Useless ASICs

[spooderman]

Thank you for all your responses people. Very interesting.

[AstroBoy]

Since even Avalons aren't unprofitable until the difficulty gets past 2 Billion (for 0.15 $/kWh) then I see ASICs being around for quite some time.  

However, when they do become unprofitable and are turned off, it is doubtful they will ever see service again. The difficulty will continue to advance as more efficient devices will continue to be added to the network.

Somebody will always be building a better ASIC, so even if every GPU miner shut down today (if they haven't already) the dent in network hash rate would be replaced almost immediately by a handful of Avalons going online.  When Avalons start being shut down 87GH/s will seem slow, and that might be as soon as next summer!

[jermwerty]

However, when they do become unprofitable and are turned off, it is doubtful they will ever see service again

Thats how a feel about my GPU rig in the garage.  Who really wants crazy BTC abused GPUs that ran 2-years at 75C and 80% fan that were bought used in the first place?

The rig made me enough money its not really worth my effort to part out 5850 GPUs and Core2Duo CPUs for 0.5 BTC/ea.  Heck that rig made me 2BTC/day at one point!

[af_newbie]

Well why on earth would anyone new get into Bitcoin?  The value prop is disappearing.

The mining goldrush is ending.

There is, however, still strong reasons to get involved in bitcoin as a value store, and method of value transfer.

If mining disappears, so will the bitcoins...It will take forever to confirm even the smallest transaction.
So if you plan to store value in bitcoins you better start mining.

[zvs]

However, when they do become unprofitable and are turned off, it is doubtful they will ever see service again

Thats how a feel about my GPU rig in the garage.  Who really wants crazy BTC abused GPUs that ran 2-years at 75C and 80% fan that were bought used in the first place?

The rig made me enough money its not really worth my effort to part out 5850 GPUs and Core2Duo CPUs for 0.5 BTC/ea.  Heck that rig made me 2BTC/day at one point!

i sold my 5830s and 5870s a month or two ago, when they were still going for $100 and $150.  kept the 7xxx, just turned them off this morning.  i actually would have done it last difficulty increase but i'm lazy... turning them off means i should sell them, and when i'm too lazy to sell them, i feel bad.  so the other option is to dismantle them and put them in the storage shed, which requires manual labor, which makes me sad

oh well.  i was able to sell all my 5870s as part of a lot on ebay, you could try something like that

for myself personally, i guess i might leave the bitcoind daemon running and maybe p2pool..??  not sure.  don't have much interest in bitcoins anymore since i'm no longer generating profit from them.  i'll keep the bitcoins i have in my wallet(s), then maybe in a year or two or three, i'll check the price... and they'll probably be worthless, but they may be worth a lot... right?

(ed: err, I'll probably stay somewhat informed, watching ASIC prices.  if it ever becomes profitable to purchase some, then i'll start mining again.  right now they're throwing money into the wind)

[Adrian-x]

Would someone do the following exercise:

For every day since Jan 2009 calculate what 1$ invested into mining would bring worth now and calculate what 1$ invested directly into BTC would bring. Plot a chart with two lines. Or it could be simply a chart with one line. ROI on Bitcoin mining investments when denominated in BTC.

You can't look at it like this, prior to 2013.  The only reason I started mining was because I lacked confidence in Bitcoin and had the computing power. So I just invested electricity and time. The return has been phenomenal.

As of January of this year I am sure you are correct.

[niko]

Well why on earth would anyone new get into Bitcoin?  The value prop is disappearing.

The mining goldrush is ending.

There is, however, still strong reasons to get involved in bitcoin as a value store, and method of value transfer.

If mining disappears, so will the bitcoins...It will take forever to confirm even the smallest transaction.
So if you plan to store value in bitcoins you better start mining.

That's not how it works. The difficullty adjusts. It will always take an average of 10 minutes to confirm a transaction, as long as there is at least one CPU hashing somewhere.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Well why on earth would anyone new get into Bitcoin?  The value prop is disappearing.

The mining goldrush is ending.

There is, however, still strong reasons to get involved in bitcoin as a value store, and method of value transfer.

If mining disappears, so will the bitcoins...It will take forever to confirm even the smallest transaction.
So if you plan to store value in bitcoins you better start mining.

That's not how it works. The difficullty adjusts. It will always take an average of 10 minutes to confirm a transaction, as long as there is at least one CPU hashing somewhere.

This.  Within reason.  As long as the decrease isn't something like a 99.999% drop overnight the network will adapt. 

[Trongersoll]

feel free to send me your uselesss ASICs

[westkybitcoins]

Well why on earth would anyone new get into Bitcoin?  The value prop is disappearing.

The mining goldrush is ending.

There is, however, still strong reasons to get involved in bitcoin as a value store, and method of value transfer.

If mining disappears, so will the bitcoins...It will take forever to confirm even the smallest transaction.
So if you plan to store value in bitcoins you better start mining.

That's not how it works. The difficullty adjusts. It will always take an average of 10 minutes to confirm a transaction, as long as there is at least one CPU hashing somewhere.

