Quote:
Originally Posted by Bitcoin boom
There are only 12 or so miners now. In fifty years, if things continue as they are, there will be consolidations and there will be even fewer miners. Unless treechains or something else comes along, it will most certainly happen. Saying it won't is similar to saying there would never be only 12 miners a couple years ago.
I don't really understand your point about outdated chips. They will be used to mine altcoins most likely as that will be profitable while competing with huge mining operations with new equipment, will not. Even if mining bitcoin with outdated Asics was actually profitable, which seems super unlikely to me given decreased block rewards and increased competition, mining alts and instantly converting to BTC could/will be a better choice.
There are only 12 miners now? And I know all of them!? Amazing. Because I know of 12 individuals who are mining right now! I can't believe I just happen to know them all, and they all are located in Austin! What a weird coincidence.
The outdated chips don't mine alt-coins. It's a different algorithm. The mining with them becomes profitable in any case where you have surplus electricity, need to generate heat with electricity, or have free electricity, and can get the chips for free/extremely low cost.
Your statement about mining alts and converting to Bitcoin makes no sense, even if the the alts were SHA-256. Hashpower will be distributed optimally based on value of each alt anyway, and there's no reason to think that the efficient chips will be on one network and the inefficient chips will be on the other. They should be equally distributed, just some more profitable than others. Otherwise, someone would take their efficient chip, put it on the alt network, and do exactly that.