Bitcoin Forum

I think this belongs under Economics because it applies to everyone within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

A large threat to bitcoin (among other things) is consolidation of mining power.  To maintain decentralization everyone should be mining regardless of how long it will take to achieve payback for the hardware (I know that's a difficult sell).  

Ideally, as prices come down, ASICs need to be built into the one device in every internet connected home that is always on and connected; wireless routers.  Software could be developed (I think mining is already possible through OpenWRT), to make mining just another option the user chooses when setting up their router initially.  

If the cost of the ASICs can be subsidized by smaller profit margins (or a really good sales pitch), a product like this could be a huge force in bring bitcoin to the masses and would completely decentralize the network at the same time.

Trouble is, its a free market, nobody can change that, so there will always be big players.

ASICMINER has built a USB mining device called "USB Block Eruptor", I guess that is as close as you will get soon to "mining for everyone" - you can buy them here:

https://www.btcguild.com/index.php?page=store

The more people buy them, the less % of mining will be in a few hands.

Wow, 1 BTC, that's expensive...

plus you'll never break even

Never break even? They currently make about .01 btc per day at a mining pool. That is a dollar a day at today's price. In 100 days you would have made your money back. NOT TO MENTION the possibility that the price of Bitcoin might actually go up in the future?! ??? What if .01 becomes $100 then you will make WELL over your money back.

You forgot to include increases in difficulty. If BTC/$ increases along with diff it'll pay for itself in those 100 days. Considering what's going on with the price now, illustrating the volativity, I'd say that's unlikely. I'm confident BTC will continue to increase in value, which is why I'm still GPU mining, but you need to consider all factors and make sure you have the money and stomach for the long game.

Remember that the price of Block Erupters just dropped by 50% and once other ASICs are shipping in bulk they'll have to do that at least once more if not two or three times to stay competitive.

Don't jump in without doing your homework.

Do you even into logic? if an ASIC costs 1 BTC now, and won't make ROI, how would a price rise make a difference? Wouldn't you be better off buying 1 BTC rather than the ASIC?

My point is, if mining is so easy that anyone can do it by purchasing a product that they would already buy, it becomes a much easier sell.  It makes sense for that product to be a wireless router because it is always on and always internet connected once it's setup.

Avalon ASIC was selling (currently sold out) 10,000 ASIC chips for 780 BTC which comes out to 0.078 BTC per chip.  That's certainly a material cost that can be built into the cost of a router.  I fully expect the price per chip to come down dramatically over the coming months and years which makes it even more feasible to build ASIC chips into routers.  

Obviously, there is a large initial cost involved to produce this type of product (board and software design as well as manufacturing setup costs, material costs, etc.) and there would need to be a solid marketing campaign to sell the idea to differentiate and add value compared to other routers in the marketplace.  

This (or something like it) is what Bitcoin needs to maintain decentralization and increase market saturation over the long term.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all CPU mine and get a couple of cents a month without killing your computer's performance.  Though you could conceivably earn that in a pool, no pool will pay out such a small amount.  Why would someone want to bother with such a small amount?  Maybe if I could get a pool of a thousand machines we can get $10 a week.

There will always be people mining just to help prevent the decentralization aspect of the network without the focus of making any profit with it directly. You can't stop the big players using their ASIC rigs. So ASICs (even if they are just small ones) for everyone is the way to go. Anyone who is actively into bitcoin and want to keep it alive will sooner or later do his part for it (doesn't necessarily need to be mining).

just bought a single eruptor myself for the very reason OP stated-- protect the network.  i will be plugged in and p2pool mining every second my computer is on and connected!  gotsta do my part for the currency i love

Do enough erupters exist to make a difference?

10,000 so far. 10,000 * 335mh = 3.35Th so about 1-2% of the network. (?)