The crypto community is bracing for a real revolution - leading cryptocurrencies may abandon the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm. The reason is the far-reaching game of mining giant Bitmain, which is building up its monopoly[1] on the market by stamping out new ASICs for top coins. This concerns[2] not only the users who prefer traditional GPU farms, but also the developers themselves, as the ecosystem becomes increasingly centralized and vulnerable to attacks.
It seems that the line production of short life ASICs for new coins has turned into an arms race between Bitmain and less-rapid rivals. Everyone wants to bite off the last piece from the PoW algorithm, promising a quick payback[3] and leaving no chance to traditional GPU farms. The first Antminers are sold out[4] before the start of sales, and users seem to receive the promised profit. If it were not for one thing - ASICs are quickly becoming unprofitable, and growing hash rates lead to Blockchain centralization.
ASIC resistance
In the community, Bitmain has gained a reputation of a "greedy bunch[5]" after using a huge hashrate on its own pool (Antpool.com) to block important votes[6] in the Bitcoin network. The resistance formation itself began at the start of the year when Bitmain suddenly announced the launch of Antminer A3 production for SiaCoin mining, destroying 4 months of labor of its old competitor Obelisk.
We are proud and happy to announce that we are launching the Antminer A3, a new Antminer model to mine cryptocurrencies using the hashing algorithm Blake(2b).
The actual price and option to buy will be available here https://t.co/mrymOaMy4i after 2:30PM (17 Jan, GMT+8). pic.twitter.com/Ye0cxNn95M[7][8]— BITMAIN (@BITMAINtech)
