Quote from: tacotime on November 14, 2011, 07:46:14 PM

SC2 has a special difficulty algorithm that allows for vast decreases in difficulty per 360 blocks (~200%) but only small increases (~14%). It seems that this could be exploited by using a script that does the following:
1.) Mines SC2 when ((number of blocks / 360) % 2 == 0), that is, every other difficulty difficulty adjustment period.
2.) Mines BTC when ((number of blocks / 360) % 2 != 0). This would allow you to use your cards for BTC in the meantime.

If you simply mine every other difficulty adjustment period you won't be taking advantage of the asymmetric difficulty adjustment. You'd just be sending a big pulse of mining power for one period when difficulty is low then going away the next one when it is high. You can do this on any blockchain out there. This happened to NameCoin earlier this summer before merged mining, lots of people left which caused a huge difficulty drop then everyone rushed back in and completed two weeks worth of blocks in less than two days.

Now that there are lots of block chains out there someone is sure to come up with a script (or a pool) that switches to the most profitable one at any given time, be it bitcoin, litecoin, or solid coin. They may stay for one (power)block or they may stay for weeks. Lots of people will use scripts/pools with similar rules so you'll see large pulses of mining power jump among the systems. Pulsed mining will soon be taken for granted.

Where solid coin's asymmetric difficulty adjustment comes in is when 1) you have over 14% of the mining power, and 2) even after an adjustment it is still more profitable than other chains. Number 2 is more likely with solidcoin than other blockchains since the difficulty doesn't adjust up as fast. This happened right when it launched when there was a huge influx of miners and difficulty didn't adjust up very fast.