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In 2013, a huge part of this is due to the flood of ASICs coming online. We've seen CPU -> GPU -> FPGAs -> ASICs in just a few years, but these improvements can

In 2013, a huge part of this is due to the flood of ASICs coming online. We've seen CPU -> GPU -> FPGAs -> ASICs in just a few years, but these improvements cannot keep coming at this rate. With ASICs, bitcoin mining has just about caught up with the rest of technology and the computation / $ that miners can bring to bear will stop jumping at such a huge rate. I disagree with the statement in the article that "there’s strong reason to believe this trend [surges in network computing power] will continue."

deelowe 13y ago
Reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/
rys 13y ago
There's still at least one order of magnitude of performance to be had with ASICs, and honestly that's conservative. The danger is specialising such expensive silicon just on BTC, which is much more likely to cause a wall to be hit, rather than the raw performance that could be had if really serious resources were thrown into a very high end design on today's leading edge manufacturing processes.
CrunchyJams 13y ago
It probably won't go on forever, but at this point there's three years of the trend and only a small fraction of the globe has even heard of bitcoin. Would be surprised if network hashrate didn't grow like it has been for the foreseeable future.
- jerf 13y ago
  But they're building on established technology. This is like looking at a third world country just as they begin modernizing... holy cow, they've recapitulated the development of the developed world in just 20 years! They're on fire! They're going to take over the entire world! Except that they're not, because they've been buying their advances from the developed world. (This is not a criticism; tech transfer like this is an awesome, wonderful thing. It's just that one of its tiny side effects is that people can be fooled by the curves.) Similarly, BitCoin isn't going to be able to continue advancing at this rate when the problem of accelerating BitCoin computation reaches the point where it is reducible to the problem of accelerating transistors in general.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    But there's no need for it to continue forever here, since there's a finite target. The question is if current growth can be maintained until there are no more Bitcoins to be mined, not if the curve is sustainable.
    - jerf 13y ago
      I'm at a loss as to what you think you're disagreeing with me about. I don't see how observing that something won't go on forever is somehow a claim that it should.
nwh 13y ago
There's still a lot of progress to be made on the ASIC front. The current generations of Bitcoin mining ASIC are brutes, several places mention that the Avalon miners use a 120nm process (think Pentium 4), which means that there's a lot of headway in terms of speed and power consumption that can be made in the future.

deelowe 13y ago

Reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/

rys 13y ago

There's still at least one order of magnitude of performance to be had with ASICs, and honestly that's conservative. The danger is specialising such expensive silicon just on BTC, which is much more likely to cause a wall to be hit, rather than the raw performance that could be had if really serious resources were thrown into a very high end design on today's leading edge manufacturing processes.

CrunchyJams 13y ago

It probably won't go on forever, but at this point there's three years of the trend and only a small fraction of the globe has even heard of bitcoin. Would be surprised if network hashrate didn't grow like it has been for the foreseeable future.

jerf 13y ago
But they're building on established technology. This is like looking at a third world country just as they begin modernizing... holy cow, they've recapitulated the development of the developed world in just 20 years! They're on fire! They're going to take over the entire world! Except that they're not, because they've been buying their advances from the developed world. (This is not a criticism; tech transfer like this is an awesome, wonderful thing. It's just that one of its tiny side effects is that people can be fooled by the curves.) Similarly, BitCoin isn't going to be able to continue advancing at this rate when the problem of accelerating BitCoin computation reaches the point where it is reducible to the problem of accelerating transistors in general.
- vidarh 13y ago
  But there's no need for it to continue forever here, since there's a finite target. The question is if current growth can be maintained until there are no more Bitcoins to be mined, not if the curve is sustainable.
  - jerf 13y ago
    I'm at a loss as to what you think you're disagreeing with me about. I don't see how observing that something won't go on forever is somehow a claim that it should.

nwh 13y ago

There's still a lot of progress to be made on the ASIC front. The current generations of Bitcoin mining ASIC are brutes, several places mention that the Avalon miners use a 120nm process (think Pentium 4), which means that there's a lot of headway in terms of speed and power consumption that can be made in the future.