A little known ASIC benefit.

[Bitcoin Oz]

With the lower power needed law enforcement will be less likely to confuse your mining farm with a  grow op.

Discuss.

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[nedbert9]

With the lower power needed law enforcement will be less likely to confuse your mining farm with a  grow op.

Discuss.

Ummm, but what if my excuse for my grow op was the rack of GPU's?

[ChanceCoats123]

Lawl. This could go both ways. Depending upon which side of the law you are on.

[grue]

prohint: if everybody had ASICs, wouldn't the difficulty be very high? And wouldn't that mean you need more ASICs (and more energy) to get the same amount of bitcoins? And wouldn't that mean more heat? just saying.

[kjlimo]

prohint: if everybody had ASICs, wouldn't the difficulty be very high? And wouldn't that mean you need more ASICs (and more energy) to get the same amount of bitcoins? And wouldn't that mean more heat? just saying.

but not everyone will have ASICs... and it won't be profitable for people to buy ASICs at some point where we'll be using less electricity for the same amount of bitcoins b/c for every 40 FPGAs or GPUs shutdown, only one ASIC will be purchased/turned on.

not very specific on the numbers, but I think that's true.  However, someone with more time on their hands can do the math.

I'm off the eat pasta!

[grue]

prohint: if everybody had ASICs, wouldn't the difficulty be very high? And wouldn't that mean you need more ASICs (and more energy) to get the same amount of bitcoins? And wouldn't that mean more heat? just saying.

but not everyone will have ASICs... and it won't be profitable for people to buy ASICs at some point where we'll be using less electricity for the same amount of bitcoins b/c for every 40 FPGAs or GPUs shutdown, only one ASIC will be purchased/turned on.

not very specific on the numbers, but I think that's true.  However, someone with more time on their hands can do the math.

I'm off the eat pasta!

that will only be during the transition, like from cpu -> gpu. once the majority switched over, the benefits will be lost.

[runeks]

prohint: if everybody had ASICs, wouldn't the difficulty be very high? And wouldn't that mean you need more ASICs (and more energy) to get the same amount of bitcoins? And wouldn't that mean more heat? just saying.

I think this is more of a pro-question.

Good question. If we assume efficiency of a custom ASIC is 10x that of an FPGA, then mining efficiency (bitcoins mined per amount of energy spent) for a custom ASIC will be exactly the same as that of an FPGA, if difficulty rises by a factor of 10. This, of course, won't happen all at once, but it might be the reason BFL is selling these units so cheaply: they've done the math, and the math ain't promising (if you're a miner). For BFL it's a goldbitcoin mine.

[lame.duck]

Good question. If we assume efficiency of a custom ASIC is 10x that of an FPGA, then mining efficiency (bitcoins mined per amount of energy spent) for a custom ASIC will be exactly the same as that of an FPGA, if difficulty rises by a factor of 10. This, of course, won't happen all at once, but it might be the reason BFL is selling these units so cheaply: they've done the math, and the math ain't promising (if you're a miner). For BFL it's a goldbitcoin mine.

Maybe they get the ASICs in September (and the devices done) and let them rum for 4 weeks till october for 'testing'. But you are right, in the long run, they will make more money selling mining hardware.

[runeks]

^ They will surely need to do some testing. They might do it on the test chain though. If they don't, we'll definitely see the resulting spike in hash rate (and difficulty).

[niko]

The limiting factor becomes the price of hardware, not the electricity.

[P4man]

The limiting factor becomes the price of hardware, not the electricity.

Thats not much of a limiting factor, as ASICs are incredibly cheap to produce, variable cost of the chip itself is almost zero. Price will be determined by demand, which will follow price/difficulty as there is no other application for the asic to generate demand and maintain higher prices. Its not very difficult to predict where price/difficulty is headed. Grue is correct, it will take a while, particularly if no competitor emerges, but in the long run, mining will once again be a matter of electricity cost.

[organofcorti]

I'll buy an ASIC miner when you can use it as a grow op as well.

[Bitcoin Oz]

I'll buy an ASIC miner when you can use it as a grow op as well.

You could do that by placing a glass dome over the coffee warmer  or your SC 

[racerguy]

Electricity will eventually be the main factor in profit calculations just the same as it is now with gpu's, though it will take some time for miners to get the amount of hardware needed for electricity to be a factor again.

[niko]

Electricity will eventually be the main factor in profit calculations just the same as it is now with gpu's, though it will take some time for miners to get the amount of hardware needed for electricity to be a factor again.

Good point, but the cost of hardware may prevent some miners from growing to that point, or it may take a really long time (implying lots of uncertainty).

[AndrewBUD]

Here we go counting chickens before they hatch.....

[niko]

Here we go counting chickens before they hatch.....

Yes, that's why this is in the chicken speculation board.

[AndrewBUD]

I am just being silly....



I would prefer to have LE confuse my rigs for a grow op. Anything that makes LE feel dumb is A okay in my books...

[runeks]

Electricity will eventually be the main factor in profit calculations just the same as it is now with gpu's, though it will take some time for miners to get the amount of hardware needed for electricity to be a factor again.

Good point, but the cost of hardware may prevent some miners from growing to that point, or it may take a really long time (implying lots of uncertainty).

If BFL really is making an ASIC, when they've first handed over the cash to start initial production, they will have every economic incentive to spit out the ASICs at increasingly lower prices. They've already spent all their time working hard on building the ASIC and setting up production, there would be no reason for them to not begin selling these devices at huge discounts. The only disincentive would be losing loyal customers, who might feel back stabbed helping BFL actually make money on this, only to see everyone else getting ASICs at 10% of their original price.

[AzN1337c0d3r]

I would prefer to have LE confuse my rigs for a grow op. Anything that makes LE feel dumb is A okay in my books...

Only until you realize you're losing hundreds/thousands of dollars a day because they hauled off all your stuff...