Co-owner of http://bitcoin.org & http://bitcointalk.org , Cobra, wrote an open letter to the Bitcoin community to change the proof-of-work algorithm.
Link to open letter:
https://medium.com/@CobraBitcoin/an-open-letter-to-the-bitcoin-community-to-change-the-proof-of-work-algorithm-12a6545c20d0
This idea is slowly developing last months and whoever follow Cobra could guess that proposal like this will come for sure.
I really understand Cobra's point and I also think this kind of change is necessary.
If one of most important things about Bitcoin is decentralization, than community and developers need to react to stop BITMAIN dominance. If one company control so much hushpower, Bitcoin potentially can be easy target. With money that they are making from Bitcoin mining and from selling their ASIC miners, their dominance will just grow. Bitcoin should be trustless and if BITMAIN dominance continue to grow than you need to trust BITMAIN and point of Bitcoin being trustless is lost.
This potential threat in my opinion is not from BITMAIN itself, because why would somebody destroy business that makes him 4 billion dollars per year. This threat could be from governments or some other organizations that could potentially force BITMAIN to hurt Bitcoin.
I don't have anything against and I truly respect BITMAIN and Jihan Wu because he had vision and faith in Bitcoin when not so many people supported Bitcoin. He has invested significant amount of money in Bitcoin mining and Bitcoin miners, he made ASICs and this dominance was not given to him, he earned it.
But this is not good for Bitcoin, makes Bitcoin vulnerable and developers and community should find solution to stop this. Changing algorithm is maybe first step in this fight and we will see how will thins develop. I really believe in Bitcoin and I am sure that Bitcoin community and developers together will find best solution to make Bitcoin stronger.
I would like to hear your opinions about this proposal...