Author: Jorge Timón 2017-04-08 17:22:22
Published on: 2017-04-08T17:22:22+00:00
The discussion revolves around whether using ASICBoost by all miners would make the Bitcoin network more secure against attackers or not. The writer argues that an attacker can use ASICBoost too, so it does not provide any additional security. Even if only a subset of miners use ASICBoost, an attacker can take advantage of it. The writer also disagrees with the comparison between ASICBoost and the use of ASICs in general as providing more security to the network and users. He believes that the existence of SHA256d ASICs makes an attack with general-purpose computing hardware much more expensive and unlikely. However, ASICBoost can be implemented with software running on general-purpose hardware that integrates with regular SHA256d ASICs. Although there is probably an advantage to having the ASICBoost implementation "in the same box" as the SHA256d, the attacker can invest in hardware with the competitive advantage from having ASICBoost more integrated with the SHA256d ASICs too. The writer remains unconvinced that using ASICBoost provides any additional security to the network, even if it results in the hashrate charts looking "more secure".
Updated on: 2023-06-11T23:59:30.500353+00:00