[enko]

I don't see what the point of this is? ASICs are actually good; they perform the necessary proof of work while using a lot less power. Running all those GPUs is a needless waste.

It sounds like this is just some GPU owners wanting to turn back time to protect their assets.

[wes-exp]

ASICS are actually good

False. Mining difficulty automatically adjusts to compensate for faster hardware. Nothing is gained.

Increased efficiency is generally beneficial in non-zero-sum games, but cryptocurrency mining is actually a zero-sum game where increased efficiency does not add value anywhere.

[enko]

> Nothing is gained.

Well, where's the gain from mandating GPUs?

> increased efficiency does not add value anywhere

Back to CPUs, then?

[zanny]

GPUs are ubiquitous. When you have optimizations of hashing algorithms, like for scrypt and sha1 before it, you end up with specialized hardware often coming out of a few hardware companies dominating the entire mining scene.

That means a stark concentration of mining power, because it means "average joe shmoe" can't just start running cgminer on their integrated openCL hardware and get coins at reasonable rates for the money invested (in power).

I think it is too late for litecoin, and would rather see them implement this in a less entrenched altcoin like peercoin, because there is too much inertia and scale now to change it in the litecoin space.

[enko]

I understand and agree with, to some extent, the argument against centralisation. However, I don't see how this fork solves it - it's switching from one form of centralisation (ASICs) to another (huge clusters of mining rigs).

GPUs may be ubiquitous but it's not viable to run a mining rig with just one, which means that all those GPU miners are basically running "specialised hardware" too. Joe schmoe does not just happen to have an 8-GPU tower computer lying around.

[sliverstorm]

I run a 2-GPU tower and make a couple bucks a day with zero upkeep effort on my part.

It's not totally vanilla hardware like the 15-watt laptop I'm typing this on, but it is common enough I happened to have it already.

With ASICs the barrier to entry is five figures. (Most of the cheaper ASICs have terrible payoff timelines) With GPUs the barrier to entry is far, far lower. You won't make it rich on a $150 GFX card, but you can make some revenue.

[tromp]

Yes, why not a PoW that's all of

ASIC resistant

GPU resistant

botnet resistant

My Cuckoo Cycle PoW (https://github.com/tromp/cuckoo) configured to require for instance 7GB of memory, is all of the above. And is very power friendly, since only 5% of the runtime is computation and 95% is waiting for main memory random access latency...

[sliverstorm]

Back to CPUs, then?

Sure, if you can come up with a good proof-of-work algorithm that runs well only on CPUs.

It could be possible. The straightforward way would be, I believe, to use an algorithm that has weak parallelism and depends strongly on branching. CPUs are king of branching, and both GPUs and ASICs get ahead by taking advantage of parallelism.

Although, one nice thing about GPUs being the standard-bearer, is it makes most general purpose server hardware useless for mining. That's good in that it makes hijacking a webserver to mine bitcoins, a largely pointless affair.

[wes-exp]

I am not sure that GPUs are "mandated" so much as they are in the sweet spot of flexibility to run different algorithms, and high performance.

[sliverstorm]

ASICS centralize the power in the network to people with five to six figures of capital. GPU mining is more accessible and keeps the hashing power distributed.

Also, don't fool yourself on power efficiency. The network adjusts the difficulty, so if ASICS are 100x as power efficient the difficulty will tend towards 100x harder.

[enko]

I've seen some mining rooms which disprove your notion that GPU-only mining will stop the capitalised players having an advantage. They always will.

And yes, it's always a balancing act. The network adjusts the difficulty based on total hashrate, not on power efficiency, which is just an overhead. More and more people will pile in until the difficulty is high enough to render mining unviable. However, ASICs at least will shift the balance more towards hardware costs vs the raw power cost that it is now, and reduce the number of useless components that need to be manufactured, etc.

[zanny]

The difference is if those with capital have a linear scaling of power in the mining or if there is a sheer cliff followed by linear growth, because without an ASIC you can't effectively mine at all.

Everyone has a GPU, and your gpu is usually on the same magnitude of efficiency (assuming its modern) as the optimal GPU miner for any given algorithm. With ASICs, the barrier to entry is huge, so you have less "casual" miners. The casual miners significantly dilute the power of concentrated mining operations.

[sliverstorm]

Capital still begets capital, but with GPU mining at least you don't have to have five figures just to get into the game.

[Aqueous]

the energy usage of bitcoin and the altcoins is, in my opinion, one of the few things that could threaten its viability long term. people aren't going to be able to understand the reasoning that this is the cost of decentralization - it's going to look like a phenomenal waste of energy, even if low-powered ASICs are doing most of the work. not that the average consumer has a problem with that, but govts might.

i wonder if there is a solution to the byzantine general's problem with that is resistant to 50% malicious nodes but doesn't require so much energy overhead. even proof-of-stake coins still require energy wasting.

[eloisius]

> people aren't going to be able to understand the reasoning that this is the cost of decentralization

As compared to entire blocks of office high-rises in every major city required for our current financial system?

[Aqueous]

Well, commercial organizations that own office space are already forming and expanding around BitCoin - so the cost of keeping those businesses physically open would be in addition to the cost of keeping the BitCoin network up and running. It's not like we're getting rid of the need for buildings.

[zanny]

Or people carving up the crust of the Earth looking for a shiny rock in yesteryears.

Though it is worth mentioning there are cryptocurrencies looking to solve this problem, like peercoin's proof of stake.

[iwwr]

You also have to look at the cost of the conventional banking system, fees and periodic capital destruction by inflation, bailouts and malinvestment.

[gedrap]

I guess the idea is to let a regular Joe to mine some coins too, so that he doesn't have to invest a few grands.

[enko]

If we're going to do that, why not get rid of GPUs, too. ASICs are merely an efficiency increase, just like GPUs were.

I somehow suspect, however, the proponents of this change are not "regular joes", who might have an intel HD2000 in their laptop. And if we're going to play the "democratising" card, with GPU mining it's a lottery of where you happen to live - electricity prices vary wildly around the globe. ASICs help to take that out of the equation, so if anything they're more "democratic"!

[sliverstorm]

As I discussed in another comment, we could get rid of GPUs too, but first you have to find a suitable algorithm that works well on CPUs but not GPUs or any conceivable ASIC. That may or may not exist.

[cmyr]

yes, ASICs have finally brought the altcoin game within reach of the world's poor.

[enko]

As much as $2000 GPU mining boxes have? To go with their 50c+/kwh electricity prices? Yes, yes they have.