Topic: Will ASIC mining destroy Bitcoin? - page 4. (Read 43026 times)
It's cool to see a programmer come in and pop his thoughts out. Good read indeed.
I agree - I see ASIC as a sign that serious investors are taking Bitcoin seriously, which is a good thing!
I think I'm most excited about the $150 jalapeño. There's been a lot of concern that GPUs changed mining from being something anyone can easily do, to something only for people willing to spend a lot of time and money. While the jalapeño doesn't fully restore the accessibility of CPU mining, an efficient plug and play device for $150 comes about as close as you can get. Anyone that has an interest in bitcoin and would like to help secure the network will soon have an option with a very low barrier to entry.
Several people have asked me privately via email what I think of Butterfly Labs and ASIC mining in general, so:
What do I think of ASICs hitting the "mining scene" ?
meh.
It shows that Bitcoin is considered stable enough for a company to invest a LOT of money on design and production on it, which is very good. ASICs were bound to happen if Bitcoin survived long enough.
The long-term outlook for mining is "mining will happen with very specialized hardware, in places where either electricity is free or generating lots of heat is a benefit and not a cost" (and probably both; I still think Iceland will be a big mining hot-spot eventually).
I'm not worried about Butterfly Labs deciding to take over the blockchain with their superior hashpower. They'd be idiots to do something like try to mount a 51% attack-- they don't want to kill Bitcoin, they want it to get more successful so they sell more hardware.
And if they are successful they will very quickly have competitors.
Full disclosure: I spent some of my bitcoins to pre-order their USB coffee-warmer doo-hickey. It gets cold here in the winter.
What do I think of ASICs hitting the "mining scene" ?
meh.
It shows that Bitcoin is considered stable enough for a company to invest a LOT of money on design and production on it, which is very good. ASICs were bound to happen if Bitcoin survived long enough.
The long-term outlook for mining is "mining will happen with very specialized hardware, in places where either electricity is free or generating lots of heat is a benefit and not a cost" (and probably both; I still think Iceland will be a big mining hot-spot eventually).
I'm not worried about Butterfly Labs deciding to take over the blockchain with their superior hashpower. They'd be idiots to do something like try to mount a 51% attack-- they don't want to kill Bitcoin, they want it to get more successful so they sell more hardware.
And if they are successful they will very quickly have competitors.
Full disclosure: I spent some of my bitcoins to pre-order their USB coffee-warmer doo-hickey. It gets cold here in the winter.
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