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Topic: Why ASIC's Should Not Be The Future Of Crypto Currencies - page 5. (Read 11142 times)

legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
Why FPGA's Should Not Be The Future Of Crypto Currencies

FPGA's are not a natural technological generation leap like going from CPU to GPU was. FPGA's are simply specialized processing units made specifically for Bitcoin. Which i do not beleive is following the original intentions of Satoshi, for many reasons.

Moving from GPU to FPGA mining will not be the same as going from CPU to GPU mining. The reason here is because CPU's and GPU's have decentralized distribution. They are mass produced by huge companies  giving you the option to buy their products in any city, no matter where you live! This allows us to be in control of when and where we get our mining hardware, and to a certain degree, at what cost. (Which helps the decentralization process). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization

While on the other hand, FPGA's are mass produced, supply is controlled, price is controlled, they are in limited quantity, can only be bought from a few companies/sources, that in reality nobody even knows for sure they can trust. So what will happen is all the miners in the world will be forced to rely on those few companies for FPGA's. And we will be subject to their pricing. They will also control the supply of the mining rigs, which can have an effect on the bitcoin economy that is similar to the effect that the U.S Federal Reserve and banks have on the money supply. I'm not talking about the amount of money/BTC, but when it is available/mineable to the miners. This allows FPGA manufacturers to be in control of when and where we get our mining hardware. (All this hurts the decentralization process)

People will have to rely on the small quantities that these companies produce, which causes people to have wait for their hardware, which in the end causes people to potentially lose money. This is exactly what is happening right now. Many people are waiting to see what happens with FPGA's, so that they can start buying mining  hardware again. So, basically if FPGA didn't exist people would continue to buy GPUs as i type this, which would have meant more profit for those people now and in the future, which would have meant more money in those peoples pockets. This is where the 'Federal Reserve effect' comes in, because now mining hardware companies can control when people buy/receive their hardware, plus control when people get more or less profit through controlling the mining hardware supply. Also, buying FPGA's from a few small companies means whenever those companies come out with a new model, this process will start all over again. More lost money, more time lost waiting for release/shipping.

Another downfall of FPGA, is the fact that FPGA's will make everyone have to 'restart from scratch' buying mining hardware all over again, when most people already  have their mining hardware in the form of GPUs, and it is already paid off. Now you will have to sell all your GPUs, then have to buy $1000's of dollars of FPGA's just to be able to keep up with all the other players with the increasing difficulty. After that, you will have to wait all over again to get your return on  your investment! Which could take half a year or more, once difficulty adjusts, which should just take about a month or so.

Once FPGAs come out, the difficulty will adjust accordingly. Which will just cause everyone to make the same amount of money as they were before FPGA's. So the question is, is it necessary for us to go through all of what i mentioned above, to just end up making the same amount of money as you were before with GPU's, just a month or so later, with FPGA's?

Because of the above mentioned costs, plus the added cost of FPGA'S, this can hinder the widespread global adoption of Bitcoin just because of the sheer expense. This is especially true for people in other smaller, less wealthy countries. It is much easier to obtain a used GPU for those people. People that could be helping to build security and decentralization for Bitcoin!

FPGA's threaten to ruin any anonymity that Bitcoin has left. This is by potentially making it easier to track who is buying the mining rigs through the few small companies that sell the FPGA's. Which could potentially be bad if Bitcoin ever became illegal!

There are also many more smaller disadvantages of moving towards FPGA that are of less importance.

So now it comes to the advantages of FPGA. That's where everything boils down to in the end. The problem is there are not enough advantages to using FPGA, for them to outweigh the disadvantages it brings to the table! In my opinion, network security and lowered power consumption cannot make up for the potential problems that it brings. This is an economy. This is not about power consumption! It will all come down to economics in the end. And that is what I'm talking about. And that is the infostructure that Satoshi built Bitcoin on!

The  Bitcoin developers, and the Crypto Community in general needs the recognize FPGA's as a threat, and we should all do something to stop this from happening. I do not think that Satoshi would think the way these FPGA's are to be distributed would be good for the Bitcoin economy in general.  There are a few things we can do to combat this, like changing the algorithm to prevent the usage of FPGA's. Or, we could all switch to another crypto currency that that uses a different algorithm that is resistant to FPGA's, like Litecoin, so that we can save Bitcoin and our crypto-independence!

