Litecoin ASICs

[matthewh3]

I think your more likely to see an FPGA with extra blockram before an ASIC and probably only when the current price is like >x100.

[ElectricMucus]

The main objective for a litecoin ASIC would be to incorporate DRAM.

LTC runs inside the CPU cache, but that is SRAM which is expensive to make. Since the time to rewrite taken to rewrite the cached hashes is sort of predictable the refreshing circuitry can be omitted or at least be very simple. That alone would make it 2 magnitudes more effective (ok I'll stfu now  )

[tacotime]

Isn't memory the main reason CPUs are good at litecoin mining? Nothing except cost stops an ASIC or even FPGA from having/being connected to large amounts of SRAM...

It's memory bandwidth that defines the hashing speed. The cpu cache has high bandwidth, but only one fifth of that of the amd gpus. Hence, making asics for litecoin will be somewhat of a nightmare because finding something cheap with higher memory bandwidth than a gpu (which use the fastest ram technologically available) is difficult.

[pyromaniac]

Any news? 

[smoothie]

Any news? 

At this point it would be way too pricey to create an ASIC for litecoin right now.

Maybe when each litecoin is like $2-$5?

[LiteBit]

Price will need to be much higher and network hash much greater.  Maybe at the 2 year LTC anniversary (or 3rd).  a couple high hashing units could easily bring down the system at this early phase in the life of this cryptocoin.

[smoothie]

Price will need to be much higher and network hash much greater.  Maybe at the 2 year LTC anniversary (or 3rd).  a couple high hashing units could easily bring down the system at this early phase in the life of this cryptocoin.

Yeah the network needs to mature a bit.

[AndyRossy]

Yes, ASICS for LTC could easily be made, just like for BTC. 

[smoothie]

Yes, ASICS for LTC could easily be made, just like for BTC. 

With enough funding yes. Right now it is a multi million dollar endeavor. Please if it is so "easy" you should have no problem getting it done right?

[AndyRossy]

Yes, ASICS for LTC could easily be made, just like for BTC. 

With enough funding yes. Right now it is a multi million dollar endeavor. Please if it is so "easy" you should have no problem getting it done right?

It would be cheaper for a company to do the same with LTC, as, many have already done for BTC (the foundations have been setup/processing chains from BTC)

I am not an ASIC company, i'd expect any ASIC company that had made/is making one for BTC, would probably say it was technically very easy to make. 

Do you not think, if it became profitable for a company to make an ASIC for LTC, just like BTC, they wouldnt do it? It would be factors cheaper compared to the first ones for BTC, and significantly quicker to production/shelf.

[markm]

So lets start pre-orders! We can finance development with pre-order money like bitcoiners do!

By the time people have bought a few million dolars worth of litecoins to pre-order with the price per coin should have risen too, so double win!

-MarkM-

[smoothie]

Yes, ASICS for LTC could easily be made, just like for BTC. 

With enough funding yes. Right now it is a multi million dollar endeavor. Please if it is so "easy" you should have no problem getting it done right?

It would be cheaper for a company to do the same with LTC, as, many have already done for BTC (the foundations have been setup/processing chains from BTC)

I am not an ASIC company, i'd expect any ASIC company that had made/is making one for BTC, would probably say it was technically very easy to make. 

Do you not think, if it became profitable for a company to make an ASIC for LTC, just like BTC, they wouldnt do it? It would be factors cheaper compared to the first ones for BTC, and significantly quicker to production/shelf.

I believe they would. Right now it's not worth the cost if LTC fails. LTC is still growing and it's price isn't anywhere near as attractive to an ASIC manufacturer to start production.

That would be cool but i dont see it happening for at least another year.

[AndyRossy]

Yes, ASICS for LTC could easily be made, just like for BTC. 

With enough funding yes. Right now it is a multi million dollar endeavor. Please if it is so "easy" you should have no problem getting it done right?

It would be cheaper for a company to do the same with LTC, as, many have already done for BTC (the foundations have been setup/processing chains from BTC)

I am not an ASIC company, i'd expect any ASIC company that had made/is making one for BTC, would probably say it was technically very easy to make. 

