ASIC-Resistant

ASIC is an abbreviation for application-specific integrated circuits. Most consumer computer hardware is general-purpose hardware, capable of doing practically any action that software instructs it to execute. However, this adaptability comes at a cost: generalization is the inverse of optimization. When creating a gadget that will just do one thing, such as a digital clock, a specialized PCB is significantly more efficient than a whole laptop.

Bitcoin ASIC miners now have a million times the performance of a desktop PC, leaving the latter obsolete in current mining. Furthermore, because the bulk of hash power is currently concentrated in a few huge mining pools situated in countries with cheap electricity and favorable legal conditions, PC mining for most cryptocurrencies is a thing of the past.

This circumstance fundamentally weakens and jeopardizes the foundation of crypto philosophy: decentralization. A power outage in Northern China in early 2021 cut the Bitcoin network hash rate in half for many days, demonstrating that we are perilously near to losing the Bitcoin network's independence.

This is where the idea of ASIC resistance enters the picture.  In theory, an ASIC-resistant cryptocurrency is more equitably distributed because it can be mined on normal consumer PCs. This should ensure that more people may participate in mining; as a result, there will be no ASIC arms race that excludes normal people, and the mining process will be less capital-intensive in general. A network of this type will most likely be decentralized and geographically spread. It does not guarantee that massive mining farms near hydroelectric dams will not arise, but it does ensure that they will not completely dominate the sector.

ASIC-resistant systems place a premium on decisive governance and, of course, the right mining algorithm. It should be designed to preclude the development of ASICs, or at the very least provide them with no advantage over consumer PC hardware. Specific technological options include algorithm variety for each mining block, increasing memory consumption, and even focusing mining on a storage volume as Chia does. Ethereum is the most important cryptocurrency, and its goal is to remain ASIC-resistant until it switches to 2.0. version and proof-of-stake consensus. ASIC resistance is a defensive strategy, with no certainty that any hashing algorithm will be able to avoid the development of an ASIC miner if the underlying cryptocurrency price makes it economically feasible.