Bitmain claims another crack against PoW: This time Equihash

[aliashraf]

Just received this e-mail from Bitmain:

Dear subscriber,

We are proud and happy to announce the all-new Antminer Z9 mini, a new Antminer model for mining cryptocurrencies based on the hashing algorithm Equihash.

To prevent hoarding by some users or resellers and to ensure that more individuals are able to order this new ASIC miner
{blah, blah, blah}

Their site
promises 30 ksol/s with a 300 W power draw. Unlike Bitmain'es E3 (that has nothing to do with efficiency), it is typically an ASIC, 25 times or so more efficient than a 1070.

It is really sad, they are getting more aggressive on a daily basis. Now people who say ASIC is not that bad, and has told this ever and ever, should come and see their propaganda's outcome: A giant chinese company has become so bloated that can do whatever it wishes to do against the community under the umbrella of their nonsense arguments like 'ASIC has pros and cons', 'ASIC is inevitable', ...

Monero has slashed back, I'm sure that Ethereum miners won't stay silent and a hard fork is going to take place (no matter what Buterin and his org does) I'm not familiar with zcash community but I'm sure they will react properly. For now, I'm not here to discuss how hard should be the slasher approach against Bitmain.

I want just to take a look at the whole picture from both technical and economical perspectives and even the historical point of view.

I want the people (payed by Bitmain or not) who provided weak arguments about ASIC attack against bitcoin and convinced the community to do nothing about it (other than paying $$ to buy the product from the same company that is competing with them in an obvious conflict of interest), to reconsider their strategy once forever in a regretful manner and commit to a practical agenda to stop this company from ruining everything,

[mattcode]

I wonder when Bitmain actually started to produce this ASIC. It seems like they'd kept their Monero ASIC to themselves for quite some time, and then only announced and started to sell to customers once a PoW change had been announced.

A giant chinese company has become so bloated that can do whatever it wishes to do against the community under the umbrella of their nonsense arguments like 'ASIC has pros and cons', 'ASIC is inevitable', ...

It's hard to hate Bitmain just for producing ASICs. If they didn't make them, somebody else would.

[cellard]

This is what you get when you ask for free market. What did you expect? It was clear it would end up with someone having a monopoly. We need someone else to step up and start competing against Bitmain to balance things out. Halong Mining is a good start, but we need more.

What do you propose? do you want to be a statist that gets to say "enough is enough" and single handedly stop a company? We all know Jihad Wu isn't a friend of Bitcoin, but doing that would turn Bitcoin into an scam such as Ethereum where an statist (Vitalik) get's to say how things go.

We need to stop Bitmain's monopoly but we need to do it right. Hard forking into another PoW will just create another altcoin.

[aliashraf]

This is what you get when you ask for free market. What did you expect? It was clear it would end up with someone having a monopoly. We need someone else to step up and start competing against Bitmain to balance things out. Halong Mining is a good start, but we need more.

What do you propose? do you want to be a statist that gets to say "enough is enough" and single handedly stop a company? We all know Jihad Wu isn't a friend of Bitcoin, but doing that would turn Bitcoin into an scam such as Ethereum where an statist (Vitalik) get's to say how things go.

We need to stop Bitmain's monopoly but we need to do it right. Hard forking into another PoW will just create another altcoin.

You overlook potentials and opportunities (deliberately?) while you got no solution.

There will be no competition ever. Crypto worth half a trillion dollars, right now and it is surging. Nobody can disrupt Bitmain monopoly by inventing a magical ASIC, times cheaper and more efficient than Bitmain's to resist the devil's dumping strategies. it is no more a trivial game, neither a hobby, it is a damned billion dollars business, ways complicated than even a high stake poker.

Bitmain has accumulated enough resources to play dirtiest tricks ever to neutralize any attempt against its monopoly. Isn't it clear? Any competitor will be fade out by means of a simple dumping strategy, backed by billions of dollars that Bitmain has gathered from our packets in recent years.
 
See? you got no solution, deal with it.  

