2018-04-12 Coindesk - The Anti-ASIC Revolt

[TheIrishman]

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

<< 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. >>

[DooMAD]

It's fine to have a conversation about it, as long as people remember that it's not the simplest of issues.  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.

[bbc.reporter]

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.