ASICBoost is like finding a secret shortcut in a racing game—miners who implement it can reduce some redundant steps in the SHA-256 hashing process, thereby saving energy and hashing faster. This trick was once somewhat controversial, as it gave an edge to those who knew how to exploit it, sparking debates about fairness and patent rights.

Modern ASIC designs often build in these optimizations or similar techniques by default, turning what was once a controversial hack into a standard feature. It underscores how competitive Bitcoin mining can be, with every slight improvement in efficiency potentially worth millions of dollars at scale.