Bitcoin Forum

Assumption: Bitmain/Wu implemented covert ASICBoost in hardware chips giving 20% electricity advantage.

Assumption: Segwit would 'break' ASICBoost, invalidating the 20% advantage, leveling the playing field for all mining.


Here's my theory:  Assumption 2 is wrong.  In fact, segwit would break all of the ASICboost hardware rendering it useless.  Once segwit is activated, difficulty drops dramatically because all that ASICboost hardware must be thrown out and re-manufactured.


How much mining power would be immediately deactivated?
What would be the effects on Bitmain if this were true?
What would happen to the difficulty?
How long would the network take to recover from this disaster?

Ultimately I believe it would be a good thing, but would it be chaos for a few months?

You do not understand the fundamentals of what you are talking about, so there is no real reason to answer your questions. You are just flat out wrong about segwit 'breaking' hardware.....

Segwit would break the ASICBoost part of hardware, right?

Can you please elaborate on which fundamentals you refer to?

(Serious question, I truly want to understand my ignorance in this speculation)

Put simply, the mining still works in the absence of asicboost being enabled, and that mining doesn't break with segwit. None of the public miners that have mined on testnet have been unable to mine blocks, and segwit is enabled on testnet.

Thanks for your reply.  I enjoy the speculation.

Have any secret covert ASICBoost public miners announced that their secret way of making 20% extra secretly still works fine on testnet, just without the extra secret 20%?

Have any secret covert ASICBoost miners have announced that "whoops! our covert ASICBoost chips don't work on segwit testnet" to the community when they tried?

Or would they more realistically say "gosh darn, these chips are glitchy and crash alot with segwit, well lets keep our mouths shut and try like hell to block segwit on mainnet for as long as possible, hopefully we can ROI on this stuff before anyone finds out"?

But I guess with the extra $$, glitches can be replaced and fixed up pretty quickly.  I mean you gotta make major, major chip fuckups to burn through $100 million(s) profit, right?