Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
May 04, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- The company that’s known
for effectively, single-handedly causing the Monero fork as well as the
development of ASIC resistance, is now
threatening ZCash and all coins that use
the Equihash consensus
algorithm.
Does this mean multiple forks are
imminent?
In understanding the development of
an ASIC that can get around Equihash, it helps to first understand
what an ASIC is as well as what Equihash is. When this
understanding is achieved, it’s hoped that the true level of threat
that ASICs bring to the Crypto industry might become
clearer.
The acronym ASIC means
application-specific integrated circuit, which appears to mean a
microchip that can act as a tiny version of a computer. The benefit
of using ASICs in the Cryptocurrency industry primarily relates to
mining.
ASICs use far less electricity than
regular computers simply due to their minuscule size, as well as
due to their creation for singular purposes. All in all, according
to Sigenics, a Silicon devices company, ASICs contain only the
pieces needed to fulfill this singular purpose and no more.
Therefore, if they are made to mine, then every part caters to this
purpose.
The reason that we don’t have ASICs
everywhere is that the initial capital
investmentfor just one of them is quite high. According
to multiple sources, the cost to develop one ASIC chip can run
anywhere from $150,000 to $1 million, depending on its
size.
So, we have specialized machines
that are more efficient than regular computers and therefore, they
mine crypto more efficiently than anything else. Why aren’t ASICs
mining every cryptocurrency now?
The true answer is that it’s still
hard to meet the specifications of a Cryptocurrency network. Each
ASIC needs to be developed specifically for each Crypto-network,
one by one. Thus, up to now, whoever has been developing the latest
ASIC chips hadn’t decided that Equihash ASICs were an urgent
need.
Just what is Equihash? Equihash is
a Proof-of-Work based consensus algorithm. What this means is
that consensus or verification of blocks is reached by the
computer or node that most efficiently solves “the mining
equation.” One can think of this as a very complex math problem
that when solved correctly, indicates that the latest transactions
on the network are valid.
Bitcoin’s consensus is as simple as
this.
Equihash, on the other hand, has
more of a specialized way of reaching consensus. While Bitcoin’s
POW algorithm is largely based on the processing power of
participating nodes in the network, the Equihash algorithm
is what Zcash
calls, “a memory-based algorithm.”
This essentially means that the
difference between Equihash and Bitcoin’s consensus algorithms is
that Bitcoin’s uses processing power while Equihash’s uses Random
Access Memory. Upgrading RAM essentially boils down to taking your
computer apart down to the motherboard and installing higher
capacity memory cards in the RAM slots.
PCWorld claims that some computers
only have two memory slots, so doing this would simply mean buying
two new RAM cards with more megabytes of space on them. All of this
also means that RAM is capped. You can only upgrade so
much.
This is most likely why Zcash and
other supporters of the Equihash algorithm believed that it was
largely ASIC-resistant. Due to its dependence on RAM instead of on
processing power, which can reportedly be more easily produced in a
microchip, it did seem that Equihash was a long shot for
ASICS.
Despite this, a memory-based ASIC
now exists. What this truly means for Zcash and other
Equihash-based Cryptocurrencies, is still up in the air. For now,
it appears likely that as Zcash suggests on their website, Equihash
consensus algorithms might need to be altered. If this fails, as a
result, Equihash might become obsolete.
By: BGN Editorial