Let’s talk about ASIC mining - #842 by Shawn (from earlier in the thread)
Totally Agree.
I just wanted to emphasis that manufacturing process, required technology level, huge investment requirement are basically the same.
That is true, the process and costs are probably very similar, although CPU/GPU design, because they are general purpose are far more complex.
This was a long and disgusting read, actually. It is now crystal clear the devs are passive, arrogant, short-sighted. Off to find a better investment.
I’ve seen the debate on the dropped hashrate from Monero when they forked off ASIC. Was it ASIC or was it botnet, or both?? I’m sure some of it was botnet…but you would have seen that hashrate return after a day or two…the purpose of botnet mining is you can control and enormous amount of computers from one or a few Command and Control stations. If I’m running a botnet (I’m not obviously), I’m going to push a new miner out ASAP to restore my free cash cow. At most a week later all the affected botnets should have been back in business (shame really…wish they would just disappear forever). What is left? The ASIC delta.
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Imagine where Apple would be right now if Steve Wozniak ran things. Great vision is not enough. A true leader needs to step up to the plate and do what’s difficult by resolving things. Uncertainty kills growth.
If not, then Zcash needs to push people’s buttons and market the hell out of their brand so we can get the general public in here. Ask any dumb-dumb off the street about Zcash and they’ll say like Z-whut???
While i agree that this was true in the past it seems no longer it’s the case for the newer asics devices.
Governements use the most easiest way to find mining units, means electricity usage. With the new Asic Devices on cryptonite, ethash and equihash there is no more huge electectricity usage. Common sense and logic, 300W are nearly impossible to spot compared to a mining rig with 3.000W.
The new units are as well no more airplain sound and you do not need space for it. They do not get hot, impossible with that watt usage anyway.
This said, with the 3 new releases on cryptonite, ethash and equihash these arguments are no more really valid.
Not even talking about the Baikal N on cryptonite with 60W hashrate, impossible to spot ever.
China no longer allows mining. It’s not an issue that Bitmain has decided not to ship there, it’s that they aren’t allowed to due to governmental control.
I agree this is a problem but it also affects gpu mining operations.
That ban was debunked:
However, in true Communist fashion, they are cracking down on “unregistered/unregulated mines” Which means they just want to keep their thumb and control over them all. Same with exchanges, power play to control them. Too much money involved to completely kill it off, they are just asserting control over everything that occurs inside their borders…as they always have.
Not an issue not to ship there…they are in China man. You can literally go into a electronic shop in China (Hong Kong) and buy a Antminer or any other type of ASIC built in country:
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Very good point !
If ASICs are welcome, then using the same algo as Bitcoin would give access to a huge amount of hashpower and “strengthen” the network in that respect.
Just officially hand over the project to Bitmain
Actually i believe it’s a mix of serveral issues that caused the hashrate drop at monero:
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Botnet, i’am no way an expert when it comes to hacking or other criminal usage or botnets but i think there is a good chance that once the malcious program is installed it’s no more any easy to make changes, thus the adress or script are mostly hardcoded to avoid further detection if changes are made. I as well could imagine that accessing and changing of millions of devices isn’t the easiest thing either. This is speculation of course until someone familar with such botnets explains how exactly they work. One can be sure the amount of hashpower millions of such bots generate isn’t too small. Just an unbiased guess.
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Baikal, i think they are the first that mined with Asics on cryptonite. It’s as well the weakest known cryptonite asic miner with 20 kh/s and 40 kh/sfor the N+ version. They are still for sale on promotion, buy 1, get 5, which makes me believe they have a lot of them. Delivered to the buyers for longer allready.
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Innosilicon A8 CryptoMaster with 160 kh/s and the + version with 240 kh/s is the strongest version on the market and sold out and delivered allready since april.
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The Bitmain X3 Antminer, with 220 kh/s, shipping just begin this week, means it’s the last one getting official into use buy buyers. Which makes me wonder a bit because Baikal shipped 1 month earlier allready.
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Than there should be the gpu miners that did not change the algo immediatly but either did later or just switched away.
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Eventually as well technical issues by some pools
I think these are the reason why there XMR hashrate dropped that much. It’s a combination of all these and someone can only guess which of the reasons caused x%. But saying ONLY bitmains asics caused the drop is just not right as like written above, there are some other very logic reasons as well.
