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Topic: Will ASIC destroy bitcoin? (Read 1581 times)

hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 500
April 22, 2013, 12:02:13 AM
#34
It strengthen the network in the past but CPU to GPU was an easy transition for most miners because the hardware was easily accessible.  ASICs are not easily accessible.  There are only 2 maybe 3 producers and they are slowly deploying them to their clients.  As a result early adopters capture the majority of the coins mined.  They profit the most and have more capital to deploy the next round of technology (100Gh/s units???).  So the bigger get bigger and the small guys are just out of reach. 

My guess is that most casual miners will walk away, cash out what little in bitcoins they have or hoard them as an investment in hopes it appreciates.  Over the next year the ASICs will drop in price and fewer of them will come to market as they become less profitable to produce.  Look what happened to FPGA boards. How easy are they to get now vs 1 year ago.
mjc
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 500
Available on Kindle
April 21, 2013, 11:40:07 PM
#33
The same number of Bitcoins will be mined no matter what the technology is.  Who gets them is all that might change.  The higher the hash rate the harder it is to mount an attack against the block chain itself.  So ASIC and all future increased capability will strengthen it.  Just look at how things changed when we went from CPU to GPU and GPU to FPGA.  It strengthened the network.
hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 500
April 21, 2013, 10:54:27 PM
#32
ASICs won't destroy bitcoin.  It will only be profitable for those that own it right now.  As more ASICs come online  the profit margin on mining will collapse even for ASIC owners.  In a year's time I expect that more Bitcoin miners will be using ASICs and ASIC units will cost about $1500 per 50GH/s.  It will still allow the average joe to get in but they will have to buy an ASIC to participate.  That might dissuade the newbie from getting in.  Especially when the margins will be thin.  Instead the average joe will be better off daytrading bitcoins against other cryptocurrencies and against the fiats.  As miners jump from currency to currency trying to anticipate the next one that has a lower difficulty increase traders can try to trade ahead of the miners.
newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
April 21, 2013, 10:41:42 PM
#31
I too and curious as too what'll happen once butterfly labs delivers, my only worry is without GPU miners there wont be as much traded by people who don't have ASIC turning it into a "boys club"

That is exactly what i am afraid of and then due ot the inherent nature of bit-coin it falls.
newbie
Activity: 26
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 03:27:24 PM
#30
I want to order one! 50Ghz Single SC!
newbie
Activity: 26
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 02:52:51 PM
#29
ASICs themselves cannot destroy Bitcoin. Though I believe that it will however have a big impact on the community.

The small student miner will in the future no longer be able to mine profit out of BTC, due to the large competition from bigger miners who got ASICs.


I personally like Litecoin more due to the fact that there aren't ASICs for it, but in the future this might change for Litecoin as well... Who knows.





I agree. Script cryptocoins are the only alternative to this ASIC horror. More of that any SHA cryptocoin may be exploded by a couple of ASIC miners. So the only future is script.
newbie
Activity: 19
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 12:33:28 PM
#28
Will hybrid engines destroy cars?
But hybrid engines are already existing and they making so tiny effect to cars' market... so comparing this to subject is uncorrect. Btw, they don't making cars ride slower or heavier.
newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 12:26:09 PM
#27
Will hybrid engines destroy cars?

Valid point.
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
April 20, 2013, 12:24:57 PM
#26
I actually contacted BFL and asked if I could mine TRC with their asics since TRC is sha256 and they said they will only support bitcoins.  But technically anything that uses SHA256 can be mined with the asic.  It was a cryptic reply from BFL support.
newbie
Activity: 19
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 12:22:26 PM
#25
Partially yes, for "farmers". Because difficulty will boost up and mining with "farms" will be unprofitable. On the other side, I think, bitcoin's rate can rise up, cause it some kind of exclusive for ASIC-users.
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
April 20, 2013, 12:20:57 PM
#24
So long as Bitcoins are used for something, they cannot be destroyed. The fact that there is a 21 million limit on Bitcoins makes it inconceivable that they could be destroyed. Sure they might drop in value but I do not suspect by much. There is continual demand for Bitcoin as it has become a widely used international means of exchange, and it's growing every day. I used to trade penny stocks and they would run up high with nothing going for them, and with over 200 million shares issued, that would still be considered a very low amount. Google's stock trades at nearly $799.87 (last price) and they have 267.71 MILLION shares floating out there, with 329.66 million "outstanding." Do the math. Bitcoin could go VERY high. This could just be the beginning.

This.
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 250
April 20, 2013, 12:16:57 PM
#23
I too and curious as too what'll happen once butterfly labs delivers, my only worry is without GPU miners there wont be as much traded by people who don't have ASIC turning it into a "boys club"
newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 12:09:01 PM
#22
Personally, I don't think it really makes sense to build / buy something that will essentially 'kill' regular mining. Was BitCoin even designed for coins to be mined by specialist hardware?!? People buying ASIC's are wasting their money IMO. It wont be long before mining difficultly outweighs the use of an ASIC -- whilst completely killing regular rig mining.
newbie
Activity: 9
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 11:58:03 AM
#21
ASICs won't destroy bitcoin at all. It will cost more to mine but that's about it.
member
Activity: 167
Merit: 10
April 20, 2013, 10:37:14 AM
#20
ASICs themselves cannot destroy Bitcoin. Though I believe that it will however have a big impact on the community.

The small student miner will in the future no longer be able to mine profit out of BTC, due to the large competition from bigger miners who got ASICs.


I personally like Litecoin more due to the fact that there aren't ASICs for it, but in the future this might change for Litecoin as well... Who knows.



newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 10:33:04 AM
#19
My fear is that ASICs will out mine everyone, giving only a select few, with the capital to afford asics, the ability to mine.

Asics won't destroy bitcoin but will be a part of bitcoins evolution and maturing network. I believe everyone who wants to, will be able to take part in the asic era. Currently the demand for asic mining machines is higher than what is available on the market which drives up prices for machines and even pre-orders, but that will change when other companies build asic mining machines and don't forget that people in this community are also working on a DIY (Do It Yourself) asic mining machine.
legendary
Activity: 1239
Merit: 1020
No surrender, no retreat, no regret.
April 20, 2013, 10:02:15 AM
#18
>I guess my fear is that due to fast over mining, will the cryptos just cycle in and out

There is no overmining. The reward is constant at 3600 BTC per day since Dec-2012 until the next split in ~4 years.

Scrypt based ASICs will also appear some day. Litecoin is too weak now, not worth to spend a few million $ on such a project.
newbie
Activity: 10
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 10:01:44 AM
#17
I think ASIC can't destroy bitcoin, but it will change all market, mining with GPU will be no profitable
newbie
Activity: 6
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 09:54:44 AM
#16
the amount of coins are limited, so it's just a matter of time since all are found.
at first the rate may go down a bit, but will recover...
newbie
Activity: 3
Merit: 0
April 20, 2013, 09:52:43 AM
#15
Mining btc with anything but asics? yes.
Kill the currency? no.
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