While powerful, ASICs can only focus on one algorithm, and so changing the algorithm consistently would quickly make the ASICs created for one algorithm out-dated, again and again. 상기, hard forks have proven contentious for various crypto communities, with the possible outcome of community division being a blockchain split.
Critics see ASICs as a centralizing force, not only because the expensive technology typically outpaces individual GPU miners, making the network group into just a few mining pools, but also because, currently, just one company, Bitman, produces nearly all the cryptocurrency mining ASICs.
While some cryptocurrency projects are trying to oust the hardware altogether, other communities are going head-to-head with the Chinese mining giant, hoping to create some competition. Grin, 다른 한편으로는, only cares about limiting their use on its network in the short-term.
하지만 여전히, Peverell thinks allowing ASICs to take over the mining market immediately after Grin’s launch – which is expected by the end of the year – could set the cryptocurrency project back.
상기, the developers do think making hard forks a permanent part of the blockchain’s existence would be dangerous.
The centralization pressure he’s talking about there, 그래도, is as it relates to users, then, having to go along with whatever the lead developers and biggest players support in an effort to keep the blockchain from splitting.
이와 같이, the Grin developer team decided to limit these hard forks. Once those two years are over, they ultimately want to permanently switch to what’s called the Cuckoo Cycle proof-of-work algorithm, unique in that it requires the machines mining to use more memory than other proof-of-work algorithms.
“[그건] why we decided to limit to a reasonable period, enough to let the Cuckoo Cycle ASIC mature and let multiple players emerge, but not so long that regular hard forks would start becoming a problem,” Peverell told CoinDesk.
이것 때문에, BlockCypher is dedicating its resources to Grin’s developers by way of their new mining pool, Grinmint.