Improvement Rate Of Asics Developed For Blake-256?

Discussion in 'Proof-of-work Mining' started by Yea, Jan 15, 2016.

  1. 2017/12/15 - Decred v1.1.2 released! → Release Notes  → Downloads
  1. sambiohazard

    sambiohazard Sr. Member

    Jan 21, 2016
    844
    372
    In my limited understanding, until now best way to maintain the balance between ASICs & botnet threat is sufficiently memory hard algos. Anything predictable can be planned for and anyways as i said after n/w has passed a certain size its quite dangerous & unpredictable to change algo.
     
  2. davecgh

    davecgh Hero Member
    Developer Organizer

    Dec 31, 2015
    642
    788
    Male
    United States
    I see the topic of ASIC resistance and how many people desire it comes up quite often. After reading several of the responses in this thread, I'm sure my response is going to be an unpopular one, but, personally, I think the eventual development of ASICs for Decred is not only a favorable outcome, but it is necessary to help protect it.

    However, before I go into the specifics of why, I'd like to touch on the feasibility of even developing such a system. To be perfectly honest, it is quite likely to be an exercise in futility. While you might be able to stave off ASIC development for a time, you simply open the door for other methods to centralization such as botnets. For example, the rotating algorithms suggestion has already been deployed by VertCoin and it was effectively defeated by botnets that took over the network. CryptoNote tried CPU-friendly mining with the same result. LiteCoin tried a memory hard algorithm (scrypt) and ASICs were eventually developed for it too.

    The end result is always the same in that the mining platform and PoW 'votes' on the network is simply a matter of money. Whether you're mining with a botnet, GPU farm, or liquid immersion ASIC facility, PoW mining always results in centralization. Looking at the underlying reasons why this happens helps make it rather clear that centralization is inevitable because capital costs for mining increase over time while profits decrease. The best you can do is try to give each miner (pool, GPU farm, ASIC farm, etc) on the network a single decentralized vote which is exactly what Decred already does.

    With that out of the way, let's move into why ASICs are actually a favorable outcome. You see, as long as relatively cheap ASICs do not exist for Decred, there will always be the looming vulnerability that a malicious actor could create a Blake-256 ASIC behind the scenes and then use it to wreak havoc on the network through constant reorgs. This is possible because a single ASIC could completely destroy all of the current GPUs. At the current time, the global hash rate on the network is right around 3.4TH/s. That means a single ASIC (an AntMiner S7 can do ~4.7 TH/s of double SHA-256 and Blake-256 is a more efficient algorithm, so you could expect even higher rates for the same level of hardware) could effectively provide more hash power than the entire network has right now. Once there are a proliferation of ASICs on the network, the possibility of such an occurrence greatly diminishes. Thus ASICs, even if centralized, help secure the network against malicious actors.

    The absolutely best outcome would be users coming together to produce and distribute ASICs in a manner opposite of Bitcoin where they were hoarded. However, even if that doesn't happen and ASIC centralization were to occur, the results on Decred are no where near as dramatic as they are with pure PoW coins. This is because Decred's Proof-of-stake component makes it so that each block on the network is 'checkpointed' by the stakeholders. It is literally impossible to even make a two-block long fork without the collective consent of the stakeholders. As a result, a PoW miner can't create a 6-block long chain in secret and use it to double spend coins like they can in a pure PoW coin. In Decred, there will never be a need to go before a panel of voters and beg for their approval. The owners of Decred will always have the power to dictate the future of the currency.
     
    hashcrown, diegox104, Yea and 4 others like this.
  3. Bill Threewits

    Jan 16, 2016
    146
    69
    Male
    Banker
    North Carolina
    Here I thought I had an original idea about shifting algos.

    This is a well formed argument. What I would like to understand better, is the practical application of the stake voting mechanism. I have my wallet auto voting "yes". If an important "no" vote was necessary, what is the alert mechanism that would prompt me to change my vote. Also, given the lottery structure, how would one "aim" one's vote at the correct block. Am I convoluting two types of votes here? I will do some more research on this to try to get my answer. It seems crucial as a differentiator.

    By the way @davecgh, I really hope that you serve at, or somewhere near, the top of Decred's organizational structure. Your communication skills and judgment are very impressive.
     
    maxfunky likes this.
  4. Bill Threewits

    Jan 16, 2016
    146
    69
    Male
    Banker
    North Carolina
    Seems that economic forces would suggest that the best way for decentralized ASIC distribution is for C0 to bear the development costs and control distribution. That is not to say that it wouldn't eventually be economically feasible for independent development, but C0 distribution of dispersed hashing power would help to dilute that business case.
     
