Obelisk strikes back
We prepared for something like this by adding an extra feature to the SC1. We can do a soft-fork that slightly changes the PoW algorithm which would invalidate the bitmain ASICs, but allow the SC1 units to continue working.And yet the SIA devs don't see the irony in criticizing Bitmain (Bitmain's pool actually) for mining empty blocks and being a threat to the community, while they are implementing some sort of kill switch in their ASIC. Its almost like they knew this scenario would happen. What a bunch of scum bags.
They knew this was coming. I knew this was coming. People in the Obelisk thread guessed this would happen.
Devs can do what they want - they are called developers. Sia community can give them the middle finger and stick to Bitmain's fork or they can give Bitmain the finger and stick to Dev's fork.
I'm waiting for Sia Cash to appear on the exchanges now, and soon Litecoin cash, Dash cash....
That's not a question the "real" community and supporters of SIA ask. They are clearly stand behind SIA and team. And the same is true for Obelisk team.
On the contrary - the voices for a fork are loud in the community and not in the SIA team.
The question that comes up much more - are the buyers of antminers real members of the SIA community? Do you have to take them into consideration?
Or should bitmain continue to eat on the longtime work of others?
This is not the first time a possible fork has rocked the boat and it wont be the last. The possibility of a fork can be viewed with the benefit of hindsight vision when looking at the other notable forks: BTC/BCH, ETH/ETC, ZEC/ZCL.
In each case everybody is going to claim the other side is a fringe and not part of the "community". Are people who buy pantloads of A3 miners to secure their vision part of the Sia community? Well they are mining the algo and supporting it, but they're unlikely to be adding to the development of the coin. Can you see Jihan talking with the Sia devs... probably not.
I think you can already see both sides with users venting in the last 30 posts:
SIDE A) Bitmain is screwing over the Sia community and those who supported the Sia devs by making miners for their own personal greed.
SIDE B) Sia devs are being childish and centralizing Sia by offering a fork that the penalized buyers of A3s who wanted to secure the SIA network.
I wish I could sell popcorn on the forums
The big difference in the examples you mention and this case is that in those cases they are still using the same algorithms, and the forks occurred due to major differences in the vision of the future. The SIA developers get paid by taking a cut of every transaction. Unless Sia is run by the Corleone family, a hardware developer who makes a device to hash an algorithm shouldn't need to get the developer's blessing. Someone who mines the coin shouldn't have to be active in the community.
Yeah I didn't think about the algo being changed, but for all intents and purposes it is the same functional effect. It's not like ETH and ETC are ever going to kiss and make up and merge the 2 chains again.
Here's the thing though, Bitmain doesn't need Sia's blessing. If Bitmain sells 10x as much hash power as the Obelisk, they could always continue their own fork with the current algo. If enough of the Sia community does in fact support Bitmain (I'm assuming buying a miner means you support the project) then Bitmain will become the major chain and Sia devs would have to bow to the wishes of the miners. After all that's where the money will be going. Isn't that the whole arguement with BTC - Jihan vs Blockstream. If people get fed up with Bitcoin core and BCH takes over in value then Bitmain will win. The free market will decide the course - or supposedly it's portrayed that way. We all know some back room dealings will go on cough New York Agreement cough.
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that the one who mines doesn't have to be active in the community. Yeah it's true that most ETH holders don't have a clue what a smart contract is nor will they ever run a PoS node, but every miner and node is supporting a network whether they like it or not. Bitmain made this clear with ASICBoost. There is politics in mining whether the miner likes it or not.
The things that sucks is that the little guys, us, the peasant miner, get caught in the crossfire. Either the Obelisk buyers are going to get screwed or A3 buyers might have some trouble finding profitable work with their A3s.
I don't really have any skin in the game with either miner. I just hold some Sia that I mined with my GPUs way back when I stopped mining last summer when it got way too hot to dual mine.