As of your anti-statism sentiments,I just don't get it: How campaigning against Bitmain and ASIC attack on crypto should be considered kinda statism?
Anyway, I hate Buterinism and spiritual centralization of any type or category personally, and it doesn't stop me from activism and dialogue.
By the way, Ethereum is not scam, it is opensource and can be forked (and will be forked) when it has to be.

And lastly, Bitcoin Gold (failed) way of doing ASIC resistant hard fork is not the only option. Lot of smart solutions exist and I have proposed one of them here

[cellard]

This is what you get when you ask for free market. What did you expect? It was clear it would end up with someone having a monopoly. We need someone else to step up and start competing against Bitmain to balance things out. Halong Mining is a good start, but we need more.

What do you propose? do you want to be a statist that gets to say "enough is enough" and single handedly stop a company? We all know Jihad Wu isn't a friend of Bitcoin, but doing that would turn Bitcoin into an scam such as Ethereum where an statist (Vitalik) get's to say how things go.

We need to stop Bitmain's monopoly but we need to do it right. Hard forking into another PoW will just create another altcoin.

You overlook potentials and opportunities (deliberately?) while you got no solution.

There will be no competition ever. Crypto worth half a trillion dollars, right now and it is surging. Nobody can disrupt Bitmain monopoly by inventing a magical ASIC, times cheaper and more efficient than Bitmain's to resist the devil's dumping strategies. it is no more a trivial game, neither a hobby, it is a damned billion dollars business, ways complicated than even a high stake poker.

Bitmain has accumulated enough resources to play dirtiest tricks ever to neutralize any attempt against its monopoly. Isn't it clear? Any competitor will be fade out by means of a simple dumping strategy, backed by billions of dollars that Bitmain has gathered from our packets in recent years.
 
See? you got no solution, deal with it.  

As of your anti-statism sentiments,I just don't get it: How campaigning against Bitmain and ASIC attack on crypto should be considered kinda statism?
Anyway, I hate Buterinism and spiritual centralization of any type or category personally, and it doesn't stop me from activism and dialogue.
By the way, Ethereum is not scam, it is opensource and can be forked (and will be forked) when it has to be.

And lastly, Bitcoin Gold (failed) way of doing ASIC resistant hard fork is not the only option. Lot of smart solutions exist and I have proposed one of them here

I never claimed to have a solution, I just said campaigning to get a hardfork going is delusional and you are just wasting your time about it.

PoW change is not going to happen unless some disaster happens that unilaterally gets everyone on the same boat (and still, we would have some drama agreein upon what algo to use). In any other case, you are going to end up with Bitcoin and Bitcoin-NewPoW (an altcoin).

Ethereum is a scam, an ICO with terrible monetary supply, with a guy (Vitalik) that has an insane amount of influence on the project.

Bitcoin Gold is an alt, the problem is like I said before, you end up with an alt and the legacy Bitcoin will live on.

Giants like Samsung and nVidia have enough resources to fund competition against Bitmain, they just don't care.

[aliashraf]

I never claimed to have a solution, {...}
...
Giants like Samsung and nVidia have enough resources to fund competition against Bitmain, they just don't care.

What's this? kinda hypocrisy?

You believe in Samsung and Nvidia as our saviors and you have not the courage to admit it as your solution?

By the way, without a solution, isn't it better to just follow the lead instead of arguing? Just choose and follow ...

The thing with this idea, bringing more 'giants' to the scene, is its irrelevance: Crypto is not about competition (between 2-3 giants) it is about cooperation and consensus between people.

{...}  I just said campaigning to get a hardfork going is delusional and you are just wasting your time about it.

PoW change is not going to happen unless some disaster happens that unilaterally gets everyone on the same boat (and still, we would have some drama agreein upon what algo to use). In any other case, you are going to end up with Bitcoin and Bitcoin-NewPoW (an altcoin).

For bitcoin we are on the edge of the disaster. I agree, more incentives are to be materialized for an ultimate action to take place but it is not that simple:

For bitcoin community, at least the elite section, it is very crucial to track every single Bitmain's move and get ready. As I've mentioned in my opening post, latest events including (but not limited to) the release of the recent Bitmain attacks on a series of PoW algorithms, should have an awakening impact.

I think it is time to put an end on the nonsense and face the truth. You are just keeping in the failed line. Not recommended!

