davecgh's answer was rather detailed and thoughtful. I mostly aggree with the thoughts. The only problem that can surface with asics is sokething similar to bitcoin's situstion. Miners and asic makers are mostly in china. First things like these couldn't be a problem but after these (possible) miners acquire a large enough voting power, those miners can collaborate in voting and steer the currency into the direction to their liking. But by the time they will be released, about 38% of the total DCR amount will be already mined.