Author: Timo Hanke 2016-05-11 22:42:35
Published on: 2016-05-11T22:42:35+00:00
The conversation, which took place on May 11, 2016, was about the possibility of a hard fork that would ban AsicBoost miners. The concern was that such a hard fork would lead to two co-existing Bitcoin blockchains. The reason being that there is no way to tell if a block was mined with AsicBoost or not. Therefore, it would be impossible to determine what percentage of the hashrate uses AsicBoost at any point in time. Timo Hanke argued that a hard fork banning AsicBoost would cause a guaranteed chain fork. However, Jannes Faber disagreed, stating that assuming AsicBoost miners are in the minority, their chain will constantly get overtaken, and the AsicBoost blocks will continue to be ignored or orphaned until they stop making them. Furthermore, if AsicBoost miners decide to ban non-AsicBoost blocks as a response to being banned themselves, they will become just another altcoin with a different PoW. The discussion continued, with Henning Kopp pointing out that until a difficulty adjustment on the AsicBoost chain takes place, both chains, the AsicBoost one and the forked one, will grow at approximately the same speed. However, Jannes Faber clarified that there would be no "difficulty adjustment on the AiscBoost chain" since AsicBoost blocks would never become "longer" (more total work). In conclusion, while a hard fork banning AsicBoost could potentially lead to the creation of an altcoin, Jannes Faber argued that it would not result in two co-existing Bitcoin blockchains, and AsicBoost blocks would eventually be ignored or orphaned.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T05:15:48.509946+00:00