I'm certain Bitcoin will get its own ETF soon and if that happens its gonna blow the roof off alt coins.

The bankers will come in - big money, pro developers and then the ASIC buying craze will happen and everyone you know will be a miner.

I expect this to really kick in high gear sometime next year.  It's gonna happen very fast and furious.  Lots of alt coins will go very high very fast.  Lots of money to be made for anyone storing up alt coins now.

Bitcoin was just the beginning and that ETF will probably make Bitcoin's price blow past $1,000 and it will drag most of the other alt coins with it.

I didn't mean me or you reprogram an ASIC..  I meant you can design an ASIC from the ground up to do any one thing well.  If LTC gets to $50 and demand goes nuts they'll build Scrypt ASICS, but those will only do that one thing they were programmed to do and not also go after SHA256 coins.

That's what I meant.

Edit:

I see what you meant.  I thought I saw guys using BFL rigs to merge mine Bitcoin and one other coin on Bitminter.  I'd have to double check.  

I would be losing time and money as well. 

Don't you think merge mining will mitigate the difficulty issue cause I agree, the difficulty will skyrocket.

And I don't want a coin to be a forever niche player in the scrypt underworld - I'd rather take my chances.  And people aren't gonna lose their money on my coin - nobody buy a rig just for ixCoin, they buy them for mining and they mine the most profitable things out there.

So if this doesn't work out I'm really the only one losing out, both, Time and money.

But it seems everyone wants scrypt so that's it.  I guess there could always be a re-launch, like a separate coin if it ever comes to that.  I mean, I can easily see a SHA256 version of Litecoin.  People will follow the namebrand regardless of which encryption it uses. 

You can program an ASIC to do any one thing.  Right now they hunt Bitcoins but I think they can be fooled into merge mining other coins.

Ok I hear you but those people can mine SHA256 with their GPU rigs so they're not getting shut out and they'll be able to merge mine as well which can be huge once they launch a merge coin.

While if you go scrypt you are cutting out everyone who does buy and ASIC and that's gonna be millions of people.  An ASIC can be had now for $300 and by next year it will be cheaper and better (And available) so many more new entrants will buy an ASIC rather than a computer or in addition to their computer.

I don't see how excluding the future - millions of ASIC miners from your coin can be good for that Coin's value.  I think this is shortsighted mentality thinking only about what I can mine for myself right now rather than what's best for me for the longer run.

No, you can buy a 5GH ASIC miner from BFL right now for $300.  And 5GH is 15 Times faster than a similarly priced ATI Radeon 7870 while consuming 50 watts compared to closer to 200 watts.  

Only problem now is they're taking about 3-4 months to ship if you order today but by next year they will definitely be doing much higher production.  The slow hard part is over - they spent the last 12 months designing the ASIC.  Now it's shipping in volumes.

And there's other ASICS companies coming online and like all tech, imagine ASIC 2.0 and 3.0, they will get much faster and much more efficient while getting cheaper.

Anyone thinking they'll make any money with GPU's by next year is nuts.  

And this is part of what will bring in the masses - cheap and effective ASICS costing 1/8th the price of a good computer like the one I bought for mining.

That's why I think SHA256 is the way to go cause you'll be able to mine and get your coin mined via a merged pool or a mergeCoin along with 10+ other coins.  Cause at that point there won't be any money left in mining 1 coin so people will find ways to mine more and more coins together but if your coin is scrypt it won't be invited to the party so scrypt coins will be fringe coins and that's a very bad thing for valuation. You want a coins as mainstream as possible.  

Satoshi wasn't a fool - SHA256 is the way to go for the future.

LOL at the economist knock.

But this is exactly why I'm saying merge mining is the way to go.

Run that calculation again with me merge mining Bitcoin, PPcoin, ixCoin and Devcoin.

I've read of some pools merge mining 5 coins not 4.  And I've read that you get the same Bitcoins while at the same time your rig will also mine the other merge mined coins.

All of a sudden with a SHA256 coin you can make much more while with scrypt, I've never seen merge mining.  Maybe I've missed it or maybe people focus too much on merge mining with Bitcoin, but this merge mining will get bigger and bigger.

Tell me why I can't be merge mining 10 or 20 coins by next year?  This is the biggest reason I put money in ASICS - not so much Bitcoin as much as the potential of merge mining later on especially if they make one mergeCoin to mine them all which I've read they're working on and I bet it's a SHA256 coin.

I'm hoping to start an alt coin but I want to do something very different.  I want to design it as much as possible with the advantages and preferences going to the miners since nobody has put them first, from what I can tell.  

I'm running these polls to find out what people want and what they care about most.

Odd, some want Cherry Coke and think Justin Bieber is a hot lady.  Weird group of individuals but I still wanna put out a coin to their liking.

Well what about other coins that did hard forks, including Bitcoin or is it the fact we're switching the encryption model?  

