That was a rather silly time, the number of people I turned down who wanted me to make a quick mining chip was a little ridiculous. Back to the parent question

That was a rather silly time, the number of people I turned down who wanted me to make a quick mining chip was a little ridiculous. Back to the parent question ... the main issue these days is the size of a team you need to make something serious - you essentially need a million dollars or two to pay for the people, the CAD tools, and the tape out costs ... that means it's pretty hard to just knock together something that's non-trivial