Author: Jimmy Song 2017-04-08 22:26:25
Published on: 2017-04-08T22:26:25+00:00
In a discussion on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, Jorge Timón queried why ASICBoost being used by all miners would make the system more secure against an attacker. He argued that whether all miners use ASICBoost or only a subset of them, he remained unconvinced that it provided any additional security to the network. Jimmy Song responded, stating that if some newer ASIC optimization comes up, having an ASICBoosted hash rate would be better in terms of securing the Bitcoin network against newer optimizations. Song explained that if someone figures out an ASIC optimization that's completely unrelated and gives a speed boost over non-ASICBoosted implementation, banning ASICBoost would allow someone with this optimization to get 51% of the network by adding N machines with their new optimization. In contrast, allowing ASICBoost would make the network stronger against this attack in terms of cost because someone with this optimization would need 1.2N machines to get 51%.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T23:59:49.694413+00:00