Why doesn't Ethereum use ASIC

1.

Ethereum energy coin is not MLM

Ethereum is an open source public blockchain platform with smart contract function. Ethereum provides decentralized virtual machine (Ethereum virtual machine) to process point-to-point contract through its special cryptocurrency Ethereum

in 2013, vitalik buterin, 19, first mentioned the idea of Ethereum in a book entitled "Ethereum white paper: next generation intelligent connection and decentralized application platform". Then, in 2014, the algorithm and protocol of Ethernet coin were officially implemented, and $150 million was raised. The system itself was finally completed on July 30, 2015

as the representative of blockchain 2.0, the mainstream currency Ethernet is regarded as the wind vane of crypto digital currency market. However, over the past week, the price of ether currency has continued to fall. On August 14, 2018, the ethereal currency plummeted by 20%, reaching a record low of $257 this year. Compared with this year's peak of $1295, the price of Ethernet currency has shrunk by more than 80%. Affected by this, on August 15, 2018, none of the top ten mainstream currencies in the digital money market was spared, falling across the board, with a number of single day declines exceeding 10%

extended data

Ethereum started planning almost in 2013, and started to implement the project in 2015. Before that, there were many digital currencies imitating bitcoin in the market, and they made various modifications on the basis of bitcoin code. In this way, it is very difficult to develop a new blockchain application, to re deploy a new chain, and then to develop an application on this chain. Using a consensus mechanism of pow alone is a huge maintenance workload. It's like developing an app on a mobile phone and developing the Android system together

after Ethereum comes out, it is equivalent to the underlying operating system of the blockchain. On Ethereum, it is very convenient to develop various dapps without considering the underlying development, and it can also share the computing power and storage of Ethereum. For programmers, the threshold of blockchain development is lowered instantly. The emergence of Ethereum has played a very important role in the development and popularization of blockchain applications. That's why Ethereum is called blockchain 2.0

2.

Miner components include CPU, GPU, motherboard and hard disk, similar to a high configuration computer with a hard disk. Self assembly mainly depends on which aspect of hardware performance you want to highlight

mining machine has computing power, display card mining machine and storage mining machine. Daotong storage has long been concerned about the dynamic and hardware supply of mining machine, and its own components will be cheaper than those of the manufacturer< br />

3. GPU mining

Hardware

algorithm is difficult to solve in memory. In order to make DAG suitable for memory, each GPU needs 1-2gb of memory. If you get an error prompt: error GPU mining. GPU memory fragmentation? It means you don't have enough memory. GPU mining software is based on OpenCL, amd GPU will be faster than NVIDIA GPU of the same level. ASIC and FPGA are relatively inefficient, so they are blocked. To get OpenCL for chip integration platform, try:
amd SDK OpenCL
NVIDIA CUDA OpenCL
Ubuntu Linux settings

for this quick guide, you will need Ubuntu 14.04 or 15.04 and fglrx image driver. You can also use NVIDIA drives and other platforms, but you have to find your own way to get an effective OpenCL installation, such as genoil's ethminer fork
if you are using 15.04, go to & quot; Software and updates 〉 extra drives & quot; Set to & quot; Use the video driver & quot; from fglrx for AMD graphics accelerator
if you are using 14.04, go to & quot; Software and updates 〉 extra drives & quot; Set to & quot; Use the video driver & quot; from fglrx for AMD graphics accelerator;. Unfortunately, for some people, this method may not work, because there is a known program error in Ubuntu 14.04.02 that will prevent you from switching to the exclusive graphics drive necessary for GPU mining
therefore, if you encounter this program error, go to & quot; "Software and update" update & quot; Select & quot; Pre release reliable update proposal & quot;. Then, back to & quot; Software and updates 〉 extra drives & quot; Set to & quot; Use the video driver & quot; from fglrx for AMD graphics accelerator;. After restarting, it's worth checking that the drive is now properly installed (for example, by going to & quot; Additional drives & quot;)
no matter what you do, if you are using 14.04.02, once installed, do not change the drive or drive configuration. For example, the use of aticonfig – initial (especially the - F, - force option) will & quot; Destruction & quot; Your settings. If you accidentally change the configuration, you will need to uninstall the drive, restart, install the drive again and restart.

4. At the top of Ethereum is DAPP. It exchanges with the smart contract layer through Web3. JS. All smart contracts run on EVM (Ethereum virtual machine) and use RPC calls. Below EVM and RPC are the four core contents of Ethereum, including: blockchain, consensus algorithm, mining and network layer. Except DAPP, all other parts are in the Ethereum client. The most popular Ethereum client is geth (go Ethereum)

5.

