Was Bitcoin code recently modified to only allow mining by ASIC chip?

[roxane40]

Is it true that the Bitcoin code was changed so that only ASIC chips can mine it? I am under the impression it can still be mined with CPU/GPU- although of course not successfully mining a block due to low hashrate- but that it’s at least technically possible using Awesome Miner and EasyMiner. But a developer I am talking to insists the Bitcoin code was modified recently, so now it can only be mined by ASIC chip machines. Please confirm.

[casey15]

The Bitcoin code was changed to only allow ASIC chips mine it directly. But still maintained-in the mining algorithm used by Bitcoin is SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 256), designed to be computationally intensive and favor hardware with high computational power.

As Bitcoin's popularity grew over time, miners shifted from central processing units (CPU) and graphics processing units (GPU) to Bitcoin-specific Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). With significantly higher hash rates and energy efficient ASIC's were amore cost-effective.

The change to ASICs was determined by market pressures and technological progress, rather than a deliberate mod from Bitcoin '. The Bitcoin protocol remains open to any miner who uses compatible hardware.

[pooya87]

Is it true that the Bitcoin code was changed so that only ASIC chips can mine it?

No it's not true. That's not even a possible thing to do in the code. You can't put any kind of limit on what type of hardware used to compute hashes. It can be CPU, GPU, FPGA, ASIC, etc. You can even use Pen & Paper to compute hashes! The only reason why ASICs are used these days is because they are the most efficient hardware capable of computing the most number of hashes per second. That speed goes down in that list (CPU < GPU < FPGA < ASIC).

but that it’s at least technically possible using Awesome Miner and EasyMiner.

I don't know what these two are but theoretically anything is possible. Mining is based on luck. For example you can get lucky and the first hash you compute is the correct one and you can submit your block. That means you can get lucky with the oldest CPU with lowest hashrate as well. But the chance of that happening is so low that it is practically impossible to "get lucky".

[roxane40]

but that it’s at least technically possible using Awesome Miner and EasyMiner.

I don't know what these two are but theoretically anything is possible. Mining is based on luck. For example you can get lucky and the first hash you compute is the correct one and you can submit your block. That means you can get lucky with the oldest CPU with lowest hashrate as well. But the chance of that happening is so low that it is practically impossible to "get lucky".

Pooya87, I am tempted to believe you especially due to your veteran level experience. However, how is it possible you don’t even know what Awesome Miner and EasyMiner are??? I’m puzzled! FYI they are mining software, I would think veterans would know about mining software? Here’s the link on Koinly⁩, dated December 2023: https://koinly.io/blog/best-crypto-mining-software/

I see there are 2 mining software programs that support CPU mining of Bitcoin (Awesome Miner, EasyMiner) and 3 mining software programs that support GPU mining (Multiminer, Awesome Miner, EasyMiner).

[NotATether]

but that it’s at least technically possible using Awesome Miner and EasyMiner.

I don't know what these two are but theoretically anything is possible. Mining is based on luck. For example you can get lucky and the first hash you compute is the correct one and you can submit your block. That means you can get lucky with the oldest CPU with lowest hashrate as well. But the chance of that happening is so low that it is practically impossible to "get lucky".

Pooya87, I am tempted to believe you especially due to your veteran level experience. However, how is it possible you don’t even know what Awesome Miner and EasyMiner are??? I’m puzzled! FYI they are mining software, I would think veterans would know about mining software? Here’s the link on Koinly⁩, dated December 2023: https://koinly.io/blog/best-crypto-mining-software/

I see there are 2 mining software programs that support CPU mining of Bitcoin (Awesome Miner, EasyMiner) and 3 mining software programs that support GPU mining (Multiminer, Awesome Miner, EasyMiner).

A *long* time ago, in the old days of Bitcoin, the difficulty level i.e. the number of zeros that have to be in front of a block hash (this is not the exact definition, but it is good enough for a simple explanation) was very low, which allowed people to mine Bitcoin with their CPUs, as the number of hashes to try to generate was low enough to hit a correct one eventually.

