ASIC-Resistant Proof of Work Bitcoin uses a Proof of Work algorithm that makes it the perfect victim of ASIC mining. As a result, it is not very decentralized (more than 50% of Bitcoin's hash power is concentrated in China and most of that is concentrated in a small area). Furthermore, considering the fact that just a handful of companies produce efficient ASIC hardware those companies essentially have complete control over the hashing power of the entire network.
Other algorithms have been developed that are memory intensive and are ASIC resistant.
Is there a reason why Bitcoin won't move to ASIC resistant algorithms (aside from the fact that it would require a hard fork)? In other words, do ASIC-prone algorithms fundamentally provide any benefit (in terms of security or scalability) over ASIC resistant algorithms?
Thanks
The downsides outweigh the upsides: as you mentioned this would require a hard fork, and would leave everyone (not just mining farms) who owns a Bitcoin miner with a very expensive paperweight, and as such it's unlikely a large enough portion of the community is willing to make the change for it to be successful. It would require throwing away a significant amount of infrastructure.
I suppose one day if it were to become a problem where Bitcoin miners are colluding to try and rewrite the blockchain or censor transactions, then we could reevaluate this. However, mining already comes with such razor-thin margins that it is extremely unlikely miners will be throwing away their profits to do this: they would all have to agree to work against their own best interests.