Will ASIC destroy bitcoin?

[pharmland]

ASICs won't destroy bitcoin at all. It will cost more to mine but that's about it.

[Skixo]

Personally, I don't think it really makes sense to build / buy something that will essentially 'kill' regular mining. Was BitCoin even designed for coins to be mined by specialist hardware?!? People buying ASIC's are wasting their money IMO. It wont be long before mining difficultly outweighs the use of an ASIC -- whilst completely killing regular rig mining.

[oroqen]

I too and curious as too what'll happen once butterfly labs delivers, my only worry is without GPU miners there wont be as much traded by people who don't have ASIC turning it into a "boys club"

[mercSuey]

So long as Bitcoins are used for something, they cannot be destroyed. The fact that there is a 21 million limit on Bitcoins makes it inconceivable that they could be destroyed. Sure they might drop in value but I do not suspect by much. There is continual demand for Bitcoin as it has become a widely used international means of exchange, and it's growing every day. I used to trade penny stocks and they would run up high with nothing going for them, and with over 200 million shares issued, that would still be considered a very low amount. Google's stock trades at nearly $799.87 (last price) and they have 267.71 MILLION shares floating out there, with 329.66 million "outstanding." Do the math. Bitcoin could go VERY high. This could just be the beginning.

This.

[Jonnii]

Partially yes, for "farmers". Because difficulty will boost up and mining with "farms" will be unprofitable. On the other side, I think, bitcoin's rate can rise up, cause it some kind of exclusive for ASIC-users.

[mercSuey]

I actually contacted BFL and asked if I could mine TRC with their asics since TRC is sha256 and they said they will only support bitcoins.  But technically anything that uses SHA256 can be mined with the asic.  It was a cryptic reply from BFL support.

[Skixo]

Will hybrid engines destroy cars?

Valid point.

[Jonnii]

Will hybrid engines destroy cars?

But hybrid engines are already existing and they making so tiny effect to cars' market... so comparing this to subject is uncorrect. Btw, they don't making cars ride slower or heavier.

[Tenechek]

ASICs themselves cannot destroy Bitcoin. Though I believe that it will however have a big impact on the community.

The small student miner will in the future no longer be able to mine profit out of BTC, due to the large competition from bigger miners who got ASICs.


I personally like Litecoin more due to the fact that there aren't ASICs for it, but in the future this might change for Litecoin as well... Who knows.

I agree. Script cryptocoins are the only alternative to this ASIC horror. More of that any SHA cryptocoin may be exploded by a couple of ASIC miners. So the only future is script.

[easycoins]

I want to order one! 50Ghz Single SC!

[ltbtdk]

I too and curious as too what'll happen once butterfly labs delivers, my only worry is without GPU miners there wont be as much traded by people who don't have ASIC turning it into a "boys club"

That is exactly what i am afraid of and then due ot the inherent nature of bit-coin it falls.

[anderl]

ASICs won't destroy bitcoin.  It will only be profitable for those that own it right now.  As more ASICs come online  the profit margin on mining will collapse even for ASIC owners.  In a year's time I expect that more Bitcoin miners will be using ASICs and ASIC units will cost about $1500 per 50GH/s.  It will still allow the average joe to get in but they will have to buy an ASIC to participate.  That might dissuade the newbie from getting in.  Especially when the margins will be thin.  Instead the average joe will be better off daytrading bitcoins against other cryptocurrencies and against the fiats.  As miners jump from currency to currency trying to anticipate the next one that has a lower difficulty increase traders can try to trade ahead of the miners.

[mjc]

The same number of Bitcoins will be mined no matter what the technology is.  Who gets them is all that might change.  The higher the hash rate the harder it is to mount an attack against the block chain itself.  So ASIC and all future increased capability will strengthen it.  Just look at how things changed when we went from CPU to GPU and GPU to FPGA.  It strengthened the network.

[anderl]

It strengthen the network in the past but CPU to GPU was an easy transition for most miners because the hardware was easily accessible.  ASICs are not easily accessible.  There are only 2 maybe 3 producers and they are slowly deploying them to their clients.  As a result early adopters capture the majority of the coins mined.  They profit the most and have more capital to deploy the next round of technology (100Gh/s units???).  So the bigger get bigger and the small guys are just out of reach. 

My guess is that most casual miners will walk away, cash out what little in bitcoins they have or hoard them as an investment in hopes it appreciates.  Over the next year the ASICs will drop in price and fewer of them will come to market as they become less profitable to produce.  Look what happened to FPGA boards. How easy are they to get now vs 1 year ago.