5 ms·

this is good for gamers

by ct0 9y ago

juliangoldsmith 9y ago
Bitcoin miners use ASICs, so this wouldn't affect gamers at all. It might make it worse, actually, since people who had mined Bitcoin may move to Ethereum.
- mkirklions 9y ago
  ETH is going POS, I would be very skeptical as an ETH miner to buy something new.
  - swyx 9y ago
    "is going"? whats the timeline? forever 2 years out?
  - rufugee 9y ago
    I'm really curious about the logic of this move. As I understand it, PoS will award miners who have the most coin with an increased likelihood that they'll be able to mine a coin. In other words, the more coins you own, the higher probability you can mine more. This seems to be designed to fail, or at least designed to create a mining market which is highly central to only the wealthiest players. Anyone care to refute this?
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      The idea is to not have the huge block reward. (the main incentive for participating in the consensus finding is the ability to do transactions)
      - rufugee 9y ago
        I get that, but doesn't this still create a network where the most coin-holding miners wield the most power?
    - mbrock 9y ago
      The more money you have, the more ASICs you can buy.
    - notheguyouthink 9y ago
      I don't know much about PoS, but as it was explained to me, it should equal out to the same. Eg, if you have 1% of the wealth you'll get 1% (on average) of the awards. Likewise if you have 10% of the wealth, you'll get 10% (on average) of the awards. On average you're getting the same percentage of rewards as you originally held, meaning on average everyone ends up with the same percentage of coins. No stake holder inflation. That's just how it was explained to me, not my words. Now, with that said, if it's purely coin based and not distributed based on some type of percentage, than I imagine it would start to get out of whack.. no? Eg, if you have 10% and you win the next coin giving no one else money, then at the next lottery you have 10.001% to get the next coin. If that is how they design the system, I imagine that would start to snowball a bit. Still, on average not nearly as bad as it immediately sounds, but nevertheless a problem I would think.
    - tuesdayrain 9y ago
      You could say the same thing regarding PoW - the rich can afford more ASICs which allows them to mine BTC faster and in turn buy more ASICs and so on. The difference is that with PoS, anyone will be able to stake profitably with a staking pool. Small players will lose money in a mining pool due to electricity costs.
- balls187 9y ago
  But the price of altcoins is correlated to that of BTC. Miners benefited from investors wanting to get into the next potential BTC, but if that bubble bursts, doesn't that imply investor money drying up, and altcoins going back down to being nearly worthless?
arnaudsm 9y ago
We can expect thousands of damaged second-hand GPUs on the market soon.
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  I wouldn't mind building a small box with a used up GPU for $50 (original $400) for FortNite. And anyway, I believe that the way forward is cloud-mining. I prefer logging into a website and check how much I made last week, than going through the pain of owning, maintaining and having an asset depreciating. Plus with cloud mining one can switch (as one already commented about switching to ETH). ps: Yes I know, they take a good part of the profit, but hey, they are working for it!
- segmondy 9y ago
  Why/How would they be damaged? Or do you consider used and damaged as the same thing?
  - Qub3d 9y ago
    If these cards were run in proper systems, they would be fine. The concern is that mining rigs are literally made by stuffing 64 AMD cards on risers in a filing cabinet with minimal airflow, running at 100% usage and 90+ Celcius for months on end. The high heat for extended periods of time will degrade silicon, which is why manufacturers may refuse to RMA cards if they find issues related to mining[0]. The short of it is the probability of a used mining card failing is much higher than a used card from a regular gaming system. [0]:https://www.pcgamer.com/cryptocurrency-mining-may-void-warranty-on-inno3d-gpus/ https://www.pcgamer.com/cryptocurrency-mining-may-void-warra...
piracy1 9y ago
Nobody mines bitcoin using GPUs anymore. High GPU prices are caused by people mining altcoins.
kretash 9y ago
GPU shortage has to do with eth and similar crypto, not bitcoin. Although I would imagine eth will run into the same problems.
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  Bitcoin is getting harder and harder to mine. Small players (e.g. students/hobbyists) cannot afford to invest 70% of whatever revenue they generated, and will sensibly be forced out of the game. It's easy when you play against Villabajo, and it gets more expensive when facing Barcelona :) I would assume that with the current technologies, the game will end being played only by the big players, when the currencies will be reaching their top tier (getting more and more difficult to generate).
amelius 9y ago
And deep learners.
- dumbfounder 9y ago
  Are the ASICs made for Bitcoin mining also useful for deep learning? Or do they need to be purpose-built to the computation?
  - bigmanwalter 9y ago
    ASICs, are, by definition, purpose-built for a a specific computing. Stands for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. ASICs for mining are useless for AI.

