Grin has a single C32 ASIC, not for sale to the public, as C29/C32 ratio approaches 0. This is dangerous and unfair.
I propose that Grin reset the C29/C32 ratio to 50/50 pending two publicly available C32 asic.
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Why donât you just mine C32 with your GPU?
I previously asked a similar question here.
It will become increasingly difficult for GPU miners to compete with the ASIC (assuming more come online). With only C32 a small group of individuals who own ASIC will control the grin blockchain. Its safe to assume the ASIC will be owned in China meaning that government will potentially have control of the grin blockchain. That is not good for a decentralized cryptocurrency. No single entity, or small group should control grins blockchain.
The original plan was that several asic manufacturers would create competing ASIC and sell to the public. That didnt happen. I propose that its time to adjust the plan.
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I agree with this idea.
I was originally in favor of our slow AR phaseout, but that plan failed. We wanted many ASIC vendors for the sake of wide public availability of ASICs. Instead, we got the opposite: 1 vendor selling ASICs in private to 1 mining firm.
I thought the original plan was a good idea, but 2 years later its clear that plan failed, and we need to reconsider. We have no âobligationâ to any ASIC vendors. Only one ASIC vendor exists, and they certainly have maintained no obligation to us, by selling 100% of their ASICs in private to a single firm. Their behavior is leading to overwhelming centralization of the network.
Ok, so plan A failed. Whats plan B?
As I see it, we have three choices:
- Try again: As this post suggests, we could reset (or partial reset) the AR schedule to give ASIC vendors a second chance.
- Abandon AR phaseout: Instead of phasing out, we could have permanent AR ratio (maybe 50/50?). This prevents ASICs getting 51%, but still allows them to be profitable.
- Give up: Change nothing and let the current ASIC vendor and their mining partner(s) centralize the network.
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I personally believe that sticking to the original plan and not being reactive on such important topics is a good strategy in the long term. Does it mean that some individuals might have the majority? yes, but changing plans now doesnât guarantee it wonât happen after the changes either. Changing this would also set a precedent for future changes, Iâd prefer if it was set in stone and âunchangeableâ - yes, even if this would make the project die because I donât think it could realistically succeed in the long run if we did such changes.
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I agree with not being reactionary. PoW changes should be rare, slow, and carefully thought out. Unfortunately the current situation puts us in a position to endure prolonged (maybe indefinite?) centralization, and I think that warrants a planning discussion.
This is not a new discussion though, and I think it should be part of a longer discussion based on data (now that we have 2 years of data) and not emotional reactions.
Can we at least agree that the original plan didnât accomplish what we wanted/needed? Then we can debate whether it makes sense to devise a new plan.
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I wasnât around when the original plan was discussed, but I do believe when you guys say that this was the reason for gradual transition. I believe it might be much worse to make a change than leave it alone. As soon as you have people discussing what is ârightâ for PoW and who should be winning and who not, youâre censoring the open market even if the situation was not the outcome we all wanted. Getting the community together to make such overrides is very dangerous in the long term - thatâs just my opinion though.
well now asic will come and mine the coin at all time lows with full power efficieny?
Yet,regular users cant make an ordinary transact stillâŚHow this relates to fair lunch and decentralization ? i dont get it.
Asic manufacturer will mine and hoard Grin,then pump a little and pour to newbies?
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I agree with @oryhp and I understand the frustration that the mining algos are causing, but itâs what we all signed up for and I dont think we have reached any point for drastic measures. The yield per card is much higher now than when everyone was happy (closer to launch), at least for a 1080ti.
If you hope to ever get more ASIC manufacturers interested in making Grin ASICs, then you want to hold very firm to any commitment you made about not arbitrarily changing PoW. They need to feel confident that their hardware, requiring millions to develop, is not going to be obsoleted any time soon.
It also helps to be 100% ASIC friendly; i.e. assigning 100% of rewards to an ASIC friendly PoW.
From before launch, Grin planned only four 6-monthly hard forks, in part to be able to make tweaks to the ASIC resistant PoW. Without such tweaks, no PoW can seriously claim to be ASIC resistant (and satisfy other desirable properties like being not too complex and instantly verifiable). I donât know who has the appetite and energy to keep on designing and implementing unpredictable interesting tweaks for C29 every 6 months, but I can assure you itâs not me.
Grinâs plan to ensure profitable GPU mining in the first 2 years was a success. In fact, for GPU miners, it was more than successful as even today, the ASIC friendly PoW receiving the vast majority of rewards, is quite profitable for GPUs, and ASICs contribute little if any noticeable graph rate.
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To add an interesting perspective to this thread about centralization, based on the specs released by the G1 ASIC for Grin, the ASIC did not offer all the much of an advantage. The price-performance was maybe 2-3 times greater according to last-gen GPUâs. The main advantage was the power draw if anything. That being said I donât think the centralization of ASICâs should be of concern at the moment. Unless there is a huge performance improvement, GPUâs are still competitive on C32. In a way, C32 is a pretty good balance between ASIC resistance and friendly based on its memory requirements.
-Macker
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