ASIC = The end of decentralized mining

[cablepair]

+1 for haters

+1

[rjk]

If no ASICs exist, that just means there is the ever-looming possibility that someone (governement, banks, etc) can still create one and fuck everyone over.

If they exist in the hands of the people, that makes the above scenario less likely or impossible.

What's so hard to understand about that?

[DeathAndTaxes]

If no ASICs exist, that just means there is the ever-looming possibility that someone (governement, banks, etc) can still create one and fuck everyone over.

If they exist in the hands of the people, that makes the above scenario less likely or impossible.

What's so hard to understand about that?

It is easy to understand but people have vested interests.  Hell i got 15GH/s of GPUs anyone think I want to see ASICs tomorrow?  It is inevitable.  Someone will build ASICs.  It will either be built and sold to miners to protect Bitcoin or it will be built an used covertly to destroy Bitcoin.  Either way it will be built.

[Vladimir]

It is easy to understand but people have vested interests.  Hell i got 15GH/s of GPUs anyone think I want to see ASICs tomorrow?  It is inevitable.  Someone will build ASICs.  It will either be built and sold to miners to protect Bitcoin or it will be built an used covertly to destroy Bitcoin.  Either way it will be built.

FPGA guys should indeed be scared. Should have headed my early warnings to be less scared now. The key mistake they made is hoping that as it was with CPU's and GPU's, FPGA generation would last about 18 month and they will have time to pay off capex. Surprise, surprise, ASIC's are coming online sooner than you think and surely sooner than 18 month from now.

GPU guys probably do not care anymore, they will just milk what they can from those old rusty gpu's.

[nedbert9]

Because ASIC is a GIANT leap with almost NO marginal cost after initial purchase. CPU to GPU was a giant leap as well, but GPU's were still limited by availability and electrical costs/infrastructure. FPGA is really an incremental change from GPU because they are not cheap unless they are produced in HUGE quantity and their only advantage over GPU is power consumption.

ASIC is an exponential leap in hash rate, power consumption AND eventually cost.

How many people built GPU farms over 10 GH ? not many because it typically required new home wiring, heat dissipation and a high monthly electrical cost in the face of an uncertain and volatile bitcoin value. plopping down 10k to build a big GPU farm took alot of thought, knowledge and risk among other things so it was inherently self limiting.

ASICs are basically plug and play so there is no technological limit for the potential miner. They have almost no electrical cost so no new electrical infrastructure is needed. They have almost zero operational cost once deployed so again, no limiting factor there.

The ONLY barrier to entry is the initial capital investment, but we ALL know the price for these will drop dramatically after the initial development, once again, how the hell do the early adopters ever get their money back?

Unless as someone suggested that the developers pay $1million and then mine until they get their money back and then start selling the ASICs for 1k or something.

Ya know.  It will never happen, but this isn't too bad of an idea compared to infinite ROI.

[BCMan]

It is easy to understand but people have vested interests.  Hell i got 15GH/s of GPUs anyone think I want to see ASICs tomorrow?  It is inevitable.  Someone will build ASICs.  It will either be built and sold to miners to protect Bitcoin or it will be built an used covertly to destroy Bitcoin.  Either way it will be built.

GPU guys probably do not care anymore, they will just milk what they can from those old rusty gpu's.

Not those, who have free or almost free electricity.   It's still the best choice, even with ASICs. And how effective will be next gpu generations?

[lame.duck]

If no ASICs exist, that just means there is the ever-looming possibility that someone (governement, banks, etc) can still create one and fuck everyone over.

If they exist in the hands of the people, that makes the above scenario less likely or impossible.

What's so hard to understand about that?

What do you think will happen after the mining is over? Will the miner keep their equipment  up and running just for the Network security (and a smallish tx-fee) or will the sell them to whoever willing to pay for it, e.g. Mr Bad Guy? Btw, even if 'someone' also will make ASICs  to attack the bitcoin, ASIC mining will not hinder this as after making the masks, producing 'more' chips is dirt cheap.

