It could be, as no one has independently seen or tested it (that I know of).
The intentions of Pascal Project (pascalproject.com) is another potential development in this GPU vs ASIC issue.
Will it ever end?
CE
I think in that case the one with such incentive would have to predict not only the price point, but also the time it will take to reach that price point and to stabilize +/- at that point with an acceptable % of deviation… I think it would be a crazy idea until the currency itself becomes widely adopted for the casual use.
I considered that, I think alot goes back to pool decentralization, which shouldn’t be overlooked
Different kind of problem though
Edit- also cost-effectiveness, it would probably be cheaper to create their own coin then to try to buy enough GP used to do that
Also that means you’re buying heavily into an industry they’re trying to destroy
Ah, another post from a guy who claims to have a GPU farm but is welcoming ASICs. Somehow, I get the suspicion that not all of these claims are real.
Playing “whack a mole” will always result in the defeat of the ASIC manufacturers.
-
How much does it cost and how much time is required to tweak the proof of work algorithm?
-
How much does it cost to and how long does it take to research, develop, and build ASICs for a new proof of work algorithm?
The former is obviously much cheaper and easier. This gives a cryptocurrency community a huge advantage over an ASIC manufacturer. All a cryptocurrency has to do to ward off ASICs to show that they are committed to fighting them. I really doubt that anyone is going to try to make a cryptonightV7 ASIC now. And if they did, they’d have to use them privately and in such a low volume that it wouldn’t have a noticeable effect on the difficulty. In the end, they will likely decide it’s cheaper not to bother with ASICs.
The bottom line is that GPU miners will win if they stand up for themselves.
3 Likes
I have a GPU rigs, I have pictures of most of them here on the forums, there can be no doubt of my claim. In the beginning of this thread I was anti ASIC, now I am not and believe Zcash should go ASIC. My opinion changed due to the people in this thread that want it to remain ASIC resistant is for (IMO) their own greed and nothing to do with the Zcash itself. If Zcash does not remain ASIC resistant, they GPU miners lose nothing, they just point to a different coin. Which is what I will do with mine when the difficulty increases beyond break even, or I will sell it all for Zcash or take the fiat and buy Zcash.
3 Likes
GPU miners, ASIC miners, and ASIC manufacturers are motivated by greed to a large extent. That should be irrelevant to your decision on which side to support.
Let’s focus on factors other than greed.
ASIC mining increases the likelihood of 51% attacks because of the huge discrepancy in hardware efficiency. With GPU mining, almost everyone is using hardware with the same efficiency, which makes it harder to amass a majority of the hashing power. A GPU mining farm or pool must expand linearly if it wants to accrue a majority of the hashing power. ASIC miners, on the other hand, can create exponentially more efficient hardware than the hardware used by average miners, giving them a much easier ability to control more hashing power.
Second, ASIC mining results in fewer participants because ASIC hardware is a much riskier investment and ASIC miners cannot be used at home. Fewer miners means that less collusion is needed to form cartels, such as the ones responsible for spamming the Bitcoin mempool in December and January, making it virtually unusable.
I don’t see any good reasons to have ASIC mining in Zcash.
3 Likes
Ah, another whiny post from a GPU miner who’s scared of technological advancement. I see you just joined the forum, and I also see you’re new to crypto in general.
I’ve been involved in crypto since 2013. Hence, why I was a member of this forum since before Zcash mainet launched. I mined during the genesis block of ZEC. I have a small 85 gpu farm. 85 gpu’s is nothing these days. Why is that so hard to believe? Are you really that close minded? Why am I not opposed to ASIC’s, because they were and always will be an inevitability. Difficulty increases and hardware advances were always factored into my initial investment.
The greed from GPU miners and makers is no different than the greed from ASIC miners and makers. Infinite forks will not save you. Will you ask for a fork when Nvidia launches their new generation of GPU’s later this year? You think that big players aren’t getting discounts on bulk orders of GPU’s already? The playing field has been and is already unfair, you just haven’t realized it yet.
It’s laughable to think that infinite forking will stop ASIC development. If that happens ASIC manufacturers will just go further underground, and continue to mine for themselves in secrecy, which they’ve been doing already. It’s also naive to think that other chip manufacturers/designers aren’t doing this already as well.
A real crypto enthusiast/supporter is ready to adapt to technological changes. Your extremely oversimplified strategy to stop ASIC’s is what i’d expect from a crypto newcomer.
1 Like
A “technological advancement” is not the same as an improvement. ASIC mining has been shown to be a bad thing for a cryptocurrency.
One could also argue that ASICs are the result of a stagnation in a proof of work protocol. Why shouldn’t the proof of work algorithm require more memory as time goes on?
Forking will stop likely ASIC manufacturers. If they want to use ASICS secretly for a few months, then they can go ahead. It won’t be worth it. I have zero concerns about ASICs coming out for a coin like Monero.
