A Public Plea to Bitcoin Developers and Supporters alike

[bulanula]

If total oil production goes down by half, what happens to the price of oil? Bitcoin is no different.

Difference here being oil is burned and bitcoins aren't. You need new oil being produced, no one "needs" new bitcoins being mined - old bitcoins will be traded over and over again.

BTC are being hoarded by peoples like me and loads of others on the forum. Oil isn't Price will get to $10 surely by Dec

I too think ASIC is good idea now I think about it.

[realnowhereman]

The difference here actually being that it is impossible to alter the production rate of bitcoins.

With oil/gold/anything else, capital investment can be used to raise productivity or fund innovation to raise production.  With bitcoins it cannot.

The best you can do is tip the constant production in your favour, you get more of that fixed pie; which is what BFL are selling.  When ASIC/FPGA miners push the total hash rate up (which is great for users, the blockchain is more secure) one of two things will then happen:

• The unprofitable GPU miners will give up; very slightly (relative to the new order of magnitude higher rate) lower the total hashing power of the network.  This will make very little difference to ASIC miners, since they will already be taking the lions share of the block rewards.
• The unprofitable GPU miners will upgrade to ASICs.  This will tip the reward ratio back to where it was.

In either of these cases, the end point is the start point just with a considerably more secure blockchain and a load of money in BFL's pocket.

I don't envy the miners; they're in a horrendous position.  They all start mining with CPUs.  Then one of them invents GPU mining; any CPU miner who doesn't upgrade instantly finds their share of the pie reduced to minuscule proportions therefore everyone becomes a GPU miner, and they have to invest in the equipment to do it.  Then one of them invents ASIC mining; any miner who doesn't upgrade instantly finds their share reduced to minuscule proportions therefore everyone becomes an ASIC miner.  Then one of them invents quantum mining...

Miners are doomed to constantly play catch up with the other miners, who are inventing better technologies.  It's no fun for them, but that is the nature of a free market -- innovate or die.

Bitcoin's peculiarities mean that the rewards for innovation accrue to the innovator, not the miner.  BFL are the ones who will profit from this, not the miners.  And there is nothing wrong with that, because for the rest of us, we see ever increasing efficiencies -- and more hashes per Watt means a more secure blockchain for less energy expended.  Great.  This is about as far from destroying bitcoin as it is possible to be.  Bitcoin ends up stronger (for example: malicious bitcoin botnets will vanish pretty quickly).

[bulanula]

The difference here actually being that it is impossible to alter the production rate of bitcoins.

With oil/gold/anything else, capital investment can be used to raise productivity or fund innovation to raise production.  With bitcoins it cannot.

The best you can do is tip the constant production in your favour, you get more of that fixed pie; which is what BFL are selling.  When ASIC/FPGA miners push the total hash rate up (which is great for users, the blockchain is more secure) one of two things will then happen:

• The unprofitable GPU miners will give up; very slightly (relative to the new order of magnitude higher rate) lower the total hashing power of the network.  This will make very little difference to ASIC miners, since they will already be taking the lions share of the block rewards.
• The unprofitable GPU miners will upgrade to ASICs.  This will tip the reward ratio back to where it was.

In either of these cases, the end point is the start point just with a considerably more secure blockchain and a load of money in BFL's pocket.

I don't envy the miners; they're in a horrendous position.  They all start mining with CPUs.  Then one of them invents GPU mining; any CPU miner who doesn't upgrade instantly finds their share of the pie reduced to minuscule proportions therefore everyone becomes a GPU miner, and they have to invest in the equipment to do it.  Then one of them invents ASIC mining; any miner who doesn't upgrade instantly finds their share reduced to minuscule proportions therefore everyone becomes an ASIC miner.  Then one of them invents quantum mining...

Miners are doomed to constantly play catch up with the other miners, who are inventing better technologies.  It's no fun for them, but that is the nature of a free market -- innovate or die.

