The Crypto Mining Wars: Monero vs ASIC

The Monero developer community is gearing up for battle against the dreaded ASIC Manufacturing Empire.

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For the unaware, ASIC Mining rigs are frowned upon in the cryptocurrency community due to the large advantage it provides for those who are willing to meet the price point to buy them. Due to the expenses required for ASIC Mining rigs; Lower-end computers operating on CPU and GPU mining are having an increasingly difficult time going up against hardware specifically designed to mine for cryptocurrencies.

Monero is just one community that seeks to level the playing field amongst CPU, GPU and ASIC mining. Currently, mining for Monero on a GPU or even CPU is still considered profitable.

The problem begins with the inevitable rise of ASIC Mining rigs and the threat that they represent to lower-end miners who are making profit. The XMR Cryptonight Proof-Of-Work Algorithm is specifically designed to be ASIC resistance through annual modification of the PoW algorithm at every scheduled Monero hard fork.

Developers of the Monero network want to protect it from domination by ASIC mining rigs, which could even be seen as bad for decentralization. Recently, the development community released a statement on how they are going to combat the rise of ASIC mining rigs in the future.

A major problem with ASIC Mining rigs has to do with the inherent distrust they sow within the cryptocurrency community due to the consolidation of hashing power under those willing to pay for it.

Hypothetically speaking, if ASIC Mining were to become more prevalent within a cryptocurrency network; It coul lead to a loss of decentralization through the consolidation of that power by major players. Whereas mining with a GPU can be profitable for everyday people; When forced to go up against more powerful hardware, the advantage can quickly erode against the threat of ASIC-driven mining.

Which is precisely why so many in the cryptocurrency community despise ASIC-driven mining practices.

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Another issue lies in the fact that so many mining rig manufacturers are based out of China, which on the surface appears to be anti-cryptocurrency, or atleast they wish to be perceived that way. When you have a GPU mining rig, it is vastly harder to regulate against cryptocurrency mining through forcing consumers to acquire mining licenses, because it would for the most part be impractical to do so.

With ASIC mining rigs and China-based company’s such as BitMain; It is hypothetically possible for the Chinese government to force companies to maintain built-in kill switches with their specially designated ASIC machines in the event of proposed regulations. It also provides a pretext for governments to only sell specially issued government licenses to those who have ASIC equipment; which would be another blow for decentralization.

The moral of the story is that ASIC miners are not welcome in the Monero community even though there is relatively little that can be done to prevent it.

No amount of hardware can be truly ASIC-resistant, but the developer community can work to make it economically infeasible for ASIC-driven mining rigs to mine for profit at the disadvantage of lower-end miners. The Cryptonight PoW algorithm has been specifically designed to make it harder for ASIC miners to win the war for profit, and thus level the playing field so even CPU miners still stand a chance!

Even now the Monero community is talking about possible replacement of the current PoW algorithm with what is known as the Cuckoo Cycle (which is even more ASIC-resistant than Cryptonight). This would make current Monero ASIC hardware mining rigs obsolete overnight, as they are built to work with the Cryptonight PoW algorithm.

Only time will tell who will ultimately win the war for hashing power. Its the age old tale of David and Goliath.

Will the expensive and powerful ASIC mining rigs be able to overcome the attempts by cryptocurrency enthusiasts and developers to stop their use? Or will GPU and CPU miners continue to thrive and mine another day.

Again, only time will tell. What do you think?

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