So if I understood it correctly, bitmain has a remote kill-switch (effectively, since they can brick the machines with the firmware change) on 70% of hashrate? fanastic. What are we supposed to do now, other than change the PoW algo immediately?
It looks like it can be blocked with a change of code. And it also looks like it's an old feature named Minerlink that was never put into action but left there to fester. That's giving the benefit of the doubt of course. Regardless, leaving a gaping hole like that isn't doing anyone any favours.
Who is naive enough to think this was only a mistake that was left there without fixing? Looks like an obvious kill-switch to me. Why did no one see this yet? Isn't firmware code open source? Im not sure how this works, so im going to need more data. But to me this sounds like a way for Jihan to be able to kill BTC at any given time. How the fuck we managed to not notice this earlier? this is a disaster. Imagine if Jihan got paid by PBOC trillions to brick all the ASICs at once...