News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Bitcoin Mining Hardware Accelerator with Optimized Messag... by wslh on Monday April 02, 2018 @02:15PM (#16737424)
AsicBoost can be potentially used by anyone since it is now a defensive patent. Bitmain cares about this patent because they need to disclose all other patents they have if they want to use AsicBoost: "There Is a Bitcoin Patent War Going On, but This Initiative Could End It" [1]

[1] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/there-bitcoin-patent-wa...

Re:Bitcoin Mining Hardware Accelerator with Optimized Messag... by gruez on Monday April 02, 2018 @02:26PM (#16737573)
That was only announced last month. I suspect the only reason they promised to use it for defensive purposes is because its utility is significantly reduced due to successful roll-out of segwit. Had segwit not have passed, I doubt they would leave hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table by not licensing it.