3 ms·

I wonder what the hashrate would be if this was used for a bitcoin ASIC…

by deegles 5y ago

amelius 5y ago
Always look at performance per dollar, not absolute performance.
- Nevermark 5y ago
  Well not quite. In this case rewards are highly nonlinear, not proportional to processing work at all. The value measure is how good performance is relative to competitors, with a vastly greater than linear reward if it is I expect energy use (and other performance costs) do not matter much once your winning proof-of-work competitions due to higher performance (as apposed to simple scaling of hardware) Given this is an experimental device it’s probably only the fab cost that is a barrier
  - amelius 5y ago
    Interesting, I was under the impression that for mining cryptocurrencies 10x the amount of machines was equivalent to 1 machine at 10x the performance. So I guess this means that cryptocurrencies are akin to a winner-takes-all situation. Raising the question: is that how we want our monetary systems to work?
    - emteycz 5y ago
      Well it's not exactly "winner takes all". It's more like: The current winner takes a little bit, for a while, until the next winner emerges (usually through development or commoditization of new technology). There was a situation like that in Bitcoin when ASICs first started out when everyone else was still doing GPUs and few people had FPGAs. BTC survived.
    - Nevermark 5y ago
      Yes its interesting both because of the series of winner-take-all competitions, but also because while cost-of-processing X computations is linear with scaling, the processing threshold X is not a constant, but a variable based on competition. You are incentivized to increase costs/performance wherever that will allow you to win competitions. What costs do that? Any cost that increases your speed faster than linear - i.e. transitions to new hardware tech. Note that if the cost of the transition is achievable but extremely high, that actually makes the transition more attractive. It is a barrier to followers who won't be rewarded as much for their investment as the first to do so will be. A hyper competitive market.

I wonder what the hashrate would be if this was used for a bitcoin ASIC…

amelius 5y ago

Always look at performance per dollar, not absolute performance.

Nevermark 5y ago
Well not quite. In this case rewards are highly nonlinear, not proportional to processing work at all. The value measure is how good performance is relative to competitors, with a vastly greater than linear reward if it is I expect energy use (and other performance costs) do not matter much once your winning proof-of-work competitions due to higher performance (as apposed to simple scaling of hardware) Given this is an experimental device it’s probably only the fab cost that is a barrier
- amelius 5y ago
  Interesting, I was under the impression that for mining cryptocurrencies 10x the amount of machines was equivalent to 1 machine at 10x the performance. So I guess this means that cryptocurrencies are akin to a winner-takes-all situation. Raising the question: is that how we want our monetary systems to work?
  - emteycz 5y ago
    Well it's not exactly "winner takes all". It's more like: The current winner takes a little bit, for a while, until the next winner emerges (usually through development or commoditization of new technology). There was a situation like that in Bitcoin when ASICs first started out when everyone else was still doing GPUs and few people had FPGAs. BTC survived.
  - Nevermark 5y ago
    Yes its interesting both because of the series of winner-take-all competitions, but also because while cost-of-processing X computations is linear with scaling, the processing threshold X is not a constant, but a variable based on competition. You are incentivized to increase costs/performance wherever that will allow you to win competitions. What costs do that? Any cost that increases your speed faster than linear - i.e. transitions to new hardware tech. Note that if the cost of the transition is achievable but extremely high, that actually makes the transition more attractive. It is a barrier to followers who won't be rewarded as much for their investment as the first to do so will be. A hyper competitive market.