How Does the Issuance of New, More Efficient Mining Hardware Affect the Economic Finality?

The issuance of new, more efficient mining hardware (e.g. next-generation ASICs) generally increases the economic finality of a Proof-of-Work (PoW) chain. The new hardware increases the total hashrate without a proportional increase in energy cost.

This higher hashrate increases the difficulty of a 51% attack, raising the economic barrier to reversing transactions. However, if the new hardware is only available to a few entities, it could also increase the risk of hashrate centralization.