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The Anti-ASIC Revolt: Just How Far Will Crypto's War On Miners Go?

https://www.coindesk.com/anti-asic-revolt-just-far-will-cryptos-hardware-war-go (https://www.coindesk.com/anti-asic-revolt-just-far-will-cryptos-hardware-war-go)

<< Can public cryptocurrencies stay public?

That's the simple question that lies at the heart of a complex debate happening across major cryptocurrencies, where developers from projects as diverse as ethereum, monero and zcash are up in arms over what to do about the arrival of a new form of hardware that could upend the delicate balance of their distributed communities.

Designed specifically to enable operators to earn a greater share of their networks' rewards, "application specific integrated circuits," or ASICs, have emerged to mine a handful of cryptocurrencies that were previously only able to be secured by those using GPU hardware.

At stake, however, is the very access and openness of the protocols themselves. >>

It's fine to have a conversation about it, as long as people remember that it's not the simplest of issues (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3286898.msg34555912#msg34555912).  There's no magic bullet that remedies the situation and lots of potential outcomes that could conceivably be far worse than the situation we're currently in.  ASICs are a consequence of supply and demand.  Now we know they're possible, that demand will never go away.  Don't start a "war" unless you're prepared for the inevitable casualties.

I reckon the Monero development team said it best. They would support ASICs only if their production was commoditized. Meaning, if given no choice, they would switch to a mining algorithm where it would be easy to create and produce ASIC chips for it. They want easy access for all manufacturers while trying to avoid a Bitmain centralization type scenario.