Monero has hard forked to prevent centralisation – Breaks ASIC miner support

Monero has upgraded the cryptocurrency mining protocol to adapt to the introduction of CryptoNight mining ASICs, highly efficient cryptocurrency miners which threaten to centralise the currency, defeating the purpose of the decentralised network. 

The whole idea behind blockchain technology is to prevent centralisation, leaving no single group or entity in control of the network. To avert centralisation, the developers of Monero have upgraded Monero to version 12 of their protocol, a change which isn’t backwards compatible and will stop CryptoNight mining ASICs from functioning on the network. 

While this was consensual, it will not result in the creation of a secondary currency, though several 3rd party group have taken the binaries of Monero and plan to keep version 11 alive with Monero Classic, Monero 0, Monero Original etc.  

The Monero mining community is positive about this change, with miners predominantly using standard PC hardware to mine the currency. ASIC miners are relatively new to the network, mostly used by the companies who created the ASICs in secret before their retail release, taking advantage of their sheer profitability before the market has time to adapt to their existence.

The founders of Monero Classic have stated that forcing ASIC resistance “creates an alternative and more harmful form of centralisation …developers are saying that they can and will change the consensus rules whenever it suits them.” The creators of Monero Classic fear that this hard fork has created a dangerous precedent where the original creators of Monero can change the rules of the network at will.