Next best coin to mine after ASIC takes over bitcoin?

[red_dog007]

So, if these ASIC from BFL are as advertised, or even half of what is advertised, GPUs will quickly become a hot brick burning money when it comes to mining bitcoins. 

There are other coincurriences out there I have noticed.  What do you think would be the best coin to mine with GPUs once bitcoin is no longer profitable for gpus?  Seems like mining another coin could be profitable, and all the gpus could just switch to another coin and help bring up a coin to being something worthy.  Im sure a lot will make a shift to a new coin instead of selling off all their hardware.  Bitcoin was a risk that was worth pennies at the time, just like these other coins, just that bitcoin miners already have the hardware.

Though I don't know much about these other coins.  I ordered some ASIC if they do pan out.  If they do pan out, Im hoping I can keep a similar BTC per day ratio in mining and then switch my GPUs over to the next best coin to mine and hope that it becomes really profitable.

[1714810821]

1714810821

[Portnoy]

Read this:
Alternative Block Chains : be safe!

My opinion: Stick with Bitcoin and perhaps Namecoin. Everything else is just a type of pump 'n dump scam coin created to try and get people excited about being an "Early Adopter"... they have no other purpose.   

[red_dog007]

I use pooled merged mining currently.  Will the BFL ASIC's be able to also mine namecoins, or just the bitcoins?  Maybe my gpu's can stick on merged mining, but mainly be there to get namecoins if those ASICs can't mine namecoins. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

I use pooled merged mining currently.  Will the BFL ASIC's be able to also mine namecoins, or just the bitcoins?  Maybe my gpu's can stick on merged mining, but mainly be there to get namecoins if those ASICs can't mine namecoins. 

The "merged" part of merge mining is done in the "miner" (software).   For the case of mining pools it is the pool server which generates the getworks (and constructions the block header to be compatible with both chains).

At the hardware level the hardware is simply hashing a number.  It  has no concept of what that number represents and thus there is no obstacle to merge mining.

[dust]

I use pooled merged mining currently.  Will the BFL ASIC's be able to also mine namecoins, or just the bitcoins?  Maybe my gpu's can stick on merged mining, but mainly be there to get namecoins if those ASICs can't mine namecoins. 

BFL asics should be able to merge mine.  You could mine litecoins with GPUs.

[red_dog007]

I use pooled merged mining currently.  Will the BFL ASIC's be able to also mine namecoins, or just the bitcoins?  Maybe my gpu's can stick on merged mining, but mainly be there to get namecoins if those ASICs can't mine namecoins.  

BFL asics should be able to merge mine.  You could mine litecoins with GPUs.

Well, GPU's are very programmable.  The ASICs not so much.  From what I have been reading, if the hash algorithm for bitcoins changes any bit by say a potential shift to SHA-3 (especially when SHA-2 gets compromised) the ASICs are then worthless.  I have no clue if all these other coincurriences (namecoin in this case) uses the same hash algorithm as bitcoins.  If it is the same, it should then be able to merge mine or mine other coins so long as the software is there to support it right?

[DeathAndTaxes]

In order to merge mine the primary chain and the alt chains need to have the same hashing algorithm.  If Bitcoin were to change to a new algorithm it could no longer be merge mined with SHA-2 chains.  We likely will be using SHA-2 for some time.  Nobody can predict the future but SHA-2 is well researched and cryptologists have spent a lot of effort looking for flaws.   If a flaw is found in SHA-2 25 years from now and Bitcoin moved to SHA-5 2 years after that it doesn't really matter.  All current GPU and ASICS will be long obsolete anyways.

[1455]

So, if these ASIC from BFL are as advertised, or even half of what is advertised, GPUs will quickly become a hot brick burning money when it comes to mining bitcoins. 

There are other coincurriences out there I have noticed.  What do you think would be the best coin to mine with GPUs once bitcoin is no longer profitable for gpus?  Seems like mining another coin could be profitable, and all the gpus could just switch to another coin and help bring up a coin to being something worthy.  Im sure a lot will make a shift to a new coin instead of selling off all their hardware.  Bitcoin was a risk that was worth pennies at the time, just like these other coins, just that bitcoin miners already have the hardware.

