Re:Why Charles Stross Doesn’t Know a Thing about Bitcoin
by dllthomas on Thursday January 09, 2014 @12:06AM
(#7028874)
Attacks against cryptographic algorithms only get better. If SHA256 is weakened sufficiently, bitcoin (and altcoins that use SHA256) will need to move. Which it can, but that makes existing ASICs worthless.
However, even if it were to change, there are several altcoins that use the same hashing algorithm (PeerCoin being the biggest), and/or someone will invent a new blockchain service to take advantage of the existing hardware. While I think there is great merit to ASIC-resistant hashing algorithms of ProtoShares/PrimeCoin/etc, that ASICs would ever become useless seems highly unlikely.