More ASICs in different hands=greater hashpower=a stronger Bitcoin network=good for Bitcoin
I have heard enough whining about how Bitcoin should stay a small-time CPU mining network where everyone can particpate with a laptop, good luck with that until you get 51%ed by a botnet.
I have heard enough whining about how Bitcoin should stay a small-time CPU mining network where everyone can particpate with a laptop, good luck with that until you get 51%ed by a botnet.
The BTC network will be stronger if more ppl mine, but I think the hashing power will mainly stay with the *same* ppl.
Hashing power is not really a good indicator of how many ppl mine BTC. How much they invest in it might be slightly better, and I would wager that investments (CAPEX - CAPital EXPenditure) will stay rather stable. The same group of ppl that are the biggest miners now will invest in ASICs to protect their share of the network (and thus their revenue in BTC, since BTC are released at a fixed rate, a fixed % of the network directly results in the same % of the BTC released yearly).
Cheap ASICs might actually prove beneficial, given they will help the average Joe stay current and cost half what a good GPU does (and use 1/10 the power). But that also depends on whether the "average average Joe" does on the BTC network and whether he's inclined to buy a dedicated miner.
And with difficulty rises, the BTC/USD exchange rate will go up. There is currently sth that looks like a 1 to 1 correlation between the two, so you should be worried if difficulty went DOWN.
I don't worry about the price that much, the percentage of BTCs I own remain the same.
It's true that with the increase of difficulty the mining business becomes more and more professional and controlled by fewer and fewer people, but that's when capitalism comes into play, people invent all kinds of fancy ways to fund/benefit from the mining operation, shares, bonds, etc. Yeah theoretically the operators can still screw you and get away but let's face it, if a cooperative mining operation is not subjected to the rule of law then so are the solo miners, in that case who can stop government agents from breaking into your house and taking away your miner?
Besides, if BTC really become that successful with a huge userbase then maybe everyone can run a CPU miner whenever the CPU is idle and form a P2P pool of some sort, it's entirely up to the common users to decide if they want their transactions to be processed by some powerful centralized entities or entities controlled by "us". That's the beauty of Bitcoin:you can fight back under the rules and without using violence, but you are not forced to.
I think had Bitcoin gone more-or-less CPU-mining exclusive, the network would have already been dysfunctional for long, if the good guys try to stay weak then the bad guys will take over(botnets can easily arrange 100Ks CPUs), but after it grows to a certain stage(like where we are right now) we need to get serious with the decentralization.
You think it's "controlled" by less and less ppl?
The way I see it is, if the userbase is stable, it will always be the same percentage of ppl mining the lion's share of BTC and they will invest roughly with the same proportions at each technological jump. So, in essence, the ecosystem is rather stable. The danger comes from the newcomers who can alter the "balance of power", but, as long as BTC mining remains a niche operation, we're quite safe for now. You just have to follow the technological trend, but I don't see a rise in average capital expenditure per miner and I think the BTC/USD exchange will keep on rising 1:1 with difficulty in the foreseeable future (BTC aren't a commodity yet).
I don't think the number of miners will remain stable, not every GPU miner will run an ASIC, many will just drop out. Malicious newcomers are always a possible threat, but as long as the total mining power is great enough, only enitities like governments/big banking cartels are able to carry it out. The key is to make the network so powerful that those entities can not perform any meaningful attack on the network, without drawing serious attention from the public(e.g., sucking out a whole city's electricity supply). And if entities like NSA can spend billions of taxypayers' money to attack a civilian network run partially by American citizens and get away with it, then such governments with such arbitrary power can just break into miners' houses and take away their rigs, which are far easier to be done.
I do agree that the price is somehow correlated with the mining difficulty, a bitcoin is, after all, a proof to the network investors/users of the miners' commitment to and effort made to secure the payment network, which is what people pay them for doing.
Time will tell but I don't think things are as bleak as everyone assumes.
The closer you get to the mountain, the more paths you see. I bet the everyday Joe will be able to buy a cheap USB ASIC before long.
(I don't mean the overpriced ASICMiner Mini USB! 2BTC for 300MH/s, really?!)
I apologize if I somehow sound pessimistic, it's just my habit to present the worst case, and see how things will work out under such conditions. The starting point was just how things are better with the present path than the somehow CPU-mining exclusive path.
About the ASICMiner USB miner overpricing, the current price may be outrageous, but I do think it should be encouraged if ASIC mining manufacturers decide to "check" the commitment of each buyer to the Bitcoin network, fixing the price in BTCs is just one way to do it, they should explore other options.
Why apologize for sounding pessimistic? No need, really.
Good point about the BTC pricing, but I'm still of the view that until it's officially recognized by central banks, you should keep the price tied to fiat and have a variable BTC one. Most international business is conducted in USD or EUR anyway. ICTs are USD driven.
(I'm thinking ASMiner are probably being pessimistic about the future value of the BTC. If the correlation between the difficulty and exchange rate doesn't break up, their overpriced widget will become even more overpriced.)
