Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Make bitcoin mining great again
by
squatter
on 28/08/2019, 19:23:09 UTC
Delete asics and pools, thank you!

How, pray tell, would we accomplish that? There are algorithms that are [temporarily] ASIC-resistant, but nothing we know of that could "delete" ASICs. Hard forking from SHA-256 would be highly contentious no doubt, especially if no one believes that the end goal -- no ASICs -- is possible.

As for pools, I think this sentiment from gmaxwell still applies:

Instead we /just/ need to improve the tools so that people can pool for variance reduction without turning over their consensus controls. It's straight forward: the pool gives you a coinbase txn specification (e.g. "must pay these addresses") and you mine whatever block content you want, returning shares to the pool. Then you get low variance payout, but without handing over control.

BTC has avoided hard-forking for over 10 years now. Let's start doing 4 per year. That sounds like a reasonable suggestion.
I get it, that works for smaller coins with less services and plurality of wallets. But I can imagine the chaos that BTC would stumble into with this.

4 per year sounds excessive no matter what, given the size and scope of the network. Either way, I don't think it's possible now. Maybe it would have been if a culture of hard forking had been adopted very early on.