We should get ready, don't you see it? We should be prepared for the doom day, instead of repeating Bitmain's propaganda about inevitability of ASICs (false!) or its positive impact on securing the network (false!) or impossibility of reaching a consensus for a hard fork(false!), or ... We should decently and deeply show or regret for our ignorance and passivism and get ready for action.

Ethereum is a scam, an ICO with terrible monetary supply, with a guy (Vitalik) that has an insane amount of influence on the project.

Bitcoin Gold is an alt, the problem is like I said before, you end up with an alt and the legacy Bitcoin will live on.

Giants like Samsung and nVidia have enough resources to fund competition against Bitmain, they just don't care.

Told you, being under the spiritual control of one person, is not good for Ethereum but it doesn't imply anything about it being a scam. Please remain focused on the subject or if you think it is a scam, go to the announcement board and start a topic about it.

[DooMAD]

The cynic in me thinks you might be posting this before anyone could use it as an argument against you.  

It is really sad, they are getting more aggressive on a daily basis. Now people who say ASIC is not that bad, and has told this ever and ever, should come and see their propaganda's outcome: A giant chinese company has become so bloated that can do whatever it wishes to do against the community under the umbrella of their nonsense arguments like 'ASIC has pros and cons', 'ASIC is inevitable', ...

Are you sure you aren't conflating symptom and cause here?  Pointing out the obvious (or "nonsense arguments" as you insist on calling it) isn't what made this happen.  

If a company has enough time and resources to spare, it's not beyond the realm of possibility they can manufacture an ASIC for a chosen algorithm.  It's the fact that they have the time and the resources that makes it possible.  People in the community merely commenting that it's possible doesn't magically make it so.  None of the arguments being made are to blame for what has occurred here with Equihash.  

You overlook potentials and opportunities (deliberately?) while you got no solution.

There will be no competition ever. Crypto worth half a trillion dollars, right now and it is surging. Nobody can disrupt Bitmain monopoly by inventing a magical ASIC, times cheaper and more efficient than Bitmain's to resist the devil's dumping strategies. it is no more a trivial game, neither a hobby, it is a damned billion dollars business, ways complicated than even a high stake poker.

Again, saying it doesn't make it so.  Other manufacturers are developing hardware.  Don't waste their time and resources by moving the goalposts and sending them back to the drawing board for no good reason.  It would likely hurt the other manufacturers far more than it would Bitmain, since none of the others have the sheer magnitude of resources to fall back on.  Inaction is sometimes the best course of action.  

[aliashraf]

The cynic in me thinks you might be posting this before anyone could use it as an argument against you.  

It is really sad, they are getting more aggressive on a daily basis. Now people who say ASIC is not that bad, and has told this ever and ever, should come and see their propaganda's outcome: A giant chinese company has become so bloated that can do whatever it wishes to do against the community under the umbrella of their nonsense arguments like 'ASIC has pros and cons', 'ASIC is inevitable', ...

Are you sure you aren't conflating symptom and cause here?  Pointing out the obvious (or "nonsense arguments" as you insist on calling it) isn't what made this happen.  

Doomad, Doomad, dude. It was the cause, our 'inaction', as you call it, created Bitmain. Just think about it. Once a cracker manages to break a code, we should improve it to seal the breach and discourage more attacks. Now it is getting exponentially worse and we should have conscience to regret and courage to admit our faults here, instead of covering our mess with pointless and weak excuses.

If a company has enough time and resources to spare, it's not beyond the realm of possibility they can manufacture an ASIC for a chosen algorithm.  It's the fact that they have the time and the resources that makes it possible.  People in the community merely commenting that it's possible doesn't magically make it so.  

thumbs down, Doomad, thumbs down.  We have not a theorem like 'Any chosen algorithm is vulnerable to ASIC.' , even in its unproven form. Actually the opposite is true and such a claim is strongly against basic computing theory terminology and definitions.

As I have argued in my other thread about Ethash, induction is not reasoning, at least in its weak non-mathematical form and you can't even say the sun rises tomorrow because we are used to experiment such an event every morning. The sun rises because of physical laws involved not our naive observations of events that happen.