Then, some clever people wrote programs that would allow people to mine bitcoin using GPUs. Because GPUs are significantly faster than CPUs, this caused the difficulty level to shoot up. Not because Core developers changed the level but because the "difficulty adjustment" feature that was implemented inside Bitcoin and happens every 2016 blocks noticed that blocks were being made faster than usual and so increased the difficulty so that the block generation time would be closer to 10 minutes.

Eventually, someone invented an ASIC that would mine bitcoin efficiently, which are much faster than GPUs, and the difficulty adjustment took place again.

Then silicon fab sizes kept getting smaller and smaller, and people filled datacenters with ASICs, and the rest is history.

As the difficulty level goes up, it becomes computationally impossible to continue mining using older, weaker hardware.

[mocacinno]

--snip--
I see there are 2 mining software programs that support CPU mining of Bitcoin (Awesome Miner, EasyMiner) and 3 mining software programs that support GPU mining (Multiminer, Awesome Miner, EasyMiner).

There are tons of other mining implementations that allow cpu/gpu mining... minerd, cpuminer, bfgminer,... Maybe you'll have to use an older version, or make sure you use the correct parameters when compiling to enable cpu/gpu mining. I'm pretty sure you could even find the exact commit where cpu mining was removed from bitcoin core and re-integrate it so you could mine with bitcoin-qt.

The thing is pooya87 and NotATether are correct: if you use a cpu/gpu/fpga to mine, you'll have allmost 0 chance to hit a block. Even if you'd join a pool, the minimum difficulty of a share would be so high you'd solve almost no shares and you'd probably would not make enough sats to withdraw.
The keyword here is "allmost": theoretically, there *is* a chance... But if you'd do the actual calculations, you'd see that on average it would take millions of years to solve a block... I did these calculations in the past a couple of times, but they are quite time consuming so i won't repeat them. Here's the last time i gave somebody an indication:

To give you guys a "real" idear about the odd and timing, it might be a good idear to read the wiki

time = difficulty * 2**32 / hashrate
where difficulty is the current difficulty, hashrate is the number of hashes your miner calculates per second, and time is the average in seconds between the blocks you find.

source:https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

the current difficulty is 75,5 T, that's 75.500.000.000.000

You can get to run your sidehack R909 @ 2,1 Th/second
when you're talking about a cpu or a gpu, you can look here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparison, but the fasted cpu hashes @140Hh/s and the fasted GPU @2568 Mh/s (those numbers are acutally quite old, but i would be supprised if new cpu's and gpu's have a SIGNIFICANT difference in the outcome of the calculation)

So, a lottominer, the R909:
time = (75.500.000.000.000 * 2**32)/ 2.100.000.000.000 = 1.544.143.004.038 seconds = 25.735.716.733 minutes = 428.928.612 hours = 17.872.025 days = 48.964 years
So, on average, at current difficulty, it would take you about 50 thousand years to hit a block with an R909

So, a gpu:
time = (75.500.000.000.000 * 2**32)/ 2.568.000.000 = 126.273.376.498.442 seconds = 2.104.556.274.974 minutes = 35.075.937.916 hours = 1.461.497.413 days = 4.004.102 years
So, on average, at current difficulty, it would take you about 4 million years to hit a block with the "best" gpu in the benchmark

So, a cpu:
time = (75.500.000.000.000 * 2**32)/ 140.000.000 = 2.316.214.506.057.142 seconds = 38.603.575.100.952 minutes = 643.392.918.349 hours = 26.808.038.264 days = 73.446.680 years
So, on average, at current difficulty, it would take you about 73 million years to hit a block with the "best" cpu in the benchmark

There are all averages offcourse... yes, in theory, there *is* a chance of hitting a block with an rpi whilst cpu mining for a couple of seconds... The thing is that people are very bad in interpreting the odds, as long as they see a number and the word "average", they think there's an actual possibility of hitting a block with a cpu/gpu, whilst in reality their odds are sooooo small, they are so close to zero that you can probably just round them down to zero to begin with... You'd probably have better odds of getting married, going for a swim before the ceremony, being bitten by a shark at the same day as being hit by lightning, winning the lottery and getting into a car crash on your way to the hospital (i didn't do the exact math tough).