1. about the variability of blockchain

2. eth, if most people agree to modify the chain, that is, variability, then they can modify the blockchain records and contracts

3. etc, blockchain records and contracts can't be modified, that is, they can't be tampered with

4. here are the advantages and disadvantages of the two methods

   The advantage of

5. variability is that people can make timely changes to make the right decisions. Therefore, modifying the specification is more practical than finding loopholes

6. non modifiability means that no matter how smart people are at that time, it is impossible not to make mistakes. Therefore, when problems arise in this scheme, it is best to find and solve the loopholes through the existing legal framework

7. differences in development

8. eth, whether it is intentionally arranged or since its birth, the core decisions of blockchain are made by Ethereum foundation with the participation of the community and most of them are developed by it

9. etc, the decision-making of blockchain is mainly decided by the feedback of three loose, collaborative teams with community participation

10. in any case, anyone can put forward improvement suggestions for the two kinds of blockchains. This is the benefit of open source, and it is also very common. You will find that developers of the two chains communicate with each other through GitHub and reddit. I hope to improve the frequency of communication in order to achieve the common goal

11. about compatibility

12. at present, the two kinds of blockchains are compatible with each other. Contracts or applications written by eth can be applied on etc, and vice versa

13. eth, focusing on ewasm, is committed to providing a platform for more and more developers, while the issue of contract security is secondary, such as viper

14. etc focuses on making developers create more secure contracts, such as viper, iohk research, at the cost of consuming the number of potential developers

15. it's obvious that both chains can accept each other, regardless of whether their wishes are the same or not. My view is that the number of developers is not necessarily related to the quality of the proct

16. about the transaction speed

17. eth, the average is 25 seconds, which will be shortened after upgrading

18. etc, with an average time of 14 seconds, maintained at 10-14 seconds after upgrade, according to ecip-1010 and ecip-1036 protocols

19. about the block capacity

20. eth, with the daily trading volume of eth graally reaching 5 million, the block capacity is graally saturated. This situation is similar to the recent transaction cost of bitcoin. This problem can be solved by expanding the block capacity by increasing the default fuel limit

21. ETC­， At present, there is still a lot of room for block capacity. As more and more people accept etc, the block capacity will also increase, just like eth

22. about community

23. eth, mainly discuss on reddit

24. etc, mainly discuss on slack

25. about monetary policy

26. eth, the planned supply is growing steadily, resulting in an average inflation of 3% in eth blockchain in its life cycle

27. etc, before 2025, inflation will reach 3%, and then the total supply will reach 200 million etc, and then there will be deflation

    As for the regional distribution of trading volume, China accounts for 20%, South Korea 25% and the United States 25%
    In etc, China accounts for 50%, South Korea 25% and the United States 10%
    About securities, at present, investors do not have the option to trade securities. Recently, one of eth's ETFs, trading open-end index funds, was denied by the regulators

28. etc owns etc trading trust, which allows investors to own etc instead of the asset itself

6.

Bitcoin uses SHA-256 encryption algorithm. When mining, it competes with computing power. In order to improve computing power, bitcoin has gone through four stages: CPU mining, GPU mining, FPGA mining and now ASIC mining machine mining, and the degree of specialization is getting higher and higher

Ethereum uses the ethash encryption algorithm. In the process of mining, it needs to read the memory and store the DAG file. Because the bandwidth of each read memory is limited, and the existing computer technology is difficult to have a qualitative breakthrough in this problem, so no matter how to improve the computing efficiency of the computer, the memory read efficiency will not be greatly improved. Therefore, in a sense, Ethereum's ethash encryption algorithm is ASIC resistant.

different encryption algorithms lead to great differences in mining equipment and computing power between bitcoin and Ethereum

at present, bitcoin mining equipment is mainly ASIC mining machine with a very high degree of specialization. The maximum computing power of a single mining machine is 110t / s, and the scale of computing power of the whole network is more than 120eh / s

the main mining equipment of Ethereum is video card miner, and there are very few specialized ASIC miner. On the one hand, the "ASIC resistance" of Ethereum mining algorithm improves the threshold of developing ASIC miner. On the other hand, after Ethereum is upgraded to 2.0, the consensus mechanism will be transformed into POS, and the miner can not continue mining

compared with the ASIC miner, the graphics card miner has two orders of magnitude difference in computing power. At present, the computing power of mainstream graphics card miner (8 cards) is about 420mh / s, and that of Ethereum is about 230th / s.