Bitcoin's peculiarities mean that the rewards for innovation accrue to the innovator, not the miner.  BFL are the ones who will profit from this, not the miners.  And there is nothing wrong with that, because for the rest of us, we see ever increasing efficiencies -- and more hashes per Watt means a more secure blockchain for less energy expended.  Great.  This is about as far from destroying bitcoin as it is possible to be.  Bitcoin ends up stronger (for example: malicious bitcoin botnets will vanish pretty quickly).

What is malicious about a BTC botnet ?

Where is FPGA in your little story ?

Nice post, otherwise !

[vuce]

What is malicious about a BTC botnet ?

One that doesn't include any transactions at all could be marked as "malicious".

[realnowhereman]

What is malicious about a BTC botnet ?

Nothing is malicious about a botnet.  A malicious botnet is malicious though.  I'm talking about a botnet for the purposes of double spends or (as vuce says) a non-contributing botnet.

Where is FPGA in your little story ?

For brevity I abbreviated "ASIC/FPGA" to "ASIC"; I didn't think anyone would have trouble understanding... after all it's the idea that matters, not the actual technology used (hence my made-up "quantum miner").

Nice post, otherwise !

Ta.

[jgarzik]

What is malicious about a BTC botnet ?

Stealing someone's computer resources is malicious.

[rjk]

What is malicious about a BTC botnet ?

Stealing someone's computer resources is malicious.

+1

[bulanula]

What is malicious about a BTC botnet ?

Stealing someone's computer resources is malicious.

+1

I meant in BTC context. Not passing transactions is one aspect.

Also, as all you said : botnet owners should be burned on the stake

[Steve]

With a small USB plug and play device at $150, mining will become more accessible.  People with limited time and/or money will have an easy option for contributing to the security of the bitcoin network.  GPU and FPGA mining made bitcoin mining more cumbersome and costly as compared with CPU mining.  But I think this transition reverses that trend and will make mining more accessible.  That's good for Bitcoin, but I can see how it might threaten the profits of existing miners.

[Gabi]

+1

All the people raging and crying about ASICs looks like dinosaurs facing extinction without being able to adapt.

[runeks]

I just believe that this will become a very lonely place with nothing but big spenders doing all of the mining.

Big spenders? At $150 for a mining device? That's cheaper than a used 5970! Sure, buying the more expensive devices will get you more bang for your buck, but that is also the case with GPU mining: a dedicated rig will be cheaper in terms of dollars per mega hash than your everyday gaming computer.

If Butterfly Labs is honest about their intentions and believe they are able to produce ASIC miners at the price specified, I support them making the announcement now. I mean, are people seriously complaining about being told this in advance? Would they prefer being told this after investing a large amount in an FPGA miner?

[muyuu]

I thought the thread was settled when Vladimir summarised:

"GPU and FPGA cockroaches are running for cover"

Well said, Vladimir chap. 

[Gabi]

Moaning is much easier than 2 so expect a tons of trolls and whiners on the forum when difficulty will start to skyrocket

People like "bawwwhhh i just spent 10k $ on GPUs and now ASICs fuck my investment. ASICs are bad for bitcoin! ban them!"

[Luke-Jr]

This ASIC upgrade is just like GPUs were originally. Before FPGAs, GPUs had moved almost all mining to ATi/AMD video cards - notice the single vendor for mining hardware is not a first-time thing! Since BFL is being responsible and distributing the ASICs in a way that avoids a 51% risk, I see no problem, just the next step on the mining game.

Actually, the upgrade to GPUs did have one difference: for a few months, only a select few had working GPU miners. ASICs are being introduced (more or less) to the masses all at once. So it's actually a better upgrade flow.

[Vladimir]

But the real money to be made isn't in future mining. It's in the services yet to be born that will compliment bitcoin.

going to have to agree with you on this one.

