Quote from: TPTB_need_war on April 12, 2016, 01:58:59 PM

Quote from: dEBRUYNE on April 12, 2016, 01:42:32 PM

It seems like they are going with Equihash:

https://www.internetsociety.org/sites/default/files/blogs-media/equihash-asymmetric-proof-of-work-based-generalized-birthday-problem.pdf

Afair when I reviewed that paper when Zcash first mentioned it, that can only theoretically limit the parallelization speed up to a factor of around less than 10. But afaik that doesn't characterize entirely about the electricity consumption advantage for an ASIC which is the more important factor.

Afaik, an asymmetric algorithm like that is more likely to be broken (sped up or electrically optimized) by some number theoretic or algorithmic insight. I realize the Birthday problem is a very studied problem, but I trust that much less than a straightforward symmetric memory hard algorithm. I should spend some more time on that white paper in the future when I restudy my design for a CPU hash, so I can try to find more flaws in either approach. I'll wait (because I have other priorities), which will give us time to be sure that is the algorithm Zcash has chosen before investing more effort.

I fear ingrained investment more than botnets. Botnets don't have to fight you and sell you out to protect their vestment. They are just there to get some coins cheaper which drives the difficulty higher than it would be otherwise. If the botnets ever do dominate (which is unlikely) then they are competing with each other. We all can go buy a botnet too, which will drive the prices of botnets higher. In short, botnets are a decentralized resource, unlike cheap electricity which is centralized.

I think the key for Monero is remaining small enough. So the big win will be the stampede in if it comes (smaller market cap should far exceed Bitcoin's percentage gain), and that is the time I would be selling and waiting to see what is next for Monero in terms of where we are at that time in terms of state-of-the-art in sustaining decentralization.

Folks I don't share the 10 - 20 year plan viewpoint. These are not heirlooms because of the trend to centralization and the power law distribution of wealth. We go out and make our mark on society with something and it has a natural peak based on its fitness.

Disclaimer: I have no skin in this game. I realized I make my money being a creator and marketer, not as a speculator. I learned my lesson already.

In case anyone missed my point. I am saying botnets are a free market thus we can all go rent one. This will raise the price which raise their availability. Which will raise the hashrate difficulty and this security. Botnets are great!