3 ms·

>If processing power increases, it increases for all players. I'm not sure I follow. If processing the block-chain is cheap enough that everybody can do it, I

>If processing power increases, it increases for all players. I'm not sure I follow. If processing the block-chain is cheap enough that everybody can do it, I see no reason to depend entirely on centralized mines. The little guy can still participate, and there's bound to be more little guys than big guys, especially if bitcoin clients do a bit of mining themselves. Sure, it's profitable and large-scale operations will probably arise, but that's distinct from centralization, per se.

davidgerard 12y ago
Well, why's mining centralising now? Processing power has gone up in the past six years. Reason is it's easier to eke out a slight advantage centralised. Also, computing power per watt requires ASICs to compete. This is particularly important because we're at the stage where the cost of mining 1 BTC is close to 1 BTC and the miners are living on scraps (which is why we're seeing hashing power go offline until next hash adjustment).
- omginternets 12y ago
  >Well, why's mining centralising now? Now we've come full-circle to my original thesis: this is a short-term phenomenon that I predict will slow and eventually reverse. I'm still unclear as to why this shouldn't be the case.
  - davidgerard 12y ago
    As I just said: > Also, computing power per watt requires ASICs to compete.
    - omginternets 12y ago
      Then I don't understand... could you please explain what you mean? I'm not familiar with the term ASICs. EDIT (since I can no longer reply): ASICs should only offset the point at which it becomes feasible for common-denominator computers to participate. I fear we may be talking past each other...
      - davidgerard 12y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrate... Bitcoin mining started on general-purpose CPUs. Then people discovered they could compute more hashes per watt on GPUs. Then people realised that a custom circuit optimised just to perform that calculation would be most efficient, starting with FPGAs and then burning those circuits into ASICs. All mining that is feasible these days is done with specially-built ASICs, and even then the cost of mining 1 BTC (hardware and electricity) is hovering around 1 BTC.

davidgerard 12y ago

Well, why's mining centralising now? Processing power has gone up in the past six years. Reason is it's easier to eke out a slight advantage centralised. Also, computing power per watt requires ASICs to compete. This is particularly important because we're at the stage where the cost of mining 1 BTC is close to 1 BTC and the miners are living on scraps (which is why we're seeing hashing power go offline until next hash adjustment).

omginternets 12y ago
>Well, why's mining centralising now? Now we've come full-circle to my original thesis: this is a short-term phenomenon that I predict will slow and eventually reverse. I'm still unclear as to why this shouldn't be the case.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  As I just said: > Also, computing power per watt requires ASICs to compete.
  - omginternets 12y ago
    Then I don't understand... could you please explain what you mean? I'm not familiar with the term ASICs. EDIT (since I can no longer reply): ASICs should only offset the point at which it becomes feasible for common-denominator computers to participate. I fear we may be talking past each other...
    - davidgerard 12y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrate... Bitcoin mining started on general-purpose CPUs. Then people discovered they could compute more hashes per watt on GPUs. Then people realised that a custom circuit optimised just to perform that calculation would be most efficient, starting with FPGAs and then burning those circuits into ASICs. All mining that is feasible these days is done with specially-built ASICs, and even then the cost of mining 1 BTC (hardware and electricity) is hovering around 1 BTC.