Bitcoin mining energy efficiency over time

[TheRealSteve]

I don't want to take hazenyc's thread any further off-topic than it already has, and there's existing threads that cover the ASICs killed GPUs (while CPU miners chime in with a now-you-know-how-we-felt) discussion much more in-depth anyway.
I knew cscape's post was buried in the bitfury thread somewhere.
BitFury S-HASH board (overclocked)
July 24th 2013
35W@40Gh/s (0.875J/Gh)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228677.msg2796663#msg2796663

There's also some figures for the H-cards, but those don't function stand-alone, so efficiency numbers for the card alone aren't quite right.

Can skip this one, as efficiency was much lower at a later date:
Bitburner Fury
September 20th 2013 (date of images of final board posted)
85W @ 42.59Gh/s (~2J/Gh)
132W @ 50.22Gh/s (~2.63J/Gh)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294735.msg3302316#msg3302316

[1714943711]

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[hazenyc]

Another option for your graph would be to have a small "bar" for each current point. Some bars would much like a point, others would be much taller. The bar would be vertical since it happens on a date, and it's height is determined by how flexible it is in terms of efficiency. Just a thought.

Yes can do something like error bars..

[hazenyc]

The graph of log change in mining efficiency has the shape of 1/(log difficulty) ..
*Please note the axes are mislabeled. The left y-axis is 1/log difficulty and the right y-axis is log J/GH

what is interesting is that difficulty is outpacing technological change. Economics would predict that they will eventually converge to an equilibrium, and we see that during much of 2014 as ASIC tech kept pace with network growth-

Whenever the orange line (energy efficiency) is above the blue line (difficulty), changes in difficulty are exceeding changes in efficiency and vice versa. So right now, difficulty is outpacing tech. progress. When ASIC first introduced, technology outpaced network growth (difficulty is a direct measure of network size)

So put one last way - the purple shaded area exists when the network growth is outpacing technological change. The data on GPU mining is admittedly not complete having just one representative data point, but I think that it nonetheless tells the same story.
Green areas exist when technological change is outpacing network growth. When they line up, the "supply and demand" is in equilibrium..

IN GREEN AREAS, ONE WOULD EXPECT TO EARN OUTSIZED RETURNS TO MINING WITH THE NEWEST TECH.

And this also tells a nice economic story: In the beginning, people mined with CPUs and all was well. GPU mining came along and only served to crowd out CPU miners by growing the network exponentially. But since GPU cards are not developed with the express purpose of mining - they are made mainly for computer graphics - they were not induced to improve. GPUs just happened to be better than CPUs. It's like mining for gold with a shoe because it happens to be better than a sock. Also, since CPUs and GPUs run inside a PC which is normally left powered on anyhow, the electricity usage extracted for mining was less obvious than it is now. And GPU mining also started to crowd out lesser GPUs. We see this as the difficulty chart starts to level out a bit in 2012.

This all changed with ASICs - specifically designed to mine. The shoe was replaced by a shovel. The shovel then turned into a steam shovel and then a modern-day mining operation. It is only with ASICs that the economics begin to line up because the induced technological change is making for better shovels and not finding something better than shoe which also not a shovel.

[alh]

I believe that the only way to make a profit using a GPU to mine actual Bitcoins (not an alt-con converted to Bitcoin), is to have a "free" electricity. By free I mean somebody else is paying the bill. If I had free electricity, I could run an operating profit using a 333 MHz Block Erupter.

In the long run, Bitcoin would need something more efficient than a GPU to mine. What would it cost to process Bitcoin transactions using GPU's? It just wouldn't fly at scale, as fun as it might have been 3 years ago.

[klondike_bar]

In the long run, Bitcoin would need something more efficient than a GPU to mine. What would it cost to process Bitcoin transactions using GPU's? It just wouldn't fly at scale, as fun as it might have been 3 years ago.

Its not that GPU mining 'cant' sustain the network - its that ASICs are more profitable, and as a result pushed up difficulty.

dfficulty =/= capability  (and is driven almost entirety by price

[dogie]

IIRC the bitfury gear was actually more in the 0.9-1.3w/GH range depending on overvolting. I still have my 6-card rig from the september batch hashing away, but i think its drawing >1.1w/GH and is time to be unplugged any day now if the price doesnt break $250 upwards

Yup, my Bitfury ran at .9 J/GH, delivered around Nov '13.

Which when you look at the curve of others, is absolutely astounding. Who would have thought in 2013 that one could keep the same set of hardware for 18 months.