Yes, anyone should be able to mine, even on an old computer.

One of the things that always hated about Bitcoins, including Litecoins is that CPU is not even taking into account. Its all about GPU.

What does this mean? That servers which costs 3,000$ or 8,000$ are a complete crap vs a 500$ gaming card.

So servers are useless for the Litecoin and Bitcoin network? Servers that power this same website, the whole Internet, cloud services, you name it. They are all useless.

CPU is CPU. And before someone says, you could hire amazon cloud to mine, you can, and it would cost you more than what you would mine, that will always still be true.

Still, I GPU are available on the market and all computers have a graphic card. My point is that in order to maintain distributed hashing it should be standard computing. Not some specialize device you have to order from a single factor in Chine could take years to arrive or never.

I don´t have a problem with CPU, GPU, RAM, etc. They would all process hashes in some way on another, and they would all help process the network. The problem is when the devices are special made things which are custom chips which nobody can get. And by the time they can get them, it will be to late. The mining will be monopolized.

On a computing model it makes sense. Mining just needs to get more efficiency. But on a logical point it does not. You can´t use this devices for anything else besides Bitcoin mining and you can´t get your hands on them either unless you have some local contact or a reported which got a free unit for review from BLF, and im excluding all those poor souls that preordered last year. Even if they still receive them the same week, we still have a problem with one single chip manufacturer.

Is someone using his ASIC device to post here? No. To browser online? No. To buy or sell bitcoins? No. This are devices that serve no daily computing tasks. You are creating a digital currency which works on "one computing" system with another "computing system" that is not compatible with the same system which is supposed to be generating its currency. It makes absolutely no sense at all. Bitcoins are for the Internet, digital coins, but you can´t use digital equipment to generate them. Ironic.

The biggest thing im afraid with this issue is the danger of putting all the hash power in just a few hands. You all understand what would happen if one this huge miners get a DDOS attack, if offline for some reason or is having troubles right? Not to mention intervention, government seizure, you name it. For the first time in years, it will be very easy to kill bitcoins.

You could even start by just controlling the avalon chips or just by the factory that is producing them.

Bitcoins are in its weakest spot ever in all its history. This is why price will keep dropping until something changes. As I see, Bitcoin has now a single point of failure. Control the ASIC production and you control the Bitcoin.

Litecoin looks good, but its following the same story Bitcoin did. It was said GPU did not made a huge awful difference between CPU mining, but this is not true, Litecoin is also now on the GPU stage, so eventually, even while its harder it will try to move to ASIC again. I hope they don´t do that mistake.

Also, since nobody knows from where Bitcoins comes, at least we know who created LiteCoin, from all I know this could be an elaborated scheme coming from China itself or even persons that knew upfront 3 years back how this would evolve, by producing this chips, or just by making themselves rich by controlling the mining. That is of course all bullshit and speculation, but can you guarantee its not true? Since Bitcoins are a mystery, nobody knows from where they came, but everyone knows where they are going, it would really not be hard to speculate who knew about this from the beginning.

All I know is this. Some groups and people are destroying the bitcoins. Even while I do agree that in the future there will be almost no solo miners, a systems like this NEEDs this users to maintain its security and stability. We need users processing the network in China, Australia, New York, London, you name it. We need users all over the world, in every city, and every country. A huge networks or peers connected and processing transactions.

It was once said that to shut down bitcoins you would have to shut down the Internet. And this was only true for the reasons I stated above. This is coming to an end. It will be very easily to disrupt the Bitcoin network in the future. Its staring with miners, and then its going to move into other areas like price dropping. Finally government regulation will give it the final blow, because the network will not be big or hard enough to sustain the killing of a few big players, just like its happening with MtGox, in the future it will be a huge ASIC miner going offline.

Also, there are people collecting huge amounts of Bitcoins and not putting them back on the market. The only, and only possible way to avoid is, is if Bitcoins mining is very distributed, at least for its first years. If only a few individuals can mine most of the bitcoins, there is no incentive for them to put them back on market, they are going to hold on them like gold, in particular when prices go up.

Why is the price dropping now? Because there are allot of people with to many bitcoins and nobody is buying them. Probably a result of huge ASIC miners getting to many and trying to get rid off them.

Once you lost trust, there is no turning back. The consumer, which is the one that is supposed to be using bitcoins does not have them and if he does not trust Bitcoin itself, as a project, as a network, as an idea, he will not use it ever, and price will keep dropping and dropping.

Bitcoin is the biggest way to show how greedy we humans are. A few of them, that joined in organizations, to mine it, to produce devices that mine, or that invest in holding huge amounts, what ever you name it, the TOP number Bitcoin believers are the ones that are and will destroy it because of their own greed. When they realize it, they will start to get rid of bitcoins or trying to put them back on the market, and the prices will even plump more.

Users are speculation for over a year now about ASIC devices, and we are seeing the first batches of them entering the bitcoin network. We have now results. And they are not good. And since other users see that this devices are coming online and they cannot get them, they enter into desperation and feel left out, since they cannot get them or have any other possible way to compete, even if you have the money, you cannot just get this devices. So they turn away from bitcoin into something more stable like Litecoin and have fate that such system will not suffer the same fate.

Now, don´t get me wrong guys. I have nothing against ASIC devices, it its 2 millions devices distributed amongst 1 million users. The problem is that this is not the case. The first ones that purchased and received their ASIC devices, are funding more ASIC devices from the first batch of bitcoins they generated with this devices. This is creating a huge Ponzi Scheme and it will blow up eventually.

Some companies will go down, ASIC manufacturers, or payment processor, I don´t know, but someone will eventually try to cash their bitcoins for money and it will blow up. In particular if the first users are mining bitcoins with their ASIC devices, using this bitcoins to buy even more ASIC devices, and then again, and again and again. The systems creates a huge egocentric systems, and Bitcoins are not rolled out to users or distributed.

We are watching this on the prices. How long until one payment processor or one exchange blows up? If this does not stop, dark times will come to the bitcoin world.