yeah I was completely expecting that comment from you when you asked if I was a GPU miner. Am I biased towards CPU/GPU…yep, I am. Don’t believe I ever stated I wasn’t. I’m looking at a person who openly says he/she is willing to take a risk on a ASIC that may or may not be worth anything if a fork does/doesn’t occur and acknowledging their right to do so, but also acknowledging that they accept the risks fully. I wish them the best, and hope they at the very least break even. Would I make a decision to do this? No, but that is me. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Am I angry about it? Not about his/her choice. My displeasure is that we are debating something (fork or not to fork) from recent posts and evidence shouldn’t even be a debate…but here we are none the less. So yeah @maesitos I’m a little bitter atm about that. I think it is justified in that current situation. Don’t try to make a vague assertion that I’m biased and angry with someone who takes the risk and buys this ASIC. I, nor anybody else, has a right to tell another person how to spend their own money. All I will ever say is I would not buy it, and why I would not buy it.
Me and 2 more friends also bought it. We are aware of the uncertainty and that’s why we didn’t buy the X3. We have been following ZEC and we think Zooko is going to be smart enough to not fall into the anti ASIC logic—most of the times is just noise from GPU miners begging to keep their income. In fact the Monero move has been enough for me to sell all my coins. They don’t get the fundamentals and… well it isn’t even that private.
I accept the game, I know the machine will be worthless soon. You are in a better position, you can sell all your cards right now, they are valid for many other things.
May I ask, how many cards do you have right now?
You may be right, you may be wrong. Personally, because of what I know to be true, and what has already been shown and discussed I hope your wrong…for a lot of personal reasons. I give you credit for taking the chance regardless on it, you are willing to gamble far more than I could risk. As far as size, specifics no, but I have more than a few (not a hobbyist anymore) GPUs, but I don’t rank above 100 GPUs. I’m the smallish guy, in far enough to care about the coin, but not so invested I lose everything if things go south.
I just see what will come if ASICs stay in as everything below a large farm being pushed out, and that will completely gut what Zcash is to me, and I am fairly confident I am not the only one who feels that way.
Speculation is inherently part of what a pure trader does, but purity is irrelevant. Anyone who holds or mines cryptocurrency (or any currency) is a speculator in part, relying on faith in its value as a medium of exchange. Money is completely valueless without that faith and so the key difference - and utility - of money as compared to any other investment instrument is: fungibility. That is why liquidity is important, and that is how traders enhance the value of currencies, including Zcash.
To answer the basic question: I haven’t decided, but probably no.
A core mechanism of mining with POW is its competitive nature. I see ASICs as simply a dimension of competition. There has always been some investment requirement to get into the game and compete. The necessity to buy ASIC equipment is simply an extension of this requirement and a natural, perhaps unavoidable evolution of the process. It is unfortunate that the ASIC supplier has a current monopoly but that is to be expected in the early days of any market. One might say that the limited set of GPU suppliers has been an oligopoly. One mitigating factor is that the algorithm for difficulty adjustment prevents the introduction of ASICs from instantly obliterating the system, and to be fair, Bitmain is selling ASICs to all takers. That they are restricting sales in a way that distributes availability is an indication that they do not want the market for Zcash to collapse. But that’s logical: Why kill the golden goose? It’s unfortunate that they will have enormous power for the near future, but not unprecedented in financial markets.
That stated, uncertainty is detrimental to the market for any asset. This is reflected in option pricing models, for example. Speculators will buy risk from hedgers. So it is disturbing that early assurances that Zcash would remain ASIC resistant seem to be unreliable. This should be cause for serious introspection for those responsible for the determining the path forward. Stop dithering and reinforce the foundation. What will be?
Like we tell the uninitiated and the unwashed: Don’t invest (in equipment) what you can’t afford to lose. This is not a child’s game. But, Zooko, et al, your reputations are on the line.
You make an important point. Those buying ASICs are making a purer commitment to mining than the dabblers who own GPUs that can be repurposed.
No intention of getting into ASIC mining, there’s only one supplier and their history with Bitcoin tells me all I need to know.
GPU’s are flexible so I can switch to other projects, or sell cards to desperate gamers & buy coin I believe in. That freedom is valuable to me.
I’m not expecting Zcash to do anything quickly as they’re close to the Sapling upgrade, however they could easily state their intentions and it troubles me that they haven’t already.
