Just for the record, Im not entirely pulling numbers out of my arse. I cant tell you everything I know, but I can tell you what google will tell you if you search for SHA256 performance comparisons between 65nm FPGAs and 130nm ASICs, like this paper here:
http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/536.pdfOf course, no one said BFL will use 130nm, they might have picked 90nm or who knows, perhaps even 65nm, in which case you could be looking at closer to 5TH per wafer. But even if they went for 180nm or Im wrong by an order or magnitude, the basic premises remains the same: the variable cost per TH is several orders of magnitude lower than the current market price, and if BFL rides the price / difficulty curve from the current top to the eventual bottom, as a miner you will have a serious problem keeping up.
It is true. P4man and me are both scared that BFL will corner the mining market ...
I almost had a stroke when I read this thread yesterday.
Looking at BFL's past history it looks like they will deliver, unfortunately for all of us running GPUs and FPGAs now. ( not Singles )
Bowing down to the BFL mining overlords ... all this can be stopped by a community effort and mining can be decentralized again.
NDA ASIC = not good plan for us and Bitcoin in general.
What's stopping BFL having a ride with the blockchain and 51% ? NOTHING.
This needs to be fixed. Algo change is in order IMHO.
I wish BFL all success in the world but I don't like where this is going for BTC
1) Why would BFL kill the very project that is giving them almost all of their income? They have no reason or motive to kill Bitcoin or stage a 51% attack on it.
2) BFL is selling to the public. In my opinion, this is the best way to introduce ASICs to Bitcoin. It'll keep it decentralized by giving a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of hashing power. Vlad was/is doing it behind closed doors and NOT offering his tech for sale to the general public. I am glad he likely won't be the first to the market on this.
Go ahead and algo change if you want, but I'm sticking with the current Bitcoin code and blockchain.
I'm also think that ASIC's are very bad idea for bitcoin. ALgo will have to change one day, ASIC's will make that sooner, maybe real soon. And one day all that ASIC's will be worthless. Difficulty very high and no equipment capable to get (in reasonable time) to next difficulty drop. And that will be end of bitcoin. It is really bad idea...
IF the algo has to change one day, people will know about the change far ahead of time. And if Bitcoin is still anything by the time that day arrives, there will be plenty of companies offering miners for sale before the algo changes, just to take advantage of the change. I don't see an algo change killing Bitcoin. And who in their right mind would accept an algo change without first ensuring that adequate mining equipment is/was in place anyway? Remember, miners and users are both in it to see Bitcoin succeed. No one is going to make a Bitcoin-killing change to the algorithm - it wouldn't make any sense for any parties involved.
But AMD is not making video cards for mining. They can be used for that but it's not they only purpose. ASIC designed for mining have only one purpose, and that makes them very dangerous for bitcoin that depends on mining.
Why are dedicated miners very dangerous for Bitcoin? That makes absolutely no sense. If a company was to keep the technology all to themselves and only mine by themselves, then I could see it being dangerous. But BFL will be offering an ASIC miner to the general public. ASIC mining couldn't come about in a better way, in my opinion, as it offers the change to continue to keep mining a decentralized project. Vlad is also coming out with an ASIC, but is keeping it all to himself and his own company. That is the worst way to do it, because then you truly do have fears about 51% and all of that. But BFL, selling to many people, means that many people will have access to ASICs and mining will be spread between them. How is this bad or dangerous for Bitcoin?