An algorithm, that is supposed to be ASIC resistant,  can be broken because of its flaws and nothing else. We have to fix the flaws instead of becoming deeply disappointed and giving up.

None of the arguments being made are to blame for what has occurred here with Equihash.  

Yes they have to be blamed. Bitmain grew to an evil force by taking advantage of the opportunity that was a direct result of such arguments.

There will be no competition ever. Crypto worth half a trillion dollars, right now and it is surging. Nobody can disrupt Bitmain monopoly by inventing a magical ASIC, times cheaper and more efficient than Bitmain's to resist the devil's dumping strategies. it is no more a trivial game, neither a hobby, it is a damned billion dollars business, ways complicated than even a high stake poker.

Again, saying it doesn't make it so.  Other manufacturers are developing hardware.  Don't waste their time and resources by moving the goalposts and sending them back to the drawing board for no good reason.  It would likely hurt the other manufacturers far more than it would Bitmain, since none of the others have the sheer magnitude of resources to fall back on.  Inaction is sometimes the best course of action.  

Interesting! When it comes to you guys and your  magical 'competition' which is going to occure, you forget about induction and become so optimistic, how is it justifiable?

Instead, I didn't inducted from the fact that there is no competition, I tried to show it won't happen, not because it has not happened yet but because it isn't feasible, Bitmain won't allow such thing to happen ever, the hype about 'other' chinese companies who try to compete is just ridiculous, it is just a trick orchestrated by Bitmain to hide its own monopoly in a field that is supposed to be 'decentralized', what a mess!

[DooMAD]

It was the cause, our 'inaction', as you call it, created Bitmain. Just think about it. Once a cracker manages to break a code, we should improve it to seal the breach and discourage more attacks. Now it is getting exponentially worse and we should have conscience to regret and courage to admit our faults here, instead of covering our mess with pointless and weak excuses.

What created Bitmain is that numerous earlier hardware suppliers failed dismally.  They were either marred by criminal activity, like BFL, HashFast and GAW, or filed for bankruptcy like KnC.  The collapse of those entities left the goal wide open for someone to score an easy victory.  All Bitmain had to do was simply not fuck up to win by default.  But okay, whatever, keep blaming sane people for not wanting to hardfork every time someone makes an ASIC.

An algorithm, that is supposed to be ASIC resistant,  can be broken because of its flaws and nothing else. We have to fix the flaws instead of becoming deeply disappointed and giving up.

You say "fix the flaws" like it's easy.  A reasonable argument is that it will take a similar amount of time and resources to create this supposedly flawless ASIC-resistant algo as it will to break it.  Who's giving up the time and resources to make this happen?  You?  I've yet to see anything resembling a rally cry from the rest of the community to say they're with you on this.  Tell me you've got as much money as Bitmain have to throw at the problem and I might consider taking you seriously.  Where's this super-algo coming from?  

Interesting! When it comes to you guys and your  magical 'competition' which is going to occure, you forget about induction and become so optimistic, how is it justifiable?

Instead, I didn't inducted from the fact that there is no competition, I tried to show it won't happen, not because it has not happened yet but because it isn't feasible, Bitmain won't allow such thing to happen ever, the hype about 'other' chinese companies who try to compete is just ridiculous, it is just a trick orchestrated by Bitmain to hide its own monopoly in a field that is supposed to be 'decentralized', what a mess!

How, exactly, are Bitmain going to disallow other manufacturers to compete?  Competition is infinitely more likely than an ASIC-proof algo that only exists in your fevered imagination.  If those other companies I mentioned earlier hadn't been either corrupt or lacking in business skills, they might well be selling ASICs right now.  But honestly, go use BTG if you care that much.  Just note that the decidedly underwhelming popularity of BTG should give you some idea of how little anyone is prepared to take any action over this.

[aliashraf]

It was the cause, our 'inaction', as you call it, created Bitmain. Just think about it. Once a cracker manages to break a code, we should improve it to seal the breach and discourage more attacks. Now it is getting exponentially worse and we should have conscience to regret and courage to admit our faults here, instead of covering our mess with pointless and weak excuses.