I've been scrutinizing potential ASIC investments (with help of financial pros) for a few month and I am going to have agree with you here. All the projections related to ASIC mining enterprises have one thing certain, that is a significant jump in network difficulty. Most of the projections assume rather significant increase in USDBTC that brings ASIC minig projects into reasonable risk adjusted return territory.

My conclusion is that it is much less risky and profitable to invest into BTC itself. Another good option for those who do not want to be passive investors is to "sell shovels to the miners" and it seems BFL is doing just fine there.  As Soggy-hamster said, if you want to become rich provide services that enhance Bitcoin network.

And I am not just telling it to you so that I have bigger piece of mining pie. I am myself out of the mining game for good  for some time now and working with various projects such as Bitcoin Magazine, Ellet, Safebit etc... just to mention a few.

[rjk]

And I am not just telling it to you so that I have bigger piece of mining pie. I am myself out of the mining game for good  for some time now and working with various projects such as Bitcoin Magazine, Ellet, Safebit etc... just to mention a few.

Does that mean your ASIC farm is no longer in the cards?

[DeathAndTaxes]

And I am not just telling it to you so that I have bigger piece of mining pie. I am myself out of the mining game for good  for some time now and working with various projects such as Bitcoin Magazine, Ellet, Safebit etc... just to mention a few.

Does that mean your ASIC farm is no longer in the cards?

My guess is that pie tasted sweeter when there was the possibility of a monopoly on ASIC tech.   Doubling difficulty and getting 49.9999% of annual revenue is pretty damn profitable.

Seeing difficulty increase by a factor of 10x getting a small cut of that and always having the risk that miners with more cash than brains keep driving difficulty higher and higher and higher likely has a bitter taste for any VC.  That outside factor is something which can't be controlled.  Miners underestimating difficulty increases buying more and more and more and more rigs pushing difficult higher and higher.  All the while that hugely expensive farm produces less and less and less revenue. 

I would imagine at this point being a competitor to BFL would be less risky than trying to produce a huge farm.  Remember the per unit cost of whatever devices BFL launches is likely 5% of retail price.  Now that doesn't mean BFL can cut prices 95%.  They have some fixed costs (staff, order processing, upfront NRE costs, etc) but it does mean that anytime sales slow down they can cut prices to stimulate demand.  Anytime they do that difficulty goes even higher and any already purchased gear because slightly less valuable.  One doesn't want to be sitting on a multi-million dollar farm when there is this huge outside factor you can't control or influence.

And yes demand will eventually slow down because x GH for $y is less attractive at difficulty 20 million then it is at 1.2 million.  

[rjk]

That's pretty much what I was thinking, just wanted to hear it "from the horse's mouth", as it were. I don't know how far along he was with the mask design, but as you say, a competitor would be an ideal market position. It could potentially recover the cost of such a venture, anyways.

[davidspitzer]

This ASIC upgrade is just like GPUs were originally. Before FPGAs, GPUs had moved almost all mining to ATi/AMD video cards - notice the single vendor for mining hardware is not a first-time thing! Since BFL is being responsible and distributing the ASICs in a way that avoids a 51% risk, I see no problem, just the next step on the mining game.

Actually, the upgrade to GPUs did have one difference: for a few months, only a select few had working GPU miners. ASICs are being introduced (more or less) to the masses all at once. So it's actually a better upgrade flow.

I agree I am excited to see the ASICs come out

[Vladimir]

And I am not just telling it to you so that I have bigger piece of mining pie. I am myself out of the mining game for good  for some time now and working with various projects such as Bitcoin Magazine, Ellet, Safebit etc... just to mention a few.

Does that mean your ASIC farm is no longer in the cards?

Our financial models told us that risk/reward is not that great, our partners were not too happy giving our investors decent terms so we pulled out of that project a few weeks before BFL announcement.

We decided to let all the competing ASIC teams to fight it out between each other without us.

Some of our time got wasted on this, but nobody on our side lost any money, except me (and it is negligible).