will asic's kill bitcoin ?

[evilscoop]

ok this has been bugging me, so someone please correct me if im wrong, and this is a bit of a brain dump...but

gpu mining is grunt brute force dirty mining...people tweak, rebuild there is some skill in it
fpga is elegant, geeky, clean...people recode, add, expand, adjust the host machine....again skill
ASIC .. is sneaky, fast, clean....but boring and easy

You buy an asic, you plug it in, you get X gh/s you add more, you get more gh/s, in effect an asic on its own is the same as a mining pool atm

So, bear in mind there is a limit of 21m bitcoins (11mil in use now, so halfway) and we've been mining for 4 years now...mostly (with pools etc) in the low th/s

asics will drive the rate of processing up into the upper th/s if not into the peta h/s, so difficulty will increase to silly amounts, but people will expand the asic clusters to compensate

Will we not run out of bitcoins to mine within 4 years or so... ?
Were is the skill, the personal time/work in the mining....is this not survival of the richest ?

I know i know, the rich get richer...but in this environment (crypto, internet, computers) , id like to see the geekiest get richer and asics seem to be de-skilling
were is the fun in mining...after asics....

</rant>

and if anyone wants to offload an fpga or 2 now, shout....im more interested in the geekdom of mining as a hobby

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[arepo]

the main misconception here is that the total hashing power of the network corresponds with how quickly bitcoins are mined.

the difficulty adjust with the size of the mining pool so that one block is found and one block reward is produced approximately every 10 minutes. if the number of people mining doubles tomorrow, the difficulty will adjust and the rate of bitcoin creation remains mostly unaffected.

[Qoheleth]

You're missing a couple essential concepts.

First: valuing "geekiness" is counterproductive. The point, the whole point, the sole point of mining is to outvote the computing power of an attacker trying to disrupt the economy via double-spend attacks. ASICs provide hashpower that cannot be matched with any more custom solution. But for a theoretical attacker with millions of dollars to spend, they were an option from the beginning. Until we adopt ASICs, we are vulnerable. As long as mining is mostly a custom garage hobbyist thing, capital can crush us.

Second: you seem to expect that if we mined the first half of the bitcoins in four years, we'll mine the second half in another four years. What you seem to misunderstand here is that the block reward drops every time you mine half of the remaining coins. Coins are being created half as fast now (25BTC/block) compared to how fast they were being created at the beginning (50BTC/block). We cannot run out until a number of blocks have been created equal to perhaps twenty or thirty times the number of blocks that exist today. There's no danger of somehow killing the golden goose in anything approaching the near future.

[Qoheleth]

the main misconception here is that the total hashing power of the network corresponds with how quickly bitcoins are mined.

Nah. There were a couple misconceptions in the OP, but that's not one of them.

so difficulty will increase to silly amounts, but people will expand the asic clusters to compensate

[arepo]

the main misconception here is that the total hashing power of the network corresponds with how quickly bitcoins are mined.

Nah. There were a couple misconceptions in the OP, but that's not one of them.

so difficulty will increase to silly amounts, but people will expand the asic clusters to compensate

but...

Will we not run out of bitcoins to mine within 4 years or so... ?

 

[evilscoop]

yeah ok running out was a silly point to make....

Im just ranting really, rich get richer etc etc and wishing id kept my mining rig running from years ago...


Thx for the reply's

[w00t]

....
custom solution. But for a theoretical attacker with millions of dollars to spend, they were an option from the beginning. Until we adopt ASICs, we are vulnerable. As long as mining is mostly a custom garage hobbyist thing, capital can crush us.

This.

This is what I was wondering a long time. If the ASIC is either a benefit or a drawback for the community around Bitcoin.

The point is if it is now only about money. Aren't we even more vulnerable?

You know - now it really came down to - let's make a killing (or let's kill this). Here is 1M USD printed by Bernanke. Go get some of those tools (ASIC Butterfly) and plug it into electricity plug over there (high school student can do that). Wait for several hours. Profit - Bitcoin is gone. And it did only cost 1M - that's really nothing.

