Zcash community not bothered by Asic resistance

[andyosh]

Hi guys,

I just read an article about this? Apparently there was some of kind survey and the community was asked if they wanted the PoW algorithm to be Asic resistant. They didn't really care about this. I'm quite new to this but wondered how you felt about this.

If the PoW algo is not resistant to ASIC miners, this creates problems of centralisation of miners and therefore an increased chance of a 51% attack. Why wouldn't the "community" be resistant to this as this poses a threat to the security of the network.

Thanks,

Andy

[1714159750]

1714159750

[1714159750]

1714159750

[monsterer2]

Why wouldn't the "community" be resistant to this as this poses a threat to the security of the network.

Maybe the 'community' is all miners?

[HeRetiK]

There are some upsides to relying on ASICs as well though.

If you're one of many GPU mined coins, chances are that there is already enough hashpower out there to easily attack you. So while for the moment being this hashpower may be used for mining other coins, any larger GPU miner (or group of GPU miners) could easily hit you with the majority hashrate just for lulz and profits. Presumably that's what happened with BTG just a few weeks ago [1]. If your network relies on dedicated ASICs, you're not as prone to this sort of attacks -- assuming you're the largest coin relying on these ASICs.

In short: Relying on GPU mining leads to another set of security and stability challenges, due to your coin sharing mining hardware with other coins. Therefore the decision between accepting ASICs and trying to be ASIC resistant is not quite as clear-cut as one may believe.

[1] https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2018/07/bitcoin-gold-btg-about-to-hard-fork-to-prevent-further-51-attacks/

[Bazzaar]

Because like the mining community in general, the Zcash community doesnt understand the workings of this crypto-economy.
I'm not sure anyone does actually, including the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.
When it comes to issues of the structure,security and future of a coin, miners have too vested an interest in their income to make good decisions.
This should be for the devs alone to work out, being that they are above such base desires as greed or ego, right?
Yeah well whatever.
Sadly some or all the currencies will have to crash and burn before we collectively realise, with that perfect 20/20 hindsight, what works for this new frontier of crypto economy.

Baz

[reb0rn21]

zooko is paid shill by bitmain so he rigged that community

zcash is scam (zooko with masterkey he killed with his tools  ), soon 10$ dump while you still can

[Mike011]

What community?

[FFI2013]

zooko is paid shill by bitmain so he rigged that community

zcash is scam (zooko with masterkey he killed with his tools  ), soon 10$ dump while you still can

Fluffypony just tweeted a few days or maybe a week how much zooko makes $340,000 a month its crazy than the company is bring in somewhere just under a mill off us miners and this piece of shit wont listen to us gpu miners we are now below him he lied about making this a gpu only coin I dumped my zcash and hope it burns to the floor

[m.vina]

If your network relies on dedicated ASICs, you're not as prone to this sort of attacks -- assuming you're the largest coin relying on these ASICs.

If your network is ASIC resistant in the first place, you would not need to be worried about being prone to ASICs that have huge hash rates. Building a truly ASIC resistant blockchain has its merits because GPUs are more decentralized and easily accessible for regular people.

ASICs are machines driven by greed and deceit.

[andyosh]

If your network relies on dedicated ASICs, you're not as prone to this sort of attacks -- assuming you're the largest coin relying on these ASICs.

If your network is ASIC resistant in the first place, you would not need to be worried about being prone to ASICs that have huge hash rates. Building a truly ASIC resistant blockchain has its merits because GPUs are more decentralized and easily accessible for regular people.

ASICs are machines driven by greed and deceit.

That was kind of my thinking but ASIC resistance is futile right?

[andyosh]

zooko is paid shill by bitmain so he rigged that community

zcash is scam (zooko with masterkey he killed with his tools  ), soon 10$ dump while you still can

Fluffypony just tweeted a few days or maybe a week how much zooko makes $340,000 a month its crazy than the company is bring in somewhere just under a mill off us miners and this piece of shit wont listen to us gpu miners we are now below him he lied about making this a gpu only coin I dumped my zcash and hope it burns to the floor

Yeah, I saw that. The founder's reward is being paid out for the first 4 years. That period is almost up now...

[adaseb]

zooko is paid shill by bitmain so he rigged that community

zcash is scam (zooko with masterkey he killed with his tools  ), soon 10$ dump while you still can

Fluffypony just tweeted a few days or maybe a week how much zooko makes $340,000 a month its crazy than the company is bring in somewhere just under a mill off us miners and this piece of shit wont listen to us gpu miners we are now below him he lied about making this a gpu only coin I dumped my zcash and hope it burns to the floor

Yeah, I saw that. The founder's reward is being paid out for the first 4 years. That period is almost up now...

ZEC was released at the end of 2016. So its only been a little over a year and a half where the founders reward was being paid.

Hence there is still lots of ZEC coins which will keep going to the founders for the next 2 and a half years.

But yes... its unfortunate since this was probably the #2 most mined coin aside from Ethereum. When they build more ASICs the difficulty will keep going higher and higher and will increase the difficult of other coins like ETH and XMR.

[Za1n]

zooko is paid shill by bitmain so he rigged that community

zcash is scam (zooko with masterkey he killed with his tools  ), soon 10$ dump while you still can

Fluffypony just tweeted a few days or maybe a week how much zooko makes $340,000 a month its crazy than the company is bring in somewhere just under a mill off us miners and this piece of shit wont listen to us gpu miners we are now below him he lied about making this a gpu only coin I dumped my zcash and hope it burns to the floor

Yeah, I saw that. The founder's reward is being paid out for the first 4 years. That period is almost up now...

