The EfficiencyTrap: Why our hardware supply chain is a systemic risk ?

[HashRate Hero]

Many people simply forget that Bitcoin is a technical protocol, not just a financial ticker.


In minning we’re all obsessed with J/TH, but we’re creating a massive supply chain bottleneck. If one major foundry goes down, our hashrate is toast. Are we just ignoring the hardware resilience risk, or am I missing something?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Not missing something, just overthinking.

Two foundries make mining chips - TSMC & Samsung. If one of those 'goes down' there will far more industries affected than just mining as those companies make over 80% of all cutting/bleeding edge chips <5nm in the world. The only other two companies capable of <5nm chips are Intel and Global Foundries and they do not make mining ASIC'S. Think smartphones, video cards, cpu's, network çhips, etc. those are who would be affected with a far larger global impact.

Each company has several advanced node foundries so problems at one would be serious but not the end of the world. Considering the number of miners shutting down or shifting to chase the AI bubble there will be more than enough new or used high end mining gear to go around.

[HashRate Hero]

Not missing something, just overthinking.

Two foundries make mining chips - TSMC & Samsung. If one of those 'goes down' there will far more industries affected than just mining as those companies make over 80% of all cutting/bleeding edge chips <5nm in the world. The only other two companies capable of <5nm chips are Intel and Global Foundries and they do not make mining ASIC'S. Think smartphones, video cards, cpu's, network çhips, etc. those are who would be affected with a far larger global impact.

Each company has several advanced node foundries so problems at one would be serious but the end of the world. Considering the number of miners shutting down or shifting to chase the AI bubble there will be more than enough new or used high end mining gear to go around.

If a TSMC  or Samsung foundry goes down,  while mining ASICs are the least of our worries.

We're talking a total blackout for smartphones, GPUs, and network hardwarethat’s the real bottleneck.



Duplicated the post by error ; and i can't delete this one original post is in minnning section ........... i will lock this one .

[d5000]

Even if there was such a catastrophic supply problem, then miners and attackers would be affected both by the resulting scarcity and price increase.

In other words, mining would become more expensive (because you can't just buy new hardware if you want to expand your mining farm and thus the market price of used ASICs would skyrocket), but attacking Bitcoin would cost more money too.

Probably the hashrate would not "be toast" but instead decline a little bit (if no other influences, like a dramatic fall of the price, are present, but if then these influences would be the main "trigger" of the hashrate decline). Because you can't use Bitcoin ASICs for other stuff and thus they would not be needed in other branches of IT. A CPU or GPU mined coin would probably lose more hashrate, because the mining hardware then would get high prices on the "used" market.

That would not be catastrophic for Bitcoin at all.