However, and really not to defend bitmain in anyway, i personally even think they have been hit hard by Baikal on cryptonite. The lower hashrate of Baikal makes me believe it’s a sooner developement and the late shipping by bitmain let’s me think they have been hit unprepared by the announcement of Baikal. But that’s just logical guessing common sense which is not necessary true and valid when it comes to crypto businesses. Just my guess.
In regards to botnets, no that’s the beauty of their design. The Botnet software creates a channel between infected machine and the Command and Control (CNC) network. All they literally have to do is “push” a new payload to update the software to the CNC network, or module that provided their mining activity. The next time the infected machine(s) check in, they would pull the updated code. That’s why they focus on the CNC network when they try to take these networks down, cut off the head of the botnet, and it is far easier to kill it off.
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ViaBTC was forced to move their cloud mining operation out of China. Maybe they did that because they didn’t want to be controlled.
You are mostly right about the botnets, just readed a bit about them and it indeed seems all they need is an updated miner that will be downloaded by the infected target again.
I studied now again the monero hashrate chart.
At the time of the fork, total hashrate: 1.0145G
hashrate right after the fork, 157.2858M
hashrate recoved some days later: 540.8917M
The unrecoved hashrate is about 473M
So about 473M are the asics from 3 companies (Baikal, Innosilicon, Bitmain), maybe a small percent users that did not updat and switched.This would be the case IF really ALL botnets had updated at all at some poin and continued with Monero and did not switch elsewhere which at least for me is hard to proof.
However, 3 interesting facts i noticed while studying the historical network graph right now:
1.) After the hardfork and recovery the hashrate is going still down, it’s now at 471M compared to 541M after the fork and it seems it has a further decling trend. Why is their network hashrate losing over 15% after the fork. GPU Miners should be happy there and network hashrate should be raising and not further declining, not?
2.) In case that indeed the botnets recoved pretty fast from the fork and adapted, a not so small percentage are just that, botnets supporting and running the monero network.
3.) Price is decling the last 14 days whille nearly everything is in bullish trend at the same time. 296 USD on 25th April vs 234 USD today.
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Price was $180 before the fork, and $230 now, $50 higher. That is all that matters. It is only coming down from people buying coins to get upcoming MoneroV fork money, etc…& then selling right away
I think a 25-30% gain is pretty good since forking.
There are many more factors that you don’t even consider. I am not sure what your point is. The hash rate has also stayed between 470 and 525 consistently since the fork… and there has been a 25% gain in price since the fork.
Bottom line is XMR lost over 500MH of ASIC’s which is a really big deal, and miners are profitable again.
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Agree with you. The coin is healthy and rising, miners are healthy and profitable. Nothing unhealthy about XMR at this point. It will rise and fall, based on the market traders and other factors, but overall the fork has been a positive move for the community.
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My main point is that the monero network is losing hashpower the last 10 days and if 15% gpu hashpower on a gpu algo is not much i doubt the monero devs see it the same. Which would make the rumours around that the monero devs beg for hashpower somehow valid.
What conclusion is this “Only the price right after the fork counts”?? So even if it goes to the ground, no matter, important is that it has a short temporary raise, right? Come one, temporary price peeks are only of interest for the pump&dumb community. My point here is that the monero price tanks the last 2 weeks while nearly every other coin goes up.
I 'am well aware there are a lot of factors that influence price however it’s still interesting to observe how their network hashrate goes down, price goes down, volume goes down, it’s a downtrend they have at the moment, turn it as you want.
I personally awaited it would be reverse, the decreasing hashrate makes me most wondering by the way. Seems the monero miners are not soooo loyal as they pretend to be 
The only sure point i have here is that, if you want to follow the path of another coin (forking) it’s not a bad idea to follow and watch closely what effect it has short, mid, long term on it. Not just some days like you prefer it so it perfectly fits into your picture.
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I won’t speculate on their motivations, but I would not blame them if that was the case. It is always better from a purely business perspective to move where you gain the most benefits and the least deterrents.
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I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed. Either the Zcash Foundation or the Zcash Company could conceivably agree to such a deal. Like all of the other proposed solutions/improvements flying around here, I find it hard to see what the real medium-run consequences would be.
Why not just let the market flow? Central planing never ends well. ←