Future of Bitcoin mining ?

[fbassett]

I've been mining litecoins all weekend and its been a good move.  Bitcoin will always be big brother and litecoin will be its little brother.  When someone joins the forums, usually they have a bitcoin address posted in the footer of their message.  After another week, you'll more likely than not see a LC address posted right under it.  This is a trend I've been observing for months here (yea, i lurked for a while).  

My thoughts are, GPU mining isn't going anywhere.  As soon as ASICs start running into technical difficulties such as hardware and software issues (remember, ASICs are still pretty beta), theres going to be a balance.  If your hardware goes bad with an ASIC, you can't just quickly throw $100-$400 at the issue to make it go away (price of a mining GPU).  You have to deal with your supplier whos dealing with 100's (if not 1000's) of the same issues with other customers.  A dead GPU is a quick fix on the hardware forum here as theres always good cards relatively cheap and quickly delivered.  Hell, you might even be able to find something at a local shop.  More miners are going to be needed, not just better hardware.  I've seen plenty of people with the money to get into a bleeding edge business, screw it all up because it was beyond them.  If you think just because somene got an ASIC they can mine at max GHash/s for extended periods of time, your wrong.  

What I'm getting at is, people have been talking ASIC since the middle of last year, with next month being the month its gonna ship.  I'd rather get in now while the bitcoin is under $50 USD.  High for last year, but theres way more room for it to go up.  Shit just went mainstream (talking bitcoins on bloomberg? wtf!).  All the hipsters with disposable money want 'coins cause its cool and the rest want the freedom that it brings.  Theres a demand.  When demand rises beyond supply, so does the price.  

Thats just my two cents.  Sorry for ranting.  

I got all my info from this video  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdrSP0V-KLg

You actually make a very good point about technical difficulties, and if you look at the computer industry as whole there is a huge investment in the support of both hardware and software.  If the ASIC producers dont have this support mechanism in place then my guess, and it is just a guess, is that we will see the total network hashing power bouncing up and down for a number of months.

[Wayne_Chang]

My experience is although the difficulty of mining is increasing, the price of bitcoin is increasing at same time. My reward of USD is remain same through past 2 years.

[TheAce]

My experience is although the difficulty of mining is increasing, the price of bitcoin is increasing at same time. My reward of USD is remain same through past 2 years.

thanks thats a good point of view.. i think i'll have to check my it store, to get some gpu's.
Maybe to mine some litecoins?

[elefter]

Hello Ace! As you said yourself with the introduction of ASICs things will change a lot to the point where in the not so distand future GPU mining will be unprofitable,
if that happens all the GPU miners will rush to alt coins (like litecoin) and increase the dificulty there..
All and all i wouldnt discurage you from getting a couple of cards for mining but i wouldnt go on a all out buying spree

ps keep in ming those things generate a lot of heat and fan noise!
ps2 Keep a very open eye for asic miner offers!

...anyway thats my 2 cents or rather my 2mbt (pun intended)

[Geode]

Hello Ace! As you said yourself with the introduction of ASICs things will change a lot to the point where in the not so distand future GPU mining will be unprofitable,
if that happens all the GPU miners will rush to alt coins (like litecoin) and increase the dificulty there..
All and all i wouldnt discurage you from getting a couple of cards for mining but i wouldnt go on a all out buying spree

ps keep in ming those things generate a lot of heat and fan noise!
ps2 Keep a very open eye for asic miner offers!

...anyway thats my 2 cents or rather my 2mbt (pun intended)

That would suck. The increasing difficulty will probably be at a rate that mitigates any effect of a price increase in the other alt coins. Maybe because there are so many popping up, like one every 4 days, that, it will be okay.

[samo]

it will be interesting to see this transition phase and how long gpu users take to swtich over, time will tell.

[lice]

A thought on the transaction topic, if all coins are minded and many stop mining, fees will go up since people are willing to spend more or risk loosing all coins they have to a stale currency. (just a guess

[elefter]

Not sure how well ASICs designed for bitcoin would perform mining other coins.

My understanding is that current asics can't mine scrypt based coins like litecoin
but propably can mine SHA-256 based coins just the same...

What i ment though is if GPU minners leave bitcoin cause of asics and go to lets say to litecoin they will drive the dificulty there up too...