I am a bit confused by the reaction and commentary. ASICs are kind of the natural next step, so it is not surprising at all for any serious miner to go there. H

I am a bit confused by the reaction and commentary. ASICs are kind of the natural next step, so it is not surprising at all for any serious miner to go there. Hence, this appears as a too reactive really short term move and I wonder about the reasoning behind this. The number of units to break even is not that high -- here is one random example, a google search away, that seems right to me -- from what I can recall -- http://www.deepchip.com/downloads/fpga-vs-asic.pdf http://www.deepchip.com/downloads/fpga-vs-asic.pdf. A reasonable volume or am I missing something? Consider FPGAs as the efficient R&D step (due to its re-useability) towards an ASIC. ASIC will be generally faster and considerably more cost effective option per unit; plus more compact (so more units per space -- although there are other factors to account here). Usually you might end up with something less power hungry also, although I really doubt here one will see such a benefit. Hence Monero is going against this step as a way to mitigate centralization and the introduction of more market entry barriers. I think this is a bit late. For instance, there is a great incentive for miners to join pools -- see a bitcoin analysis http://www.jbonneau.com/doc/SBBR16-FC-mining_pool_reward_incentive_compatibility.pdf http://www.jbonneau.com/doc/SBBR16-FC-mining_pool_reward_inc...