[rudrigorc2]

Here is 1M USD printed by Bernanke. Go get some of those tools (ASIC Butterfly)

I hope they do that, we all be safe if they buy from BFL, maybe they are already in pre order? How does that feel,  Bernanke?


if bitcoin price does not go up and if manufacturers flood the world with asic chips fast not allowing the first buyers to mine ASICS can kill the mining ROI for future mining investors. but, talking reality, batch1 owners now are, to not say rich, very satisfied with their returns, and I think batch2 and batch3 will pay off good. bfl might start shipping, asicminer already has the tinyhasher, I hope everybody now get access to more and more efficient asics that way the blockchain is safe

[evilscoop]

Been looking at that little thing
that tinyhasher is up my street if I can drive it from a rasp pi ill be a happy bunny
Evan happier if it can be over clocked

[HappyBitCoinUser]

There is no ASIC

[AlgoSwan]

It can't kill BTC. But I'm not so sure about GPUs. They really need to innovate to survive on this.

[JimiQ84]

There is no ASIC

Care to explain this?

[evilscoop]

rephrase, there is no bfl plz
avalon have shipped have they not, so there is asic

[fitty]

If anything, ASIC might save Bitcoin.

ASIC is good. Hashing power protects the network from certain types of attacks.

When hashing power goes up, difficulty goes up to match it. So ASIC won't suddenly jump us to 21M coins, the projections don't change all that much.

ASIC uses less power, it gives "average people" access to a lot of hashing power, which will decentralize it even more. The problem with lots of GPU hashing, it's hot, noisy, and burns a lot of power. Most people, even with the money, couldn't go setup 8-10-15G of GPU hashing.

Soon people will be able to run 20-40-60G of hasing, cheaply, which is good for everyone.

[b!z]

If anything, ASIC might save Bitcoin.

ASIC is good. Hashing power protects the network from certain types of attacks.

When hashing power goes up, difficulty goes up to match it. So ASIC won't suddenly jump us to 21M coins, the projections don't change all that much.

ASIC uses less power, it gives "average people" access to a lot of hashing power, which will decentralize it even more. The problem with lots of GPU hashing, it's hot, noisy, and burns a lot of power. Most people, even with the money, couldn't go setup 8-10-15G of GPU hashing.

Soon people will be able to run 20-40-60G of hasing, cheaply, which is good for everyone.

The ignorant OP obviously doesn't understand this concept.

[evilscoop]

The ignorant OP obviously doesn't understand this concept.

ignorant is a bit uncalled for, for a misunderstanding...
obviously is also an over used term....its only obvious if you already know the answer...

yeah ok running out was a silly point to make....

and please note, ive not been here long im still finding my feet and info...be more considerate plz  

[zeroday]

ASICs owned by a single monopoly will kill bitcoin.
ASICs dispersed among thousands of individual miners will make bitcoin stronger.

[Meman]

If the ASIC's will ever be delivered  is a speculation too.

[DeathAndTaxes]

ASICs have always existed.

The "good guys" not using them doesn't somehow prohibit the bad guys from using them.

Today to attack the network with GPUs would probably take $50M+.  Is someone going to spend $50M on warehouses of GPUs?  No of course not they will spend maybe $1M or so on ASICs and 99.9% the network.

Not using ASICs makes about as much sense as "a criminal with a gun could hurt me, so I won't carry a gun I will carry a knife that way if someone robs me, he can't have a gun and I will be safe"

[w00t]

ASICs have always existed.

The "good guys" not using them doesn't somehow prohibit the bad guys from using them.

Today to attack the network with GPUs would probably take $50M+.  Is someone going to spend $50M?  No of course not they will spend maybe $1M and 99.9% the network.

Not using ASICs makes about as much sense as "a criminal with a gun could hurt me, so I won't carry a gun I will carry a knife that way if someone robs me, he can't have a gun and I will be safe"

Yeah you are most likely right. Those numbers - 50M and such, did you do some calculations for your self or is it just guesswork?