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Re:The Bitcoin Bubble and the Future of Currency by wladimir on Wednesday April 03, 2013 @10:59AM (#5486436)
You are right. CPUs are already useless for mining. Currently, GPUs can still mine their share (but running a GPU miner on a botnet is a risk; computers become very noisy, hot and slow, which increases the detection rate). But as the first ASICs have started shipping (or have they?) this is expected to change very soon, and the only way to make a profit with mining will be with custom hardware. This rules out botnets pretty effectively.
Re:The Bitcoin Bubble and the Future of Currency by erikpukinskis on Wednesday April 03, 2013 @03:03PM (#5488303)
If botnets are free to operate, then won't they still be used? They're only less efficient than ASICs if you have to pay for electricity, right?
Re:The Bitcoin Bubble and the Future of Currency by wladimir on Thursday April 04, 2013 @03:11AM (#5491408)
Botnets are usually rented out. So there is an opportunity cost, when the nodes and their computational/network resources could be used for more profitable activities.