Equihash is amongst the biggest and best algorithm’s created, but there’s only one problem. It’s mathematics fueling it’s way’s of encryption have been “cracked”, as ASIC machines are in production, and in will soon be in transit to it’s wealthy investors.

What Is Equihash?

Equihash is the all-mighty ASIC(Application Specific Integrated Circut) resistant hashing algorithm supported by most POW blockchains. Coins like zCash, Komodo, Hush, and many more function the way they do, thanks to it’s creation.

If you’re running a mining rig, odds are… You’re mining or have previously mined an Equihash based algorithm.

How It’s Dying

This week, BitMain(Popular ASIC manufacture) has begun it’s release of their new Equihash miners.

These machines promise to deliver 10,000 solutions per second while consuming only 300 watts of power. These numbers cripple the standard mining rig, which on average only bring in around 720 solutions a second per card(GTX 1080), at a disgusting rate of 180 watts or so each.

Comparatively, a single ASIC machine can bring in well over the same hashrate as approximately 10-12 Nvidia GTX 1080 Graphic cards, which would additionally consume well over 2,000 watts of power.

Surprisingly, the price for a single unit is extremely competitive compared to what a rig of the same power would cost… However, it does not account for the profitability drop and mining difficulty rise, due to the release of the machines.

Sad to see another algorithm fall to centralization via BITMAIN. To all GPU miners, we are dedicated to fight miner centralization on our network. You always have a home here at #Vertcoin https://t.co/J4FQ24P1jS#FairMining #AsicResistance $VTC #DistributedConsensus $ZEC https://t.co/thAo6vWBAh — Vertcoin (@Vertcoin) May 3, 2018

What’s Going To Happen?

It’s happened before, It’s happening now, and will happen again…

The mining difficulty for Equihash based algorithms is going to sky rocket, and profitability for mining the algorithm will plummet.

Due to the fact that there is only one party capable of creating the ASIC machines, the power of the blockchains using Equihash will practically be in their hands. This means that if desired, someone could obtain enough of the ASIC machines, and execute a 51% attack. Once a single party holds this power, the blockchain in question is immediately “Centralized”.

If each coin’s developers wishes for their blockchain to continue to be ASIC resistant, the only option they have is to fork the blockchain into a different algorithm.

Zcash has already stated, they do not plan on forking and will continue using Equihash, despite the clear signs of ASIC’s already being put into action.

Bitcoin Gold has also decided that a fork is on the way for their coin.

Should I Sell My Mining Rig!?

Don’t over-react, we’ve seen this happen before… Remember Dash?

Coins that use other algorithm’s will rise as all of the GPU miners using Equihash will most likely move over(or sell out).

It’s looking like Monero, Vertcoin, and other small ASIC resistant alts are a popular pick, this time.

In Conclusion

Equihash based coins will be seeing a massive inflation in difficulty, as ASIC miners are now available through Bitmain.

Every algorithm goes through this same painful process, as time and technology will always catch up.

Ultimately with this issue, it’s up to the developers of each coin, to decide to stay with it, or fork away from the algorithm.