2 Likes
Guys - Really simple question, and believe me i tried to find an answer - will Zcash be minebale by z9 mini - or not?
Thank you!!
The magic 8 ball points to yes, but for how long is a guess. Zcash will not (if they ever do) fork before the release of the Z9. Sapling will come first, then the fork.
Right now it’s Schrodinger’s Asic Miner
It’s probably safer to assume yes but there isnt actual proof yet it even exists (just more spice in the argument for now)
1 Like
BULL!
First Want to see a 51% attack, take a look at Flypool, who could do it at anytime because GPU miners, in their ever greed point their rigs there! They won’t move their rigs off of flypool because of greed and could careless about a 51% attack!!
Second.
You can buy a Z9 for the price of 2 1080 TI GPU’s, its an investment no matter if its an ASIC or GPU.
And for the comment you can’t use an ASIC at home, that is just a plain lie. I can run 5 Z9’s off of one 15A circuit in my home
1 Like
Now you’re just arguing to argue. Is a piece of hardware that increases computational power as well as reduces energy consumption, not a technological advancement and improvement?
One could not argue that ASIC’s are the result of stagnation, exactly the opposite actually.
So you’re ok with companies using ASIC’s secretly for a few months? Does that not undermine your whole argument about a 51% attack? You’d rather mine against ASIC’s in secret as long as you thought they didn’t exist?
I believe they would both be limited to 50% of the hashrate so if more miners jump in profitability will go down.
Again, you’re confused like many pro ASIC people.
A higher network hashrate doesn’t make a cryptocurrency better. A network with a higher hashrate but fewer miners is less secure than a network with a lower hashrate and a larger number of miners (assuming that both networks use the same algorithm and have the same total rewards per day).
ASICs don’t reduce network energy consumption either. They might increase it, in fact. Just look at the energy consumption of the Ethereum or Zcash network relative to the mining revenue, and then look at the Dash or Bitcoin network. The ASIC networks consume more energy for a given level of revenue.
1 Like
Thats the hard determination, finding out where your loyalty is (yea thats right, I said it, loyalty) discovery is a heavy thing sometimes, specifically is your faith in your rigs or what it mines?
Edit- because if it is the latter, it could forsake the former
In so many industries, the biggest players end up colluding to form a cartel and price fix, amongst other things. Why would ASIC mining be any different?
Just a few days ago:
Meanwhile, today we learn that ZTE may have to shut down.
Another example of why allowing the means of production (mining) to be centralized in the hands of the few is a point of failure that is best avoided.
3 Likes
And one of my biggest concerns about ASIC is the single vendor…Bitmain…a China company…has very little recourse against them if they do something like that.
Someone going to slap them with a lawsuit like Samsung? Not likely.
This is also a main reason I am in favor of GPU miners (even though there are really only 2 companies) because nVidia and AMD are subject to more stringent market practice laws.
1 Like
Hi,
Thanks to all thinkful people for participating in the discussion. A few related notes by myself:
-
you should be aware that Bitmain have their (paid) loobyists in these discusstions (I leave it up to everyone to identify them in this forum for themselves)
-
not being against ASIC mining completely, I’m strongly against Bitmain, since up until now they showed to be far from being a “good guys” in the crypto world (being a GPU miner myself, I’m not against e.g. CPUonly mining, but I’m against Bitmain being on the network)
-
while I realize some people are doing mining for living (a bit questionable thing to do, but let’s leave that aside now), I believe the discussion should not be driven by “losing profits from mining”. The primary issue (IMO) should be the healthiness of crypto ecosystem and I’m convinced Bitmain is degrading the ecosystem significantly (for their own profit)
-
I believe that all it takes Bitmain to get onto some coin’s network (and stay there) is make a good enough offer to the dev/devteam of the coin (I’m not implying that zooko has been given this kind of offer… no idea about that. I’m just saying that’s definitely one way how Bitmain can achieve their goals… after all, they have enough money to buy whover needs to be bought).
-
lastly, everybody including Bitmain knows they are not welcome on networks of some coins, yet they still come and stick their nasty butt in. Now let me ask you, who does that? (Hint: greedy people does, because courtesy, dignity and morality doesn’t stand as high as $$$ in their value ladder. IMO not a good idea to do bussiness with people of this kind.)
4 Likes
This is very true.
It’s interesting to look at the publicly available SHA-256 miners and then look at the Bitcoin hashrate growth.
The publicly available mining hardware, like the S9, has barely improved in the last two years, which means one would expect the hashrate growth to look similar to the hashrate growth of GPU mineable coins. But it’s not – it continues to go up exponentially, which is what you see when someone adds new ASICs that are many times more efficient than currently available ones.
ASIC manufacturers likely collude to avoid selling their most recent hardware. It’s just implausible to believe that Bitmain is still adding S9s to their farms, which make only $4 a day for 1400 watts, or D3s, which make less than $2 a day.
1 Like