If that's true then I have a problem with this cause ASICS are the future.  In a few years the only way to mine will be via ASICS.  I think Satoshi knew this and he's a smart anonymous guy.

Seriously, you guys want me to launch a coin that may be obsolete in 2-3 years?  You can't merge mine scrypt coins.  What if I'm right and Bitcoin goes to to $1,000 next year - you guys don't want to be able to mine this coin and Bitcoin, plus a few others together?  That would be so much better than mining a single scrypt coin.

But that's not true if you make it a merge-coin?  People will Simply merge mine it the way they do ixCoin (which would have died had it not been for SHA256 and merge mining) and devcoin and a few others.

So for me that's not a great argument for a scrypt coin.  So far I have not heard why scrypt is a better idea.

To me merged mining is a huge winner but if this can be switched to a SHA256 coin next year in the event people change their minds then I'd be ok with scrypt.

Man, I'm shocked by the responses to the poll, most want scrypt.  

I don't have an ASIC although I ordered some 2 months ago but I badly wanna merge-mine so for me that alone means SHA256.

I expected most to want SHA256 for the same reason.  

I'm very surprised here but hey, if that's what people want I'll do it.  This isn't the right time to be stubborn.

Can somebody tell me if a hard fork is easy to Implement say next year if people all of sudden wanna switch to SHA256?  Hypothetically speaking - would this be hard to do with a scrypt coin?  TIA.

Sorry, I thought the debate was about the mining protocol itself and not encryption.  I mean, bitcoin is as secure as can be so why even debate that.

Sorry, I can't alter the question and I had no idea security was even in question here. 

My post count just dropped from 702 to 594.  Somebody is messing with my account.

Looks like hackers aren't waiting for the 51%.

LOL.

That's the beauty of my protocol - it rewards all miners equally while on a (% "relative" basis) the smaller the miner the greater the reward, once again, relatively speaking.

I realize that sounds impossible but it's not.  This is not going to enrich the small guy to the detriment of the big guy but it will provide a nice surprise mining factor which would help out and give hope to the small guy and if all coins were to implement this then it would in fact be a really big deal on a cumulative basis.

And this is wrong, because...?

Man, that was a cool idea.

Only problem there is that it's too easy for anyone to make their huge network look like 10 or 1,000 small ones and then the big guy would steal from the little guy.

My feature can't be abused or circumvented but it would not be as leveling as your plan would have been since your plan would have actively excluded the big miners which would obviously have had bigger benefits but also some big problems.  

There's a debate and many think Scrypt coins are better than SHA256 but the biggest reasons I see is a lack of belief that ASICS will be affordable.

In reality, ASICS are starting to ship in mass quantities already and by next year anybody will be able to buy an ASIC for $300 which will mine up to 20 times faster than a really good computer today while eating only 1/10th the energy.

In my mind ASICS are here and they're way better than GPU's so why launch a coin which won't be future proof?

If people prefer scrypt then that's fine but I'd like to know how difficult would it be to do a hard fork and turn a scrypt coin into a SHA256 coin if everyone does wanna use an ASIC rig next year?  Is this something that can be done with ease?  TIA

And as for the edge, small miners would have an edge with this VGB feature.  And there's no way around it but since this feature is fully inclusive, the edge or benefits to the small miner, although real, are only on a % basis which means relative.  That's better than what any other coin out there offers right now but it's still not quite enough to really level things out.

And excluding certain miners would simply not be a good idea.  Any solution would have to be a win-win for everyone.

ASICS will be available to the small guy by next year for the price of a GPU while mining 20 times faster for 1/10th the energy cost.  All these scrypt coins will need a hard fork.

A 5GH BFL Miner eating 50 watts, is $300, what I paid for 1 GPU which was doing about 300MH while eating 250 watts.  And this is ASICS 1.0, 2.0 ASICS coming out next year will eat half as much while mining much faster and will cost even less.

GPU's are gonna be history.  Numerous good ASIC builders are coming online in mass volume already.  If the reason for Scrypt is to run from ASICS that's not the best way since ASICS are the way to go.  BTW, I paid $1700 for the whole new computer with an 8 core CPU and other high end hardware.

But if most people here prefer scrypt then so be it.  I'm sure a hard fork can switch it to SHA256 next year if I'm right.

This was simply a strategic idea but if you guys think its lame or open for abuse then it's no big deal, it's gone.

I just wanted a way to level the playing field a bit more. Cause you can't code something which alienates any large portion of the network, like the big miner, that wouldn't work, but I thought this would.

But the feature I have in mind would have a leveling effect but since it won't specifically exclude big miners that effect would be limited.

You guys have to realize, once ASICS take off and the masses come in, the control you have now to launch a coin and have an active hand in its success will be gone.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and soon the bankers will come in and the pro developers and millions of people with ASICS and the voice you have now will be completely drowned out in that ocean of noise.  Create the best coin to benefit the miners while you can and that's what this thread is for - figuring out how to get an edge that works long-term.