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Alternate cryptocurrencies => Altcoin Discussion => Topic started by: smoothie on January 31, 2013, 05:46:54 AM



Title: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: smoothie on January 31, 2013, 05:46:54 AM
All I can say is BOOYAH!

Try and mine litecoin with them asic units.

Congrats to AVALON. BFL can go eat some shit.

 :D


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: crazy_rabbit on January 31, 2013, 08:38:56 AM
For the moment, Bitcoin seems immune to ASICS as well.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: smoothie on January 31, 2013, 08:39:45 AM
For the moment, Bitcoin seems immune to ASICS as well.

Immune meaning "not mineable".


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: crazy_rabbit on January 31, 2013, 08:41:22 AM
I was making a joke about how it seems like ASIC's are never coming out anyway. :-)  ;D

EDIT: Looks like I was wrong:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140099.40


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: FuzzyBear on January 31, 2013, 09:08:07 AM
yeah ASICs are very real!!!
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/working-avalon-asic-confirmed/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BitcoinMagazine+%28Bitcoin+Magazine%29http://bitcoinmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/avalon2.jpg

what happened to all those bets about ASICs not being released till march... and not being delivered till 2014... anyone got links to them?? would be nice to follow up and flush out any scammers etc


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: bushstar on January 31, 2013, 10:18:22 AM
Good to see Avalon get their kit out there. Waiting on BFL now to get me my Single :)


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: FuzzyBear on January 31, 2013, 10:59:48 AM
Good to see Avalon get their kit out there. Waiting on BFL now to get me my Single :)

same here u got a little single?? or the 60Ghas single on order?? also u in the first shipping bracket or not? ... I'm not :( 60 ghash ordered at start of sept... so as long as i get b4 the end of march i'll be happy :)


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: bushstar on January 31, 2013, 12:55:32 PM
I've got a 60GH ordered. I only just upgraded my order in December from a little single so I guess I'm at the back of the queue. My original order was at the beginning of October and was for a Jalepeno.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: DryPowder on February 01, 2013, 02:16:58 AM
Good to see Avalon get their kit out there. Waiting on BFL now to get me my Single :)

 Same here, i hope that BFL haste his orders.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: crazy_rabbit on February 01, 2013, 02:59:42 PM
It's too bad too, because the Litecoin network would only gain from the power and security that would come from ASIC's on the network. Other Alts like TRC/PPC/FRC are vulnerable to an ASIC owner 51% the chain, but they also take only a couple ASICs to make them an order of magnitude more secure. ASIC's are a natural upgrade in the security of a coin. While there are dangers at the start, if a small coin can escape being 51%, then they will end up much stronger. Litecoin needs an entire new development to build ASIC, and until the Market cap of LTC starts reaching the hundred million dollar mark, no one will be willing to do that.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: DeathAndTaxes on February 01, 2013, 03:24:30 PM
Litecoin IMMUNE to the massive increase in security provided by Bitcoin ASICs

FYPFY.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: John (John K.) on February 01, 2013, 03:27:00 PM
Meh. It just means that Litecoin isn't significant enough to be taken seriously yet. That's not something proud or good for Litecoin.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: smoothie on February 01, 2013, 09:01:49 PM
Litecoin IMMUNE to the massive increase in security provided by Bitcoin ASICs

FYPFY.

Security in bitcoin is a double edge sword by design. Point was that ASIC miners can't willy nilly point their ASIC at lite coin which they can do currently with gpus.

Your problem D&T is that you obviously can't see both sides of a topic. Asics are good for bitcoin if distributed in a mindful manner.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: wtfvanity on February 01, 2013, 09:07:16 PM
Just like litecoin couldn't be mined with a GPU. Ooops. You mean, no one has made an ASIC yet because there is no market/profit for it. If that ever changes, there will be ASIC's for litecoin. I don't think that Litecoin = bitcoin so probably won't see one.

Now something like TRC, those are ready built for ASIC's and their network isn't very strong to start. Hopefully some firm believers in coins like that will protect their networks.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: smoothie on February 01, 2013, 09:10:25 PM
Meh. It just means that Litecoin isn't significant enough to be taken seriously yet. That's not something proud or good for Litecoin.

See my point above to D&T.

