What is anti ASIC? All transactions of cryptocurrency are recorded in a public ledger called blockchain, and all transactions are verified by so-called miners, who use their computing power to solve these blocks. For this technology, only when the hostile forces control more than 50% of the hash capacity, the danger of hackers invading the network and rewriting the value will appear. Unless the system is completely decentralized, there will be no weaknesses. So, will anti ASIC lead to currency decentralization? This article will answer for you.

1、 What is anti ASIC?

The history of cryptocurrency mining began with the Bitcoin SHA256 algorithm. The Litecoin Scrypt algorithm is followed by Dash's X11 algo and Ethereum's Ethash. The main reason for the changes in different algorithms is the resistance to dedicated build hardware, such as ASICs (and FPGAs).

Nakamoto Cong's original vision is that everyone should contribute to the Bitcoin network fairly, so that it remains distributed and decentralized. In the early stage, only CPU and GPU miners were mining and supporting Bitcoin. With the rising value of Bitcoin, ASIC began to dominate the entire network, making it impossible for ordinary miners to use their consumer grade hardware to mine Bitcoin.

ASIC machines are developed by several top Chinese companies, which not only control the network, but also seize all power from small miners. This has seriously led to the threat of centralized mining, so the result of ASIC resistance has emerged. If you are a long-term miner, you should know the advantages of anti ASIC currency. However, there are still many new miners who do not know the meaning of anti ASIC.

ASIC simply means a chip designed to accomplish a specific task. In the case of cryptocurrencies, they are developed for the purpose of mining specific algorithms. In terms of hashes, they are powerful, cost-effective and energy efficient. They are better than GPU in mining, and they are only good at it. These machines are useless except for mining algorithms. On the other hand, technically speaking, GPU is also an ASIC, and their applications are graphics processing and output.

When a currency or cryptocurrency is said to be ASIC resistant, it means that no ASIC machine or solution has been developed to mine this currency. It can only use consumer hardware such as CPU and GPU to mine. Over time, some people may or may not develop ASICs for that currency or algorithm, because technically, ASICs can be developed for any mining algorithm. It is only a matter of time for someone to crack it, which is why they never say that ASIC proves, but that ASIC resists.

The most suitable example here is that BitContinent recently launched the most powerful ASIC threat to GPU and CPU miners for Monero, Electronium and other cryptocurrencies. However, Monero later hard bifurcation algorithm, which is a different story.

2、 Will ASIC resistance really lead to decentralization?

In most cases, ASICs are more secure than GPUs because of their limited use. If the mining of Bitcoin is dominated by ASIC, is Bitcoin centralized? Bitcoin is still decentralized, not ASIC centric, but human beings will.

first; The main threat and reason of centralization is when the network faces 51% attacks. This is why it is always recommended to distribute the hash rate on different pools. In addition, these machines are only available in large quantities, so it is difficult to purchase them in large quantities. For this reason and a large number of mining pools, Bitcoin and most other ASIC currencies are still centralized.

When a coin shows anti ASIC, it is not only about decentralization, but also to provide freedom and fairness in mining. It gives ordinary miners confidence and uses their ordinary hardware to mine. Due to the wide range of contact; The miners will form a stronger community, which will naturally lead to the success of the currency. It gives everyone an equal opportunity to protect the network, making the system completely decentralized, distributed and easy to access.

summary

The above content explains the meaning of anti ASIC and whether anti ASIC will lead to decentralization. In fact, most cryptocurrencies on the market are centralized in nature. Blockchain is the key mechanism behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, Lite Coin or any cryptocurrency. The whole idea of blockchain is that it is completely decentralized, which means that there is no centralized power to control anything.