Published on: 2017-04-11T23:42:41+00:00
In a recent email thread on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list, there has been a debate over whether or not ASICBoost should be allowed or prevented completely. Jimmy Song questioned why end users of Bitcoin would want to change its policy to make their money more vulnerable to a 51% attack. He argued that while one company may have an advantage by using extra nonce space, the use of ASICBoosted hash rate will help secure the network against newer optimizations in the future.Song proposed a modification to Gregory Maxwell's proposal on ASICBoost, specifically regarding overt ASICBoost. Overt ASICBoost requires grinding on the version bits of the block header instead of the Merkle Root, which is more efficient and requires fewer resources. His proposal suggests changing the version bits in the header to a nonce-space so miners can use it for overt ASICBoost, while moving the 32-bits over to the Coinbase transaction as part of the witness commitment. This modification aims to make ASICBoost more useful to miners and appeal to their financial interests.Currently, overt ASICBoost is not allowed as it would be considered an attack on the network and cause harm similar to mining only empty blocks. However, there is some disagreement among participants about whether overt ASICBoost is already implicitly allowed on the network or not. Luke Dashjr refuted the claim that overt ASICBoost is allowed, stating that it would still be an attack on the network and cause harm.The email thread also discusses concerns and reservations about the proposed modification. Some participants express concerns about the vulnerability exploited by ASICBoost and the barrier of entry it creates for new mining chip manufacturers. Luke Dashjr suggests fixing the vulnerability entirely or changing the PoW algorithm to one that is more ASIC-friendly. However, he may not oppose Song's proposal if it gains better support than Segwit currently has, and concerns such as Bitfury and Canaan stating they can compete using ASICBoost and the patents being licensed freely to everyone are addressed.The conversation also revolves around the compatibility of the new optimization with overt ASICBoost and whether or not it should be allowed openly or hidden. There are potential legal implications, but those risks exist regardless of whether BIP-141 is modified. Adding the modification would explicitly allow overt ASICBoost. Concerns are raised about the advantage one company may have if they are the only ones using the extra nonce space, but market incentives are suggested to play a role in determining how quickly this would happen.There is also discussion about the feasibility of implementing the proposed changes. The current Stratum protocol does not support block version changing, so a new standard extension would need to be added to the mining protocol and pool operators would need to change their software. Additionally, all miners would have to update their firmware unless they already have compatible hardware. Until all miners update, the change could result in large differences in mining efficiency, potentially giving an advantage to larger mining operations.In conclusion, the email thread revolves around the debate over whether or not to allow overt ASICBoost and the proposed modification to BIP-141 to make ASICBoost more attractive to miners. There are concerns and reservations expressed by participants, and the feasibility of implementing the changes is discussed. The compatibility of the new optimization with overt ASICBoost is also a central point of the discussion, as well as the decision of whether to allow it openly or hide it.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T20:22:19.656223+00:00