An interesting statement was posted on Twitter by Olivier Janssens, as he explained an upcoming change in the Bitcoin Core client software. A patented optimization for ASIC mining – called AsicBoost – will be made obsolete in the next client update. That news did not go over well with a lot of members for sure. Bitcoin Core Developers Dislike AsicBoost
This news is part of a substantial debate on Reddit for the past few days, as the AsicBoost optimization lets Bitcoin miners save roughly 10% on electricity usage and costs. Given the right rates of electricity costs in most parts of the world, a 10% different can make mining more profitable for some users, adding to the decentralisation of this concept. Note to miners: We, the core devs, discovered a patented optimization in your ASIC. We will make it obsolete in the next update. Thank you. — Olivier Janssens (@olivierjanss) May 13, 2016 At the same time, this announcement begs the question as to why Bitcoin Core developers want to remove such a feature, as that seems to have an adverse effect. There are some questions asked on Reddit as to why is behind this decision, and the name Blockstream is coming up several times as the potential instigators of this upcoming change.
People who have been mining Bitcoin for some time now will know how the mining difficulty has gone up by a significant margin in the past few months. The apparent reason for this ramping difficulty spike is due to more people mining, or at least more hardware being deployed. Still, a 10% boost to require less electricity while mining is nothing to sneeze at.
According to the statement posted by one of the Bitcoin Core developers, this change will be made to fight the centralization of Bitcoin […]