Litecoin being segregated in the mining business from bitcoin is healthy.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: CaptChadd on February 01, 2013, 10:32:32 PM
They need to actually ship something that can mine Bitcoin first, then they can see about Litecoin.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: wtfvanity on February 01, 2013, 10:33:26 PM
They need to actually ship something that can mine Bitcoin first, then they can see about Litecoin.

Jeff Garzik's Avalon doesn't mine bitcoins?


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: DeathAndTaxes on February 01, 2013, 10:53:09 PM
Security in bitcoin is a double edge sword by design.  Asics are good for bitcoin if distributed in a mindful manner.

There is no double edged sword.  ANYTHING presents a risk is hashing power is concentrated.  There is nothing unique about ASICs.  Litecoin for example is very vulnerable to Botnets.  The limitations of LiteCoin make is highly likely that hashing power will never be decentralized enough to overcome that risk.  LTC "bad" scrypt params are what made GPU mining even marginally competitive and for those bemoaning no "pure CPU coin" had LTC been made more memory hard (and thus non competitive on GPUs) it would have been even MORE vulnerable to Botnets.

Nobody built Bitcoin to be a "GPU coin" or "FPGA coin" or "ASIC coin".  It was simply built to be efficient and secure on available hardware and overtime that openness lead to more and more efficient hardware.  Today Bitcoin has the potential to secure the network with 17,000% higher efficiency than the first CPU miners.  There is no possible scenario where that is a bad thing.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: smoothie on February 02, 2013, 01:15:35 AM
Security in bitcoin is a double edge sword by design.  Asics are good for bitcoin if distributed in a mindful manner.

There is no double edged sword.  ANYTHING presents a risk is hashing power is concentrated.  There is nothing unique about ASICs.  Litecoin for example is very vulnerable to Botnets.  The limitations of LiteCoin make is highly likely that hashing power will never be decentralized enough to overcome that risk.  LTC "bad" scrypt params are what made GPU mining even marginally competitive and for those bemoaning no "pure CPU coin" had LTC been made more memory hard (and thus non competitive on GPUs) it would have been even MORE vulnerable to Botnets.

Nobody built Bitcoin to be a "GPU coin" or "FPGA coin" or "ASIC coin".  It was simply built to be efficient and secure on available hardware and overtime that openness lead to more and more efficient hardware.  Today Bitcoin has the potential to secure the network with 17,000% higher efficiency than the first CPU miners.  There is no possible scenario where that is a bad thing.

Security is only as good as its decentralization D&T. So yes there is a double edge sword when it comes to bitcoin hash power in terms of security. The more concentrated it gets the more it hurts the network.

Who said securing the network was a bad thing? If that security comes from a centralized source then you have a problem.

You overlook the fact that ASICs as powerful as they are could harm the network should some wealthy investor decide to build an army of them and point them at the bitcoin network. Hence "double-edged sword". Don't be naive and think that people with deep pockets can't harm bitcoin if they chose to in terms of "securing" the network with hash power. Only an ignorant person would believe that could never happen.

Litecoin has yet to be bombarded by botnets. And dont think for a second that those botnets will bother to come mine litecoins when they are hardly worth a dime yet. As more hashpower comes online for litecoin, botnets will become irrelevant. Currently there is at least 12 TH/s of GPUs pointed at bitcoin. So there is quite a large amount of hash power in existence that may look for a new home if ASIC demand cant be met with supply fast enough.

BFL right now is just Unicorns and Rainbows. A select few (mostly avalon asic customers) will have a true edge over the rest as ASICs are released. Those who have GPUs will  not be able to justify mining bitcoin if the diff for bitcoin skyrockets suddenly.

They are left with...

1. I can keep mining bitcoins at a loss.

2. I can sell my GPUs/other hardware and put in an order for ASICs (and get them someday).

3. Point my GPUs where I can convert what I mine to BTC.

(4). And once there is a payment processor for Litecoin that is linked to the banks, be sure people will start to spend litecoins as merchants remove the risk of market fluctuations in the price of litecoin.

Then things will be much different when it comes to the mentality of miners. They wont necessarily convert instantly to BTC.





Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: debianlinux on February 02, 2013, 01:19:34 AM
I've never followed the logic of:

Step 1. Be rich

Step 2. Spend Obscene amounts of money on sufficient technology to threaten network

Step 3. Leverage technology to destroy network thus making all coins worth effectively zero

Step 4. Show me the profit ffs.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: smoothie on February 02, 2013, 01:38:53 AM
I've never followed the logic of:

Step 1. Be rich

Step 2. Spend Obscene amounts of money on sufficient technology to threaten network

Step 3. Leverage technology to destroy network thus making all coins worth effectively zero

Step 4. Show me the profit ffs.

Yup I agree it is unlikely. Just like it is unlikely that a botnet will bother with "attacking" the litecoin network. Thanks for making my other point.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: whitenight639 on February 02, 2013, 01:43:00 PM
I've never followed the logic of:

Step 1. Be rich

Step 2. Spend Obscene amounts of money on sufficient technology to threaten network

Step 3. Leverage technology to destroy network thus making all coins worth effectively zero

Step 4. Show me the profit ffs.

Yup I agree it is unlikely. Just like it is unlikely that a botnet will bother with "attacking" the litecoin network. Thanks for making my other point.


You forget that as popularity in bitcoin grows so does its threat to existing financial institutions and government agencies, some of which have large rooms full of hardware they could afford to turn to the task for a while, this could be the biggest threat to bitcoin, If you think that many big banks like JP Morgan use computer trading extensively, this is not even considering government agencies, They say that military tech is 20-50 years ahead, so who knows what the NSA is packing.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: John (John K.) on February 02, 2013, 03:34:24 PM
Meh. It just means that Litecoin isn't significant enough to be taken seriously yet. That's not something proud or good for Litecoin.

See my point above to D&T.

Litecoin being segregated in the mining business from bitcoin is healthy.
ASIC's are an unstoppable part of any cryptographic 'coin' as it gets more accepted and widespread. It would seem that at the moment Litecoin is 'safe' from ASIC's and can only be mined by GPU's, but an ASIC is sure to come if Litecoin gains fame and widespread acceptance like Bitcoin does.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: tacotime on February 02, 2013, 08:45:52 PM
ASICs will come no doubt, but there is a significant barrier to entry with litecoin due to the cost to develop and produce an ASIC for litecoin and the currently low value of the coin.  The configuration of GPU memory and ALUs is nearly ideal for LTC mining, making the likelihood of extreme efficiency gains seen for BTC (100x) unlikely.  I would guess we will see possibly a 10-fold improvement in efficiency, if that.

Probably an optimization for running on ASICs will be diminishing the memory requirement size while enhancing the number of ALU calls, which would then be trimmed down to a circuit and put on die.  But even cutting the memory requirement by 10x to ~10kb would enhance the number of ALU calls 10-20 fold.  The net effect is ending up with a slower but more efficient scrypt processor, if I had to guess how many cores you'd be able to fit on a 100 cm^2 die I'd wager it'd be in the hundreds and not a big improvement over GPUs in terms of speed.

The other thing to do would be to add memory and a fast memory interface... but GPU memory and GPU cores are so fast that it's difficult to compete.  If you could get GDDR5 and make a fast interface for it and make <45 nm dies (yeah, right), you'd really be moving fast and efficiently (way beyond a 10x increase in efficiency), but there's such a huge barrier of entry to that that it's probably a long ways off.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: makomk on February 05, 2013, 06:21:24 PM
ASIC's are an unstoppable part of any cryptographic 'coin' as it gets more accepted and widespread. It would seem that at the moment Litecoin is 'safe' from ASIC's and can only be mined by GPU's, but an ASIC is sure to come if Litecoin gains fame and widespread acceptance like Bitcoin does.
Not really. The hashing algorithm Bitcoin uses was designed for efficient ASIC implementation, whereas litecoin uses scrypt which is structured to reduce the advantage an ASIC has over general-purpose hardware.


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: Monster Tent on February 08, 2013, 06:28:35 AM
ASIC's  might not 51% attack litecoin but all the GPU's that become redundant for mining bitcoin will probably "attack" litecoin  :D


Title: Re: Litecoin IMMUNE to Bitcoin ASICs
Post by: smoothie on February 08, 2013, 06:57:48 AM
ASIC's  might not 51% attack litecoin but all the GPU's that become redundant for mining bitcoin will probably "attack" litecoin  :D


If the rate at which ASICs are released is slow...as it has been i can see GPU miners being forced to mine elsewhere.