bitmain and asicboost/segwit

[vapourminer]

this is probably obvious but i havent seen a clear yes/no answer on this:

if segwit activates on btc (fat chance) will bitmains recent asics stop hashing? if so which models?

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[Paashaas]

Hard to speculate, a lot of money involed in those corrupted ASICS. Jihan's overlord(s) needs to make consessions with a mega loss ore they go bankrupt with PoW change. Good change they will swich to support Segwit with slime on there faces.

I think they will find an excuse to maintain mining, they wont give up there business that fast. However, there reputation is rock bottom completely destroyed by greed 

[vapourminer]

if segwit activates bitmain can suck an egg for all i care but the ordinary miners with bitmain tech would get destroyed.. if say S9s cannot mine segwit blocks im just wondering what all the folks with S9s etc  will do when all their gear turning into doorstops overnight.

they would be forced to support a forked BU based chain i guess. whether they agree with BU or not.

glad im gpu mining alts..

[Yogafan00000]

if segwit activates bitmain can suck an egg for all i care but the ordinary miners with bitmain tech would get destroyed.. if say S9s cannot mine segwit blocks im just wondering what all the folks with S9s etc  will do when all their gear turning into doorstops overnight.

they would be forced to support a forked BU based chain i guess. whether they agree with BU or not.

glad im gpu mining alts..

I think the idea is that Wu has an (unfair?) advantage by only having the secret ASICBOOST hardware on his equipment, so he alone can earn the extra 30% revenue.  He didn't share the boost with his customers.  The stuff they sold retail would not have the advantage.

[franky1]

Yawn

2013 - GPU miner- "some dude is using asics, thats unfair lets bomb them bomb them bomb them"
2014 - GPU miner- "decided to buy an asic, way cheaper than a bomb, happy now"

result
join the party of many pools of a decentralised PEER network using asics by bitmain..not throw a tantrum and refuse to give up your corner of your blockstream TIER network.

PS its not just antpool using bitmain products

[franky1]

just done some quick maths


* stats at time of post

hmm
looks like BTCC and F2pool are the ones making more blocks than their hash %
not the other way round

*for those wishing to question the numbers

[ebliever]

this is probably obvious but i havent seen a clear yes/no answer on this:

if segwit activates on btc (fat chance) will bitmains recent asics stop hashing? if so which models?

My understanding is the ASICs from Bitmain will still work, they just lose their advantage.

My understanding is also that most miners using Bitmain hardware did not know about ASICBoost or have it enabled on their setups, that it was kept secret for the personal benefit of Jihan Wu and his close associates (I'm assuming Ver was on the inside circle). But I'd appreciate correction/corroboration on this point.

[Blockonomics.co]

BITMAIN Equipment won't stop hashing. They have ASICBOOST built into its hardware, but only the units that BITMAIN is operating have the corresponding software for ASICBOOST to work.

This means that all of BITMAIN's farms/mines will lose the 30% advantage. However, they still own massive amounts of hashpower.
Consumer units shouldn't be affected.

[franky1]

BITMAIN Equipment won't stop hashing. They have ASICBOOST built into its hardware, but only the units that BITMAIN is operating have the corresponding software for ASICBOOST to work.

This means that all of BITMAIN's farms/mines will lose the 30% advantage. However, they still own massive amounts of hashpower.
Consumer units shouldn't be affected.

only bitmain has the software? pfft
if you keep pulling your own leg like that... only you will be the one walking with a limp

[achow101]

this is probably obvious but i havent seen a clear yes/no answer on this:

if segwit activates on btc (fat chance) will bitmains recent asics stop hashing? if so which models?

No, they won't stop hashing. Most miners will not be using asicboost right now because it requires software that does the preprocessing for asicboost to be used with the miners and a different firmware on the miners themselves to be able to use asicboost. Furthermore, the stratum protocol is incompatible with ASICBOOST (at least the covert version, which is what is apparently being used) so people who are using antminers are not using asicboost right now, and making asicboost impossible to use would not effect them.

Disabling ASICBOOST by a protocol change would make the miners operated by Bitmain and those who received the special software and firmware from Bitmain would only make asicboost unusable and thus take away their advantage. It is unknown who is actually using asicboost besides the miners operated by Bitmain.

[franky1]

apparently being used

prove it
i do laugh at you and gmaxwell waffle about X but then throw in the "apparently" "could be" "potentially"

anyway

lets see what the maths really tells us

just done some quick maths


* stats at time of post

hmm
looks like BTCC and F2pool are the ones making more blocks than their hash %
not the other way round

*for those wishing to question the numbers

i would have expected antpool to have a block % of something in the 40's while having hash in the 30's if all this gmaxwell PoW propaganda was real
definitely not less than their hash%

oh well gmaxwell debunked.

kind of funny how many times gmaxwells announcement didnt name the pool and how many times gmaxwell uses the word "they could" rather then "they are"

A month ago I was explaining the attack on Bitcoin's SHA2 hashcash which
is exploited by ASICBOOST and the various steps which could be used to
block it in the network if it became a problem.

While most discussion of ASICBOOST has focused on the overt method
of implementing it, there also exists a covert method for using it.

An incompatibility would go a long way to explain some of the
more inexplicable behavior from some parties in the mining
ecosystem so I began looking for supporting evidence.

Reverse engineering of a particular mining chip has demonstrated
conclusively that ASICBOOST has been implemented
in hardware.

Due to a design oversight the Bitcoin proof of work function has a potential
attack which can allow an attacking miner to save up-to 30% of their energy
costs (though closer to 20% is more likely due to implementation overheads).

