Are ASICs an invitation to centralization of Bitcoin or not?

[Capitalism Prevails]

It seems to me ASICS will effectively make AsicMiner, BFL, Avalon into a federal reserve cartel of Bitcoin.  The fabs for making these devices are far and few between which makes the concept of one CPU one vote less practical.

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[crazyates]

ASICMiner is the definition of centralization, where one party mines 35% of the network, and distributes it's earnings to shareholders. I'm opposed to them for this very reason. BFL, Avalon chip miners, Bitfury, etc. are all good, as getting more and more hardware spread out among as many people as possible is what's best, IMO.

[mokahless]

It seems to me GPUs will effectively make AMD into a federal reserve cartel of Bitcoin.  There is only one fab for making these devices which makes the concept of one CPU one vote less practical.

[os2sam]

Not

[LeslieDilley]

Should a 'Nation-state' decide to bulk buy... say 2 million 10nm ASICs... they could potentially create a  'central reserve' [as they would capture the vast majority of the 'freshly minted' BTC].

However, I feel that this would concurrently encourage other 'Nation-states' to participate in the same manner.... which would decentralize the power of the initial first-mover.

In any case, 'ASICs' are certainly going to be the main source of the BTC network's computational power [so i guess in that sense the technology itself could be considered a symbolic 'central reserve', though i don't see how we gain analytically from considering it as such....since the term defines a unitary body that is capable of making choices..... ASICs by definition can do only one thing] for the foreseeable future.

...then again, everything might turn on its head once Graphene Microprocessors & Spintronic systems arrive en masse...

-Johnny
www.americandatafarms.com

[polarhei]

This depends what the decision is, currently, there is no enough evidence to say, it is centralization as  You are still able to read the transaction log, you are still able to read code, And you are able to set where you like to.

You can use their hosting service if you wish. Many people are using something like that unless you have a safer way to control water.

[CKJ411]

It's not a question of whether it is centralization and will be, it's a question of how much. And realistically it will be too much unless there is another freak development. There's too much money in a small group of hands, too much work landing in a single place, and too much control landing on single shoulders. Sure, it's still transparent and a solid concept, excepting that it barely buys anything, but it's headed right towards centralization as smaller miners and transaction processors drop off into oblivion.

[JuenoMT]

I believe it is a possibility, its the core of this thread ====>> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228120.0