[LTC] Changing the litecoin Proof of Work function to avoid ASIC mining?

[Amph]

yes, fuck asic

[FrankieSaysRelax]

Yes. In order to keep the currency decentralized, the distribution of hashing power must be divided among the largest possible amount of people. We're gonna see LTC go the the BTC route and in a few years, the whole network will be in the hands of a few wealthy miners.

Perhaps if this occurs, something such as an Equalcoin can occur that truly focuses on the highest possible degree of decentralization. All of the arguments that LTC needs ASICs to be more secure are bologna. What you really need for these coins is public acceptance and excluding more and more folks and creating larger barriers to entry is going to put the power in the hands of a few <-- a dangerous precedent that BTC seems to be going down.

[Sophokles]

Yes. And time is running out. One guy on the middlecoin pool already has 800MHash/sec ASICs online, and stated that he will up it to 4000MHash soon. That is several percent of the whole LTC network. Action is required now, before the voting power of the GPU miners is lost!

[zoro]

it would be good every one or two years the PoW to change a bit

[Iter]

The whole purpose of Litecoin was to make it ASIC resistant, so I vote yes.

[User705]

Yes. And time is running out. One guy on the middlecoin pool already has 800MHash/sec ASICs online, and stated that he will up it to 4000MHash soon. That is several percent of the whole LTC network. Action is required now, before the voting power of the GPU miners is lost!

Is there a way to verify this?  Aren't all these ASIC companies just starting to take preorders?

[RenegadeMind]

No. More hashing power makes it more resilient against a 51% attack. And changing it midstream isn't a great idea if it isn't absolutely required.

[Sophokles]

Yes. And time is running out. One guy on the middlecoin pool already has 800MHash/sec ASICs online, and stated that he will up it to 4000MHash soon. That is several percent of the whole LTC network. Action is required now, before the voting power of the GPU miners is lost!

Is there a way to verify this?  Aren't all these ASIC companies just starting to take preorders?

There is a fair share of preorder schemes, some of them being scammy.

But these guys actually have scrypt ASICs online ('gridseed' chips). Check the thread on middlecoin.com. Chinese, they post there under the name sfire or someting similar (couldn't find him just now). They just mine for themselves at the moment, because the chips are 'too profitable to sell' right now.


This is their stats. The hashrate has constantly risen over the last few days, with about 80 MHash/s per day:

http://middlecoin2.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/reports/1M3jtksp1upR33SX1VzeCfH5x9fc6zKykR.html

You could not do this with a botnet, and the sheer size and growth rate makes a GPU farm very unlikely

[zoro]

No. More hashing power makes it more resilient against a 51% attack. And changing it midstream isn't a great idea if it isn't absolutely required.

you are correct. like BTC, ASICs made it more secure and its value was increased dramatically.
The same could be made to LTC and other srcypt coins. This is a good thing, no?

[FrankieSaysRelax]

No, Zoro. it's not a good thing because it means eventually there will only be 2 or 3 miners with all the hashing power as all other forms of mining become obsolete and development of these chips becomes more and more secretive. One chinamen having 4000mh/s - 20% of a pool he joins is ridiculous. I thought the point of cryptocurrencies were to decentralize? Now, you're going to tell me no, the actual point was whomever can afford to make the biggest investment and price the most others out makes it somehow decentralized? That's a complete joke. Good thing I'm not mining Litecoin.

Think about the proportion of a small personal individual investment ROI on putting the effort into assembling GPU rigs and then think about how simple it is for some big hotshot (like in this case) to get basically a guaranteed return on investment at GPU miners' expense. Many are failing to realize that Litecoin gained popularity for this reason - the BTC GPU Miners who spent so much time and effort investing in their rigs got stiffed at the end by big $$ coming into play.

Also, the people saying "no" are likely the ones who pre-ordered the ASIC chips. None of them are willing to discuss the decentralization issue, instead putting up a useless argument that the network will be more secure. It will be just as secure if you can assure people ASIC chips will not come in and price them out of existence. In reality, getting the mining to be distributed among more individuals will make the coin more secure and less susceptible to threat from intervention from government. Do we really want to go down the same route?  Ridiculous arguments in support of ASICs. Absolutely ridiculous.

What increases the value of a coin is the public's acceptance of it as an alternative to fiat currency to be used for transactions. Insisting we need these giant increases in hashing power to increase price is false - the amount of investment capital poured in has little correlation to the price. It's based on what the public's perception of trust is in the coin and that's something nobody has been able to achieve yet. The biggest proponents of decentralized currency are still sticking to gold & silver for this very reason - people like you want LTC to be an investment, which in-turn produces more dollars for you. This will ultimately be the battle in the cryptowars - those looking to make money as investment VS those looking to decentralize authority and control over the currency.