[Vladimir]

If no ASICs exist, that just means there is the ever-looming possibility that someone (governement, banks, etc) can still create one and fuck everyone over.

If they exist in the hands of the people, that makes the above scenario less likely or impossible.

What's so hard to understand about that?

What do you think will happen after the mining is over? Will the miner keep their equipment  up and running just for the Network security (and a smallish tx-fee) or will the sell them to whoever willing to pay for it, e.g. Mr Bad Guy? Btw, even if 'someone' also will make ASICs  to attack the bitcoin, ASIC mining will not hinder this as after making the masks, producing 'more' chips is dirt cheap.

Duck, this is lame. LOL, You assume "smallish tx-fee", what if it is "largish tx-fees"? The only constant is change.

[cablepair]

It is easy to understand but people have vested interests.  Hell i got 15GH/s of GPUs anyone think I want to see ASICs tomorrow?  It is inevitable.  Someone will build ASICs.  It will either be built and sold to miners to protect Bitcoin or it will be built an used covertly to destroy Bitcoin.  Either way it will be built.

FPGA guys should indeed be scared. Should have headed my early warnings to be less scared now. The key mistake they made is hoping that as it was with CPU's and GPU's, FPGA generation would last about 18 month and they will have time to pay off capex. Surprise, surprise, ASIC's are coming online sooner than you think and surely sooner than 18 month from now.

GPU guys probably do not care anymore, they will just milk what they can from those old rusty gpu's.

I have always respected you, but do you honestly think if you (or someone like you) uses your wealth to amass a large portion of network power with ASICS that the Bitcoin devs will not stop you with a change to the code?

You might have a scary name Vladmir but no one is scared, not one bit. The Bitcoin developers are not going to let ASICs centralize mining, and FPGA will remain on top for a long time to come.

The only reason for this post of yours is to spread propaganda and misinformation to support your own cause.

I will personally bet 100 Bitcoins that FPGAs miners will make up the majority of the Bitcoin network hashing power 1 year from now.

Take me up on that bet Vladimir?

[rjk]

Why would you bet that? Do you have any idea how badly you will lose?

Also, how do you plan on quantifying it? You can't call all the miners up and say "yo, what are you mining with".

[cablepair]

Why would you bet that? Do you have any idea how badly you will lose?

Also, how do you plan on quantifying it? You can't call all the miners up and say "yo, what are you mining with".

It is my opinion that FPGA will be #1 and ASIC is not and I am willing to bet on it.

However you are right its impossible to quantify in those terms

can anyone think of a way we can quantify the bet?

[P4man]

It is my opinion that FPGA will be #1 and ASIC is not and I am willing to bet on it.

However you are right its impossible to quantify in those terms

can anyone think of a way we can quantify the bet?

Sure. If difficulty/price goes up by a factor 3 or so, its safe  to assume its due to ASICs. FPGAs arent going to plummet like that in price per MH.

edit: you should factor in reward halving too though.

[melco]

It is easy to understand but people have vested interests.  Hell i got 15GH/s of GPUs anyone think I want to see ASICs tomorrow?  It is inevitable.  Someone will build ASICs.  It will either be built and sold to miners to protect Bitcoin or it will be built an used covertly to destroy Bitcoin.  Either way it will be built.

FPGA guys should indeed be scared. Should have headed my early warnings to be less scared now. The key mistake they made is hoping that as it was with CPU's and GPU's, FPGA generation would last about 18 month and they will have time to pay off capex. Surprise, surprise, ASIC's are coming online sooner than you think and surely sooner than 18 month from now.

GPU guys probably do not care anymore, they will just milk what they can from those old rusty gpu's.

I have always respected you, but do you honestly think if you (or someone like you) uses your wealth to amass a large portion of network power with ASICS that the Bitcoin devs will not stop you with a change to the code?

You might have a scary name Vladmir but no one is scared, not one bit. The Bitcoin developers are not going to let ASICs centralize mining, and FPGA will remain on top for a long time to come.

The only reason for this post of yours is to spread propaganda and misinformation to support your own cause.

I will personally bet 100 Bitcoins that FPGAs miners will make up the majority of the Bitcoin network hashing power 1 year from now.

