Bitcoin Forum

I keep reading posts on the other threads and on Reddit and everybody keep insisting that Bitcoin change algorithms to prevent this Chinese centralization of mining hardware.

Who here thinks this is non-sense and will never happen.

I remember the dev of LTC said something similar saying that changing algorithms isn't fair for everybody who purchased hardware and the new algo can eventually have ASICs built.

I don't think it will happen due to it will not stop the main thing which is those with super cheap electricity .... can mine cheap.  There would be mega mines of GPU's happening if we went that way.   So maybe shifts companies in the lead but still would be huge companies mining most of it.

I think we can see with ETH mining even gpu mining can have a decent increase in just a single month.   So same thing would happen if BTC went way of GPU.

It would only happen if Chinese government ended mining.

No ASIC company will ever allow it of their own free will.

So I do not see it possible.

as Andreas says, mexican standoff, right now.
Chinese are limited by their great wall.
Simply taking block size to above 8mb would probably kill their hegemony in mining while companies like 21co would have tried to put mining on intel chip.
Maybe, this was the intent of the classic, after all.
Long term, I think that bitcoin has to go POS or a 1/3 mix of ASIC, nonAsic (GPU or CPU) and POS.

It is interesting to look at Ethereum with their use of an ASIC resistant mining algorithm.

A reasonable Ethereum mining setup now costs say $1,000 (3 GPUs) and draws about 1,000 Watts.  The difficulty is rising rapidly, doubling in the last 2 months.  A ROI is starting to look difficult.

So Ethereum is heading back into the ASIC type situation where only those with cheap power can ultimately make a return.  It appears just switching to a GPU algorithm is not a long term solution.

That is why Ethereum ultimately plans to move away from pure POW to POS.

630 watts for 75mh  3 r9 390's

From what im reading the power draw of the cards themselves is 200-230w each. You then have to take into consideration the power draw from the PC itself as well as power supply loss due to efficiency. It might not be 1000w but im guessing a conservative total guess would be close to 850-900w at full tilt. Plus 3 r9 390s by themselves is $1000 not including any of the PC parts. Hes talking about building a new rig so say its more like $1300 for a system pulling 900w.


If you didnt have parts laying around you have already missed the gravy train.

I doubt this would be the outcome (voluntarily), however if there wouldn't be a price adjustment (increase), after the halving, then there could be a drop (maybe not major) in difficulty and as soonest the networks adjusts to that difficulty, we could see GPU miners popping out however it requires more percentage of difficulty drop to revert back to GPU mining. It wouldn't be fair to those who invested large amounts in Asic products therefor can't see this happening (at all).

i dont think that will ever happen. there is a greater probability than it will change to pos due to global warming

it depend on merhants, if merchant accept the new fork, then even if chinese keep mining on the main sha256 fork, nothing they can do about everyone else mining on the other algo fork

they would just end up with an altcoin, but only if the majority of merchants agree to use the new fork

i would love to mine with gpu again, it should have been forked when it was asic heavy not now though

I highly doubt they ever consider global warming as a condition to push to POS.   I think it would have to be reasons due to financial or technical reasons.  And I could be wrong, but I just don't see that happening.  And honestly I don't see it going to POS.

I think getting any change honestly is going to be hard.   Even if it switched mining to say GPU's I think there would be big mega mines in same places asics are in... so it would not fix any problems long term I don't think.

All those ASICS laid to rest? come on you cant be serious thinking that would happen.

Well put.

The lower difficulty also would mean network is less secure.

Not really  the network security could be fine with 100,000 gpus  if asic did not mine the coin


we have major security issues

look right here from 1200ph to 2200 ph down to 1200ph

this means someone can add and take away 10/22 of the network at will.  that is a major security issue.

also we do not have enough nodes.


http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-thumbnail.png

Not happening.

I would agree, as I think there are a lot of powerful people that will not want the change.  To get a good majority of people to go for hardfork I think will be something just out of reach.

And I think ultimately it would be for not as most are "asic resistant" not proof.  So likely if there is big money there we just start process over where it moves to GPU's and eventually asics would pop up or whatever algo it is using.

 $800 for the actual "rig" I bought from Newegg ($799 plus $25ish for shipping to be picky), bit over 60MH at about 600 watts (3xR9 280x) but nowhere near optimised yet.
 I am shifting a couple of my R9 290s over to it, as the PS in it is WAY overkill for 3x 280x cards (1350W Enermax Platinum).

 To be fair, parts cost would have been higher had I had to assemble all the parts seperately - just the 3 GPU + PS were more priced out seperately than what I paid for the whole rig. 8-)



 The thing with Ethereum is that it's the new kid on the block, folks are only starting to jump into it EN MASS recently due to it's price runup, but the hashrate jump hasn't caught up to the price yet. Very nice place for those of us that already had existing hardware or planned "was going to buy it anyway" purchases on tap, not so good for the "Johnnie Come Latelys" that don't have left over hardware from other coinmining or other usages....

actually chinese miners have also big gpu farm, so they would still remain competitive in the remote case this will ever happen

and probably they would still helds 70% of the network, since in many place cost of electricity is a huge deterrent, and gpu are not that efficient yet

I mentioned this above to the places with low electricity still have that advantage even if switched to GPU (which I don't see happening).


Coindesk has a good article of one of these mines - http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-miners-ethereum/

Right now, it would appear that Bitmain doesn't expect this to happen. They are apparently "all in" on the SHA256 ASIC road (for good or for bad). I share that opinion as well.

They also appear to be beating competition at releasing 16nm that meets spec, looking at sales page - https://bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=0002016052907243375530DcJIoK0654 .  So that is huge on getting that big of a efficiency jump. 

Will be intersting to see Bitfury and BW's response to how quick they can get gear out of next gen.  Some chips of BW were shown in mining forum but I don't think we know if efficiency was met on those.

One thing is for sure that it will be interesting times going into having, and after.