[HeRetiK]

Is it true that the Bitcoin code was changed so that only ASIC chips can mine it?

No it's not true. That's not even a possible thing to do in the code. You can't put any kind of limit on what type of hardware used to compute hashes. It can be CPU, GPU, FPGA, ASIC, etc. You can even use Pen & Paper to compute hashes! The only reason why ASICs are used these days is because they are the most efficient hardware capable of computing the most number of hashes per second. That speed goes down in that list (CPU < GPU < FPGA < ASIC).

To be fair you can harden your PoW scheme against certain types of hardware indirectly, by, say, choosing a hashing algorithm that is more RAM intensive and thus making the development of ASICs less viable. That's why Litecoin went with Scrypt over SHA256 for its PoW scheme. Alas, we all know how that went. (for those who don't: Scrypt ASIC miners where eventually developed as well)

A *long* time ago, in the old days of Bitcoin, the difficulty level i.e. the number of zeros that have to be in front of a block hash (this is not the exact definition, but it is good enough for a simple explanation) was very low, which allowed people to mine Bitcoin with their CPUs, as the number of hashes to try to generate was low enough to hit a correct one eventually.

Then, some clever people wrote programs that would allow people to mine bitcoin using GPUs. Because GPUs are significantly faster than CPUs, this caused the difficulty level to shoot up. Not because Core developers changed the level but because the "difficulty adjustment" feature that was implemented inside Bitcoin and happens every 2016 blocks noticed that blocks were being made faster than usual and so increased the difficulty so that the block generation time would be closer to 10 minutes.

Eventually, someone invented an ASIC that would mine bitcoin efficiently, which are much faster than GPUs, and the difficulty adjustment took place again.

Then silicon fab sizes kept getting smaller and smaller, and people filled datacenters with ASICs, and the rest is history.

As the difficulty level goes up, it becomes computationally impossible to continue mining using older, weaker hardware.

FPGA mining also was a thing in the late era of GPU mining and shortly before the first ASICs where developed. It never really took off though.

[Text]

They were emphasizing the theoretical possibility of getting lucky with any hardware, but in practice, the chances are almost negligible due to the high difficulty level.

Think of it like winning the lottery. You can buy a ticket, but the odds are stacked against you. Same with CPU/GPU mining Bitcoin these days.

[stompix]

Here’s the link on Koinly⁩, dated December 2023: https://koinly.io/blog/best-crypto-mining-software/
I see there are 2 mining software programs that support CPU mining of Bitcoin (Awesome Miner, EasyMiner) and 3 mining software programs that support GPU mining (Multiminer, Awesome Miner, EasyMiner).

You can theoretically mine Bitcoin manually with a piece of paper, you can do it with a toaster and you can do it with almost everything that managed to do math, the problem is that you're competing with specialized machines so despite the fact that you might find a block with your GPU it's hilgy probably it will happen when you're the only one left on this planet mining bitcoins.

Now, taking your other thread into account:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5499778
I'm starting to think you need to learn a ton about mining first and your developer friend who told you about that code change is not the person to learn from!

[odolvlobo]

Is it true that the Bitcoin code was changed so that only ASIC chips can mine it? I am under the impression it can still be mined with CPU/GPU- although of course not successfully mining a block due to low hashrate- but that it’s at least technically possible using Awesome Miner and EasyMiner. But a developer I am talking to insists the Bitcoin code was modified recently, so now it can only be mined by ASIC chip machines. Please confirm.

Bitcoin Core originally had the capability of mining on the CPU, but that feature was removed several years ago. You are correct about Bitcoin mining on CPU/GPU being possible, but completely impractical.

[PrivacyG]

Using a CPU is a waste of every thing it consumes unless it is strictly for educational purposes.  There was a time when people were buying USB Mining Sticks and using them to mine Bitcoin.  Or simply CPUs.  I used to mine with a single medium range CPU and I was getting around 0.002 Bitcoin a day at the time from Pools.  It was worth almost nothing, particularly if I took the power usage into account.  So I thought it would be a smarter idea to simply buy Bitcoin instead of Mining it, not knowing at the time about all the other advantages and not knowing it would become such a big thing either.  I thought it was just an experiment.

