What SHA256 coin will rise next?

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The future of Bitcoin mining is with ASICs. In the foreseeable future we will see advancements in ASICs with smaller semiconductor manufacturing processes, more heat and power efficiency per hash/s.

My question is; what will happen to all the old current ASICs which will eventually made redundant? The way I see it, owners will have a few choices:

1) Sell them, for very little resale value.
2) Leave them in corner of loft collecting dust.
3) Maybe use them for some SHA256 password cracking.
4) Point the hashing power at another SHA256 coin with lower difficulty.

My prediction is number 4, point the ASIC at another coin with lower difficulty.

But which one? Could this be a good investment now, before it happens?

[worldinacoin]

I vote Devcoin it is the one with the most development other than Bitcoin.

[markm]

Since most people still do not bother to merge all the coins that can be merged-mined, there is really no need to divert your ASICs away from bitcoin at all, simply stop wasting their potential by failing to merge all the coins you can. plenty of the coins you can merge have lower difficulty than bitcoin. Devcoin was already mentioed about, that is a merged mined coin, so just add it into your merge, no need to not mine bitcoins just so you can mine devcoins, you can mine bitcoins, namecoins, devcoins, groupcoins, i0coins, ixcoins, coiledcoins and geistgeld all at once, merged.

Until most ASIC miners do that you will find plenty of those still have low difficulty as you will be one of the few ASIC miners bothering to mine them. yet it is darn close to free, as you get to mine them all at once, no need to abandon any of them, get them all.

-MarkM-

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According to PPcoin, they cannot be merged mined.
 

PPCoin is mined in the same way as Bitcoin. However merged mining is not available at the moment due to the differences in the block chains. It can be made possible if the block chain would be altered but if this is done, PPCoin is no different from Bitcoin. PPC would most likely be discarded by the community if the merged mining would start.

[01BTC10]

This is because PPC is an hybrid coin using proof-of-work via SHA256 + proof-of-stake.

[fendlestick]

PPC hopefully, it just feels nice.

[crazy_rabbit]

Bitcoin Testnet:

It's built into all the Bitcoin clients already- everyone has it, it's secure, safe, stable, has support for exotic non-standard transactions, and it's got the best dev team in the crypto world. Perfect.

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Bitcoin Testnet:

It's built into all the Bitcoin clients already- everyone has it, it's secure, safe, stable, has support for exotic non-standard transactions, and it's got the best dev team in the crypto world. Perfect.

Added testnet to poll.

[markm]

Testnet is useless because they arbitrarily delete all your coins any time they feel like it.

That is what stopped me using it as a game-currency. Players don't like waking up one day to find all their loot has vanished.

-MarkM-

[Buffer Overflow]

Testnet is useless because they arbitrarily delete all your coins any time they feel like it.

That is what stopped me using it as a game-currency. Players don't like waking up one day to find all their loot has vanished.

-MarkM-

I agree. Plus if they have momentary value they are then useless for testing.