Asicboost Now Being Used On The Bitcoin Cash Network By Miners
The overt Asicboost optimization technology has made its way into the bitcoin cash (BCH) chain, after it was authorized by the new firmware released by Bitmain Antminer mining rigs on October 22.
Six mining pools are already using the version-rolling Asicboost technology to mine BCH blocks. Antpool, BTC.com, Okminer, Prohashing, Viatbc and an unknown pool are the operations currently using Asicboost on the BCH chain.
The data website Asicboost.dance states that since the Oct. 22 firmware release, both BTC and BCH blocks have seen a considerable increase in Asicboost usage. Another portal called Cash.asicboost.dance, was built by the creator of the data website. This portal measures the metrics of Asicboost being used on the BCH network.
Some individuals had assumed that Asicboost was being used covertly, and hence considered the technology as controversial. Some mining pools have now adopted the protocol so as to improve efficiency since mining operations are overtly using the technology. Asicboost has the capacity to speed up a mining process by a factor of about 20 percent by reducing the gate count on mining chips.
The white paper written by Dr. Timo Hanke indicates that the protocol is applicable to all types of ASIC chips. Last week only, there were 111 version-rolled blocked mined on the BTC network, when initially, the use of Asicboost had occurred only on the BTC chain. This represents 11 percent of the BTC hashrate and 5.87 exahash per sec (EH/s).
It appears that bitcoin cash miners are more and more increasing the usage of the protocol. Reports from the Cash.asicboost.dance website revealed that there were 63 version-rolled Asicboost blocks mined on the BCH miners last week. It means that mining pools have processed 0.23 EH/s or 6.25 percent of the total hashrate, on the BCH network.
Okminer, a mining operation that currently heads about 10.3 percent of the global BCH hashrate, is the pool that processes the bigger share of Asicboost blocks on the Bitcoin Cash network. Bitmain’s Antpool is second, followed by the mining operation BTC.com.
