ASICBOOST causes Bitcoin's PoW to become more memory/latency throttled instead of raw computation throttled. There is the equation: Power Cost + Captial Rent + Labor ~= block reward + fees Capital Rent is a barrier to entry, and hence in desiring a more distributed system, we would like to minimize the Capital Rent portion of the equation. Resolving memory/latency throttle requires a greater Captial Rent than raw computation throttle. Hence (agreeing with Luke), ASICBOOST is not desirable, even if it wasn't a government enforced monopoly on mining. Please let me know if I made a mistake. Thanks, Praxeology Guy