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Author Topic: Bitcoin proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm update - discussion  (Read 83 times)
Greg Tonoski (OP)
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August 15, 2026, 11:41:19 AM
 #1

What are good reasons to update proof-of-work algorithm from the current SHA-256d?

I will start with one - solving the problem of centralization. Do you agree? Do you see more pros and cons?
athanred
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August 15, 2026, 02:36:31 PM
Last edit: August 15, 2026, 04:04:08 PM by athanred
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 #2

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What are good reasons to update proof-of-work algorithm from the current SHA-256d?
None, I guess. If SHA-256 is not broken, then it should be used as it is. However, a lot of altcoins changed the way their coins are mined, just because they didn't know, how to do it properly, so they did, what they could.

Also note, that you don't even have to leave SHA-256 world, to make some ASICs obsolete, if that is your main goal. A good example of that is Proof of Work inside Script, where the same SHA-256 algorithm is used, but many ASICs won't help you produce a smaller DER signature, because the whole format is different: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5551080.0

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solving the problem of centralization. Do you agree?
No, because if big mining pools can already use SHA-256, to produce a stronger chain, then if you assume, that your coin will be successful, then they can switch to a new algorithm faster, than regular users, when it will be profitable enough. Who can upgrade faster, when needed? Some owner of a warehouse of ASICs, and a bunch of EH/s, with years of expertise in the field? Or a random user, who only did some home mining, with a few TH/s at best?

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Do you see more pros and cons?
There are more cons, because BIP-110 chain already mined four blocks, at the time of writing. Which means, that it has enough power, to produce new blocks, every sometimes, with the biggest SHA-256 difficulty in the world. Changing Proof of Work means, that all of these EH/s will be gone, and instead of being used to push BIP-110 forward, they will be splitted into mining other coins, because ASIC owners will want to recover some of their costs, so they will keep mining other coins, just to sell them for dollars, and then maybe buy some BIP-110 coins for that.

You have one piece of work.  If you solve it, it will solve a block from both Bitcoin and BitDNS.  In concept, they're tied together by a Merkle Tree.  To hand it in to Bitcoin, you break off the BitDNS branch, and to hand it in to BitDNS, you break off the Bitcoin branch.
Satoshi already described, how to use Merged Mining, to work on more than one chain, with the same hashing power. In general, if you have a split, and you want to have different chains, for different use cases, then this is what you want to use.

However, because BIP-110 is a soft-fork, and it is designed to not use Merged Mining, it is a bit different story. If you really believe in soft-forks, then you would explore further the idea of weak blocks: this is how P2Pool was successful, and produced blocks every 30 seconds, which were 20 times easier to make, and their subnetwork was compatible with the main network. Here, the BIP-110 chain is not immediately open for all kinds of attacks: as long as you can implement fractional confirmations, and weak blocks properly, you can unstuck the chain, without any hard-forks.

But well, people didn't listen back then, when they were told, that the speed of the chain will be proportional to the signalling vs non-signalling hashrate. They ignored all technical feedback, without testing things, and checking, what is a valid criticism, and what is not. There was not even a testnet for BIP-110, which could tell its proponents, how things may turn out. So, I also expect this time, people will also ignore soft-fork ways of solving the problem, and some kind of hard-fork, with a new hashing algorithm, will be deployed. But then, all old posts, claiming that BIP-110 is a soft-fork, can be quoted, and commented as "if this part was a lie, then how can we believe in your present words?".

Another thing is that if the mining algorithm will be changed, then all existing BIP-110 nodes will be obsolete. Then, what will be "the true BIP-110?". After doing a hard-fork, absolutely everything can be deployed. And at that point, it will be not much different, than launching a new altcoin. And of course, all mathematical chances to ever reorg non-BIP-110 chain will be destroyed, because of making backward-incompatible changes.

Edit:
Quote
What are good reasons to update proof-of-work algorithm from the current SHA-256d?
If the Proof of Work algorithm will be broken, then it should be updated.

SHA-256 is very strong.  It's not like the incremental step from MD5 to SHA1.  It can last several decades unless there's some massive breakthrough attack.

If SHA-256 became completely broken, I think we could come to some agreement about what the honest block chain was before the trouble started, lock that in and continue from there with a new hash function.

If the hash breakdown came gradually, we could transition to a new hash in an orderly way.  The software would be programmed to start using a new hash after a certain block number.  Everyone would have to upgrade by that time.  The software could save the new hash of all the old blocks to make sure a different block with the same old hash can't be used.
However, it is not the case, when it comes to BIP-110. Also note, that if SHA-256 will ever be broken, then it can be fixed in a soft-fork way, by requiring both SHA-256, and some new algorithm, for exactly the same block data. Because breaking hash function will lead to more blocks being produced, than usual, so a new hash function will be needed to slow it down, and secure the chain again.

