War on ASIC miners? Ethereum founder calls for calm
Cryptocurrencies have taken a direct and hostile approach to Ethash ASIC mining hardware, a new ASIC that would allow users to mine Ether without resorting to GPUs, driving graphics card miners out of the scene, a possibility that can damage the cryptocurrency’s decentralization. However, the creator of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, has voiced strong opposition to the popular action of rendering the technology incompatible with major cryptocurrencies.
We are pleased to announce the Antminer E3, world's most powerful and efficient EtHash ASIC miner.
Ordering limit of one miner per user and not available in China.
Limited stock, order here now: https://t.co/Zfw3afjJHs#antminerE3 pic.twitter.com/SjHu2eUThp— BITMAIN (@BITMAINtech) April 3, 2018
The Antminer E3 would allow users to mine at a speed of around 180 MH/s and explains a great deal of Ethereum’s ongoing Hashrate spike from 18,072 in April 2017 to 249,655 currently.
The popularity of the Antminer has sparked active debate among active cryptocurrency users, Ethereum being one of the main focuses, along with Monero. Its ability to mine at a faster, more efficient rate than conventional GPU’s has resulted in a feverish level of pre-orders among miners.
Ethereum – Sparking Debate and Divided Opinions
On April 8th, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 958 was brought forward to spark a debate. The debate being the approach that should be taken with regards to this new technology.
While the EIP was designed to spark debate, the proposal for a hard fork has been met with a positive reception, according to its sub-Reddit and Twitter discussions. But while community outlook is predominantly positive, Vitalik Buterin seeks a measured approach.
“Getting everybody to upgrade is likely to be fairly chaotic and detract from more important things. So, at this point, I personally lean quite significantly towards no action… Worst case scenario is basically like that Bitmain controls a very large portion of the Ethereum network for some period of time.”
Buterin has laid out that the currency ought not to rush into its awaited Casper update. But the impact that Antminer would have on the market would speed up the implementation process.
The strategy of using a hard-fork has affected counterparts such as Monero which introduced one last week, resulting in a four-way split while cutting hash-rate.