By Switching To Another Bitcoin Algorithm, Or By Using Litecoin We Can Save Our Crypto-Independence!

The only options we have now is to change the Bitcoin algorithm, or for everyone to switch to another FPGA proof crypto currency. The ideal situation would be for the Bitcoin developers to change the algorithm, but that does not seem to be what they plan to do. So that's where Litecoin comes in. While Litecoin is not FPGA proof, it is FPGA resistant. It runs on an algorithm called scrypt that is highly memory intensive, which makes it much harder to produce a FPGA for Litecoin. Even if a company would find a way to produce a FPGA for it, it would take at least a year to design, produce and ship them. So it would be our 'safe heaven' from FPGA, saving us from the many disadvantages and negative effects that FPGA threatens to bring to Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world. At the very least, it would be buying us more time to work on something to prevent mining hardware companies from taking over our crypto currencies. People will be able to continue to FPGA mine, continue to profit, once again allowing us to be in control of when/where we buy our mining hardware, as well as, at what cost we buy it at. Allowing the control of the crypto world to stay in our hands, not the hands of greedy companies!

Jay1337
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
Why GPU's Should Not Be The Future Of Crypto Currencies


GPU's are not a natural technological generation leap like going from paper to CPU was. GPU's & mining software are simply specialized processing units made specifically for Bitcoin. Which i do not beleive is following the original intentions of Satoshi, for many reasons.

Moving from paper to CPU mining will not be the same as going from CPU to GPU mining. The reason here is because paper and CPU's have decentralized distribution. They are mass produced by huge companies  giving you the option to buy their products in any city, no matter where you live! This allows us to be in control of when and where we get our mining hardware, and to a certain degree, at what cost. (Which helps the decentralization process). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization

While on the other hand, CPU's are mass produced, supply is controlled, price is controlled, they are in limited quantity, can only be bought from a few companies/sources, that in reality nobody even knows for sure they can trust. So what will happen is all the miners in the world will be forced to rely on those few companies for CPU's. And we will be subject to their pricing. They will also control the supply of the mining rigs, which can have an effect on the bitcoin economy that is similar to the effect that the U.S Federal Reserve and banks have on the money supply. I'm not talking about the amount of money/BTC, but when it is available/mineable to the miners. This allows CPU manufacturers to be in control of when and where we get our mining hardware. (All this hurts the decentralization process)

People will have to rely on the small quantities that these companies produce, which causes people to have wait for their hardware, which in the end causes people to potentially lose money. This is exactly what is happening right now. Many people are waiting to see what happens with GPU's, so that they can start buying mining  hardware again. So, basically if GPU didn't exist people would continue to buy CPUs as i type this, which would have meant more profit for those people now and in the future, which would have meant more money in those peoples pockets. This is where the 'Federal Reserve effect' comes in, because now mining hardware companies can control when people buy/receive their hardware, plus control when people get more or less profit through controlling the mining hardware supply. Also, buying GPU's from a few small companies means whenever those companies come out with a new model, this process will start all over again. More lost money, more time lost waiting for release/shipping.

Another downfall of GPU, is the fact that GPU's will make everyone have to 'restart from scratch' buying mining hardware all over again, when most people already  have their mining hardware in the form of CPUs, and it is already paid off. Now you will have to sell all your CPUs, then have to buy $1000's of dollars of GPU's just to be able to keep up with all the other players with the increasing difficulty. After that, you will have to wait all over again to get your return on  your investment! Which could take half a year or more, once difficulty adjusts, which should just take about a month or so.

Once GPUs come out, the difficulty will adjust accordingly. Which will just cause everyone to make the same amount of money as they were before GPU's. So the question is, is it necessary for us to go through all of what i mentioned above, to just end up making the same amount of money as you were before with GPU's, just a month or so later, with GPU's?

