The AsicBoost 'dilemma'

[alani123]

If you don't know what AsicBoost is, in their own words: AsicBoost is a patent-pending method to lower your total cost per Bitcoin mined by approximately 20%.
The key word here is patent. Such a technology has the potential to dominate mining but patents go against bitcoin's FOSS design. The idea to make AsicBoost's technology impossible to be used on bitcoin has already been brought up and embraced by certain Core developers. The reason I'm calling this a dilemma is because making AsicBoost irrelevant as Peter Todd suggests, would be something inherently illiberal and against free market principles.

What are your thoughts on this?

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[dumbfbrankings]

That Core Dev Central Planner slope sure is a slippery one.

First, centrally planned blocksize production scarcity to incentivize the use of layer 2 and altcoins. Now, doing favors for the chinese mining cartel to protect them from more efficient competition. Then, deleting Satoshi's coins to keep the public "safe"...

[AmDD]

I dont see why this should be blocked anymore than ASICs were. If it works then eventually everyone will use this process and "standard" ASICs would be obsolete. Just like FPGAs, GPUs and CPUs.

[Blacula X]

What are your thoughts on this?

Whatever Core central planners decides is OK by me. Not like any of us have a say in this.

[AgentofCoin]

I dont see why this should be blocked anymore than ASICs were. If it works then eventually everyone will use this process and "standard" ASICs would be obsolete. Just like FPGAs, GPUs and CPUs.

Yes, but currently no one is required by law to pay another party to be able to mine.

If this company is serious, it is more likely that they will grant licensing rights to purchasers.
No one to my knowledge pays license rights to ASIC companies or any other miner manufacturer.
They only pay to buy the product and there is not an additional payment for right to use over time.

If the patent is approved, then the issue becomes, in the future no one can properly
compete unless they pay for that license which grants a right to use this new technology. Only those
who have the money and resources will be able to purchase the product and licensing right.

Of course, the patent owner can release it for free use, after their patent is granted, but this is not likely
and will ultimately lead to a new tech race which will result in even more centralized mining, if not creating
the final few mining companies.

[mkc]

Worst case it is like a tax, if it really works, then every coin mined, they collect a small amount, say .05 coin.
Overall miner save 20%.
This is a win win situation.
I don't think asicboost will closely control patent, running their mining business, not let anybody use it etc. that will be against free market principal.

[AmDD]

I dont see why this should be blocked anymore than ASICs were. If it works then eventually everyone will use this process and "standard" ASICs would be obsolete. Just like FPGAs, GPUs and CPUs.

Yes, but currently no one is required by law to pay another party to be able to mine.
No one to my knowledge pays patent rights to ASIC companies or any other miner manufacturer.
They only pay to buy the product and there is not an additional payment for right to use over time.

If the patent is approved, then the issue becomes, in the future no one can properly
compete unless they pay for a right to use this superior technology (this is speculative).
Only those who have the money and resources will be able to purchase it. Of course, the company
can release it for free use, after their patent, but this is not likely and will ultimately lead to a new
tech race which will result in even more centralized mining, if not bringing creating the final few.

Good point. I guess I was focused more on the tech than the idea of a patent.

[AgentofCoin]

I dont see why this should be blocked anymore than ASICs were. If it works then eventually everyone will use this process and "standard" ASICs would be obsolete. Just like FPGAs, GPUs and CPUs.

...

Good point. I guess I was focused more on the tech than the idea of a patent.

Yeah, I think that is the real issue why people are questioning whether to restrict this or not.
(BTW this is the first I have heard of this new tech, so I don't know if OP story is real, but assume so.)

I don't know what the correct answer or course of action would be, but I believe that mining should
stay competitive between many different groups as long as possible. Something like this could wipe
out the ability to properly protect the network, placing it totally into the hands of the few.

This new tech can be compared to when man split the atom. It can lead to innovation, but also devastation.
For the sake of the network and the future, I think (uninformed opinion) it should be a restricted use.

[Blacula X]

(BTW this is the first I have heard of this new tech, so I don't know if OP story is real, but assume so.)

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-May/012652.html

[dooglus]

The reason I'm calling this a dilemma is because making AsicBoost irrelevant as Peter Todd suggests, would be something inherently illiberal and against free market principles.

What are your thoughts on this?

Patents themselves (using government to give one party a monopoly at the expense of all other parties) are against free market principles.

[dooglus]

Worst case it is like a tax, if it really works, then every coin mined, they collect a small amount, say .05 coin.
Overall miner save 20%.
This is a win win situation.

No, that's wrong. If ever miner licensed the optimization and so was able to mine 25% cheaper, all that would happen is that the difficulty rises 25%. Everyone ends up mining the same number of coins, and the patent troll collects his 5% tax from every miner.

That's not "win win" at all. It's "win lose lose lose lose", where all the miners lose and only the patent troll wins.

I don't think asicboost will closely control patent, running their mining business, not let anybody use it etc. that will be against free market principal.

Why wouldn't they? Given the change between collecting 5% of every coin that is mined and not collecting 5% of every coin that is mined, which would you pick?