Put the power in the hands of the most possible miners and LTC will surpass BTC. Let it go down the same route and it will always be considered a 2nd rank CC

[spartacusrex]

Litecoin changing it's POW - Hmm.. Not sure, you'll only have to do it agin and again..

YaCoin does a nice job as a variable scrypt coin.

If you want a coin to be truly ASIC resistant you may need to come up with a completely new algorithm paradigm.

Serendipitously enough - I have just had an idea that may/may not work..

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322581.msg4450472#msg4450472

Please check that out.. Curious to hear if you think it might/won't work..

[FrankieSaysRelax]

I like the idea, Sparta. There is also one fellow on the mining board who came up with the idea of a "equalcoin" based on the premise that the methodology behind mining is
false paradigm. The paradigm must shift from "maximum hashing power" to "maximum amount of total users". Think about it. What would make the coin ultimately more valuable - achieving the same hashing power from having 500,000,000 miners around the globe OR having the power come from a few people who have priority access to development of chips? I'd rather have my coins in the hands of the people than in the hands of a few miners whos self-interest will surpass the interest of the coin-holders and other miners.

BTC did not achieve its goal of becoming a commodity and being widely accepted. It's become more of a speculator type of deal (both in price and in terms of mining) and because of that, it's going to be easily to prone to regulatory bullying, etc. I guess these currencies now are just paving the way. Bugs will eventually have to be fixed to create an ever-increasing effort for inclusion, instead of exclusion which is what these ASICs do.

[User705]

Yes. And time is running out. One guy on the middlecoin pool already has 800MHash/sec ASICs online, and stated that he will up it to 4000MHash soon. That is several percent of the whole LTC network. Action is required now, before the voting power of the GPU miners is lost!

Is there a way to verify this?  Aren't all these ASIC companies just starting to take preorders?

There is a fair share of preorder schemes, some of them being scammy.

But these guys actually have scrypt ASICs online ('gridseed' chips). Check the thread on middlecoin.com. Chinese, they post there under the name sfire or someting similar (couldn't find him just now). They just mine for themselves at the moment, because the chips are 'too profitable to sell' right now.


This is their stats. The hashrate has constantly risen over the last few days, with about 80 MHash/s per day:

http://middlecoin2.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/reports/1M3jtksp1upR33SX1VzeCfH5x9fc6zKykR.html

You could not do this with a botnet, and the sheer size and growth rate makes a GPU farm very unlikely

Looks like cheap used GPUs incoming.   

[bramvnl]

i like the coin!

[chirale]

First 4 users on wemineltc.com! are these botnet or ASIC?


1   UserID 28113   351,960    KH/S
2   UserID 29608   312,130    KH/S
3   UserID 21386   305,670    KH/S
4   UserID 107637   251,135    KH/S

Other than gridseed (ASIC) and ltcgear.com (FPGA), none of the other ASIC developers have shown anything that could account for this sorts of hashing power... not sure what's going on...
I keep a list of all the LTC FPGA/ASIC developers on the LTC forum: https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=6506.0

[a1binos]

Of course, ASICS are shit. They bring no secure, they bring only possibility of 51% attack and the whole network will be in 1-2-3 hands!
And I vote for changing algorithm, if it is possible.

But, don't you think, that middlecoin-mega-hash-man just slowly redirect his big-big gpu farm from elsewhere to middlecoin? I think, that's the point!

[Mega-Pool]

High hashing power does not imply secure network necessarily. And ASICs are especially risky since only few guys can obtain them, and they give you a lot of advantage with respect the rest of the miners therefore, it's way more easy for a guy with cash to 51% attack it.

Also, if ASICs become the norm, I'm out of LTC because like many folks have said, Bitcoins was meant to be obtained by just running the CPU in your home, and that's a key factor for cryptos to become succesfull.

[RandyMagnum]

Proof of Activity by Charles Lee

[Gazza1]

Scrypt ASICs need to stay away and leave us GPU people be

If they want more coins all they have to do is make more SHA-256 coins they don't need to ass rape the scrypt coins.  Sure it will be profitable for them for a few months, and then after that every coin will be like bitcoin.  Fuck that

[infofront]

I see a lot of people voting no and saying, "ASICs give network MOAR SECURITY!"

No, it fucking doesn't and you know it.

Agreed. One could make a good argument that the bitcoin network is less secure now than it was in 2012.