This.  Within reason.  As long as the decrease isn't something like a 99.999% drop overnight the network will adapt. 

And as long as the decrease isn't such that some malicious entity can 51% the network with ease.

[Ytterbium]

However, when they do become unprofitable and are turned off, it is doubtful they will ever see service again

Thats how a feel about my GPU rig in the garage.  Who really wants crazy BTC abused GPUs that ran 2-years at 75C and 80% fan that were bought used in the first place?

The rig made me enough money its not really worth my effort to part out 5850 GPUs and Core2Duo CPUs for 0.5 BTC/ea.  Heck that rig made me 2BTC/day at one point!

GPUs can be used to mine litecoin. And they can also be used for scientific computing, protein folding, etc.

[User705]

Well why on earth would anyone new get into Bitcoin?  The value prop is disappearing.

The mining goldrush is ending.

There is, however, still strong reasons to get involved in bitcoin as a value store, and method of value transfer.

+1

[HellDiverUK]

I sold my older GPUs (the 5870 and 6970) which were pretty much burnt out after mining.  Both cards were bought used off eBay, and I got a year of mining out of them.  

The 5870's VRMs were stuffed (artifacting on the screen), but it was sold on eBay for parts/repair for £42.  I bought it for £85 a year previous.

The 6970 was still mining OK, but the heat and power use was high.  The fans were knackered, too.  Sold it last week for £112.  That's £20 more than I paid for it a year ago.  Yes, made a profit on the card, and I recon it mined about £300 worth of BTC in it's lifetime.

I still run a pair of 7950 cards, which are pulling 1.1MH/s - they're a bit noisy, but I have the machine behind the sofa in the living room.  It keeps the living room warm, so it'll save me quite a bit on heating oil in the winter.  I'll probably decommission them next spring.

I run a few Block Erupters (more on the way), and I've a Jalapeno on order.  With my solar panels, I've got free power (in fact the government pays me), and my ASICs were paid for using BTC gained from free GPU mining.  Every bitcoin I make is pure profit now.

[Hfleer]

Ok so theoretically, won't we reach a point where so many people have ASICs that they will generate fewer in BTC than they consume in electricity? Won't we reach a parity of sorts at which point people become unmotivated to mine in any way? This would be just like what has happened with the GPUs and FPGAs, but without a possible improvement of mining technology.

Obviously, should they become worth 1000$ each then it remains worth it for longer.

I sort of imagine a future where bitcoin mining is done philanthropically by those who can afford to, in order to keep money honest, but not as something you are materially rewarded for. Maybe even by a *shudder* elected body.

Well they're securing the network it seems even if unprofitably.  $1000 is what they're priced for.

[tymothy]

Would someone do the following exercise:

For every day since Jan 2009 calculate what 1$ invested into mining would bring worth now and calculate what 1$ invested directly into BTC would bring. Plot a chart with two lines. Or it could be simply a chart with one line. ROI on Bitcoin mining investments when denominated in BTC.

It's hard to do because of the uncertainty in getting a reliable USD/GH figure at any particular timepoint, what with long backorders and limited availability. Still I think most mass-produced units will not produce their value in bitcoins at time of purchase in their lifespan.

People may get a positive return on a fair number of units in USD, but investing in bitcoins instead of buying the miner almost certainly will generate greater returns.

[spooderman]

WOW so have you seen BFL's new product?

The 500GH/s pcie card that errr costs a 1/4 of the price of the mini rig??

How PISSED would you be if you shelved out 22 grand for the thing now that this PCIe thing has come out?

They're calling it the "Monarch"

[Bitweasil]

How PISSED would you be if you shelved out 22 grand for the thing now that this PCIe thing has come out been announced as a some-point-in-the-future-shipping-product-from-BFL-that-will-for-realz-ship-in-2-weeks?

Let me know when they ship.

[BeepBeep2]

Electricity burnt by miners can be recycled. IBM stated in one of their reports (not sure I can recover a link) that is some years, large datacenters will be integrated with central heating systems.

I think someday that the heat energy can be adapted into cooling energy too through the use of TE or Sterling generators.  

[ArticMine]

The cost of electricity for Bitcoin mining must take to account value of the heat produced
1) Heat is a waste product the has to be disposed of. For example: Phoenix Arizona, USA during the summer months
2) Heat is a valuable product that has to be paid for. For example: Canada, Russia during the winter

Many people use electricity for space heating at least in part, but even if they use another fuel the effective cost of Bitcoin mining is the difference between the cost of the electricity and the cost of the fuel that is displaced. Now unlike some of the custom GPU rigs ASIC miners are relatively compact boxes that placed in many places heat is needed. This is very much the case with the Avalons. So I would expect many ASIC miners to continue to operate long after they are uneconomical on a strict cost of electricity vs value of BTC generated with a portion of the resulting BTC dumped on certain exchanges. Virtex? BTC-E?   

[Bitweasil]

I think someday that the heat energy can be adapted into cooling energy too through the use of TE or Sterling generators.  

It's dreadfully inefficient to do this with waste heat off chips.  Their operating temperatures aren't enough higher than ambient to get much energy out of it.