<oembed><type>rich</type><version>1.0</version><author_name>npub1a9hemj8hf6exprh5q6w8y70n9mm36h6pt5vlp2wtl9gjwfzaqjrqeuvwuq</author_name><author_url>https://nostr.ae/npub1a9hemj8hf6exprh5q6w8y70n9mm36h6pt5vlp2wtl9gjwfzaqjrqeuvwuq</author_url><provider_name>njump</provider_name><provider_url>https://nostr.ae</provider_url><html>📅 Original date posted:2017-04-08&#xA;📝 Original message:Jimmy,&#xA;&#xA;&gt;&gt; Until all miners update (firmware or hardware), the change encourages&#xA;&gt;&gt; large difference in mining efficiency. And IMO it gives another&#xA;&gt;&gt; advantage to large mining operations in general.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&gt; Certainly, there would have to be changes for stratum, pool software, etc.&#xA;&gt; But the monetary incentives align to all the changes needed.&#xA;&#xA;I agree. I only wanted to make clear, that the impact would be&#xA;significant. Lot of parties would be involved with nonequivalent&#xA;starting positions.&#xA;&#xA;&gt; Remember, overt ASICBoost can get something like a 12.5% efficiency boost&#xA;&gt; from toggling a single bit in the version (equivalent to 2 colliding work&#xA;&gt; items), 18.5% from 2 bits (equivalent to 4 colliding work items), 23.4% from&#xA;&gt; 4 bits (see https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.00575.pdf). In lieu&#xA;&gt; of an explicit allowance of overt ASICBoost, the monetary incentives lead to&#xA;&gt; odd BIP9 signaling, especially if 4 or more proposals signal at once. There&#xA;&gt; really isn&#39;t a practical way to block overt ASICBoost without forcing the&#xA;&gt; version bits to be some value.&#xA;&#xA;You can e.g. place the version number into a coinbase, similarly to&#xA;block height. Then, it is the same (number of operations) as modifying&#xA;the coinbase directly.&#xA;&#xA;A cost of version in coinbase is 4B per block, sure, but it allows to&#xA;save all bits for &#34;more useful&#34; purposes. Either for BIP9 signalling&#xA;or other future purposes I cannot see now. And it removes an incentive&#xA;to mess with version bits.&#xA;&#xA;Mining empty blocks and finding collisions by toggling bits there can&#xA;be prevented as well.&#xA;&#xA;&gt; In other words, the question isn&#39;t about allowing/disallowing ASICBoost at&#xA;&gt; this point. The question is whether we want ASICBoost open or hidden.&#xA;&#xA;I think the ASICBoost can and should be prevented completely.&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;Pavel</html></oembed>