There's always has been a race in crypto currencies to be the best and provide a solution that can provide most of the power to people around the world instead of some big entities controlling the whole.
We know about bitcoin the first ever decentralized crypto currency but has it really provided the power into general public?
That's something we need to ask ourselves. Bitcoin use to be complete decentralized when people were mining them at their place by using CPUs and GPUs (at later stage). But now we have ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) miners, which are especially designed to work on blockchain mining algorithms and cannot do anything else at all.
This is something we need to worry about in my prospect at least. As i researched more and more Bitmain a Chinese company is the major producer of these mining hardwares, by this they have most of the mining power controlled with them. of course they sell out their machines too, but it's not in everyone's budget to buy them, hence more and more could mining companies are kicking in, taking control of mining in their hands not in general public.
Image Credit
This is a graph indicating, who is controlling most of the hashpower in bitcoin network. As we can see just 5 mining companies has more than 50% of the hash power which results in...
Bitcoin network being controlled by just 5 companies in the world.
Anti-ASIC solution as of Today?
Equihash being very first algorithm to beat ASIC miners, which currently is ASIC proof. It was first introduced with ZCash later being adopted even in Ethereum. Most Recently a Bitcoin hard fork Bitcoin Gold just got introduced with Equihash algorithm just to bring mining power back to normal people rather than being controlled by bigger companies or entities by producing ASICs.
Is Equihash Completely ASIC Proof?
Although, There as no ASIC miners on Equihash algorithm but it is not completely ASIC proof. We know that in blockchain CPUs and GPUs are being used to solve a mathematical problem (not going into details) based upon hashing algorithms, which results faster the speed your machine has, higher the rewards you'll get.
However even if there are no ASIC miners presently on Equihash Algorithm doesn't entirely mean that it's completely ASIC proof. It's just a matter of time, when big companies will start producing much powerful ASICs to replace GPU mining as no matter how you mine it's still based upon the rule:
More Hashing Power = More Mining Rewards
What Algorithm ZCoin uses?
ZCoin is based upon Lyra2z algorithm which was designed by the same team who design Equihash. Although it is superior than Equihash in many ways but the problem still existed as Equihash. Currently there are no ASIC miners on Lyra2z as but again since it's based upon the same rule as above, leaving the same problem just like Equihash. By saying that if ASICs can be produced for Equihash in near future, Lyra2z is no exception. It's just the matter of adoption and popularity.
Why ZCoin's MTP any different?
MTP stands for "Merkle Tree Proof". I did lot of research on MTP and came to know that with MTP algorithm is 100 times more secure from ASICs than any other algorithms, exist today. The major reason behind this is the usability of RAM in mining blocks. Generally, to mine any crypto currently RAM is not required or usable into the mining process, resulting leaving the hashing power based upon the processing speed of a machine.
MTP is a Memory Hard algorithm that requires high amount of RAM usage which very hard to optimize with ASIC machines. Now, that doesn't mean that it will put a load on your memory. What it actually does is if you do not have RAM installed this Algorithm would not work.
Now, there is still a possibility that ASIC can be developed with a RAM installation but that won't make ASIC miners much effective than a GPU mining machine. Technically there wouldn't be any profits to make an ASIC based upon MTP even by installing RAMs.
Please watch the following video for better clarity on how MTP works:
Please upvote if you liked my work, also let me know in the comments below, what you guys think of MTP vs ASIC Machines in the comment section below.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional investment advisor, Everything i mention is based upon my own research that i do for myself, If anyone disagree with my statements kindly correct me with valid reasons. I love to be corrected.