This is my 2c on what it has been like mining cryptocurrency, creating youtube content about it, and what the future of mining looks like to me
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@voskcoin/the-outlook-on-cryptocurrency-mining-by-voskcoinThe full article is on steemit w/ links embedded and formatted correctly but here's a paragraph cut from it
"Bitmain is the world-renowned and dominant Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) miner producer under their Antminer brand. ASIC miners are built for one purpose which is to mine a specific mining algorithm. Purpose built ASIC miners are much more efficient than using graphics cards which are multi-purpose hardware. Similar to graphics cards, Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) are multi-purpose hardware. FPGA miners are much more powerful and complex compared to GPU miners. Currently the only miners the majority of the public can operate with no advanced training are GPU miners and ASIC miners. The concern many cryptocurrency miners have is not with the actual ASIC mining device, it is the fact there are very few manufacturers that sell these miners directly to the public. ASIC miners now threaten to consume essentially every cryptocurrency mining algorithm. Complacent projects like Zcash that toted "ASIC resistance" are now struggling with how to properly respond to new ASIC miners."