Author: Matt Corallo 2016-05-12 01:58:42
Published on: 2016-05-12T01:58:42+00:00
The conversation on the bitcoin-dev mailing list started with a question by Russell O'Connor regarding the patent encumbrance in the design and manufacturing process of ASICs. In response, Gregory Maxwell suggested that the consensus Proof-of-Work (PoW) could be modified to allow blocks to be mined using both the existing PoW algorithm and a slightly tweaked version where implementing AsicBoost would give no advantage. This would remove any incentive for implementing AsicBoost without making any hardware obsolete. Taking it a step further, the old PoW could continue to be accepted but with a 20% target penalty or vice versa with the new PoW having a 20% target boost. Matt stated that aside from patents related to the silicon manufacturing process itself and patents not yet published, the process is unencumbered. He also mentioned that setting the correct precedent is important in the first case so that the community will fight large centralization risks.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T23:26:22.158959+00:00