Bitcoin Core Threatens a Hard Fork over Asicboost Mining Optimization
Peter Todd, backed by Matt Corallo, has proposed hard-fork changes to the bitcoin network to make “useless” patent pending algorithmic improvements which give mining an Asicboost of 20%, leading to increased profits of some $30 million if used by one of the biggest mining pools. In a striking post to the bitcoin mailing list, Todd states: “As part of the hard-fork proposed in the HK agreement we’d like to make the patented AsicBoost optimisation useless, and hopefully make further similar optimizations useless as well.” Arguing that the patent pending optimization may lead to mining....
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According to the statement posted by one of the Bitcoin Core developers, this change will be made to fight the centralization of Bitcoin mining. An interesting statement was posted on Twitter by Olivier Janssens, as he explained an upcoming change in the Bitcoin Core client software. A patented optimization for ASIC mining – called AsicBoost – will be made obsolete in the next client update. That news did not go over well with a lot of members for sure. Bitcoin Core Developers Dislike AsicBoost. This news is part of a substantial debate on Reddit for the past few days, as the AsicBoost....
Bitcoin Core contributor, Peter Todd, announced that a hard-fork had been proposed to negate attempts to patent the ASICBoost method. According to a message sent out by Peter, this proposed idea sprang from an agreement made at a Bitcoin-oriented round-table in February. The round-table was attended by a slew of representatives from the Bitcoin development and industry, and focused on a variety of different subjects. The intent of this fork is to make ASIC boost optimisation useless, and ideally the change would be SPV compatible. However, according to Peter, if a change to SPV clients....
It is important to note these details are not officially confirmed by any of the Chinese mining pools right now. For those people who assumed the Bitcoin block size debate was settled once and for all, bust open the popcorn yet again. Chinese mining pools are colluding to hard fork and support 2MB blocks. In doing so, they would go against everything Bitcoin Core has been working on so far, and use Bitcoin Classic instead. The Bitcoin block size debacle has been a source of great controversy for nearly a year now. Many experts feel the Bitcoin block size needs to be increased, yet there....
In a post on the Bitcoin development mailing list today, Blockstream CTO and long-time Bitcoin Core contributor Greg Maxwell laid out the case that an unnamed Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer is using a flaw in Bitcoin’s proof-of-work implementation to gain an efficiency advantage of up to 30 percent over other miners. Moreover, this could explain why Segregated Witness (SegWit), the Bitcoin protocol upgrade proposed by the Bitcoin Core development team, is blocked by some miners. Many therefore suspect the hardware manufacturer in question is Bitmain, whose CEO Jihan Wu is a staunch....
The highly anticipated Ethereum hard fork is expected to launch on August 4 at block height 12,965,000 according to Ethereum core developers. The London hard fork will add five Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that aim to enhance the blockchain. However, the Berlin hard fork was postponed after a vulnerability was identified by the audit company Chainsecurity and the London hard fork could be delayed as well. London Hard Fork Scheduled for August 4, 2021 Ethereum’s London hard fork is one of the most long-awaited changes in quite some time and will follow the recently....