..
just to let the script writers twist it into "its an attack, bomb them bomb them bomb them"

P.S
gotta laugh that when its an exploit.. he words it as attack on Bitcoin's SHA2 [adambacks] hashcash.
but when its a bug he calls it an bitcoin proof of work oversight....

he is too far deep inside his bosses pocket

[Blockonomics.co]

BITMAIN Equipment won't stop hashing. They have ASICBOOST built into its hardware, but only the units that BITMAIN is operating have the corresponding software for ASICBOOST to work.

This means that all of BITMAIN's farms/mines will lose the 30% advantage. However, they still own massive amounts of hashpower.
Consumer units shouldn't be affected.

only bitmain has the software? pfft
if you keep pulling your own leg like that... only you will be the one walking with a limp

By that I mean BITMAIN and associates. This includes the likes of ViaBTC, and other mostly Chinese organizations/individuals.

[franky1]

By that I mean BITMAIN and associates. This includes the likes of ViaBTC, and other mostly Chinese organizations/individuals.

you might want to reach further over to the blockstreams associates side. EG F2pool and BTCC

oh that reminds me. even f2pool was good enough to have morals to admit something

meanwhile bitcoins segwit 31% block flagging is only temporary due to a hack expect it to drop back down below 30% in the next fortnight

https://twitter.com/f2pool_wangchun/status/848582740798611456

Wang Chun‏ @f2pool_wangchun

Someone hacked major mining operations and their stratum had been changed from antpool, viabtc, btctop to us. Our hashrate doubled instantly

10:07 am - 2 Apr 2017

[jonald_fyookball]

They're not even using it guys...drama's over.  back to talking
about how we can increase the capacity of Bitcoin.

---

Bitmain holds the ASICBOOST patent in China. We can legally use it in our own mining farms in China to profit from it and sell the cloud mining contracts to the public. This, however profitable, is not something we would do for the greater good of Bitcoin.

[achow101]

They're not even using it guys...drama's over.  back to talking
about how we can increase the capacity of Bitcoin.

---

Bitmain holds the ASICBOOST patent in China. We can legally use it in our own mining farms in China to profit from it and sell the cloud mining contracts to the public. This, however profitable, is not something we would do for the greater good of Bitcoin.

Well they say they don't use it, but then why would they implement asicboost in their production hardware and have firmware available to use it if they weren't going to use it?

[franky1]

Well they say they don't use it, but then why would they implement asicboost in their production hardware and have firmware available to use it if they weren't going to use it?

who gives a crap if they use it or not.

the hardware existed before segwit.

much like ATI and Geforce existed before bitcoin
if bitcoin2010-2013 suddenly had an update that caused issues with ATI cards.. where GPU mining was only possible on inefficient Geforce cards, blame the software update. not ATI

people would have laughed if someone made a software update to bitcoin and set the bitcoin software to become active later on but then realised before even being active the software wont work with ATI... but still devs pretend ATI is exploiting/attacking bitcoin.

there would be no logic in that madness

[freebutcaged]

So they were smarter and figured a way to mine better than others? they proved that they did the work or POW isn't proving of work?

[jonald_fyookball]

They're not even using it guys...drama's over.  back to talking
about how we can increase the capacity of Bitcoin.

---

Bitmain holds the ASICBOOST patent in China. We can legally use it in our own mining farms in China to profit from it and sell the cloud mining contracts to the public. This, however profitable, is not something we would do for the greater good of Bitcoin.

Well they say they don't use it, but then why would they implement asicboost in their production hardware and have firmware available to use it if they weren't going to use it?

Dunno.  Maybe did it as a project when they got the patent or  as defensive measure if others started using 

[cpfreeplz]

Holy crap I never even thought of it but ya. That's a huge reason for them never to support segwit!! Is this true though? How would you know if asics would be useless with segwit?

[Viscount]

[franky1]

quoting vays..(facepalm)
the guy that announced he doesnt program and doesnt even hold much bitcoin
try someone better next time


asics have been around longer than segwit, even longer than Luke JR announcing to use the anyonecanspend opcode exploit to go soft...

if segwit runs into a hurdle in feb 2017 you cant blame hardware made in 2015.. the UN-ACTIVATED segwit software thats just been created obviously didnt take hardware efficiencies into account..

(unless asic manufacturers had a time machine to go back to make an exploit before segwit was coded purely to screw with segwit 2 years later)

the truth is that gmaxwell only found a segwit issue last month.. and realised segwit cant function if efficient asics are running. but...
instead of admitting segwit had an issue and the only remedy is a user node consensus update(HF) to not need 2 merkles.. instead he wants to call asics the exploit..(facepalm)

makes me laugh

come on laugh with me
how can a hardware manufacturer make an intentional exploit attack in 2015 for software only released late 2016.

much simpler answer is gmaxwell only found a segwit flaw last month and is now pointing fingers

[-ck]

Holy crap I never even thought of it but ya. That's a huge reason for them never to support segwit!! Is this true though? How would you know if asics would be useless with segwit?

Are you even listening? Current miners will hash exactly the same way they always have. If bitmain are doing something secretive with their special sauce then segwit will block it and make them only usable in the same way the rest of the public is using them.

[vapourminer]

thanks for the explanations, i wasnt sure how asicboost was/is/could be implemented, and if it would suddenly doorstop a bunch of hardware. sounds like bitmain stuff will work either way, just with a 20% boost with proper firmware.

[iamnotback]

just done some quick maths



hmm
looks like BTCC and F2pool are the ones making more blocks than their hash %
not the other way round

Nonsense.

The hashrate measured would include the performance boost of the hashrate via AsicBoost.

There is no way to measure whether covert AsicBoost is being used or not. It is indeed 100% covert.