About 2 more years left, but yeah once the founders reward period is over it will be interesting to see if any of the Devs actually stick around or will they have made enough money by then to move on to the next scam project.

I mined ZEC early on but sold most of it when it was skyrocketing around $800. I still got a small amount I will hold "cause you never know", but for the most part I am done with it due to 20% of the coins being siphoned off during founder reward period and now the going back on one of their founding principles (ASIC resistance). I now feel it is only a matter of time before they start going back on other promises as well, and/or just bail completely once their income stream dries up.

[HeRetiK]

If your network relies on dedicated ASICs, you're not as prone to this sort of attacks -- assuming you're the largest coin relying on these ASICs.

If your network is ASIC resistant in the first place, you would not need to be worried about being prone to ASICs that have huge hash rates. Building a truly ASIC resistant blockchain has its merits because GPUs are more decentralized and easily accessible for regular people.

ASICs are machines driven by greed and deceit.

If your network is ASIC resistant you need to worry about being prone to GPU miners that have huge hash rates. If you are GPU mined like the majority of at least the minor alts you have a much larger pool of potential adversaries. That's the point I'm trying to make.

It is also worth noting that one tends to underestimate the scale of GPU mining operations. Those are commercial operations buying GPUs wholesale. Mining has become an uphill battle for the hobbyist ever since it turned into an industry, no matter if we're talking about GPU or ASIC mining.

That being said, I'm fully with you that the large upside of GPUs is that they are easier acquired by regular people. I honestly wish that ASICs would also be as accessible.

[Umister]

zooko is paid shill by bitmain so he rigged that community

zcash is scam (zooko with masterkey he killed with his tools  ), soon 10$ dump while you still can

Fluffypony just tweeted a few days or maybe a week how much zooko makes $340,000 a month its crazy than the company is bring in somewhere just under a mill off us miners and this piece of shit wont listen to us gpu miners we are now below him he lied about making this a gpu only coin I dumped my zcash and hope it burns to the floor

Yeah, I saw that. The founder's reward is being paid out for the first 4 years. That period is almost up now...

ZEC was released at the end of 2016. So its only been a little over a year and a half where the founders reward was being paid.

Hence there is still lots of ZEC coins which will keep going to the founders for the next 2 and a half years.

But yes... its unfortunate since this was probably the #2 most mined coin aside from Ethereum. When they build more ASICs the difficulty will keep going higher and higher and will increase the difficult of other coins like ETH and XMR.

As a GPU miner, I do not mine ZEC any more. I mine the ETH and XMR.

[induktor]

If your network is ASIC resistant you need to worry about being prone to GPU miners that have huge hash rates. If you are GPU mined like the majority of at least the minor alts you have a much larger pool of potential adversaries. That's the point I'm trying to make.

It is also worth noting that one tends to underestimate the scale of GPU mining operations. Those are commercial operations buying GPUs wholesale. Mining has become an uphill battle for the hobbyist ever since it turned into an industry, no matter if we're talking about GPU or ASIC mining.

That being said, I'm fully with you that the large upside of GPUs is that they are easier acquired by regular people. I honestly wish that ASICs would also be as accessible.

Hello
I don't think most people understand how SERIOUS this is.
This is about ONE company, BITMAIN, yeah there is innosilicon right, which is owned by bitmain i'm pretty sure.

they have a kill switch embedded inside the miners, the miner calls home every time and if you block this, the miner will not start, i know, i've tested it.

one company owns ALL of the hashrate for every algorithm. really you don't see it as something dangerous?

GPUs are general purpose computation devices, it can programmed by anyone, it can be installed by anyone.

ASICS are not, only bitmain can design, build and program, why? because even if you design the solution in a FPGA you cannot create 100 asics for you, or 1000 no one will produce it, you need to order 100.000 or MORE, specially if you want to use 14nm or better technology, you need to order more than a Million chips minimum.

the problem is not WHO mine with it
the problem is that BITMAINS owns the status quo for the ENTIRE MINING OPERATION IN THE WORLD

that's WHY asic are so dangerous.

and ZCASH community doesn't see it, I can't believe it, unless, someone pays enough ppl to look the other way , which is possible, but i have no proof of that, just a thought.
cheers
indkt.

[blockaid.net]

isnt it just a question of time?
most notable algos - sooner or later end up in the asics hands anyhow
i dont see how fighting it would help anyone
85 percent of the miners are only interested in short term profits
 their foresight as a whole ... just isnt into the idea of preserving a ever declining spot in history

[HeRetiK]

they have a kill switch embedded inside the miners, the miner calls home every time and if you block this, the miner will not start, i know, i've tested it.

If I recall correctly a patch for this backdoor / vulnerability was released as soon as it was made public. That was more than a year ago and as far as I'm aware of that was pretty much it, with no further reports of underhanded code changes or suspicious network traffic after that.

Looking at the Antbleed website subverting this backdoor / vulnerability has been as simple as adding a loopback entry to the /etc/hosts file [1], making blocking it a fairly easy affair.

[1] https://www.antbleed.com/

GPUs are general purpose computation devices, it can programmed by anyone, it can be installed by anyone.

...and there are only two big manufacturers of which only one creates GPUs that are really worthwhile for mining.

ASICS are not, only bitmain can design, build and program

There were other ASIC manufacturers before Bitmain and there will be other ASIC manufacturers after Bitmain. Current market dominance does not necessarily mean that they will retain it, especially as the market grows and becomes interesting for hardware manufacturers outside of crypto, many of which are far larger than Bitmain.

Bitmain's dominance is a problem, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the problem lies with ASIC mining itself.