Take me up on that bet Vladimir?

Damn... ASIC production != centralization, dude. It will happen, no matter you want it or not. And your business on FPGA miners will end right after ASIC miners will appear on the market. Sad but true. But anyway, don't get mad at me It's not me who developing/producing ASIC miners

[crazyates]

I think by "decentralization", the OP is talking about the technological progress limiting the potential userbase for miners. Take a look at the history of bitmining:

CPU days - Everyone could mine. Everyone has a cpu, right?
GPU days - Only those with ATI cards could mine. This starts the narrowing down of your average person getting into Bitcoin.
FPGA days - Only those with the funds and dedication to BTC are going to buy FPGAs. (luckily, at this point, GPUs are still feasible). (Also, this could change in the future).
Estimated ASIC - Only the hardcore mining will have ASICs.

At every step, a few things happen:
1) As the hardware as becomes LESS multi-purpose (or multi-market), Bitmining has a more profound impact on the price of said hardware.
2) As the initial cost (and now specialized hardware) increases, you scare off more and more newcomers into the community.

I think the OP is extrapolating, and assuming that this effect is only going to get worse.

It's assumed, I think, that those already heavily invested in Bitcoins (or those just now investing) will purchase ASICs. The problem is for the average joe. At each new level, it gets harder (and more expensive) to invest in mining, with smaller resale value if their investment should fail.

This is running from my own experiences. I started playing around with bitmining on my brother's 9800GTX. Then I bought my own 5830. Then I bought a 5850. Then I bought a 5870... Now lets fast forward 1 year. ASICs are common among the heavy miners. Difficulty is 5x what it is now. How is the average person wanting to get into Bitcoins supposed to do that? I'm sure mining on their 8990 will give some results, but it might not be worth the power draw. Buy used FPGAs? They won't earn the income an ASIC would, but buying an ASIC is an investment with a high cost, something that would probably scare away a lot of people.

One last thought: I'm totally for ASICs. I plan on buying them and mining for years. However, the person who will get screwed is the person just trying to get into mining without thousands of $ up front. Just my 2c.

[cablepair]

Make all the predictions you want but the fact of the matter is ASIC is not coming any time soon.

if you want to mine and be profitable right now, buy FPGA.

The majority of miners see that fact and they are acting accordingly, myself and all the other FPGA manufacturers are shipping them out as fast as we can

buy into this fairy tale of ASIC all you want, I am sick of arguing about speculation. and thats ALL THERE IS SPECULATION.


FPGA Manufacturers and Miners are currently making money and we will continue to do so.

When an actual ASIC product comes to market come see me, otherwise leave me alone because I am real tired of band wagon jumpers talking about things they know nothing about just so they can feel like they look smart.


Heres a quantifiable BET! I bet that the next

involving me and this thread will be by someone who knows absolutely nothing about ASICS or FPGAS and will probably never even own one.

[SgtSpike]

LOL caplepair, the devs aren't going to change the algo no matter how much you wish it to be true.

Crazyates, BFL has already stated that they plan to release at least one ASIC product (and potentially 2) that are well under $5,000 and "affordable for the average person".  Not to mention, since 1 GH/s only costs $1 to produce, according to some folks in this thread, those prices should drop even further eventually.

When an actual ASIC product comes to market come see me, otherwise leave me alone because I am real tired of band wagon jumpers talking about things they know nothing about just so they can feel like they look smart.

No one asked you to post in this thread.  Just sayin'.  

EDIT:  QFT

Heres a quantifiable BET! I bet that the next

involving me and this thread will be by someone who knows absolutely nothing about ASICS or FPGAS and will probably never even own one.

I own 4 FPGA's.  What did I win?

[DeathAndTaxes]

When the average person can buy a box which looks like a mac mini at walmart plug it into the wall and get coins each month it will be easy.

Actually mining is just part of the bitcoin community.  It always was going to become more specialized.  Lets say FPGA/ASICs didn't exist or were unviable.  Some parts of the world have power costs at <$0.03 per kWh.  Hell some parts of the world give large consumers FREE (yes FREE) power at night (when capacity exceeds demand) because it is cheaper than idling plants.

