Avalon chip maker: Willing to take the lead in making its business more open, does not support AsicBoost technology

One of the industry’s largest suppliers of mining chips has called for greater transparency in the industry following allegations that bitcoin hardware manufacturers may be engaging in shady business practices.

In an interview, Steven Mosher, a spokesman for Canaan Creative, the maker of Avalon mining chips, said the company was willing to take the lead in making its business more open and believed that the allegations against fellow chipmaker Bitmain had exposed a problem that now needed to be corrected by industry insiders.

The manufacturer’s response comes as the mining community is deeply divided over allegations made by Bitmain after Bitcoin Core developer Greg Maxwell posted an email to the Bitcoin Development mailing list accusing a mining rig manufacturer of using AsicBoost technology to conduct secret mining.

The resulting debate has reignited the bitcoin scaling debate and exposed new ethical issues over how miners should participate in the bitcoin blockchain.

Mosher, who oversees sales and marketing for Avalon Miner outside of mainland China, said that regardless of whether the allegations are true, the “perception that miners are bad for the bitcoin network” is dangerous.

Mosher told CoinDesk:

“The idea of ​​this attack is a negation of cost-saving behavior, and we hope that mining software developers will be more thoughtful in their work.”

Mosher went on to say that he acknowledges the business necessity issue facing miners, especially in light of growing interest in the bitcoin developer community to consider protocol changes that would reduce power consumption — or even eliminate the need for miners.

In fact, other blockchain networks have already begun planning such protocol changes, such as Ethereum, which is planning to switch to a new consensus algorithm, Proof of Stake (PoS), specifically designed to eliminate hardware mining like Bitcoin.

At the same time, Mosher deliberately avoided the nuances of the dispute, saying that although it could spark a debate about forensics on mining chips and what the final conclusions of forensics could be, Canaan Creative did not want to speculate.

"People shouldn't just discuss this as an anecdote. They should investigate and collect evidence to make this matter transparent."

However, Mosher also touched on the technology at the heart of the debate: AsicBoost, a patented technology that can improve mining efficiency by 30% by optimizing mining machines.

Mosher said:

“Do we support AsicBoost? The answer is NO.”

Mosher went on to say that he hopes the major bitcoin hardware providers will meet to make their respective businesses more public.

“Reminiscing about the past, revisiting the Hong Kong Consensus or whatever, or who called who a fool… It’s time for the adults to do what we know to do.”

He continued:

“We have to be transparent about what we are doing and what our intentions are.”