[Ethereum] By what mechanism are ASIC-based miners made less favourable

asicsmining

Bitcoin mining is dominated by miners that use ASIC-based mining equipment, thereby skewing the mining rewards in favour of those able to afford large numbers of ASIC mining rigs.

Ethereum prevents this, meaning miners can still expect rewards even if they're using CPU- and GPU-based equipment.

How does Ethereum make ASIC mining less favourable?

Best Answer

ASIC mining is prevented using two methods.

  1. The current proof-of-work, Dagger, is very memory hard. In order to mine you require, at this moment, at least 2GB of ram. Because of this it's very hard to do with ASICs.
  2. Ethereum will switch to proof-of-stake soon. If you knew all the R&D you are doing on your ASIC would be worthless in a few months you would probably think twice before starting it up at all.

BTW: I don't really think CPU mining is efficient anymore, I wouldn't recommend doing it.

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