Proposal to change Bitcoins hashing algorithm to Scrypt-Jane

[aceking]

are you serious ?

[Pangia]

Me? or the OP?

I'm serious.

[davidspitzer]

ASICs shouldn't bother anyone. A rig with 4 7970 GPUs can only get barely 4 GH/s and costs over $3000. Now, for $649, you can get a rig that gives you 4.5 GH/s. ASICs are so much cheaper, with the tradeoff of having only one purpose. Also, imagine how mad CPU miners were when GPU miners came out. Must have been infuriating. Advancement of technology will always happen. ASICs just happen to be the next step past GPUs. There will be something to pass up ASICs in something like 10 years. Just watch.

Can someone please provide a link to where you can purchase an ASIC for $649?
Thanks in advance.

https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

for $649 you can get over 10 GH/s and have change left over

[Maged]

No matter the algorithm, there will almost certainly eventually exist an ASIC that is either more efficient or less expensive than a GPU or a CPU. A different algorithm might have a smaller gap, sure, but given how competitive mining is, that gap, however small, will always be enough to push away non-ASIC miners. Once the mining community has ASICs, it becomes impossible for a government, etc. to spend millions of dollars to get better equipment than the mining community. Instead, they have to compete on even footing - matching dollar for dollar what the network already has. If we make it past this point without an issue, there will be no need to change the algorithm.

Even if the network as a whole spends hundreds of millions of dollars on equipment, if that money wasn't spent on ASICs, governments, etc. can do a 51% attack just by spending a few million dollars on research and development of an ASIC.

[freedomno1]

No we learn from improving technology the arms race is also an experience that grows tech upwards

[Shevek]

PS, yes I'm serious.

          

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

ASICs shouldn't bother anyone. A rig with 4 7970 GPUs can only get barely 4 GH/s and costs over $3000. Now, for $649, you can get a rig that gives you 4.5 GH/s. ASICs are so much cheaper, with the tradeoff of having only one purpose. Also, imagine how mad CPU miners were when GPU miners came out. Must have been infuriating. Advancement of technology will always happen. ASICs just happen to be the next step past GPUs. There will be something to pass up ASICs in something like 10 years. Just watch.

Until I can order an ASIC on Amazon and have it delivered the next day and for less money than the same hashpower in a GPU, that is purely hypothetical.

ASICMINER's USB Block Erupter .

[ranlo]

ASICs shouldn't bother anyone. A rig with 4 7970 GPUs can only get barely 4 GH/s and costs over $3000. Now, for $649, you can get a rig that gives you 4.5 GH/s. ASICs are so much cheaper, with the tradeoff of having only one purpose. Also, imagine how mad CPU miners were when GPU miners came out. Must have been infuriating. Advancement of technology will always happen. ASICs just happen to be the next step past GPUs. There will be something to pass up ASICs in something like 10 years. Just watch.

Until I can order an ASIC on Amazon and have it delivered the next day and for less money than the same hashpower in a GPU, that is purely hypothetical.

ASICMINER's USB Block Erupter .

True; it'd be nice if they had a better hash:cost ratio though, . It's hard to tell if they will ever pay off but I mean, if they last a few years I guess they could pay off eventually.

[atariguy]

Until I can order an ASIC on Amazon and have it delivered the next day and for less money than the same hashpower in a GPU, that is purely hypothetical.

ASICMINER's USB Block Erupter .

Sorry, but that doesn't meet the requirements in either way...

[atariguy]

ASICs shouldn't bother anyone. A rig with 4 7970 GPUs can only get barely 4 GH/s and costs over $3000. Now, for $649, you can get a rig that gives you 4.5 GH/s. ASICs are so much cheaper, with the tradeoff of having only one purpose. Also, imagine how mad CPU miners were when GPU miners came out. Must have been infuriating. Advancement of technology will always happen. ASICs just happen to be the next step past GPUs. There will be something to pass up ASICs in something like 10 years. Just watch.

