⚖️ Security And Securities — Issue No. 3
/🗞 News
Obelisk, a company which makes mining hardware, is starting a program to develop new hashing algorithms and accompanying ASIC miners simultaneously, and in secret. The algorithm, mining hardware, and open source hardware specs would be released simultaneously, beating companies like Bitmain to the punch. It's a fascinating plan, and it will be interesting to see if it works and what projects work with them. Link.If you're wondering why a project would need to take steps like this in the first place, I wrote about the challenges of bootstrapping a PoW coin last month. At the time, I conjectured the window for bootstrapping a PoW coin was closed.This effort validates that conclusion, while also trying to do something about it. Link.
The SEC commissioner released a statement indicating Ethereum is not a security. What's interesting here from a technical perspective is that decentralization is a criteria being considered in the decision. Somewhat ironically, then, the SEC has nudged the industry back towards a focus on decentralized technology- at a time when some projects are compromising on it. Link.
Speaking of projects that compromise on centralization: the EOS mainnet went live on June 14th after a sloppy and centralized voting process. EOS is an important project to watch. Without a doubt, the project has made compromises toward centralization in order to achieve better scalability and usability. Will developers and users accept the tradeoffs? Link