Open Source ASIC miner
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I was speaking to [b]@wrapper0feather[/b] the other day about the problems concerning centralisation of the Bitcoin network. This has been discussed at length in the crypto forum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyrg2JVBSA&feature=share&list=UU2ORQrqEEJ168UCXJfJdNtQ
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/post/55027053449/e22-asics-forensics-and-other-geeky-lullabys-letsOne idea that wrapper put forward was the idea that [b]human striving and progress will always exist[/b] and therefore [b]in the long run ASICs for Scrypt based coins are inevitable[/b]. Therefore the work that needs to be done is to introduce an open source ASIC miner that is well distributed throughout the world population. Further still that [b]Merchants should also be encouraged to mine[/b] and that this availability and open opportunity would mean that e[b]very actor on the network was both a consumer and a producer[/b].
I’d like to really get stuck in to this so please share your thoughts, ideas and counter arguments? Does this fit with what we stand for as Feathercoin?
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The speed of the miners has to be matched by the speed of distribution otherwise the economy develops a ghost dynamic. Lots of supply but no spending which creates accidental scarcity which spirals into further scarcity and the currency chokes.
A real solution would be a modular miner, where the power supply and board set up are standard, but the functional chips are replaceable and can even be mixed.
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Interesting. I like this idea of the modular nature of the boards and it plays in to the environmental impact of mining. This is a big plus.
[quote name=“zerodrama” post=“21842” timestamp=“1374070467”]
The speed of the miners has to be matched by the speed of distribution otherwise the economy develops a ghost dynamic. Lots of supply but no spending which creates accidental scarcity which spirals into further scarcity and the currency chokes.A real solution would be a modular miner, where the power supply and board set up are standard, but the functional chips are replaceable and can even be mixed.
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Thanks to the link to Lets talk Bitcoin, extremely informative interview about ASICS
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/post/55027053449/e22-asics-forensics-and-other-geeky-lullabys-lets.
Technically, we could do something like,
include in the mining code that there is a maximum mining power per payout address, divide the number of addresses when it is a pool?Or like the Wallet, the ASIC needs to haved a an official code key, from the offical wallet to join the network.
This would just nudge ASIC to be more diverse.
Or A Kickstarter project for the official Feathercoin ASIC, where it would be widley publisised and official sancioined. Could we ask Linus or Richard Stallmen to run that, as part of open source / free software foundation or some such? Or even a forward looking/technical university that does open source?
It would also differentiate Feathercoin if we lead with finding a way of having an official ASICs. We could enforce future start dates, to make them fairer in the miner code in the wallet.
I’m obviously just brainstorming, someone must have thought this through further…
Anyone see any other technical articles (on how we might implement ASICS).
I think this in an area we can overtake Litecoin and Bitcoin…
The other thing to note is we are completely vulnerable now, when 5% of the Litecoin Miners could 51% our network, more than ever we will be in the future, even if Feathercoin ASIC 2 is 100 times more powerfull than Feathercoin ASIC 1 !!!
I am more and more in favour of increasing the power of confirms. One way would be to enforce X future confirms, before the block is finally added to the chain.
Anyone know how many future blocks we process before the block is added. When do the confirms start, are they on a potential future block?
i.e. It wouldn’t then matter what hash rate anyone had, that would just be between the miner. As Satoshi said it should be 1 CPU 1 vote, perhaps we can do that with enhanced / future block confirms.
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I think this is something which, if not an inevitability, must become a necessity.
The problem though, is that designing and programming an ASIC architecture isn’t a trivial undertaking (as far as I can tell). It requires a pretty high level of expertize in low level computing and high performance algorithm design. This is why most of this sort of development is proprietary. It’s difficult and (a lot of the time) boring work that most people who have the skill for won’t do for free.
All of this notwithstanding, I think it’s an incredibly important project to encourage for the future of all crypto-coins and the p2p economies they hope to foster.