from the time dimension of the past two years, bitcoin's computing power of the whole network is growing rapidly, while Ethereum's computing power of the whole network is growing relatively slowly

The ASIC mining machine of

bitcoin is monopolized by several major mining machine manufacturers, and miners can only buy it from the market; Although the graphics card miner of Ethereum is also manufactured by a special miner, the miner can buy accessories from the market and assemble them according to his own demand

7. With the upgrading of Ethereum to version 2.0 this year, the consensus mechanism will be converted to POS, which will have a huge impact on miners. There are two choices for miners. One is to sell mining equipment and buy eth to adapt to the stacking mechanism of POS; The second is to switch the miner to other networks supporting GPU miner. Nick foster, a representative of kabombacks, a US mining equipment distributor, said most eth miners would choose the latter

after Ethereum is upgraded to version 2.0 POS mechanism, miners may switch mining machines to other networks
as Ethereum is finally ready to start its Ethereum 2.0 upgrade later this year, thus eliminating the long-term delay, the network will start to move towards the proof of rights model

therefore, the network will give up the workload proof consensus algorithm, so that eth miners have little choice. As their equipment will become obsolete, they will be forced to start mining counterfeit coins or re qualify as eth mortgagors. So, what is the current situation of Ethereum mining? With the coming transition, what will happen to the whole instry< At present, Ethereum consensus is based on POW system, which is similar to bitcoin (BTC). As a result, Ethereum's mining process is almost the same, as miners use their computing resources to earn rewards for each block they try to complete< However, there are still major differences between these processes. Although bitcoin mining has relied almost entirely on ASIC (large, loud machines designed specifically for cryptocurrency mining, most of which are concentrated in areas with low electricity prices), Ethereum's pow hash algorithm ethash is designed to support global chip manufacturers (such as NVIDIA and AMD). As Thomas Heller, global business director of cryptocurrency mining pool f2pool, explained in a conversation with cointegraph, GPU is much cheaper and easier to access than ASIC

"as ASIC is a very professional machine, when a new generation of procts is released, it is usually a huge technological leap. As a result, they have a much higher hash rate and are more energy efficient than the previous generation. This means that those manufacturers have spent a lot of money to research and develop it. Their machines are usually very expensive, and GPUs are much cheaper. "

Heller added that those who use GPU miners "have more flexibility to mine." For example, the popular NVIDIA geforce GTX 1080 Ti card can mine more than 15 different currencies, while ASIC units usually support only one currency

nevertheless, Ethereum is not completely immune to ASIC miners - at least in its current state. In April 2018, bitcontinent released antminer E3, an ASIC specially proced for mining Ethereum. Although widely praised for its hash rate of 180 megahashes per second and power consumption of 800 watts, it has received different responses from the Ethereum community. After the ASIC is inserted, a considerable number of GPU rig owners seem to suffer from loss of profits, and some are even forced to switch to other networks

"in the white paper, ETH must have ASIC resistance. I would like to say that the white paper stands for something "is one of the highest comments on the AR / ethermining topic about the topic discussed when antminer E3 was announced. Another reddit user argued that "the $800 only applies to 180mh."“ Split or die of a nation. "

some Ethereum users continue to suggest that bitmain's mining devices can lead to greater concentration, thus increasing the possibility of attack by 51%. Soon, a group of developers put forward "programmed workload proof" or progpow, which is an extension of the current Ethereum algorithm ethash, aiming to make GPU more competitive and promote decentralization

according to a paper published in March by Kristy Leigh Minehan, co-founder of progpow, about 40% of the hash rate of Ethereum is generated by bitmain ASIC. Alejandro de la Torre, the vice president of poolin, is the sixth largest pool of eth. He confirmed to cointegration that "GPU mining is still dominant" in Ethereum network, and added:

"at present, the profit of eth mining is not high, and the management threshold and cost of GPU equipment are higher than ASIC equipment. Compared with ASIC devices, GPU devices are more flexible, and you can use other algorithms to switch to other coins. "

progpow has not been integrated into Ethereum, and it is not clear when it will be finally implemented - in March, Ethereum core developers were debating whether progpow will really benefit the network in nearly two hours, and failed to reach a consensus. It is worth noting that a bitmain representative has previously told cointegraph that the mining hardware giant does not intend to extend the service life of antminer E3 to start operation after October 2020: "as far as we know, mining will end in October or some time after that."