What created Bitmain is that numerous earlier hardware suppliers failed dismally.  They were either marred by criminal activity, like BFL, HashFast and GAW, or filed for bankruptcy like KnC.  The collapse of those entities left the goal wide open for someone to score an easy victory.  All Bitmain had to do was simply not fuck up to win by default.  But okay, whatever, keep blaming sane people for not wanting to hardfork every time someone makes an ASIC.

Absolutely not. It is not that uncommon to have fraud or failed businesses, bitcoin was not meant to be a territory conquered by a winner or a conqueror. I'm not a communist (not any more ) but you speak too capitalistic, bitcoin does not belong to such a discourse, it is about fair distribution of power in monetary system.

You are implying that Jihan Wu has won the competition by his virtue, it is not 19th century dude, people should use their virtue for more creative jobs other than 'conquering' a decentralized ecosystem and ruining it!

An algorithm, that is supposed to be ASIC resistant,  can be broken because of its flaws and nothing else. We have to fix the flaws instead of becoming deeply disappointed and giving up.

You say "fix the flaws" like it's easy.  A reasonable argument is that it will take a similar amount of time and resources to create this supposedly flawless ASIC-resistant algo as it will to break it.  Who's giving up the time and resources to make this happen?  You?  I've yet to see anything resembling a rally cry from the rest of the community to say they're with you on this.  Tell me you've got as much money as Bitmain have to throw at the problem and I might consider taking you seriously.  Where's this super-algo coming from?  

Are you kidding? Devising an algo to be practically ASIC proof is that hard?! It is not!

I am a programmer, on my own, and I have already designed a memory hard version of Ethash, infeasible to ASIC or any specialized hardware attack  which I will publish when I find it an appropriate action.

Satoshi nakamoto was an ordinary programmer, too, he designed a whole technology, on his own.

Interesting! When it comes to you guys and your  magical 'competition' which is going to occure, you forget about induction and become so optimistic, how is it justifiable?

Instead, I didn't inducted from the fact that there is no competition, I tried to show it won't happen, not because it has not happened yet but because it isn't feasible, Bitmain won't allow such thing to happen ever, the hype about 'other' chinese companies who try to compete is just ridiculous, it is just a trick orchestrated by Bitmain to hide its own monopoly in a field that is supposed to be 'decentralized', what a mess!

How, exactly, are Bitmain going to disallow other manufacturers to compete?  Competition is infinitely more likely than an ASIC-proof algo that only exists in your fevered imagination.  If those other companies I mentioned earlier hadn't been either corrupt or lacking in business skills, they might well be selling ASICs right now.  

Have you heard about dumping? Bitmain simply dumps and continues dumping for a long period, believe me they can go for years, selling their products half the price of hypothetical competitors.

But honestly, go use BTG if you care that much.  Just note that the decidedly underwhelming popularity of BTG should give you some idea of how little anyone is prepared to take any action over this.

I've proposed an alternative approach to ASIC resistant fork in bitcoin other than BTG.

But I appreciate BTG guys' work and I've mined for a while and bought some BTG, they came in good fate and played fair but did their job without enough preparation and support, it was just an experiment, imo, we will use it to do our job better.

[DooMAD]

bitcoin was not meant to be a territory conquered by a winner or a conqueror. I'm not a communist (not any more ) but you speak too capitalistic, bitcoin does not belong to such a discourse

I don't think anyone is suggesting it was "meant" to be that way, but there's no denying that's what happened.  

You are implying that Jihan Wu has won the competition by his virtue

"Virtue" is almost certainly not the word I'd go for.  I'm just pointing out that the other companies set the bar pretty low.

Are you kidding? Devising an algo to be practically ASIC proof is that hard?! It is not!

I am a programmer, on my own, and I have already designed a memory hard version of Ethash, infeasible to ASIC or any specialized hardware attack  which I will publish when I find it an appropriate action.

As a loose analogy:
It's not hard to design a maze.  However, it's incredibly hard to design a maze which no one can solve, given sufficient persistence.  

Whatever effort you're willing to expend in creating this algorithm, they're willing to put in an equal or greater amount of effort to beat it, should it be implemented, prove popular enough to compete with their chain and threaten their revenue (and those are all very big "if"s).  It's reasonable to assume they can afford to employ a dozen or more people to work full time on cracking it.  I'm assuming you can't match that.

