Author: Jorge Timón 2017-04-09 11:48:27
Published on: 2017-04-09T11:48:27+00:00
In a bitcoin-dev discussion, Jimmy Song responded to Jorge Timón's query regarding the security of bitcoin network if all miners use ASICBoost. Song pointed out that if ASICBoost is banned and someone figures out an ASIC optimization that gives a speed boost over non-ASICBoosted implementation, then they can get 51% of the network by adding N machines with their new optimization. However, if ASICBoost is allowed, then someone with this optimization would need 1.2N machines to get 51%. Therefore, the network is 20% stronger against this attack in terms of cost. Timón argued that ASICBoost does not provide any additional security to the network as it can be implemented with software running on general purpose hardware that integrates with regular sha256d asics and the attacker can invest in hardware with the competitive advantage from having ASICBoost more integrated with the sha256d asics too.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T23:59:57.290633+00:00