If FPGA/ASICs didn't exist it would only be a matter of time before someone built a 1 TH/s datacenter in a place with cheap power and mild summers possibly near a body of water so they could use air chillers.  The avg Joe simply couldn't compete.

I remember sometime back someone said they thought it would be cool when their Grandmother could mine w/ a BFL Single.  Then someone corrected it and said they thought it would be cool when their Grandmother DIDN'T mine and got coins by selling pies/cookies/etc.

Mining != Bitcoin.  Personally my mining days are done.  I will let my 15 GH/s GPU farm hash on until it dies (one card at a time) or can no longer produce coins at a profit.  I have no intentions on buying FPGA or ASICs and guess what ... I have never been as excited or bullish about Bitcoin!

[pusle]

Basing on the square mm and a clock speed of 1 Ghz the raw manufacturing cost would be closer to $0.10 per GH/s.  Now granted you have the NRE, the capital cost, the profit magins, yield losses, salaries, etc but even with 1000% markup <$1 per GH/s would be possible.

One way to look at it is the SHA-256 hasher only took 20kGE.    Lets say scaling it to 1 Ghz required twice as many GE and you want to make it perform a double hash; so 80 kGE. Obviously you wouldn't make a chip that small.  But hashing is perfectly parallel.  Instead of 1 single hashing engine running 1Ghz you could lay down 20 parallel engines.  So that on each clock 20 nonces are calculated simultaneously (20 GH/s @ 1Ghz).  Even that would only be ~ 1.6M GE.  Tiny small by modern chip standards (which have transistor counts in the billions).   The $20 CPU in your smartphone likely has a higher transistor count.

Either this company is the most incompetent on the planet, or your estimates are way off.
http://www.cast-inc.com/ip-cores/encryption/sha-256/index.html

Using this IP core a 10x10mm die @130nm (200kgates/mm2) would give about 3Ghash/s.

[DeathAndTaxes]

LOL caplepair, the devs aren't going to change the algo no matter how much you wish it to be true.

This.  And nor should they.  I mean if we are going to change algorithms why not changing it back to something which is prohibitive on FPGA also.  Oh wait you wan't FPGA just not ASICs.

A change in the protocol as fundamental as the core hashing algorithm should only happen in the event of cryptographic failure.  Given that it is a breaking fork which can never be reconciled w/ unforked network anything less than a SUPER MAJORITY of all parties (developers, miners, merchants/exchanges, users, etc) would be a massive disaster.

It simply isn't going to happen.  Anyone hoping it will is just pissing up a rope.

[cablepair]

LOL caplepair, the devs aren't going to change the algo no matter how much you wish it to be true.

Crazyates, BFL has already stated that they plan to release at least one ASIC product (and potentially 2) that are well under $5,000 and "affordable for the average person".  Not to mention, since 1 GH/s only costs $1 to produce, according to some folks in this thread, those prices should drop even further eventually.

When an actual ASIC product comes to market come see me, otherwise leave me alone because I am real tired of band wagon jumpers talking about things they know nothing about just so they can feel like they look smart.

No one asked you to post in this thread.  Just sayin'.  

EDIT:  QFT

Heres a quantifiable BET! I bet that the next

involving me and this thread will be by someone who knows absolutely nothing about ASICS or FPGAS and will probably never even own one.

I own 4 FPGA's.  What did I win?

SPIKE:

Your telling me that if some rich asshole spends his trust fund to make a custom asic chip and has them mass produced to the tune of 51% of the network all for himself

you are telling me the Devs wont change the code to rule out ASIC? they will just let one person take over the whole network?

If you believe that, then you should quit Bitcoin right now.

THATS THE DANGER OF ASIC

The right person could have them MASSED PRODUCED for pennies on the dollar

and I know no one asked me to post in this thread I was referring to the constant quotes and challenges from people who dont know what the hell they are talking about

oh and your prize? Its a big sloppy kiss, pucker up butter cup