DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph)

Etchash and Ethash generate an epoch-based dataset (the DAG) that must reside in GPU memory; mining reads random slices of it constantly, making memory bandwidth the bottleneck and defeating compute-only ASIC designs. When the DAG outgrows a card's VRAM, that card can no longer mine the coin — the fate of 4 GB cards on Ethereum in 2020, which Etchash's recalibration deliberately reversed for ETC.

Confusingly, "DAG" also names the block-graph architecture of Kaspa and Alephium (blockDAG) — an unrelated concept where blocks form a graph instead of a single chain, enabling parallel block production.