Because of the above mentioned costs, plus the added cost of GPU'S, this can hinder the widespread global adoption of Bitcoin just because of the sheer expense. This is especially true for people in other smaller, less wealthy countries. It is much easier to obtain a used CPUs for those people. People that could be helping to build security and decentralization for Bitcoin!

GPU's threaten to ruin any anonymity that Bitcoin has left. This is by potentially making it easier to track who is buying the mining rigs through the few small companies that sell the GPU's. Which could potentially be bad if Bitcoin ever became illegal!

There are also many more smaller disadvantages of moving towards GPU that are of less importance.

So now it comes to the advantages of GPU. That's where everything boils down to in the end. The problem is there are not enough advantages to using GPU, for them to outweigh the disadvantages it brings to the table! In my opinion, network security and lowered power consumption cannot make up for the potential problems that it brings. This is an economy. This is not about power consumption! It will all come down to economics in the end. And that is what I'm talking about. And that is the infostructure that Satoshi built Bitcoin on!

The  Bitcoin developers, and the Crypto Community in general needs the recognize GPU's as a threat, and we should all do something to stop this from happening. I do not think that Satoshi would think the way these GPU's are to be distributed would be good for the Bitcoin economy in general.  There are a few things we can do to combat this, like changing the algorithm to prevent the usage of GPU's. Or, we could all switch to another crypto currency that that uses a different algorithm that is resistant to GPU's, like Litecoin, so that we can save Bitcoin and our crypto-independence!

By Switching To Another Bitcoin Algorithm, Or By Using Litecoin We Can Save Our Crypto-Independence!

The only options we have now is to change the Bitcoin algorithm, or for everyone to switch to another GPU proof crypto currency. The ideal situation would be for the Bitcoin developers to change the algorithm, but that does not seem to be what they plan to do. So that's where Litecoin comes in. While Litecoin is not GPU proof, it is GPU resistant. It runs on an algorithm called scrypt that is highly memory intensive, which makes it much harder to produce a GPU for Litecoin. Even if a company would find a way to produce a GPU for it, it would take at least a year to design, produce and ship them. So it would be our 'safe heaven' from GPU, saving us from the many disadvantages and negative effects that GPU threatens to bring to Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world. At the very least, it would be buying us more time to work on something to prevent mining hardware companies from taking over our crypto currencies. People will be able to continue to GPU mine, continue to profit, once again allowing us to be in control of when/where we buy our mining hardware, as well as, at what cost we buy it at. Allowing the control of the crypto world to stay in our hands, not the hands of greedy companies!

Jay1337
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049
Death to enemies!
Quote
Everything has some kind of drawback and availability is definitely one for ASIC.
Q:What green aliens with plasma guns and BFL ASIC's have in common?
A:They are not here and likely will not be in foreseeable future!
Quote
it is easier to get a video card than a specialty Bitcoin miner and that will shift the balance of power.
It is easier to get second hand Core2Duo than high-end ATI video card. The same with GPU vs ASIC. Change algo? Shift of mined bitcoins income? Almost certainly yes, the shift occurs slowly all the time because of numerous factors. Shift in income does not mean a direct shift in balance of power. The ASIC owners still are a miners and early adopters who want Bitcoin to be a sucess. If we all unanimously decide not to use a ASIC then someone who really might Bitcoin to fail can pull off a >50% attack using the ASIC's. And he will need far less ASIC's to do that than if more ASIC's will be in hands of honest miners.
Quote
OP is pissed because he bought a GPU farm few months ago. Sorry, it's part of the game.
High income is not without risk. Some people here purchased high-end CPU's complete with MoBo's and memories only for GPU mining to make CPU mining useless like voting parliament. They also told that GPU mining is ruining ideas of Bitcoin. Search this forum for about year and a half ago!

Better lose part of money in bad purchase than have your computer getting hacked. And having leaked naked pictures with the love of your life spreading legs for whole internet.
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 501
OP is pissed because he bought a GPU farm few months ago. Sorry, it's part of the game.
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049
Death to enemies!
Added to ignore list.
No change, still showing 5-8 ignores. Your faggotry action was irrelevant!

to OP: people in thread confirmed that ASIC increase in difficulty will actually secure Bitcoin network even more against >50% attack.

