By the time "all the Bitcoins" have been found ASIC will be the longest and most cost effective way Bitcoin have been mined
CPU had what 18months
GPU a couple of good years
FPGA were killed off by early ASIC announcements before they really got traction...
ASIC soon until?
difficulty might skyrocket, but globally the power usage of the Bitcoin network will drop significantly - this I feel is a good thing, and I don't mean just for my power bill.
well... actually... the 27Ghash bASIC costs less than 1 of my 7970's did when they were first released, this is still well with reach of a hobbyist.
like most new tech I expect price will drop in time and then V2ASIC will appear - this doesn't just happen in BTC - do we really need a new iphone very year? (its ok I'm an android), just one example from outside bitcoinworld.
Oh and the CPU I bought in 2009 was more than the price of a 27Ghash asic today (in raw $ no inflation or anything factored in) - shame I didn't hear about Bitcoins till early 2011, and actually today I can still buy a new cpu for more than a ASIC - so that's not really a valid argument imo. -and that is without the rest of the desktop computer included. my 2009 Desktop would have bought 1 x 54Ghash bASIC AND a 27Ghash one and left me change. Yes I spent >$1700 on a desktop computer in 2009!!! the mobo, cpu and ram now run 2 x 7970s after running 2 x 6950 for 12 months
, I got good ROI on that!
I have been surprised by the number of people that have never mined a Bitcoin in their lives that have contacted me planning to buy ASIC hardware to start Bitcoin mining.
Some are even setting up GPU rigs to "learn" on while waiting for their ASICs to be delivered.
Gotta do other stuff so I'll stop typing now
Best
Graet
Disclaimer - I run a large Bitcoin mining pool with an active IRC chanel with >80 users and also idle in many Bitcoin related IRC chanels. I talk to miners about this stuff every day, get their feelings on upcoming events and what their plans are.I also spend a lot of time trying to cut through bullshit and see what is real.