mining equipment per se, as the question implied (I can see many advantages) but donāt want to make it impossible for GPU miners to compete (which is what we now have or imminently). I think Ethash is the best example so far where the advantage between ASICS and GPUs is much closer so if you want to mine on an ASIC for your slightly higher hashrate and ease of use you trade off resale value and your machine can be obsoleted overnight (which isnāt the case with GPUs).
Now I worry we have put ourselves in a situation where we are left with a compromised solution in that we know the parameters chosen were not optimised. It seems clear that adjusting to 144,5 will narrow the performance differential between ASIC/GPU. Sadly, we may now be past the point where any advantages are outweighed by the disadvantages of network disruption and we have already suffered community discord which likely would not have occurred had these been addressed more proactively.
Finally on Question 3 of the ballot, while it was incredibly well presented and thoughtful I am strongly opposed. My biggest takeaway from Zcon0 was on my discussions with others on alternate consensus algorithms. I came to the conclusion that the last thing the World needs right now is another POW algorithm. Iād like to see the Foundation concentrate on researching non-POW consensus algorithms and not on this proposal.
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hi,
Would you mind elaborating on what you see as the advantages?
I would rather have one thing perfected (proof of work) than another experiment in maths and game theory. But I also understand this is a perspective thing and both opinions are valid yet have flaws.
Your honesty with regard to your voting and why is really appreciated.
and just putting this out thereā¦
isnāt 144,5 now a target? so zcash would need something different. ideally every equihash coin would use its own parameters?
thanks,
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One general one is ease of use. If you just consider ASICs as a form of technology rather than it being limited to the current Bitmain, Innosilicon duopoly. Iām not against a very easy to use device that serves a single purpose that allows more people to mine Zcash. I understand the valid arguments/criticisms of the current situation and am speaking more broadly (as the ballot question proposed - or maybe I read too literally).
The main argument though would be that it is a sunken cost to the specific network (assuming there are not many coins on the same algo). GPU miners (myself included) are incentivised to switch coins when the profitability becomes higher. If, when Mimblewimble launches, assuming it acts in the same way as Zcash, who wouldnāt switch at least at launch? Thatās why I think some happy medium where both ASIC and GPU can coexist and the ratio isnāt off the charts would be optimal. Switching the params to 144,5 seems to get us closer knowing it wonāt be perfect.
I agree to a point. I mean that we already have POW algos that work, heck commit to stick with the current one if we want a pure ASIC network and let the market do its thing (if itās profitable enough more companies will develop for it). If itās a multi-year major project, as proposed, we should be looking at alternatives than more POW algos.
It matters more if you are a smaller coin like the Zcash clones and even some of those changing to 144,5 have already tweaked the algo to be specific (like BTG if I am not mistaken). Itās a valid concern but I donāt see it as a major one.
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