Though I don't know much about these other coins.  I ordered some ASIC if they do pan out.  If they do pan out, Im hoping I can keep a similar BTC per day ratio in mining and then switch my GPUs over to the next best coin to mine and hope that it becomes really profitable.

I think the impact of the hashrate on the value of a crypto-currency is    negligible, well, you could argue "The more computing power behind it, the more secure a currency is", thats of course true. But it normally goes like "the more value, the more people will mine ergo the more computing power", not the other way around. Nobody would they "Well, litecoin, yeah… but they don't have enough computing power backing up the crypto-security." If a buch of people start to mine litecoins, titcoins or whatever no one will start to buy like crazy. They will just mine pretty worthless coins without making an impact.

[SSSSwinner]

i see litecoin is good. i will be look for litecoin invests. these should show when asics hit

[MeisterLone]

How is the difficulty of mining controlled?

[jasonharty24]

It's controlled by the network hash rate.

[Oinsane1]

litecoin has a strong chance of making it methinks

[ninjaboon]

litecoin has a strong chance of making it methinks

litecoin still has a small following. so might be good to join in early too. thanks for the info

[contemptx]

Due to there currently being very little ASIC builds available or being used based on the fact that the current suppliers of them have been slightly over optermistic with there expected delivery times means that its still a waiting game to see what happens.

I know that from personal experience designing & building ASIC hardware can easily take 1 - 2 years depending on its complexity and can cost anywhere from a few hundred thousand to millions of pounds.

So its just a matter of time to see who comes through first.

[Endgame]

The next best coin after bitcoin would probably be either namecoin or litecoin. Although it remains to be seen whether there is a need for either of these

[Wassupia]

Litecoin is almost as profitable as bitcoin for me, except for the extra electricity I'd have to pay.

[FLHippy]

Litecoin is almost as profitable as bitcoin for me, except for the extra electricity I'd have to pay.

I was looking at the litecoin sites this morning and the ones listed on the litecoin site seemed to be recently shut down. I couldn't quickly google any exchanges and the software for mining on windows didn't work out of the repository I found it on.

I assumed that litecoin had died.

Did I miss something? Got a link for a miner?

[yuzhe]

Litecoin seems to be mostly dead, for reasons stated in the wiki, but to summarize:

1) the launch was rocky at best. ie claims of being 100% cpu only, while later proven not-much-so. suspicions of authors mining in advance etc.
2) it does bring very little in terms of competition with bitcoin.

For real competing blockchain, IMO it is necessary something like:

1) Mining must be provably profitable only on modern multi-core x86-64+PC architecture. The PC must be superior against anything to come for at least several years. That probably means utilizing the cpu far more than mere hashing, perhaps 3/2 SAT or other NP-complete/hard problem set?

2) Almost instantenous confirmation (let's say new block every 10 seconds). A lot of protocol redesign will be probably necessary.

Once ASIC mining will be monopolised by selected few who will be able to manufacture at 65/45nm (network at hundreds/thousands terahash), the pressure to move hashing back into common hardware will start to build up for new chain to survive.

So far only commodity FPGA hardware (and its asic hardcopies) are used, probably 90nm, which is still about 10-100x times slower than truly asynchronous ICs manufactured by state of the art process.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Once ASIC mining will be monopolised by selected few who will be able to manufacture at 65/45nm (network at hundreds/thousands terahash), the pressure to move hashing back into common hardware will start to build up for new chain to survive.

Why would it be a monopoly?  Monopoly tend not to survive in free markets and there are no real barriers to entry other than NRE costs.  While the NRE costs are substantial if there is enough money to be made mining competitors will jump in.  If there isn't enough money to support competitors than the chain is a economic dead end anyways and the monopolist is likely the one taking the biggest loss.

Selling shovels to gold miners has traditionally been more profitable and less risky then mining for gold.  BFL understands this and future players will too.  The turn around on capital is much faster and ROI% much higher.  The equipment seller offloads all the difficulty, future price, better competitor offering risks on the miner.  All that makes it much easier to project cashflow which makes it easier to get venture capital funding. 

[warmach]

What about timekoin?  It is a newer protocol but the concept of everyone having exactly the same potential to earn (everyone only has 24 hours a day) is pretty intriguing.