If they announced plans to go anti-ASIC nobody would buy them, the problem fades and GPU farms would continue to grow as confidence is restored, but the longer they wait the smellier it gets.
I ordered one the day they were announced. I’m a little salty that they increased the max order quantity from one to fifty. Yes, Fifty. They didn’t even wait for a second batch. Right away. first batch. A week after announcement. Wahhh.
They are trying to ensure they get enough penetration into the pool that the question of a fork becomes a impossibility. The goal, overtake and push out as many miners (GPU) as they can before December…the statement about “wanting to ensure a fair distribution” was nothing more than the usual BS Bitmain ruse, they just pulled the trigger WAY faster this time.
And yet, as long as everyone agrees to the client upgrade there will simply be a hashsplit as with bitcoin cash. I would gladly put my GPUs on the upgraded zcash network and leave the ASIC on another network.
Day one testing for me will not be exercising the ASIC for hashpower or efficiency, it’ll be inspecting network traffic in a VLAN to see if bitmain is doing anything…insidious
GPU’s are flexible so I can switch to other projects, or sell cards to desperate gamers & buy coin I believe in. That freedom is valuable to me.
The problem with this is that you’re clearly not committed to Zcash. You’re a gpu miner not a Zcash miner. That means you provide little value to Zcash, mining only when it suites you. I think most gpu miners here are like this. It’s dishonest that they are upset at all, having little to no stake in Zcash but having a hissy-fit anyway.
Can’t be a split if there is nothing but ASIC left lol. Kind of the intent of the 50X limit increase. Bitmain is not stupid, they will do everything they can to avoid a monero situation.
I still don’t think they have the ability to do that. People will mine the new network with GPUs if there is the financial incentive to do so. I believe most people who value zcash value it for its technology and the company behind it. No one cares about the specific PoW as long as it protects the security of the network. Look at “old monero”
The asic hashrate was wiped out because everyone committed to the new client. IMO It would be the same for zcash.
Really not sure at this point. Having only invested $8k in GPUs it was a fun experiment, but not looking to double down on ASICs at the moment. I did this with Bitcoin and was able to get a 30 day ROI at the time, but mining did not have the significance of today. The biggest question is will 1 ZEC be around $300 for years to come or will it go up 50x in value?
I am a GPU miner, however I mine Zcash almost exclusively & trade to increase my holdings. I’m also involved in other projects that are ZEC related and hold more ZEC than any other coin. Its easy to make assumptions.
Why am I a GPU miner? Its general-purpose hardware with a resale value so I can keep upgrading, which is a strategy that works well for me.
Should Zcash become unmineable with GPUs I can (and will) switch to something else, or sell my gear & buy more coin.
Does this make me ‘not committed’ to Zcash? I don’t think so.
Of course it makes you not committed. You’re switching based on profitability to maximize profits. You’re not consistently supporting Zcash, you’re supporting when it suites you. Once those profits stop, you’re moving on to “support” whatever makes you profitable. There is no nobility or stake of risk in that approach. Your flexibility shifts risk to Zcash becoming less secure.
@root and so will the ASIC miners, at least a portion. Why mine one coin when I can use a auto switching pool and point to “any” equihash coin that doesn’t specificly fork away from the ASIC? So much for magic loyalty. Changing the method of mining isn’t going to establish loyalty, it’s just a lack of options, your locked to that that algo, but not a specific coin.
Just published: https://www.ccn.com/zcash-foundation-to-make-asic-resistance-immediate-technical-priority/
That article was probably based on the previous draft on the statement, which did make it sound like they were going to immediately look to fork. The updated version (note the bottom says it’s an update, and the previous was being misinterpreted) says they are going to study the situations, and work towards have a ready PR they could implement after the scheduled Sapling/Overwinter HF. About 6 months from now…maybe. But probably not, hard to fork the ASICs off if all there is let is ASIC at that point. Although it might be interesting to see what happens if they did actually do it…and the hashrate went to “0” for awhile.
We’re talking about an end-game scenario here - where GPU miners either continue at a loss or sell their kidneys on ebay to afford ASICs.
There are plenty of GPU miners who focus on one coin, I’m certainly one of them, however I’m quite attached to my kidneys and would like to keep it that way.