One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

Re:One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC ... by microtherion on Monday January 22, 2018 @04:47PM (#16208227)

There would definitely be a first mover advantage. On the other hand, for most other VLSI applications, improved energy usage is a PERMANENT advantage: If e.g. Apple improves energy efficiency of Annn chips, it enables them to build better devices, even if the rest of the industry catches up.

For Bitcoin, my understanding is that this is not the case, because any cost improvement in the industry will attract more miners until difficulty adjusts to the previous equilibrium where (cost of mining a bitcoin) = (value of a bitcoin)-(some risk premium)

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Re:One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC ... by bigiain on Monday January 22, 2018 @05:14PM (#16208492)

Yeah - that "first mover advantage" can be lucrative though.

Simplistically they're betting on:

(cost to you of mining a bitcoin)-(cost to everybody else of mining a bitcoin) * (time it takes to reach equilibrium)

being a very big number...

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Re:One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC ... by monob on Monday January 22, 2018 @05:29PM (#16208634)

It's first mover advantage in the same way surviving is a first mover advantage. You're fine if you're profitable, but with constant improvements that won't be the case for long, unless you too start moving to new technology.

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