when rvn pass eth on CMC?
Ethereum is taking a stand against ASICs/FPGAs though.
The problem with this hardware is not only that fewer people can access them and therefore the distribution of coins is going to less people, but a more serious problem is that we're supporting a bad business model if we allow them to exist and be profitable.
By "bad business model" I'm referring to the usual circle of,
1) Develop and ASIC/FPGA and mine with it for some months
2) When a better ASIC/FPGA can be developed soon, open preorders for the current model
3) When the development of the new ASIC/FPGA is done, send the preorders of the previous model and start mining with the new one
Because of the above circle, most of the profits from mining goes to a few companies; people will either make a marginal profit before they end up with a useless card or get into a brake even, depending on the amount of cards and electricity cost.
Sure, the network is highly secured and the customers and the users don't care if ASICs, FPGAs or GPUs are used. But the wealth is going to few hands, the price can crush at any moment if a single entity decides they want to exit and the whole outcome is against the belief most cryptocurrency veterans believe in: Decentralization.
And let's not compare altcoins with Bitcoin, it took years for Bitcoin's network to get ASICs and it had a lot of coins in circulation already. Most of the whales in BTC have appeared not because they manufactured non-public hardware and software, but because they believed in Bitcoin and bought in early. Even if the rest 15% or so of Bitcoins that are left to be mined get to companies' hands in the next 100 years, that isn't as big of a deal as allowing this hardware to exist in the early stages of altcoins.
