The big controversy: What is ASIC-resistance?

By Cryptomine on The Capital

ASICs, or “Application Specific Integrated Circuit” are computers that are created to serve a specific use case and task. For Cryptocurrencies, ASIC devices are designed to participate in the process of mining Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies). Bitcoin, being the largest cryptocurrency by hashrate (Almost 100 ExaHashes) and having true decentralized consensus (through worldwide mining operations), is an example of a cryptocurrency that cannot be considered ASIC-resistant.

1. About ASIC-resistance

The great debate actually revolves around the idea of creating a protocol that can actually and absolutely be “ASIC resistant.” The main conclusion being, that there will always be a need and an approach to make a specific computation more efficient. Following this logic, ASICs are only naturally emerging when a task is worth the effort of being computed efficiently. In the cryptocurrency world, we derive this from the value that a certain coin protocol provides.

Over the years, proof-of-work based cryptocurrencies saw a myriad of employed hashing algorithms and a similar amount of hardware developments trying to crack them in the most efficient way.

Most developers did not anticipate the developments of the ingenious chip design industry, and today, almost all of the top cryptocurrencies are, in fact, mined with ASIC hardware.