Bitcoin is meant to be permissionless. Allowing a single entity to patent part of the mining process such that we have to ask their permission to continue mining efficiently is not acceptable. It's not even as if there is any novelty in the patented scheme. The "new" idea is basically "avoid unnecessarily duplicating work".

[Blacula X]

The reason I'm calling this a dilemma is because making AsicBoost irrelevant as Peter Todd suggests, would be something inherently illiberal and against free market principles.

What are your thoughts on this?

Patents themselves (using government to give one party a monopoly at the expense of all other parties) are against free market principles.

Which basically means free market died around 1474
BTW, you having a cow gives you "a monopoly [on that cow] at the expense of all other parties," which is "against free market principles."

[Blacula X]

No, that's wrong. If ever miner licensed the optimization and so was able to mine 25% cheaper, all that would happen is that the difficulty rises 25%. Everyone ends up mining the same number of coins, and the patent troll collects his 5% tax from every miner.

And this is different from bying more efficient ASIC hardware ...how?
BTW, you don't understand what a patent troll is. For starters, it is not the actual author of a work/inventor.

[dooglus]

Patents themselves (using government to give one party a monopoly at the expense of all other parties) are against free market principles.

Which basically means free market died around 1474

We don't have a free market. I assumed that much was clear.

BTW, you having a cow gives you "a monopoly [on that cow] at the expense of all other parties," which is "against free market principles."

If you were able to patent cows in general, or "milking" as a process such that everyone else had to license "your" technology from you to be allowed to own and milk a cow then you would have a point.

[dooglus]

No, that's wrong. If ever miner licensed the optimization and so was able to mine 25% cheaper, all that would happen is that the difficulty rises 25%. Everyone ends up mining the same number of coins, and the patent troll collects his 5% tax from every miner.

And this is different from bying more efficient ASIC hardware ...how?

This is different than buying more efficient hardware because I am free to buy the hardware from any vendor I like, or create my own. There's no law telling me that if I want to use the more efficient mining algorithm I need to gain permission from a particular person.

BTW, you don't understand what a patent troll is. For starters, it is not the actual author of a work/inventor.

"a patent troll is a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art"

In this case the idea being patented is the that of not repeating the same calculation multiple times. It's hardly a novel idea. Requiring a licence before allowing people to omit repeating the same calculation multiple times isn't right.

[Blacula X]

No, that's wrong. If ever miner licensed the optimization and so was able to mine 25% cheaper, all that would happen is that the difficulty rises 25%. Everyone ends up mining the same number of coins, and the patent troll collects his 5% tax from every miner.

And this is different from bying more efficient ASIC hardware ...how?

This is different than buying more efficient hardware because I am free to buy the hardware from any vendor I like, or create my own. There's no law telling me that if I want to use the more efficient mining algorithm I need to gain permission from a particular person.

Do you also feel entitled to reverse-engineer, slavishly copy, and sell the jet engine which cost me millions to design?
Should I let you copy my GDSII files without paying me? Because I wouldn't want to impinge on your natural rights to just snag whatever you want.

No one is stopping you from mining, making ASICS, optimizing your shit to make it faster/more efficient. You just can't use AsicBoost's work. Not without paying for it. Because it's not yours.

BTW, you don't understand what a patent troll is. For starters, it is not the actual author of a work/inventor.

"a patent troll is a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art"

In this case the idea being patented is the that of not repeating the same calculation multiple times. It's hardly a novel idea. Requiring a licence before allowing people to omit repeating the same calculation multiple times isn't right.

If the idea is unoriginal, begging, and self-evident, how is it that none of the ASIC manufacturers hit upon it in all these years? Is it because "repeating the same calculation multiple times" is appropriately Goldbergian for Bitcoin? So they decided to lose some money & just keep doing it all these years for the heck of it, as a whimsical baroque flourish?
Anyhow, i'm certain there are hundreds of other [equally] self-evident things you could omit, without paying a cent to anyone. Do that

[Enotche]

The speed increase of 20% sounds innovative.
But patenting of mining, sounds like a strange way. Patents is part of the state, or government law. Yes, the state eyeing Bitcoin, but not all states is so loyal to Bitcoins. In my opinion, a patent on it is superfluous.

[LiteCoinGuy]

what will happen if this is only the first of many patents? will we change code everytime that happens in the future?

[spazzdla]

No more hashs = more secure.

[alani123]

what will happen if this is only the first of many patents? will we change code everytime that happens in the future?

You know, that's a good question. And in AsicBoost's case, we don't even know how they're planning to market their technology but I'm sure that harming bitcoin would be against their interest. The HK agreement that Todd cites was a roundtable that several people from bitcoin ASIC manufacturing companies (Bitmain, BitFury, Spondoolies-Tech) and pools (GHash.IO, F2Pool, BW, BTCC) attended. I'm sure that those people wouldn't want patented technologies competing with them but this isn't really in the best interest of the bitcoin user. There's a lot of money at stake but forking bitcoin specifically to make a technology irrelevant mostly helps big miners.