Such a POW change is not a cut and dried decision. To some, it would indicate the ultimate failure of Bitcoin's economic model. And ousting SHA256 miners would effectively pull the rug out from underneath the economy. A blockchain split would be inevitable and the security of the forked chain would be highly questionable.
It'd be interesting to see how that would play out, but it's not something I hope for. In that sense, maybe it's a good thing that local authorities are pressuring Sichuan miners to scale down.
It'd be interesting to see how that would play out, but it's not something I hope for. In that sense, maybe it's a good thing that local authorities are pressuring Sichuan miners to scale down.
How would mitigating a direct catastrophic threat be an "ultimate failure" if the mitigation is what would actually save the network/protocol?
Bitcoin's entire model is based on rationally incentivizing honest mining. This case would prove that the existing incentives are insufficient to actually achieve that. It would be a catastrophic blow to confidence in the system.
Do you really think we can just brick all existing mining hardware without consequences?