a safe but uncertain future

indeed, Ethereum will stay away from mining in the future. Ethereum 2.0, which is planned to be launched later in 2020, is a major network upgrade on the blockchain, aiming to transfer its current POW consensus algorithm to a virtual POS (known as "block verifier")

more specifically, users are randomly selected considering their wealth in the network or their "interests". In other words, the more coins a POS verifier chooses to put in, the more coins accumulated as a reward

according to vitalik buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, e to the transition, the network will be more secure and the attack cost will be higher than the network of bitcoin, although the debate about the better consensus algorithm in the encryption community has lasted for many years. However, it is not clear when to start Ethereum 2.0, as many errors and management issues are reported to be delaying the process

another hypothetical benefit of POS system is that it has higher energy efficiency than pow blockchain. According to digiconomist, the cryptocurrency's total annual footprint is 59.31 terawatts per hour, which is comparable to the electricity consumption of Greece as a whole. However, since a report in July 2019 estimated that 74% of the exploitation of bitcoin was done using renewable energy, the environmental impact of bitcoin does not seem to be so serious

what will happen to the actual Ethereum miner? According to the documentation of Casper upgrade as part of Ethereum 2.0 roadmap, the network will initially support a hybrid model including both POW and POS, thus providing some space for block verifiers and GPU / ASIC miners. Jack O & 39, CEO of skale network; "There will definitely be a transition period when two networks are running at the same time," Holleran told cointegration The CEO of scale network (based on Ethereum's blockchain platform) gave a detailed description of this process:

"the transition from eth1 to eth2 takes time of course - it may be years rather than months. The good news about this slow transition is that dapps and defi platforms will be able to roam around based on survivability, security and real-world evidence of adoption. This is a positive impact on the Ethereum ecosystem. "

dig or not

once Ethereum is fully in the POS orbit, miners will have two options. One is to sell the equipment and use the money to accumulate more Eth and start mortgage. The other is the choice for GPU miners, which is simply switching to other ethash networks and mining counterfeit money. Nick foster, a representative of kabombacks, a US mining equipment dealer, told cointegration that most eth miners would choose the latter:

"what I want to say is that most of the miners have not really entered Ethereum or the mining of specific tokens. Yes, there is a certain amount of mineral deposits and holds, but I oppose the view that a large number of Shanzhai coin miners hold their coins at any time. "<

foster then described how he used 3gb GPU units to mine ethash's point-to-point blockchain asset ravencoin (RVN). Once it was unable to mine eth, he said, "this is the reason for mining crows. I immediately sold stability to BTC, and then sold it to US dollars to pay for my rights. I would say that a lot of people are adopting this strategy. "

as foster concludes, he wants eth miners to jump out of the network, and new players - those who don't invest in power infrastructure or drilling rigs - will take a stake in eth. He described the following:

"I can't imagine if I found a five-year lease with $0.04 of electricity and I was mining eth, I decided to sell everything and then continue to pay the rent so that I could hold eth as a share. Substitute. "

Marc fresa, founder of asic.to, a mining firmware company, agreed in a conversation with cointegraph: "if you invest in mining, you won't bet because you have enough room to grow."

one of the main counterfeit coins that may benefit from POW miners leaving Ethereum is Ethereum classic (etc), which is a more conservative version of the blockchain. It is reported that there is no POS related plan. As it also runs on the ethash algorithm, the startup of Ethereum 2.0 may lead to the migration of miners, so its hash rate may have a significant peak

eth's larger pools have similar options. When asked about the company's plans for Ethereum after pow, Heller told cointegraph that after the announcement of Ethereum's POS upgrade, f2pool launched a sister company called story.fish in early 2018. Story.fish has started to provide mortgage services for other POS and delegated POS projects, such as tezos (xtz), Cosmos (atom) and Cardano (ADA), e to numerous handover delays. For prin, e to the transition to POS, it "may temporarily give up supporting eth mining," de la Torre told cointegraph

other top eth pools, namely nanopool, ethermine, pool center, sparkpool and spiderpool, did not respond to requests for comment from cointegraph.

8. In fact, most trading platforms support eth Ethereum trading

9. This is a routine. Don't believe it can help you come up with it. Don't worry

10. The reason is very simple. Computing power is everything
Mining requires powerful computing power and a large number of repeated operations. Although the performance of CPU is powerful, because the logic is too complex, it is more suitable for complex logic operation, and it is not suitable for mining, which is simple and brainless but has a huge amount of calculation. And the graphics card, especially amd graphics card, because of its own design of multiprocessor characteristics and naturally suitable for a large number of violent computing and other characteristics, is very suitable for mining this "heavy physical work"
that's why the price of graphics card is soaring e to mining.