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Bitcoin Global News (BGN)

March 29, 2019 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Do ASIC miners have a hidden benefit that almost everyone in the crypto space was previously unaware of? Reportedly, at an event in China yesterday, Jihan Wu publicly stated that ASIC miners lead to a higher level of decentralization on crypto networks.

He then mentioned Ethereum’s planned upgrade to a Progressive Proof-of-Work algorithm and stated that he does not believe it will truly be ASIC-resistant. In attempting to claim that the Ethereum network is also already centralized, Wu pointed to the fact that two mining pools control about half of the network.

While this is true, his later claim that part of the team working on the Ethereum upgrade to ProgPow answers to the CEO of NVIDIA, appears to have no basis in fact. The fact that he said this, though, speaks volumes.

Wu has put almost all of his financial resources into mining endeavors that depend heavily or wholly on ASICS and he continues to support them even though he does not work for Bitmain anymore. His new company will reportedly involve an amalgamation of Bitcoin Cash and decentralized finance, in some way. At this point, it is not exactly clear what this will involve, especially since he still seems to be involved in Bitmain.

Last year, Bitmain launched an Ethereum ASIC, which Wu reportedly still has some sort of stake in it, it makes sense that Wu will do anything in his power to discredit the network’s move to a GPU heavy form on consensus. If he did nothing, he would likely be sitting by as this new miner quickly became obsolete. By October, when ProgPow is planning to launch, it will be truly interesting to see whether Wu’s statements cause any real chaos. Until then, one thing seems clear to anyone who has been studying what decentralization is, in the context of the blockchain world. ASICs make things worse in that respect.

By: BGN Editorial Staff