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It may be possible to profitably mine Bitcoin using ASICs if you time it right, however you have to ask: why would mining hardware companies sell machines that
by tlrobinson 13y ago
It may be possible to profitably mine Bitcoin using ASICs if you time it right, however you have to ask: why would mining hardware companies sell machines that can literally print money when they could run them themselves?
Hardware manufacturers are likely well aware they're dumping more hardware on the market than Bitcoin can profitably absorb. They're enabled by customers willing to preorder hardware months in advance who are essentially gambling that the mining difficulty won't rise too quickly to make their brand new hardware unprofitable.
- baddox 13y ago> why would mining hardware companies sell machines that can literally print money Why would anyone ever sell any means of production? Why sell solar panels, or farm tractors, or metal lathes?
- verroq 13y agoThat's the wrong question to retort with. ASICs have no other use than to mine Bitcoins, unlike solar panels, etc, etc. The answer is obviously to raise capital to so they can make more money faster.
- paulhodge 13y agoAnd as a hedge against a BTC price crash, or a huge jump in mining difficulty, or etc. If you're doing nothing but mining then you've got all your eggs in one basket.
- letstryagain 13y agoSolar panels / farm tractors / metal lathes do not print money directly like these devices do.
- hnha 13y agoThose are actually producing something useful. Bitcoin miners only produce highly volatile virtual currency which no serious business would want to rely on. Selling them to speculants for a stable currency is logical.
- BrokenPipe 13y agoIf you find no value in a distributed zero trust public ledger you probably are not appreciating enough the internet.
- tlrobinson 13y agoCompared to equipment that produce physical things, mining Bitcoin takes zero skill and labor. It's literally as easy as plugging it in. However that is starting to change (see ASICminer's facility)
- fat0wl 13y agohah yah i can very easily imagine them in a museum one day in the "History's Greatest Pranks" exhibit I think another factor to consider is that for the companies to use the ASICs themselves -- even if they felt they could eke out a slightly bigger profit (though I bet they know they can't), it would require faith in Bitcoin. By selling them its cash upfront, which is how real-ass businesses (hardware manufacturers being a major type) operate. The business model is reliable and 1000x simpler.
- dchichkov 13y agoYeah. The network currently is crunching at the equivalent of 6 exaFLOPS. Pretty ridiculous. I can easily imagine a story like that on the pages of a science fiction book! As in 'A Deepness in the Sky' or alike...