The days people were playing jack pot by trying solo Mining Bitcoin are long gone.  You can still try that out with other Cryptocurrencies, but definitely not Bitcoin.  The game is too big for some body with little to no investment to join and it is ultimately useless to try it unless, as said a few rows earlier, you are doing it to learn.

My advice is to stay away from Software that promises you can Mine unrealistically high amounts of Bitcoin using simple and cheap equipment.  I am not sure if Awesome Miner or Easy Miner are to be trusted, I just want to warn you.  Do not believe things that are too good to be true.

[DaveF]

Is it true that the Bitcoin code was changed so that only ASIC chips can mine it? I am under the impression it can still be mined with CPU/GPU- although of course not successfully mining a block due to low hashrate- but that it’s at least technically possible using Awesome Miner and EasyMiner. But a developer I am talking to insists the Bitcoin code was modified recently, so now it can only be mined by ASIC chip machines. Please confirm.

Bitcoin Core originally had the capability of mining on the CPU, but that feature was removed several years ago. You are correct about Bitcoin mining on CPU/GPU being possible, but completely impractical.

More then several years it was removed in 2016.
Even 8 years ago when it was removed it was years after you could realistically find a block with it.
As soon as custom ASIC units came out in 2012 - 13 CPU mining was 100% dead, GPU mining was not far behind.

-Dave

[thecodebear]

Is it true that the Bitcoin code was changed so that only ASIC chips can mine it? I am under the impression it can still be mined with CPU/GPU- although of course not successfully mining a block due to low hashrate- but that it’s at least technically possible using Awesome Miner and EasyMiner. But a developer I am talking to insists the Bitcoin code was modified recently, so now it can only be mined by ASIC chip machines. Please confirm.

No, that developer was lying to you or is very misinformed.

I don't even think that would be possible to do. No matter what machine you are using all you're doing as a miner is hashing, which can be done by any computer.

Only reason people only use ASICs is because they are thousands of times more efficient at computing these hashes than general purpose computers so it is a huge waste of energy (and therefore money) to use anything but ASICs. This means you're only gonna be losing money mining if you don't use an ASICs.

Your developer friend doesn't have a clue what they are talking about.

You are perfectly capable of running mining software on your computer to test out mining if you want to, though you're just gonna lose money doing it so it's not useful other than just seeing how mining works, and there's the chance that it like overheats your computer or something haha so I wouldn't recommend trying it for very long.

[pooya87]

Pooya87, I am tempted to believe you especially due to your veteran level experience. However, how is it possible you don’t even know what Awesome Miner and EasyMiner are??? I’m puzzled! FYI they are mining software, I would think veterans would know about mining software?

I wouldn't call myself "veteran" and I don't think there is anybody who knows everything. I myself know stuff that interest me. For example in case of mining I'm interest in it at a technical level (how PoW works, how mining is implemented, the algorithms such as ASIC boost, etc.). The mining software out there, specially those that are no longer practical (like for CPU/GPU mining) never interested me since I've never mined bitcoin in my life even back when bitcoin was CPU mineable. So obviously I'm not familiar with such implementations.

[ABCbits]

Pooya87, I am tempted to believe you especially due to your veteran level experience. However, how is it possible you don’t even know what Awesome Miner and EasyMiner are??? I’m puzzled! FYI they are mining software, I would think veterans would know about mining software? Here’s the link on Koinly⁩, dated December 2023: https://koinly.io/blog/best-crypto-mining-software/

I see there are 2 mining software programs that support CPU mining of Bitcoin (Awesome Miner, EasyMiner) and 3 mining software programs that support GPU mining (Multiminer, Awesome Miner, EasyMiner).

FYI, BFGMiner which listed on that blog also support CPU and GPU. A member on this forum even write a guide about it back on 2022, [Guide] Solo mine testnet bitcoins with bfgminer, Bitcoin Core, and a CPU/GPU. And if i were you, i wouldn't expect other Bitcoiner to remember or know all name of mining software out there.