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Maybe. Maybe not. Bitcoin is a better known name, and an easier algorithm to compare the differences between running on CPU versus GPU, and so that might be a v

Maybe. Maybe not. Bitcoin is a better known name, and an easier algorithm to compare the differences between running on CPU versus GPU, and so that might be a very interesting thing to study. I can definitely see a CS professor assigning that kind of work to their class for a while. Then maybe a couple of weeks later, they do ETH instead. Or maybe Dogecoin, or whatever else the professor wants people to study. For a hobbyist, maybe they really are married to Bitcoin on GPU, and damn the torpedoes. The point is that there are billions of people in the world, and presumably at least millions of people who might be interested in mining Bitcoin. You can't account for every single person who might want to do that, nor can I. My advantage is that only one such person needs to exist to support my thesis, whereas your position requires that there are no such people anywhere on the planet. Like I said, these aren't going to be large bulk operations, I totally grant you that point. But I'm confident that there are at least a few examples out there.

tarsinge 4y ago
Are you sure you really understand mining and the different algorithms used by the different cryptos? You don’t learn sha256 by putting a GPU rig that was only a transition between original CPU mining in the beginning and current ASICS mining. > My advantage is that only one such person needs to exist to support my thesis, whereas your position requires that there are no such people anywhere on the planet. Still nobody sane or competent would do it.
- bradknowles 4y ago
  There are still edge cases where it could be done by people who are "sane". They're just interested in other things than you are. And they may have different cost structures than you do. But they're not "insane", even though they are making very little profit.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    Brad, it would be literally zero profit to mine BTC with a GPU at this point. Even with pooled mining, the difficulty is so high that the odds of a GPU finding a nonce, even at a pool level of difficulty, is nearly impossible. As I said before, there isn't even software available to mine BTC on a GPU (you never answered my challenge about naming it). It would be a lot of work to even get it running. So yes, it would be insane to even try at this point... just like doing it by hand on paper. Fun thought experiment you're having here, but realistic, it is not. Definitely encourage people to try mining ETH with a GPU though... that opportunity is ending soon and it is quite interesting. Some GPUs have about a billion knobs in them to twist for tuning efficiency. They have silicon lottery effects on them as well, each chip is a snowflake. I have so many GPUs that I've even written software to collect where each one was located on the wafer and done analysis of how that affected its performance. Spoiler, the ones on the edge don't perform as well.

tarsinge 4y ago

Are you sure you really understand mining and the different algorithms used by the different cryptos? You don’t learn sha256 by putting a GPU rig that was only a transition between original CPU mining in the beginning and current ASICS mining. > My advantage is that only one such person needs to exist to support my thesis, whereas your position requires that there are no such people anywhere on the planet. Still nobody sane or competent would do it.

bradknowles 4y ago
There are still edge cases where it could be done by people who are "sane". They're just interested in other things than you are. And they may have different cost structures than you do. But they're not "insane", even though they are making very little profit.
- latchkey 4y ago
  Brad, it would be literally zero profit to mine BTC with a GPU at this point. Even with pooled mining, the difficulty is so high that the odds of a GPU finding a nonce, even at a pool level of difficulty, is nearly impossible. As I said before, there isn't even software available to mine BTC on a GPU (you never answered my challenge about naming it). It would be a lot of work to even get it running. So yes, it would be insane to even try at this point... just like doing it by hand on paper. Fun thought experiment you're having here, but realistic, it is not. Definitely encourage people to try mining ETH with a GPU though... that opportunity is ending soon and it is quite interesting. Some GPUs have about a billion knobs in them to twist for tuning efficiency. They have silicon lottery effects on them as well, each chip is a snowflake. I have so many GPUs that I've even written software to collect where each one was located on the wafer and done analysis of how that affected its performance. Spoiler, the ones on the edge don't perform as well.