In a time when cryptocurrencies are becoming more mainstream and a more lucrative form of income for individuals all around the world, it's no surprise that technology continues to advance at a lightning-fast rate. For several of us, our journey started in the cryptocurrency space in the form of mining. Some of us started with GPUs and continued on as technology advanced and ASICs were developed. In an effort to curb this trend, newer cryptocurrencies that were supposedly ASIC-resistant were developed.
Bitmain has been consistently in the lead of ASIC development and ahead of all competition when it came to price vs hashrate and faster to market than any other manufacturer to date.
Once that ASIC comes online, it will destroy the profitability for GPU mining. Smaller miners will shut off their machines because it wont be profitable for them to mine ethereum any more. It will crush the mom-and-pops. First, the price has dropped on ether, and now with the ASICs, GPU mining will become even less profitable. That stronger processing power will make mining more difficult for GPU miners. ASIC machines have the capability to run through calculations at a faster rate than GPUs and solve more blocks at a faster clip, so the ether algorithms will increase the degree of difficulty exponentially for all ether miners attempting to unlock blocks.
Cryptocurrency players say they are concerned ASICs will transform the industry, because their high cost will make mining viable for only a small number of participants, including large companies and wealthy individuals. That could give these participants the potential to control a currency.
If two or three mining pools have more than 51% of the combined hash power, they can decide which ether blocks get mined and which ones dont. The guys who created bitcoin (BTC) never envisioned GPUs being used to mine it or ASICs. They thought it would be democratized and everyone would mine it just using their computers. But now the only way to mine for bitcoin is to have an ASIC, and the power is consolidated around it.
Yes, during the distribution of antiminer f3 in july, eth mining will be profitable but after saturation of ASIC, it won't as btc nowadays it.