this is good for gamers

by ct0 9y ago

this is good for gamers

Bitcoin miners use ASICs, so this wouldn't affect gamers at all. It might make it worse, actually, since people who had mined Bitcoin may move to Ethereum.

mkirklions 9y ago
ETH is going POS, I would be very skeptical as an ETH miner to buy something new.
- swyx 9y ago
  "is going"? whats the timeline? forever 2 years out?
- rufugee 9y ago
  I'm really curious about the logic of this move. As I understand it, PoS will award miners who have the most coin with an increased likelihood that they'll be able to mine a coin. In other words, the more coins you own, the higher probability you can mine more. This seems to be designed to fail, or at least designed to create a mining market which is highly central to only the wealthiest players. Anyone care to refute this?
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    The idea is to not have the huge block reward. (the main incentive for participating in the consensus finding is the ability to do transactions)
    - rufugee 9y ago
      I get that, but doesn't this still create a network where the most coin-holding miners wield the most power?
  - mbrock 9y ago
    The more money you have, the more ASICs you can buy.
  - notheguyouthink 9y ago
    I don't know much about PoS, but as it was explained to me, it should equal out to the same. Eg, if you have 1% of the wealth you'll get 1% (on average) of the awards. Likewise if you have 10% of the wealth, you'll get 10% (on average) of the awards. On average you're getting the same percentage of rewards as you originally held, meaning on average everyone ends up with the same percentage of coins. No stake holder inflation. That's just how it was explained to me, not my words. Now, with that said, if it's purely coin based and not distributed based on some type of percentage, than I imagine it would start to get out of whack.. no? Eg, if you have 10% and you win the next coin giving no one else money, then at the next lottery you have 10.001% to get the next coin. If that is how they design the system, I imagine that would start to snowball a bit. Still, on average not nearly as bad as it immediately sounds, but nevertheless a problem I would think.
  - tuesdayrain 9y ago
    You could say the same thing regarding PoW - the rich can afford more ASICs which allows them to mine BTC faster and in turn buy more ASICs and so on. The difference is that with PoS, anyone will be able to stake profitably with a staking pool. Small players will lose money in a mining pool due to electricity costs.
balls187 9y ago
But the price of altcoins is correlated to that of BTC. Miners benefited from investors wanting to get into the next potential BTC, but if that bubble bursts, doesn't that imply investor money drying up, and altcoins going back down to being nearly worthless?

arnaudsm 9y ago

We can expect thousands of damaged second-hand GPUs on the market soon.

HenryBemis 9y ago
I wouldn't mind building a small box with a used up GPU for $50 (original $400) for FortNite. And anyway, I believe that the way forward is cloud-mining. I prefer logging into a website and check how much I made last week, than going through the pain of owning, maintaining and having an asset depreciating. Plus with cloud mining one can switch (as one already commented about switching to ETH). ps: Yes I know, they take a good part of the profit, but hey, they are working for it!
segmondy 9y ago
Why/How would they be damaged? Or do you consider used and damaged as the same thing?
- Qub3d 9y ago
  If these cards were run in proper systems, they would be fine. The concern is that mining rigs are literally made by stuffing 64 AMD cards on risers in a filing cabinet with minimal airflow, running at 100% usage and 90+ Celcius for months on end. The high heat for extended periods of time will degrade silicon, which is why manufacturers may refuse to RMA cards if they find issues related to mining[0]. The short of it is the probability of a used mining card failing is much higher than a used card from a regular gaming system. [0]:https://www.pcgamer.com/cryptocurrency-mining-may-void-warranty-on-inno3d-gpus/ https://www.pcgamer.com/cryptocurrency-mining-may-void-warra...

piracy1 9y ago

Nobody mines bitcoin using GPUs anymore. High GPU prices are caused by people mining altcoins.

kretash 9y ago

GPU shortage has to do with eth and similar crypto, not bitcoin. Although I would imagine eth will run into the same problems.

HenryBemis 9y ago
Bitcoin is getting harder and harder to mine. Small players (e.g. students/hobbyists) cannot afford to invest 70% of whatever revenue they generated, and will sensibly be forced out of the game. It's easy when you play against Villabajo, and it gets more expensive when facing Barcelona :) I would assume that with the current technologies, the game will end being played only by the big players, when the currencies will be reaching their top tier (getting more and more difficult to generate).

amelius 9y ago

And deep learners.

dumbfounder 9y ago
Are the ASICs made for Bitcoin mining also useful for deep learning? Or do they need to be purpose-built to the computation?
- bigmanwalter 9y ago
  ASICs, are, by definition, purpose-built for a a specific computing. Stands for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. ASICs for mining are useless for AI.