Can someone please provide a link to where you can purchase an ASIC for $649?
Thanks in advance.

https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

for $649 you can get over 10 GH/s and have change left over

But the leftover change is all you're going to have for the next few months (or maybe longer)...

[ranlo]

ASICs shouldn't bother anyone. A rig with 4 7970 GPUs can only get barely 4 GH/s and costs over $3000. Now, for $649, you can get a rig that gives you 4.5 GH/s. ASICs are so much cheaper, with the tradeoff of having only one purpose. Also, imagine how mad CPU miners were when GPU miners came out. Must have been infuriating. Advancement of technology will always happen. ASICs just happen to be the next step past GPUs. There will be something to pass up ASICs in something like 10 years. Just watch.

Can someone please provide a link to where you can purchase an ASIC for $649?
Thanks in advance.

https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

for $649 you can get over 10 GH/s and have change left over

But the leftover change is all you're going to have for the next few months (or maybe longer)...

lol, this is so true. I think it will be a long time before any of the big rigs are shipped, considering BFL is now selling the chips themselves for the next month or so.

[pvtbrutus]

Agree on the asics being too OP at the moment and that we wont be seeing an end to difficulty rise any time soon. However actually changing Bitcoin code to remedy this? No way...

I predict Bitcoin becoming more corporated/enterprised where big companies control production, volume and price of the bitcoin. We allready see the signs of this with Asicminer having a big part of the hashrate at their discretion and selling shares to the "public". Small time home-miners will fall off eventually. When that happens the home miners will embrace another coin and i think it wont be scrypt based .

[hazek]

This ASIC arms race has gotten out of hand. To give Bitcoin back to the majority of Bitcoiners I hereby propose to change the hashing algorithm to Scrpyt-Jane.

PS, yes I'm serious.

Only miners have voting power. You cannot change that.

False.

Everyone full node validates which rules are followed even if by only keeping the entire blockchain and relaying new transactions and blocks and since none of the full nodes can be forced to validate rules they don't agree with every full node is sovereign in how Bitcoin works for it.

[Frizz23]

"SHA-2 is a set of cryptographic hash functions (SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512) designed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) ..."

NSA? Prism? What was that all about? ... 

[VeeMiner]

this is both stupid and dangerous. of course NO

[Asphyxiated]

Bitcoin cannot change hashing algorithms without a 'fork' as the current miners would never go for it.  But new chains could benefit from a better algorithm and then the market will decide where to move the value.

Forking the blockchain like this would kill bitcoin at this point.

I know I would take all my money out of it.

Imagine you go to a store that accepts bitcoin only to find you are using the "wrong bitcoin".

If you hate the hashing algorithm so much, create an alt coin. Oh wait, there is already Litecoin and it's dying, lol.

I'm sorry you didn't think to order an ASIC early enough but all the butthurt GPU miners in the world are not going to be able to change Bitcoin's hashing algorithm.

And if bitcoin really did start using scrypt, people would just make ASICs to mine that way.

ASICs are a GOOD thing for bitcoin.

You say this as if an ASIC for scrypt has never even been contemplated, which is just flat wrong. It would just be much more expensive to produce ASICs for scrypt (or any 'memory hard' algorithm) do to the huge memory requirements vs SHA256 generation.....

I do like the idea of ASICs and was about to buy one about 6 months ago (from BFL) which I am VERY glad that I did -not- buy from them and got a 7970 instead, as someone else said earlier, when I can buy an ASIC on amazon and have it delivered in 1 or 2 days, thats when I will buy them. I just think it is far too much a risk to 'pre-order' an ASIC from any of the companies selling them.

[bytemaster]

Bitcoin cannot change hashing algorithms without a 'fork' as the current miners would never go for it.  But new chains could benefit from a better algorithm and then the market will decide where to move the value.

Forking the blockchain like this would kill bitcoin at this point.

I know I would take all my money out of it.

Imagine you go to a store that accepts bitcoin only to find you are using the "wrong bitcoin".

If you hate the hashing algorithm so much, create an alt coin. Oh wait, there is already Litecoin and it's dying, lol.

