Hi all,
What do we think will happen to the difficulty as the reward drops to 25BTC/block? Will ASIC miners bring it up? Will it drop because mining is suddenly not feasible for FPGA and GPU miners?
Personally I think it will drop, then rise back up a few weeks later when ASIC miners come into the game.
I want to hear your opinions though.
---Edit:
I made a bet for this:
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=673For the most part I agree with Stephen Gornick on this one, mainly since it depends on when people get their new devices.
If they're mining via ASIC before the split, there probably won't be any change. GPUs would have dropped off by then, and mining with FPGAs and ASICs would still be quite profitable (though half as much).
If FPGA and GPU mining are the only contenders at the split, I'd say there would be a drop in difficulty, though probably not by very much. Mining via GPU is barely profitable as is (for normal single/dual cards for the most part) so I imagine they'd drop off after their profits get cut. Anyone with FPGA or substantial GPU investments would keep going, though they wouldn't be making very much any more either.