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> is it now all just ASICs Yes. And been that way for a very long time. Can't remember exactly but IIRC Bitcoin GPU mining withered off around 2014 or so whe

> is it now all just ASICs Yes. And been that way for a very long time. Can't remember exactly but IIRC Bitcoin GPU mining withered off around 2014 or so when the first ASIC miners came out [1] https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/04/26/the-rise-of-asics-a-step-by-step-history-of-bitcoin-mining/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/04/26/the-rise-of-asics-a... https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/the-history-of-cryptocurrency-mining https://www.nicehash.com/blog/post/the-history-of-cryptocurr... https://thenextweb.com/news/a-brief-history-of-bitcoin-mining-hardware https://thenextweb.com/news/a-brief-history-of-bitcoin-minin...

olliej 4y ago
On the one hand at least an ASIC is more power efficient than a GPU, but on the other hand it seems that all "do pointless work" based mining will tend to optimal power usage and so every system will always just be burning absurd quantities of power :-/
- anonporridge 4y ago
  Using absurd amounts of energy is the entire point of proof of work. It creates real world cost to attempt to change history. Bitcoin is the most immutable database that humanity has ever created.