Bitcoin Forum

With the rise of the ASIC machines, the difficulty level will obviously go up.  I just don't think it's going to go up as much as the numbers I've been seeing ( !0x or more).  Perhaps the logic is flawed, but here's my theory.

The difficulty level will go up as the ASIC's are released, this will/should stop GPU miners if for no other reason that power costs, and insignificant BTC payout.  The GPU miners will slowly leave the playing field, which will "slowly" lower the difficulty, or most likely prohibit it from rising too quickly.  There will be a shift from a lot of miners to a few, as most miners aren't going to buy an ASIC's to mine with.  Most used the BTC to justify that gaming rig, IMHO.

So do you think the GPU's leaving will be enough to stop the difficulty from rising too drasticly?

and

Will the shift from a lot of people mining and making a little, to a few mining making more per person hurt the BTC economy? Or will they simply buy them?

If anything it should stabilize the economy and make this a more "serious" currency as not every teenager with a gaming rig will be able to pull more bitcoin out of thin air.

BTC is starting to reach a critical mass where small businesses are starting to accept it. Soon it will break through to mainstream and the value will skyrocket like Gold did from the 1980's-currently.

And this is one bubble that could only pop if the Government decided to outlaw bitcoin.

There will be a critical point, and the sooner it is passed the better, at which prohibition will become totally ineffective, nay, counterproductive. We see it with drugs, books and other things: outlawing them just draws more attention to them, and possible resultant supply cuts send the price soaring.

Some numbers. 150th/s minimum ASICs on order right now or roughly 7x the 22th/s of existing network. Right there that is a 7x increase in diff once it is all deployed take into account the reward halving and your at 14x present day diff. If all gpus stop then your back to 6x or in present day 12x.

Exactly. Plus many current miners use free electricity, so they will continue regardless.  ASIC will make the difficulty skyrocket.  No Question.

From the known numbers in sales from the first day ASICs went up, there was at least 8TH ordered and more likely about 12TH just for the one day. This is enough to offset half the current miners. Plus, there was a post where BFL Josh confirmed they had enough pre-orders to multiply the difficulty by 10. Personally, I think that's small, and as long as the return is there, the difficulty will keep rising.

With the difficulty going up so much and the halving happening, shouldn't BTC go up in value? 

Price affects difficulty, difficulty doesn't affect price.

With ASIC mining, it seems that once FGPU/GPU mining becomes cost prohibitive, then the new ASIC mining will be the new standard.  Since I am new at this, I understand that CPU mining became cost prohibitive once GPU mining took over.  I think the same will be true even more so with the reward being reduced to only 25BTC per block. Surprisingly the difficulty, rough estimate by eyeballing this chart http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ , increased nearly a 100 fold during the first six months of 2011.

Most likely there will be a geometric increase again once the ASIC miners come online.

Right, but what about the halving?

Halving will have some effect on price but the halving has been known for a long time.  It has been know since prior to the first block being mined.  There is a large existing supply.  The halving doesn't cut the supply if half it simply cuts the increase in the supply in half.

IMHO the effect has already been accounted for by the market.

Gold's value hardly skyrocketed in that time.

Thanks.  I've been wondering if that was the reason for the increase this year...