but ASICs frequently become obsolete in a matter of months.
Do you know this from experience or is this just a conjecture? ASICs have warranties and are generally priced in a way that they are profitable before those warranties end.
Profitability has nothing to do with ASIC or GPU, it has to do with the market price for a cryptocurrency, which has been going down recently.
ASIC mining is simply a wealth transfer from a decentralized community of computer enthusiasts to a handful of secretive Chinese companies.
Your “community of computer enthusiasts” leave networks insecure when GPU-only miners switch coins based on profitability. That has the potential to hurt any GPU-mined coin.
Many GPU miners stick with coins that are less profitable if they still believe in them. E.g. Komodo’s profit per Sol/s has consistently been less than 50% of that of ZCash, but plenty of people believe in it enough to keep mining at an opportunity-cost loss.
ASICs have already done demonstrable 51% attacks against Electroneum, Sumokoin, Karbowanec, and others in revenge for them planning to fork (actually, in Electroneum’s case I think it was long before the clueless devs discussed forking). I am not aware of GPU miners doing the same thing but perhaps I am mistaken?
Moreover, what will stop ASIC owners from switching among Equihash coins? Even if GPU miners are less than perfectly loyal to ZCash, it’s hard to imagine that big ASIC farm owners will be more loyal than small enthusiast gamer types…especially when the leaders of ZCash ignore the clearly-expressed will of ordinary users to at least make an honest effort to fulfill the promise of ASIC resistance.
The Antminer D3 and A3, both of which are less than a year old, are already producing losses for everyone who runs one.
The Antminer L3 is producing exactly 1 penny per day if your power costs are 10 cents per kwh.
The S9, which mines Bitcoin – by far the most valuable cryptocurrency in terms of block rewards – is producing a partly $1 after power costs. 75% of the revenue is going to power costs.
A 1080 Ti mining Ethereum is still making a profit of $1.60 a day, with only 6% of the revenue going to power costs.
As for your second point:
The vulnerability that you describe applies to cryptocurrencies with low block rewards in absolute terms. Zcash is not vulnerable to a 51% attack from GPU miners. Conversely, small Equihash coins like BTG are vulnerable, just as small SHA256 coins like LitecoinCash (which did get attacked) or small Scrypt coins like Gulden are vulnerable. It’s wrong to claim that this has something to do with ASICs vs GPUs.
True but I am already reading threads about Z9 mini owners hopping among different coins. there are less coins to mine with an ASIC vs GPU, but there are still options. There will likely remain at least 3 equihash coins to mine with the Z9 in the coming months.
I will add some arguments and reasons why the future should be POS and nothing else:
no more expensive specialised hardware needed, every cell phone, pc, laptop should be enough in the long run to mine/stake.
with the above you eleminate one of the biggest hurden, expensive hardware, opens doors for wider spread.
no more mining pool middle man needed which in theory create themself a possible threat for a 51% attack.
no more only computer technical advanced people are able to mine, again enforcing wider spread.
unfair starting positions are nearly eleminated as cheap electicity cost doesn’t realy matter anymore.
no more total useless “waste” of electricity. Have in mind we fund and finance here some of the biggest monopolists in every country
real wide spread, everybody can have a staking wallet, not only a closed community of miners.
fresh cash flow. As soon as the average joe without expensive hardware and technical knowledge can take part in mining “staking” new cash will flow into the crypto.
no more sponsoring/financing unfair asic producer practices (secret/private mining) and gpu producers favouring large gpu farms.
no more mining under unfair conditions, applies for both, GPU’s/Asics as both face unfair conditions vs big mining farms.
enchanced security (51% attack, time spoof attack, * attacks)
direct investments into the project instead of hardware and hardware producers
more project loyality of stakers/coin holders, no more easy dumping like miner rewards currently.
easier project/code changes as nothing is anymore related to a given algo.
less centralization: mining pools, producers, farms are not anymore a decentralization threat.
many more less imortant points …
From my point of view of today i really don’t care about what’s worse, gpu/asic, both are so flawed that every resource wasted for them is a dolar wasted into the wrong direction.
Difficulty has risen steadily, currently at a 1/3 increase and is going to keep on rising. Sorry ZEC but my hash power has officially left, some is at MPH ETH since there is no fee till the 30th and the rest went to nicehash.
Look at ASICs D3/L3/A3, what’s happening to them now? They’re leaving network too
I’m glad I did not order D3 this month last year (around $4000 at that time), now some guys reselling them under $200
I’m sure that at least more than 80% people come to Zcash from the beginning because the initial vision about ASIC resistance, that’s it. Simply, create a public vote/poll for every people then we will see.
there’s no point of vote when decision is made. i left the network, and waiting to cashout what i have and move on. i learned that you can’t trust company’s word, and never put investment based on it next time.
and you would came back to someone who stabbed you in the back ??? it would be like when u split up with a girl that turn out to be a greed motivated whore and then thinking to came back to her because she claims i will/have changed …simply not going to happen as for me i just wait for good pump to sell the rest of the coins i hold …
well i might come back, but without loyalty, i will comeback to mine for profitability and convert to other coin, no more hodling for future prospect or anything.
Do NOT be angry, but you do not see the big picture. Sorry i forget the ETH ACIS and fork and POS and hashrate question. But let’s stay here. Besides, you started the mining machines for what you did for the zcash? Twitter OG’ reached 150k followers, Zcashco followers 69,2K , Kanye West 28,5M… few know it…
But let’s stay here. Besides, you started the mining machines for what you did for the zcash? Twitter OG’ reached 150k followers, Zcashco followers 69,2K , Kanye West 28,5M… few know it…