I'm sorry you didn't think to order an ASIC early enough but all the butthurt GPU miners in the world are not going to be able to change Bitcoin's hashing algorithm.

And if bitcoin really did start using scrypt, people would just make ASICs to mine that way.

ASICs are a GOOD thing for bitcoin.

You say this as if an ASIC for scrypt has never even been contemplated, which is just flat wrong. It would just be much more expensive to produce ASICs for scrypt (or any 'memory hard' algorithm) do to the huge memory requirements vs SHA256 generation.....

I do like the idea of ASICs and was about to buy one about 6 months ago (from BFL) which I am VERY glad that I did -not- buy from them and got a 7970 instead, as someone else said earlier, when I can buy an ASIC on amazon and have it delivered in 1 or 2 days, thats when I will buy them. I just think it is far too much a risk to 'pre-order' an ASIC from any of the companies selling them.

No company in the game to make a profit would sell ASIC hardware below the expected value of all Bitcoins the miner will produce during its useful life.  The added cost of creating a consumer-ready product with packaging, shipping, and other supply chain issues means that the consumer can never make money by buying an ASIC because the large mining firms can get more hash power, cheaper and sooner.   

The only way to make a profit through purchasing ASIC hardware is if the manufacture has different expectations than you do about the future value of Bitcoin and hash rate of the network.   In this case, it is much cheaper and lower risk to speculate directly through buying Bitcoin. 

Assuming a market player will act in such a way that does not maximize their profit is a good way to get burned.

[franky1]

No company in the game to make a profit would sell ASIC hardware below the expected value of all Bitcoins the miner will produce during its useful life. 

so in the days of the wild west no one sold a pickaxe for less the the average earnings of a gold miner in his life time
so in the industrials age no one sold a stick of dynamite for less the the average earnings of a gold miner in his life time
so in todays times no one is selling excavators and shloosh machines for less the the average earnings of a gold miner in his life time.

next you will be telling me that farmers have never sold a potato at wholesale to retailers but instead sold every potato they dug up at retail price...

[illpoet]

ASICs shouldn't bother anyone. A rig with 4 7970 GPUs can only get barely 4 GH/s and costs over $3000. Now, for $649, you can get a rig that gives you 4.5 GH/s. ASICs are so much cheaper, with the tradeoff of having only one purpose. Also, imagine how mad CPU miners were when GPU miners came out. Must have been infuriating. Advancement of technology will always happen. ASICs just happen to be the next step past GPUs. There will be something to pass up ASICs in something like 10 years. Just watch.

Until I can order an ASIC on Amazon and have it delivered the next day and for less money than the same hashpower in a GPU, that is purely hypothetical.

http://www.amazon.com/ASICMiner-Block-Erupter-USB-Sapphire/dp/B00CUJT7TO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379299441&sr=8-1&keywords=block+eruptor

[bytemaster]

No company in the game to make a profit would sell ASIC hardware below the expected value of all Bitcoins the miner will produce during its useful life. 

so in the days of the wild west no one sold a pickaxe for less the the average earnings of a gold miner in his life time
so in the industrials age no one sold a stick of dynamite for less the the average earnings of a gold miner in his life time
so in todays times no one is selling excavators and shloosh machines for less the the average earnings of a gold miner in his life time.

next you will be telling me that farmers have never sold a potato at wholesale to retailers but instead sold every potato they dug up at retail price...

The FABS would be the ones selling the pickaxe, dynamite, etc.   The people contracting the fabs 'in-mass' to produce 1 million chips have two options, mine in-house, or sell to customers.   Option A is 80% cheaper than option B.   End result, margin on mining becomes so tight that the only people who can compete are those who follow Option A, in house mining.         Option B has capital costs 4x as high before they can start mining.

Your analogies are poor because they are approximations because the intermediate products are MULTI-USE and have no value without a mine and labor behind it.   Where as every ASIC cpu has value with only electricity as an input.   Large mining farms will have much cheaper electricity, cheaper packaging, and economies of scale that will increase the difficulty to such a point that only people operating at such efficiencies can mine more bitcoin that the cost of the capital required to produce them.