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Bitcoin 'Miners' Face Fight For Survival As New Supply Halves (reuters.com)
SpzToid quotes a report from Reuters: On Saturday, the reward for [bitcoin] miners will be slashed in half. Written into bitcoin's code when it was invented in 2008 was a rule dictating that the prize would be halved every four years, in a step designed to keep a lid on bitcoin inflation. From around 1700 GMT on Saturday, instead of 25 bitcoins up for grabs globally every 10 minutes, worth around $16,000 at the current rate BTC=BTSP, there will be just 12.5. That means only the mining companies with the leanest operations will survive the ensuing profit hit. "The most important thing is to be the most efficient miner," said Streng, the 26-year-old co-founder of German firm Genesis Mining, which has "mining farms" in Canada, the United States and eastern Europe, as well as in Iceland. "When the others drop out, that means that they leave the market and give you a bigger share of the pie."
We might need a "reset", where ASIC is no longer viable, but I'm not sure that would still be possible.
Many if not most altcoins started because they wanted to avoid the ASIC path, by choosing more elaborate hash functions. Of course, it's always possible to design ASICs for these too, even if they end up looking like special versions of GPUs. Besides hash functions, many altcoins have other interesting features that might end up in Bitcoin some day.
However, it's easier to start using the altcoins themselves than hard fork Bitcoin. With cryptocurrencies and automated exchanges, there's less need for everyone to stick with the same coin.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Sell the equipment and resources to the miners, skim the illicit trade hidden from governments, and rob your clients blind as an exit strategy seems to be the result of Bitcoin operations. Are there _any_ bitcoin markets that show legitimate handling of client transactions for more than a few months without turning to direct theft from clients?