- Ten years ago, the first “Integrated Circuit for Specific Applications” better known as ASIC, appeared on the market, specialized hardware for BTC mining, completely revolutionizing cryptomining.
- The first owner of an ASIC was Jeff Garzik, the main developer of the network together with Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin, as a cryptocurrency, is revolutionary. Among other features, it gives users the freedom that the global economy, increasingly controlled and monitored, does not give them. But its network, the one behind all its operation, is also decisive and 10 years ago an event happened that would completely change the digital gold blockchain…
A decade ago the ASIC appeared, which translates to “Integrated Circuit for Specific Applications”. This is specialized hardware for BTC mining. In the past, mining was done with other devices: the first coins were created on personal computers, for example.
The appearance of a new machine completely revolutionized cryptomining. Thus, the miners had to invest and adapt to the new rules so as not to be left out of the market.. The old equipment was no longer enough. ASICs validated transactions faster and “kept” the rewards.
ASICs revolutionized cryptomining
As explained by “TheCoinDad”, Bitcoin investor and educator, the first owner of an ASIC was Jeff Garzik, main developer of the network together with Satoshi Nakamoto. This was launched on the market by the Canaan company, “world’s leading provider of supercomputing solutions,” as the site described Bitcoinist. Today, the Chinese company continues to work and recently launched the Avalon 1266 of its A12 series on the market.
Although Garzik is listed as the first owner, Vitalik Buterin was close to this event. The creator of Ethereum, the blockchain that dominates the crypto ecosystem, interviewed Garzik in 2013 for the famous publication Bitcoin Magazine. The team responded better than many expected.
“The long-awaited ASICs are real”, Vitalik published about that machine that was capable of “produce an average of 68,000 mega hash/second (MH/s) when the total network hashrate was 22,000 GH/s”. At that time they produced almost one BTC per day, which represented $240 dollars. Today that production would be $23,800, almost 100 times more.
In the publication, Buterin described this innovative machine that came to bring the future. “Once mining starts, it is very noisy. When turned on, the fans are at full volume. Then these go down and the noise decreases a lot“, wrote. This has changed remarkably today and so has the power.
How has the industry changed?
As described, Canaan continues to operate despite the crisis in the mining industry. Their models are currently in their 12th generation and generate over 130 tera hash/second (TH/s). Compared to the first model, this means 130,000,000 mega hash/second, which is more than 1,900 times more.
The publicly traded mining companies that want to take over the market today, such as Core Scientific, Argo Blockchain, Riot, Hive and Stronghold, all use ASIC machines. The speed and effectiveness it provides is unmatched today.
If this creation had not existed, it is very likely that the growth of the sector would not have had the explosion that it did. Today, Bitcoin generates a block every 10 minutes and delivers 6.25 BTC. In 2024 a new halving will arrive to reduce this reward in half. What will happen to the network now? And with the price of the most popular cryptocurrency?
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