If anything, you probably want to unstuck the chain, so the simplest hard-fork you can make, is to allow blocks with any difficulty, after 20 minutes, just like testnets did. It is the fastest change, that you can deploy, because it is already coded, and it is all about enforcing it after a given block number. Or, you can always use weak blocks, but it requires more coding, but again: P2Pool is Open Source, and you can adjust the difficulty, based on time, where no blocks are seen. Then, the subnetwork with 10 minutes per weak block can unstuck users, and every sometimes it can turn into a valid on-chain block, with a valid difficulty.
pooya87
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August 15, 2026, 04:19:16 PM
Merited by ABCbits (1), stwenhao (1)
 #3

What are good reasons to update proof-of-work algorithm from the current SHA-256d?
I'll give you a good reason to not change it: having an already old and secure algorithm that has established a massive and globally spread hashrate prevents random attacks by random people who create forks of bitcoin trying to call it the "real bitcoin". When the supermajority of global hashrate doesn't follow their silly forks, bitcoin remains secure.

Other algorithms will not give us that protection against this type of attacks. For starters many of them are flawed. But also it would take a long time to establish the same decentralization and security that bitcoin already has.

solving the problem of centralization.
Say what now? So you say Bitcoin is suddenly centralized because 99.99% of the network didn't want to go with BIP-110 fork! Don't you think that minority who went on the BIP-110 chain (although 2-3 blocks is hardly a chain!) are the centralized ones?

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DaveF
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August 15, 2026, 04:19:27 PM
Merited by stwenhao (1)
 #4

What are good reasons to update proof-of-work algorithm from the current SHA-256d?

I will start with one - solving the problem of centralization. Do you agree? Do you see more pros and cons?



Anyone can buy a miner and mine to any pool they want.
They can even setup a solo pool and do it themselves.

Centralization is a buzzword that means nothing in this context. Most of the larger pools out there don't even miners, people with the miners point to those pools.

Switching algorithms changes nothing. People just have to buy a different miner. The pools have to change their stratum servers to work with a different algorithm and then it's all the same.

Even over a decade ago nomp, yiimp, and most of the other open source pool software had support for many if not most of the algorithms that were out back then and adding a new algorithm is not that much work.

-Dave

 
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ABCbits
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Today at 08:07:26 AM
 #5

Even if you replace SHA-256d with ASIC resistant ones, dominance by few mining pool can't be avoided. https://monerospace.org/mining show 90%+ mined Monero (that use RandomX, which supposed to be ASIC resistant) block mined by 6 pool, where 5 of them are regular centralized pool.

If you care about reducing such centralization, you should convince people to revive https://github.com/p2pool/p2pool and convenience miner to use it.

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Today at 03:30:18 PM
Merited by athanred (1)
 #6

Changing the PoW algorithm to "fix centralization" is the analogous hitting the reset button on a game of Monopoly because someone is winning.

But hey, if you really want to aggressively change consensus rules, I hear Luke has a lot of free time on his hands right now! He's probably drafting up a CPU-only PoW algo as we speak, which will be revealed on some random testnet5 block.

I'll take our current ASIC overlords over a dead chain any day, thanks.

 
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athanred
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Today at 03:58:29 PM
Merited by BlackHatCoiner (4)
 #7

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which will be revealed on some random testnet5 block
Well, they used testnet4 to select it. And when it comes to testnet5, people are just sitting, and waiting when fjahr will release it, even though anyone could launch it. Because now, it is not about "having a working testnet5", but rather "mining on a chain, which will be included into Bitcoin Core".

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hitting the reset button on a game of Monopoly because someone is winning
Not only that: if some player has a winning strategy, then it is quite likely, that the whole situation will repeat, and the same person will win again.

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fix centralization
Yeah, it is very decentralized, to have 100% of the BIP-110 hashrate, covered only by Roughnecks, in all four blocks, mined so far.

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I'll take our current ASIC overlords over a dead chain any day, thanks.
They can unstuck their chain in a soft-fork way, they just decided to not do that. If you have a chain, which is too slow, then you can always relax relay rules, to allow broadcasting half-baked blocks in the meantime, and see a new block every 10 minutes, or even faster than that. Then, you could process things off-chain, and finalize them on-chain every sometimes, when the whole community will mine a valid block, just like P2Pool did, by decreasing block time from 10 minutes into 30 seconds, in a backward-compatible way.
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