Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Race To Mine Bitcoins Drives Enthusiasts Into the Chip Making Business

Posted by Soulskill on from the build-your-own-chips-to-build-your-own-currency dept.

holy_calamity writes "MIT Technology Review looks at the small companies attempting to build dedicated chips for mining Bitcoins. Several are claiming they will start selling hardware based on their chips early in 2013, with the technology expected to force many small time miners to give up. However, as happened in the CPU industry, miners may soon be caught in an expensive arms race that pushes development of faster and faster chips."

3 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Um? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If mining Bitcoins was so profitable why would they want to sell the chips? Wouldn't they be better off keeping these chips and mining the Bitcoins for themselves?

  2. Re:Remember the Gold Rush lesson by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What you just said is a quote from Mark Twain: "When everyone is looking for gold, it's a good time to be in the pick and shovel business."

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  3. Actually money is debt (sorry to sound crackpot) by isopropanol · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually nearly all money in circulation is created as debt, which must be repaid with interest (that was created as debt that must be repaid with interest). Governments printing a little money (say enough to pay for their entire non-capital, non-military budget AND eliminate poverty) would probably help the economy so long as it was done quietly. In countries with a high currency due to a single resource being exported the effect could be even bigger. Of course this only works in countries that have their own currency (so not most of the eurozone) and the central bank is not a privately held cartel (so not the USA)