On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Peter Todd via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> > While I'm in favour of blocking covert usage of ASICBOOST, there's every > reason > to block non-covert usage of it as well. In a low margin business like > mining, > the advatange it gives is enormous - quite possibly 10x your profit margin > - > and given that barrier free access to being able to purchase ASICs is > already > an archilles heal for Bitcoin there is every reason to eliminate this legal > vulnerability. Additionally, it's a technical vulnerability as well: we > want > getting into the ASIC manufacturing and design business to have as low > barriers > to entry as is feasible, and the ASICBOOST exploit significantly increases > the > minimum capital requirements to do so. > Asicboost also has the problem that it isn't treating the hashing as a black box, and thus has impacts on what gets mined. In particular it creates an incentive to make blocks smaller. That's a very unwanted effect, and anything like it should be engineered out on principle.
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