    Reynold likes this.
  5. sambiohazard

    sambiohazard Sr. Member

    Jan 21, 2016
    844
    372
    I would also say that current price of bitcoin is result of its network effect & network security provided by enormous hashing power behind it. One more solution people have tried is multi algo which not only makes the attack more costly but you just cant attack the n/w with one kind of hardware. Also it makes it evenly fair for someone with ASIC, GPU, or CPU. Although i have never seen it implemented on a successful coin. IDK but there might be some kinfd of downside which prevented its use on good coins.
     
    maxfunky likes this.
  6. Yea

    Yea New Member

    Jan 9, 2016
    8
    1
    Male
    Thanks for your effort to explain Decred's abilities. IMO, the biggest threat to Bitcoin is imo that the Chinese government easily can say that Bitcoin is illegal and that they will use the mining facilities to mitigate the outflow of yen. What can PoA exactly do to keep the network running if a government tries to overtake of the mining facilities?
     
    LastNinja likes this.
  7. davecgh

    davecgh Hero Member
    Developer Organizer

    Dec 31, 2015
    642
    788
    Male
    United States
    These are valid questions and ones that I believe have been covered in the understanding proof of stake thread to a degree, but I'll attempt to elaborate a bit here.

    I think the biggest challenge is that, at the current time, it's a little bit difficult to see what is possible because there really isn't much capability beyond voting yes or no exposed to the user. The mechanism you're looking for in order to vote more intelligently is configurable policy controls. Policy controls would make it possible to select when to vote yes or no depending on whatever criteria the particular voting software being used makes available. The expectation is that such controls will be developed and improved over time.

    As a concrete example, with software available to allow it, it would be possible to configure your policy to vote no on blocks that don't include any transactions even though the memory pool has thousands. Contrast this with Bitcoin where some miners with poor connectivity intentionally choose to create blocks with no transactions in them because larger blocks lead to longer propagation time and greater chance of becoming orphaned. There is really nothing that can be done about it in Bitcoin because miners have all the power.

    Perhaps another key point here is that policy controls don't have to be developed by the original Decred developers. Even though there isn't a lot of external software yet, there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from writing voting software with any policy controls they desire. All it has to be capable of is generating a vote transaction that conforms to the spec and broadcasting it to the network. This is possible because the stake voting system was designed to allow voting rights to be delegated to a different address while the consensus-enforced reward address commitments are in the initial ticket purchase.

    However, what is perhaps more important to realize than all the above is that voting has much greater implications and capabilities than simply voting whether you wish to deem the previous block as valid or not. Under the hood, a vote really consists of an extensible set of bit flags. This allows any voting agenda you can imagine to be assigned to one or more of the bits where the majority stakeholders make a public and transparent decision that is encoded into the very fabric of the blockchain. This means that whenever there are major decisions to be made about the future of the currency (an obvious example would be increasing the block size), the majority stakeholders make the decision via voting, not the developers or miners.
     
  8. LastNinja

    LastNinja Full Member

    Dec 31, 2015
    451
    199
    Male
    Ah, too bad. No more shady consensus meetings by a bunch of capos on the other side of the globe sponsored by a beloved government.
     
  9. Elmismo

    Elmismo New Member

    Jan 27, 2016
    50
    5
    Male
    from my point of view ASIC only destroy the coins. only earn ASIC manufacturers. everything becomes a race vertiginous difficulty.
     
  10. Bill Threewits

    Jan 16, 2016
    146
    69
    Male
    Banker
    North Carolina
    Thanks again for another distinctive answer. I have a few more questions to clarify this for everyone. I apologize for the coming quantity of questions but these are the ones that emerge naturally from your description and I assume will help many to understand this very important distinctive quality of Decred.

    Let's take your example of increasing the block size; if that became an issue and was assigned to a bit flag (phrased correctly?), the vote cast by the majority is "yes", what actions then would occur? It would be written into the block chain; but, would the actions necessary to respond to the vote and effect the change be voluntary? If so, who would decide to comply with the expressed wishes of the vote. Who would be compelled to? What if the vote ended up to be 51-49%? Would someone's or some group's discretion enter in? Is there a ruling body that can override or nullify votes?

    Also, for an "issue vote", is this cast separate of the lottery-based block votes? Does one need a ticket? If so, are these purchased? If so, is there a reward to compel voting?

    What if very few votes are cast on an important issue? If so, is that low response meaningful? binding?

    Also, who decides what to put to a vote? When that happens, who does the programming to put it to a vote? Who words the question posed in the vote?

    You are among the best I've discovered at answering technical issues in an understandable way for us non-geeks. I feel like your answers will come to be important for clarifying Decred's, and this very crucial, distinction to the masses.
     
    adam2312 and sambiohazard like this.
  11. diegox104

    diegox104 New Member

    Jan 4, 2016
    11
    5
    Male
    So, if the coming of ASIC is ineluctable, wouldn't it be better to put it on the agenda of the community?
    And, why not, even to invest some resources on it...
     
    hashcrown and Reynold like this.
  12. Bill Threewits

    Jan 16, 2016
    146
    69
    Male
    Banker
    North Carolina
    Reynold likes this.
  13. Ayush

    Ayush Full Member
    Advocate (Facebook)

    Jan 9, 2016
    512
    100
    Male
    .
    .
    If mining coins becomes bit more difficult will it not increase decred's value? thats is, if it is popular?
     

Share This Page