Will X11 save us from the ASIC vultures?

[AlterEgoCoin]

X11 is a great unix Windows manager.

The ASIC resistance of the hash function, not so much.  Play around with an FPGA and you'll see you're looking at about the same amount of resistance as SHA256d.  You increase the number of circuits required about 10-fold, but "X11" is also more than ten fold slower than SHA256d on GPUs.

Probably the most ASIC resistant thing you can do is maintain a low market cap.

We at the AlterEgoCoin[AEC] development team think that we have found a cure for the survival of GPU mining after FPGA`s starts hitting the market in high numbers.
To have multiple algos rotating in a pre determined cycle will give GPU`s full mining capability and if someone wants to point an ASIC or a FPGA they will only be able to participate in 1 or 2 out of X blocks making it not worthwhile to mine for them, they would also need to code their own miner.
If ASIC`s or FPGA`s would become a problem for the coin we would simply hardfork, update the miner and add more algos to the cycle.
Check us out at:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=528925.msg5889698#msg5889698

That was my solution from more than a year ago, and it doesn't work.  All you need in that case is an ASIC with an instruction cache, which is not circuit expensive.

VertCoin has the right idea (also the bluntest idea), which is to just swap in different memory hard algorithms by a hardfork on a regular basis and not announce what they are ahead of time.

Thanks for the link! I will let another member of the development team put on his to-read-list.

We are aware that we can not protect ourself against future ASIC-like designs but we are fully confident that current existing designs of ASIC`s & FPGA`s will not be able to fully mine AEC.
If and when we feel that that kind of mining equipment will become a threat to our network we have a set of multiple combinations of possible solutions in storage to counteract them.
ASIC`s and FPGA`s is currently in their cradle, no one really knows where that industry will be in a few years time.

[praxiscat]

EDIT The devs are looking into it with EMC2. But there are disadvantages with X11, especially the botnet issue.

In terms of ASIC resistance, no one can garuntee something will never have ASICs forever.

[peterlustig]

I don't think any coin so far is ASIC resistant.

[tromp]

I don't think any coin so far is ASIC resistant.

There are several, like Primecoin and Riecoin.

And my Cuckoo Cycle proof-of-work, which is not used by any coin.

[foodies123]

x11 is groestl + quark it does 3 times better on gpu than on cpu (as groestl standolone does too) but considering cost and power it's pretty good ... just not the breakthrough it is hyped to be.

I don't think any coin so far is ASIC resistant.

There are several, like Primecoin and Riecoin.

And my Cuckoo Cycle proof-of-work, which is not used by any coin.

and myriad which is resitant by embracing them.

[flipme]

Guys, summer is coming. I'm doing HIRO (HIC) atm and I repeatedly check my rigs for work status.
I'm sensing they are idle, just to find out they are full on.

This, and more of it please!

[markm]

Being resistant to being secured is not a feature for a blockchain, it is a bug.

Blockchains need to be secured.

Making them harder to secure, and, especially, making them easier for botnets and meme-fans and such to attack, is not a feature at all it is an idiotic design-flaw.

It is like designing roads that horse-and-buggy can traverse but automobile cannot in order to try to keep buggy-whip makers in business.

Utter idiocy.

-MarkM-

[flipme]

Lets find an agency. How about the BSA - the Bolockchain Security Agency
Bwaha was a typo - decided to leave it - security - you already suck at arguments.
A heroes member sucking at security. Where were you, when all the Bitcoins got stolen.

But, but, but I'm marc m...

[dudupang]

x11 is a petty good algo, also scrypt-jane. which to choose?

[eightspaces]

x11 is a petty good algo, also scrypt-jane. which to choose?

PoH

[eightspaces]

-MarkM-

~BCX~, is that you?

[flipme]

And if I see it coming - there is a new threat on the horizons for plain Scrypt:

Multi Coin Hashing

I just heard about it today and would be grateful to be enlightened wether it's possible.
Trying the same hashes for multiple coins.

You can piss away your fucking blockchain if this works and got ASICs coming your way.

[flipme]

After all the obvious propaganda against it by some well known members,
I'm sure, YES IT WILL!

And the plan to hardfork Litecoin and DOGE to X11 is just great.
I can't wait to see some action.

[fenghush]

x11 is actually ASIC friendly, you just need one that can do all 11 algos and get x1000 speed-up. Sure those ASIC wont come this or perhaps next year, but once it's profitable to do so, their job would be much easier than scrypt ASIC.

[markm]

They don't care, they just want to scam more money using their GPUs regardless of how worthless the resulting crapcoins are to actual users.