How, exactly, are Bitmain going to disallow other manufacturers to compete?

Have you heard about dumping? Bitmain simply dumps and continues dumping for a long period, believe me they can go for years, selling their products half the price of hypothetical competitors.

That doesn't prevent other companies from competing.  Halong are doing that right now.  Consider the likelihood that Halong are yet to see ROI for their efforts.  If you were to change the algorithm now, it's going to hurt their chances of competing in future far more than it will Bitmain.  

Altcoins are a different matter.  Bitmain clearly won't have reached ROI on this brand new Equihash ASIC.  So now is indeed a good time for Equihash coins to fork, in order to burn that investment, without hurting any of the other companies who don't have an Equihash ASIC yet.  It's also far easier to reach consensus for a fork on those other chains.  

Maybe you are right to say that a fork ideally should have happened the moment someone "cracked" SHA-256, but closing the stable door after the horse has bolted isn't going to fix it.  

One could also argue that bricking hardware is more analogous to shooting all the horses and seeing who can buy a new one first.   

[Aura]

Have you heard about dumping? Bitmain simply dumps and continues dumping for a long period, believe me they can go for years, selling their products half the price of hypothetical competitors.

Good example is it's new Antminer V9, which are just refurbished S7 miners (under clocked).

[aliashraf]

bitcoin was not meant to be a territory conquered by a winner or a conqueror. I'm not a communist (not any more ) but you speak too capitalistic, bitcoin does not belong to such a discourse

I don't think anyone is suggesting it was "meant" to be that way, but there's no denying that's what happened.  

In my discipline, we have to fix it. What is your agenda?

Are you kidding? Devising an algo to be practically ASIC proof is that hard?! It is not!

I am a programmer, on my own, and I have already designed a memory hard version of Ethash, infeasible to ASIC or any specialized hardware attack  which I will publish when I find it an appropriate action.

As a loose analogy:
It's not hard to design a maze.  However, it's incredibly hard to design a maze which no one can solve, given sufficient persistence.  

Definitively a loose analogy. And analogy is yet another weak form of reasoning.

Whatever effort you're willing to expend in creating this algorithm, they're willing to put in an equal or greater amount of effort to beat it ...

Not comparable. I win, because I consume very little resources, and can make them to spend millions times more and wait ... I'll switch to a harder version whenever they become close and more I'll threaten them, officially to do so and de-incentivize funding such cracking projects from first beginning.
See?  It is not capitalism, it is not all about the money, it is about an awesome combination of talent, vision and commitment, it is bitcoin, the real bitcoin.

One could also argue that bricking hardware is more analogous to shooting all the horses and seeing who can buy a new one first.    

Dude, you are obviously loosing this debate, you started with induction which is a weak reasoning instrument and now you are employing the worst one ever, analogy. Take care  

[DooMAD]

another weak form of reasoning.

induction which is a weak reasoning instrument

You keep saying these things, by my arguments are presented based on observable truths.  More than one algorithm that claimed to be ASIC-resistant now has an ASIC on the market.  "ASIC-delaying" would be a more accurate description.  Call it inductive reasoning if you like, I call it precedent.  Reasoning based on facts.

Your argument, conversely, appears to stem from the rather fanciful notion that you can do better.  Sorry to be blunt, but there's little evidence to support that claim.  From a purely academic perspective, you're welcome to try.  But it's largely moot because you are unlikely to find adequate support for a fork.  As such, however well-reasoned you believe your arguments to be, they could be described as nothing more than wishful thinking, fighting against the tide of an uncompromising reality. 

Not to mention those other issues we previously discussed that make this whole idea tremendously complex.  If fixing it were really that simple, I don't doubt we would have done it already.

In my discipline, we have to fix it. What is your agenda?

To ensure you understand the magnitude of the goal you've set yourself, that you're considering alternative options, along with all of the foreseeable consequences, before you expend too much effort barking up the wrong tree.

I don't question your motives.  Merely the poor timing, overall impracticality and likely negative repercussions of such a radical change.

