Re: [bitcoin-dev] Dev-list's stance on potentially altering the PoW algorithm

From: Daniele Pinna <daniele.pinna@gmail•com>
To: Adam Back <adam@cypherspace•org>, bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Dev-list's stance on potentially altering the PoW algorithm
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2015 10:30:40 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAEgR2PFCLKSDveHQ1xZX0zSdT6_C=ee0-JCQ3REARhCLU6nCYg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CALqxMTH6r8eJN2Xw+nn1z=6x9Q3TRSQQ6ZMXsmHPyX8dNx+EgA@mail.gmail.com>

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The recently published paper I referenced cite's the Cuckoo cycle
algorithm, discusses its limitations and explains how their proposed
algorithm greatly improves on it. Again.... you're probably in a WAYYY
better position to judge this than I am. My question was purely
hypothetical as I wanted to know where the core devs stand on flipping the
mining ecosystem upside down.

Thanks for your link though, I'll read it right now (before finishing the
research article i posted :) ).

Daniele

Daniele Pinna, Ph.D

On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 10:14 AM, Adam Back <adam@cypherspace•org> wrote:

> There are papers demonstrating this "protection from ASIC/FPGA
> optimization" to be basically impossible
> https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/asic-faq.pdf and yet people
> keep trying...
>
> See also John Tromps cuckoo cycle paper, seems close to the best you
> could expect from memory hard.
>
> Adam
>
> On 2 October 2015 at 10:02, Daniele Pinna via bitcoin-dev
> <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> > The following paper proposing an asymmetric memory-hard PoW had been
> > recently published:
> >
> > http://eprint.iacr.org/2015/946.pdf
> >
> > My intent is not to promote the paper as I have not finished studying it
> > myself. I am however interested in the dev-list's stance on potentially
> > altering the bitcoin PoW protocol should an algorithm that guarantees
> > protection from ASIC/FPGA optimization be found.
> >
> > I assume that, given the large amount of money invested by some miners
> into
> > their industrial farms this would represent a VERY contentious hard fork.
> >
> > It is, however, also true that a novel optimization-resistant algorithm
> > could greatly ameliorate decentralization in the bitcoin network due to a
> > resurgence of desktop/cellphone mining.
> >
> > Where do the core devs stand on this matter, hypothetical as it may be?
> >
> > Dpinna
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > bitcoin-dev mailing list
> > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> >
>

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