-MarkM-

[FalconCrypto]

They don't care, they just want to scam more money using their GPUs regardless of how worthless the resulting crapcoins are to actual users.

-MarkM-

You are right, lol. jk.

[arielbit]

how about CGA cryptographic anomaly's mathematics style? 

[Stouse49]

I know you want to advertise Darkcoin, but you need to keep it real. More hashing functions doesn't mean more secure. Quark is still the king of multiple hashing imo.

Darkcoin in terms of hashing functions it is a combination of Quark's 6 hashing functions and Qubit-coin's 5 hashing functions, so in total Darkcoin has 11. Five of Quark's hashing functions (Blake, Grøstl, JH, Keccak and Skein) were the finalists of the NIST competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIST_hash_function_competition

Quark is using 9 rounds of hashing: while using 6 rounds from Blake, Blue Midnight Wish, Grøstl, JH, Keccak and Skein it adds 3 more rounds of hashing randomly: so the computer doesn't know whether it will be Keccak or Grøstl or Blake. And that's one of the uniqiue beauties of Quark. Unfortunately, Darkcoin or Qubitcoin don't do that: the computer remains certain about which hashing function will be used.

Another advantage of Quark might be, Darkcoin's block generation time is 2.5minutes (150seconds), while Quark is 30 seconds. Which means that Quarks algorithm with an element of randomness (unpredictability) will have to be cracked in 30 seconds to create a double-spend fork, while for Darkcoin this window of opportunity for the attacker is 5 timeslonger: 150 seconds with no element of randomness. If you take all these factors into account, Quark is still the most secure - it's not only about the number of hashing functions."

I would think it may be more difficult to design a ASIC with more hashing functions than fewer.  While Quark has 9 rounds, there are only 6 functions.  There are three random rounds (3, 6, 9).  After the 2nd, 5th and 8th round, one bit is checked in the 512 bit hash as it has been calculated thus far.  If that bit is on, then one particular hash function will be used.  If it is off, then another hash is used.  It is a basic if else statement.  It is a one of the types of statements common to all the Quark hash functions.  Checking that bit is easier than programming an extra hash function.  If the Quark or the X11 hash functions can be put into an ASIC, then handling the randomness will not be a problem.  While the ASIC doesn't know what Quark hashes will be used for a particular block, it will figure it out along the way just as a desktop client or android wallet can do in C++ or Java.

[goin2mars]

I know you want to advertise Darkcoin, but you need to keep it real. More hashing functions doesn't mean more secure. Quark is still the king of multiple hashing imo.

Darkcoin in terms of hashing functions it is a combination of Quark's 6 hashing functions and Qubit-coin's 5 hashing functions, so in total Darkcoin has 11. Five of Quark's hashing functions (Blake, Grøstl, JH, Keccak and Skein) were the finalists of the NIST competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIST_hash_function_competition

Quark is using 9 rounds of hashing: while using 6 rounds from Blake, Blue Midnight Wish, Grøstl, JH, Keccak and Skein it adds 3 more rounds of hashing randomly: so the computer doesn't know whether it will be Keccak or Grøstl or Blake. And that's one of the uniqiue beauties of Quark. Unfortunately, Darkcoin or Qubitcoin don't do that: the computer remains certain about which hashing function will be used.

Another advantage of Quark might be, Darkcoin's block generation time is 2.5minutes (150seconds), while Quark is 30 seconds. Which means that Quarks algorithm with an element of randomness (unpredictability) will have to be cracked in 30 seconds to create a double-spend fork, while for Darkcoin this window of opportunity for the attacker is 5 timeslonger: 150 seconds with no element of randomness. If you take all these factors into account, Quark is still the most secure - it's not only about the number of hashing functions."

I would think it may be more difficult to design a ASIC with more hashing functions than fewer.  While Quark has 9 rounds, there are only 6 functions.  There are three random rounds (3, 6, 9).  After the 2nd, 5th and 8th round, one bit is checked in the 512 bit hash as it has been calculated thus far.  If that bit is on, then one particular hash function will be used.  If it is off, then another hash is used.  It is a basic if else statement.  It is a one of the types of statements common to all the Quark hash functions.  Checking that bit is easier than programming an extra hash function.  If the Quark or the X11 hash functions can be put into an ASIC, then handling the randomness will not be a problem.  While the ASIC doesn't know what Quark hashes will be used for a particular block, it will figure it out along the way just as a desktop client or android wallet can do in C++ or Java.

This is a fantastic counterpoint. Do you have a reference to where this is decided in the code . . so that I might feel comfortable requoting you?

[Spoetnik]

another ad for X11 ? these are getting tiring..

they ripped off Quark and called it X11 so fucking what.. the end