If protocol is changed in a manner that renders both ASIC and current implementation incompatible, this will undermine peoples trust in Bitcoin as a whole. This is why I never will trust any scamcoins that change basic protocol rules even once.
vip
Activity: 1316
Merit: 1043
👻
Added to ignore list.
legendary
Activity: 1002
Merit: 1000
Bitcoin

OP just wasted bitcointalk.org SQL database space with pointless rambling.


LOL, nice quote !
legendary
Activity: 1002
Merit: 1000
Bitcoin
I read someone who push for litecoin, sorry, im all-in-BTC for now...  But, I must say, nice try, even good thinking behind !

The argument that ASIC are availlable from only few companies, I dont think it's a problem, as those companies exist for profit in $, then they are doing anything they can to sell a maximum of unit, for profit.  That's the only reason why those companies are building/selling ASIC : Profit.

As there exist few manufacturer, they can't control the price as they are competing each other, not that I think that competition is good, I'm more willing to accept the idea that cooperation is better in every way, but for now, competition it what drives the market !  (Except if they all collude togheter, price of unit is in competition, free market = the customer will buy what is best price/value for them.)

About investment : Each individual is free to invest or not, as they want/can.  Small power asic are availlable for those who dont have too much money/btc.  IMO, the game is still the same, low fund, small rig..  High fund, big mining rig.  There can be a small hurde, if the protocol needs a change that will disable actual asic design, total network power will go down drasticaly.  Could be a return to mass GPU mining for w hile.  But in case of a drastic protocol change that disable actual asic desing, I'm pretty sure that profit motivated companies will sell new asic version, in a matter of week/month, even before the update if possible.

Anyone with low or no power cost will be able to continue mining with GPU, I will, even with a medium-low power cost.

Something you seems to have forgot in you post, I may say a must for Bitcoin to go asic mining is SECURITY.  As it is possible to create ASIC to mine BTC, the community HAVE TO go asic, to protect against a malicious individual/entity that could build asic to 51% attack the network !  Bitcoin will be much more safe, and trustable for the long run with a much bigger hash powered network.

Also, if BTC became illegal, and those companies with logs of clients who bought asic, this change nothing, if becoming illegal, it will be the decision of any miner to conitnue to mine or turn rigs off..

My impression is that you are all-in for LTC and can't deal with the fact that BTC is in the way to become a grown-up, a real big and robust entity !

BTC are growing, soon will no more be in it's infancy.. maybe mass adoption within 5-8 years Cheesy

was my 2 satoshi


sorry for bad english, even if it sounds good to me Wink
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049
Death to enemies!
Once ASIC comes out, the difficulty will adjust accordingly. Which will just cause everyone to make the same amount of money as they were before ASIC's. So the question is, is it necessary for us to go through all of what i mentioned above, to just end up making the same amount of money as you were before with GPU's, just a month or so later, with ASIC's?

Most definitely, YES! Difficulty isn't a means to make money. It is a means to provide security. When the difficulty skyrockets, the security of the blockchain also skyrockets. That isn't just a good thing. It is a crucial requirement for the health of the blockchain.
Absolutely true!

The OP might be concerning that the consolidation of ASICs in hands of wealthy might pose a risk, but remember that the distribution of people preordering ASIC scam from BLF are distributed worldwide and sometimes are not highly wealthy. Some might been buying with bitcoins they mined with GPU. 30 000$ for asic rig is not unreal for average westerner working high income high-tech job.
legendary
Activity: 3878
Merit: 1193
Once ASIC comes out, the difficulty will adjust accordingly. Which will just cause everyone to make the same amount of money as they were before ASIC's. So the question is, is it necessary for us to go through all of what i mentioned above, to just end up making the same amount of money as you were before with GPU's, just a month or so later, with ASIC's?

Most definitely, YES! Difficulty isn't a means to make money. It is a means to provide security. When the difficulty skyrockets, the security of the blockchain also skyrockets. That isn't just a good thing. It is a crucial requirement for the health of the blockchain.
hero member
Activity: 616
Merit: 500
legendary
Activity: 1148
Merit: 1008
If you want to walk on water, get out of the boat
What a fail thread. Fail is over 9000
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049
Death to enemies!