Do you not think, if it became profitable for a company to make an ASIC for LTC, just like BTC, they wouldnt do it? It would be factors cheaper compared to the first ones for BTC, and significantly quicker to production/shelf.

I believe they would. Right now it's not worth the cost if LTC fails. LTC is still growing and it's price isn't anywhere near as attractive to an ASIC manufacturer to start production.

That would be cool but i dont see it happening for at least another year.

I do not believe they will anytime soon because they think it's too risky.  The LTC exchange rate has nothing to do with it, it's if or if not it's profitable. All the other other alt-chains that modified paramters of BTC go through cycles of large holders pumping/dumping - LTC Charts people get others to buy through various means. If the ASIC developers did not think it was risky, then, they'd develop them now, as mining LTC is profitable Coinotron, it's even, if you ignore the inflated price ready for the next dump, more profitable than BTC.

[markm]

All the more reason to pre-order.

By pre-ordering, in litecoin itself not some other currency, you help ensure the developers that there is in fact sufficient demand to justify developing the product.

Maybe even, the bigger the expense the better, since to manage to get ten million dollars (for instance) worth of litecoins escrowed ready to pay for ASIC development would likely involve litecoins being worth twice as much per coin than if one only escrowed five million dollars worth.

-MarkM-

[tacotime]

All the more reason to pre-order.

By pre-ordering, in litecoin itself not some other currency, you help ensure the developers that there is in fact sufficient demand to justify developing the product.

Maybe even, the bigger the expense the better, since to manage to get ten million dollars (for instance) worth of litecoins escrowed ready to pay for ASIC development would likely involve litecoins being worth twice as much per coin than if one only escrowed five million dollars worth.

-MarkM-

Someone needs to actually bother testing the performance on FPGAs first, to see if it's worth scaling to ASICs.

See my post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79637.msg1237205#msg1237205

If an ASIC miner is made for LTC, I will fork litecoin and adjust the scrypt parameters manually to make it even more memory hard and forever fucked up the mining by FPGA/ASICs.

[smoothie]

All the more reason to pre-order.

By pre-ordering, in litecoin itself not some other currency, you help ensure the developers that there is in fact sufficient demand to justify developing the product.

Maybe even, the bigger the expense the better, since to manage to get ten million dollars (for instance) worth of litecoins escrowed ready to pay for ASIC development would likely involve litecoins being worth twice as much per coin than if one only escrowed five million dollars worth.

-MarkM-

Someone needs to actually bother testing the performance on FPGAs first, to see if it's worth scaling to ASICs.

See my post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79637.msg1237205#msg1237205

If an ASIC miner is made for LTC, I will fork litecoin and adjust the scrypt parameters manually to make it even more memory hard and forever fucked up the mining by FPGA/ASICs.

I sure hope you can afford those ASICS if they ever come out.

LOL by then many will have bought I would think. Unless you have secret funding from the Federal Reserve itself. 

[bitvientiane]

I hope they never come, but at least it'll take a long time from here.

[meebs]

come on guys.. this is LTC land.. currently free of impending doom of ASIC and block halving..

(im kidding)

[bitcool]

Any news? 

At this point it would be way too pricey to create an ASIC for litecoin right now.

Maybe when each litecoin is like $2-$5?

Maybe the timing of BTC/ASIC can be a reference:
  4 years after genesis block
  1/2 total coins mined
  Total market cap ~ 100m
  ~$10 per coin

In theory, LTC should reach there 4 times as fast 
 

[smoothie]

Any news? 

At this point it would be way too pricey to create an ASIC for litecoin right now.

Maybe when each litecoin is like $2-$5?

Maybe the timing of BTC/ASIC can be a reference:
  4 years after genesis block
  1/2 total coins mined
  Total market cap ~ 100m
  ~$10 per coin

In theory, LTC should reach there 4 times as fast 
 

I rather have slow growth in price...even with bitcoin, which has been the case lately. Not too fast.