Are GPU's Satoshi's mistake? - page 5.

FreeTrade

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Quote from: memvola on October 01, 2011, 10:50:45 AM

So it's not a flaw, it's just inevitable. I'm guessing you're inspired by new proof-of-concept currencies that are CPU-friendly. Keep in mind that if they get to a critical size, it's also inevitable for them to be dominated by specialized hw.

I agree it is inevitable - but it is still a flaw.

The flaw is not that it is possible for specialized equipment to out perform general purpose computers. As you say, that is inevitable - it is the factor by which they do.

GPU's might outperform CPU's by 10:1 - So I must spend $50 in electricity for every $5 in BTC

However, if GPU's outperformed CPU's by 1.1:1 - then I'd spend $5.50 for every $5. You'd still have specialized hw, but you'd have general purpose computer participants too.

The flaw then is the ratio at which specialized hardware outperforms, and not having designed to minimize that ratio.

memvola

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Quote from: FreeTrade on October 01, 2011, 10:23:12 AM

Did Satoshi not forsee that GPU's would be much more efficient, thus reducing mining to the GPU'd few?

He didn't have to foresee anything that specific. It was obvious that mining would be dominated by specialized people and specialized hardware. If there weren't GPU's to compete, FPGA's would be very competitive since they consume far less power than CPU's. If FPGA's weren't, we'd expect ASIC solutions sooner.

So it's not a flaw, it's just inevitable. I'm guessing you're inspired by new proof-of-concept currencies that are CPU-friendly. Keep in mind that if they get to a critical size, it's also inevitable for them to be dominated by specialized hw.

Serge

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At the same time every computer literate person realizes that computing power only going to increase with time.

error

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I suspect he never foresaw either GPUs or mining pools.

FreeTrade

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We all know that ordinary CPU's are useless for mining and that only using GPU's with specialized programs gives a reasonable return.

Did Satoshi mean it to be this way? I can't imagine that he did. Everything else is so well thought out, I imagine that his vision was that anybody with access to a computer would be able to effectively turn electricity into Bitcoins at a fairly reasonable return. If that were the case, it would certainly be easier to distribute BTC.

Did Satoshi not forsee that GPU's would be much more efficient, thus reducing mining to the GPU'd few?

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