My main concern is the centralized distribution of ASIC's. I mean, i can walk down my street and pick up a GPU. Can that be done with an ASIC?  Wink
You will probably be able to do this N years from now if Bitcoin goes really mainstream. Larger market of potential miners = more business opportunities for ASIC makers. Bitcoin ASIC must not be so complex to develop like CPU. I already have crypto ASIC for IDE harddrives that cost me about 150$ and IDE have much more complex commands and besides that it must encrypt the data with AES in XTS mode. More than simple double SHA256 operation and compare.
hero member
Activity: 952
Merit: 1009
Are you familiar with M.A.D Cold war concept? If those "evil companies" decide to keep the "nukes" to themselves or do fishy business-es every other miner will get pissed of, Bitcoin level of trust and interest will fall, word will spread out and in the end it could mean the fall of Bitcoin as a whole.

I am currently designing a bitcoin equipped walking battle tank to circumvent that problem. I call it Bital Gear.
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
Quote
It's quite easy to throw 128k of sram on a chip and scream out one cycle/hash.  You'd get an even bigger speedup over GPUs and CPUs than you get from Bitcoin.

Yes, wow, i didn't think it would be so easy to make one  Undecided

Also, i realize some of the things i say are highly theoretical, but i'm just looking at all possibilities.

My main concern is the centralized distribution of ASIC's. I mean, i can walk down my street and pick up a GPU. Can that be done with an ASIC?  Wink
sr. member
Activity: 560
Merit: 256
Here's another perspective on ASICc coming to Bitcoin: the "nuclear weapons" perspective.

Let's say that we don't go the ASIC way and decide to stay with GPUs. However, the ASIC can be built and their hash power compared with GPUs is like nuclear weapons compared with AK-47s (and a few tanks, aka ATI 7970). It seems like a bunch of individuals can set an ASIC project up and deliver (Avalon, Reclaimer). Would you rather have that threat on the Bitcoin network of a possible ASIC disruption from a mal-intended person or would you rather give everybody the "nuclear weapons"?

Are you familiar with M.A.D Cold war concept? If those "evil companies" decide to keep the "nukes" to themselves or do fishy business-es every other miner will get pissed of, Bitcoin level of trust and interest will fall, word will spread out and in the end it could mean the fall of Bitcoin as a whole. What would those companies do with the mined Bitcoin now worthless?
legendary
Activity: 1792
Merit: 1111
Or By Using Litecoin We Can Save Our Crypto-Independence!
Litecoin doesn't help. It modified the normal scrypt behavior for inexplicable reasons to use only a very tiny amount of memory compared to the scrypt paper recommendations. It's quite easy to throw 128k of sram on a chip and scream out one cycle/hash.  You'd get an even bigger speedup over GPUs and CPUs than you get from Bitcoin.



Is it possible to use scrypt with memory requirement linked to difficulty? This could be GPU and ASIC-resistant forever.
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049
Death to enemies!
1. CPU also can be brought from only two sources. Can You trust AMD or Intel not to include anti-Bitcoin features in CPU?

2. Next generation of GPU might be badly suited for Bitcoin GPU mining because of GPU architecture change.

3. ASIC manufacturing in few centralized places does not mean Bitcoin mining cannot be decentralized. Mining also is nothing to do as adopting it as a payment method. Not every Bitcoin end-user need to be a miner and most of them even will refuse to run full node.

OP just wasted bitcointalk.org SQL database space with pointless rambling.
member
Activity: 83
Merit: 10
The future of crypto currencies is forever to be the bleeding edge of computing processor design. So ASICs right now. Then it will be Quantum CPUs. Then quantum GPUs. Then quantum FPGAs. Then quantum ASICs. Then stuff I havent imagined yet.
newbie
Activity: 28
Merit: 0
There are two other factors to consider:

(1) The first wave of sales of a new technology are often riddled with bugs, problems, and failures (think first 4g phone that was released as an example).

(2) The next wave of sales of a new technology are historically significantly cheaper in price compared to the first.
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