[cellard]

I never claimed to have a solution, {...}
...
Giants like Samsung and nVidia have enough resources to fund competition against Bitmain, they just don't care.

What's this? kinda hypocrisy?

You believe in Samsung and Nvidia as our saviors and you have not the courage to admit it as your solution?

By the way, without a solution, isn't it better to just follow the lead instead of arguing? Just choose and follow ...

The thing with this idea, bringing more 'giants' to the scene, is its irrelevance: Crypto is not about competition (between 2-3 giants) it is about cooperation and consensus between people.

{...}  I just said campaigning to get a hardfork going is delusional and you are just wasting your time about it.

PoW change is not going to happen unless some disaster happens that unilaterally gets everyone on the same boat (and still, we would have some drama agreein upon what algo to use). In any other case, you are going to end up with Bitcoin and Bitcoin-NewPoW (an altcoin).

For bitcoin we are on the edge of the disaster. I agree, more incentives are to be materialized for an ultimate action to take place but it is not that simple:

For bitcoin community, at least the elite section, it is very crucial to track every single Bitmain's move and get ready. As I've mentioned in my opening post, latest events including (but not limited to) the release of the recent Bitmain attacks on a series of PoW algorithms, should have an awakening impact.

I think it is time to put an end on the nonsense and face the truth. You are just keeping in the failed line. Not recommended!

We should get ready, don't you see it? We should be prepared for the doom day, instead of repeating Bitmain's propaganda about inevitability of ASICs (false!) or its positive impact on securing the network (false!) or impossibility of reaching a consensus for a hard fork(false!), or ... We should decently and deeply show or regret for our ignorance and passivism and get ready for action.

Ethereum is a scam, an ICO with terrible monetary supply, with a guy (Vitalik) that has an insane amount of influence on the project.

Bitcoin Gold is an alt, the problem is like I said before, you end up with an alt and the legacy Bitcoin will live on.

Giants like Samsung and nVidia have enough resources to fund competition against Bitmain, they just don't care.

Told you, being under the spiritual control of one person, is not good for Ethereum but it doesn't imply anything about it being a scam. Please remain focused on the subject or if you think it is a scam, go to the announcement board and start a topic about it.

No, im not saying it's a solution, im saying it would help. Having 2-3 giants fighting for the lead is better than 1 giant chilling in the sun. Miners still can't do anything they please without consequences, even if we have a Bitmain monopoly, but still, we need more competition.

Hoping for more competition is more realistic than hoping that a political movement for a PoW change will work and isn't effectively a waste of time.

I also haven't said we shouldn't be ready for a potential disaster. We should be ready for that and have a plan and try to reach a consensus on what to do may that time of disaster arrive.

My point is, if there is no time of disaster, then it will never change, there will be no PoW change. Only a global disaster that threatens everyone in Bitcoin objectively could lead to a proper change without giving birth to an altcoin, as a result.

Ethereum is a scam because is not decentralized. Proof of Vitalik, it's an ICO were 80% of devs control the supply, bailed out the DAO... fuck up after fuck up.

[aliashraf]

another weak form of reasoning.

induction which is a weak reasoning instrument

You keep saying these things, by my arguments are presented based on observable truths.  More than one algorithm that claimed to be ASIC-resistant now has an ASIC on the market.  "ASIC-delaying" would be a more accurate description.  Call it inductive reasoning if you like, I call it precedent.  Reasoning based on facts.

Rather, based on a limited set of selected facts without any analysis and with direct, naive induction. I think we both have made our points clear. We are from very different worlds: Mine is just beginning and yours is ended to a boring fragile state, imo.

Your argument, conversely, appears to stem from the rather fanciful notion that you can do better.  Sorry to be blunt, but there's little evidence to support that claim.  

Somebody should take the responsibility and it is not kinda narcissism or a bloated ego, it is not a race between genius or talented people to become the one, it is a responsibility and a duty, a discipline.

In my discipline, we have to fix it. What is your agenda?

To ensure you understand the magnitude of the goal you've set yourself, that you're considering alternative options, along with all of the foreseeable consequences, before you expend too much effort barking up the wrong tree.

So, your agenda is to discourage change, at least radical change, kinda conservatism. The thing with conservatists is, they are so boring