Siacoin: About Chineses vs. Americans, monopoly and increased difficulty and prices
There is a battle and dilemma right now in the SiaCoin scenario, let me make this simple:
WHAT IS SIACOIN?
SiaCoin (https://sia.tech/) is, as described in the website:
"...a new approach to cloud storage platforms. Instead of all datacenters being owned and operated by a single company, Sia opens the floodgates and allows anyone to make money by renting out their hard drive. Data integrity is protected using redundancy and cryptography.
The promise of Sia is a decentralized network of datacenters that, taken together, comprise the world's fastest, cheapest, and most secure cloud storage platform."
Easy to understand: Share part of you HDD, and get coins; mine and get coins; or use the cloud-storage service to store your data. More features will come later this year.
They compete against Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and Microsoft Azure.
WHAT HAPPENED? "My coin, my miner, my rules"
SiaCoin is the only (as far as I know) coin in the algorithm Blake(2b), and it is mined with GPUs.
Last year (2017), the developers of SiaCoin (Boston, USA) decided to launch a preorder of a Blake(2b) miner called OBELISK: https://obelisk.tech/
It was a great financial move: you create a coin with your own algorithm, and you also create a powerfull ASIC miner to exclusively mine your coin. The problem is that they promise to deliver in JUNE 2018...
Features:
800+ GH/S SC1 (as powerful as 100 GPUs, as they advertise it)
POWER CONSUMPTION: 500 W OR UNDER
PRICE: $1,599 in the second batch (was 2,499 in the first, and they gave a 800 coupon for a 2nd miner)
It was calculated (not sure if true) that once launched, you will need something like 4 months to recover your investment.
AND THEN? "Sorry pal, this is my neighborhood now"
Now comes a well known ASIC builder company: Bitmain Technologies (Pekin, China). And creates an ASIC miner that can mine Blake(2b), the A3 https://shop.bitmain.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020180116164357365a2ljX8gx06D3
Features:
815+ GH/S
POWER CONSUMPTION: 1200 W
PRICE: $2,375
And the selling point was: "it is ready to deliver in 10 DAYS"
And it was true and delivered 2 days ago, right now it is working:
WINNERS, LOSERS, AND CRYBABIES
Here comes a little war of things called "centralized power vs. decentralized power", "control vs no control", "Free market vs controlled market", "monopoly vs competition", and even "USA vs China"... whatever... the important things to notice are:
- The promise of OBELISK miner ROI (Return of Investment) is broken, it was calculated with no other ASIC miner in mind.
- People who trusted Siacoin devs and their OBELISK will lose money.
- Siacoin devs advertised their ASIC miner as a way to bring "security" to the network, but now with the A3 made by the competitor already launched, they are scared of a 51% attack... decide yourself!
- Counterfact: Some people says that ASIC developers must to inform to crypto developers before launching an ASIC miner.
- It is discussed right now if a soft-fork is needed to make A3 miner unusable...
If SiaCoin devs really softfork to eliminate the competition, it will be serious business and a hit to the trust of people. Of course, OBELISK buyers will be happy again, A3 buyers would be angry because they risked and lost, and GPU miners may be a little more happy to get some extra months of air (even when some already changed to other coins).
And if you let me make a moral opinion (it is my post, why not?), I found disgusting to artificially manipulate the coin to make your products the only one valid, eliminating competition. What are you? Sony and M2 cards? Apple and Lightning port?
TO THE INVESTOR
Ok, so here we are, you and me, probably without any ASIC miner, maybe with some GPUs (or not), but not entering that dirty war. What happends to the SiaCoin price at short term?
Well depends:
- If Siacoin devs softfork and take A3 miners out of the fight, difficulty will return to last week state (in some days). But, would people trust a project that softfork to stop competition? In that case, I expect the price to crash a little, surely I'm not investing there and I will risk my coins somewhere else. So SELL
BUT
- If Siacoin devs accept the competition and let A3 work; then the increased hashrate and difficulty of the network will raise the price. Right now the difficulty is going up really quickly and the price still didn't moved. Opportunity to buy and no doubt about it. So BUY
At long term things are simpler: SiaCoin is a working product and right now you can totally use it to store your data extremely cheap, or use your own HDD space to earn some SC. The idea behind the coin is great, and it created an economy inside the coin: people who needs storage, and people who share their HDD.
They will be fine as long as they don't have a similar competitor (like Golem vs. SONM), but in the case they get a "siacoin like" competitor, be sure they can't simply "soft-fork" to get rid of it...
You said it yourself. It's a free market and Sia devs have the right to soft fork just like you have the right to sell your coins. It's unfortunate that you didn't believe enough in the fundamental tech and be glad someone if giving Bitmain pushback for their bullshit. Already projected 90k ASICs out. It's going to be like D3 all over again. I just can't believe people still enable them by giving them business. They are like the Comcast of the ASIC industry.
As I said, the tech is fine, I even used the client to rent space. About companies, Sia-Tech entered the ASIC battlefield to sell their own product (Obelisk), crushing GPUs miners; and now they see they will be eaten by a much bigger fish that can create more units and deliver faster.
Obelisk's intention was not nefarious as you phrase it to "crush" GPU miners but add value to their network. They were the first to make this intention public and SC was not on Bitmain's radar at the time. Rise in market value changed that of course but I want to hit on one important thing.
This is false in the event of a delayed SF. They would have made ROI and then some by the time this would likely be implemented that is unless Bitmain starts misbehaving ,in which case, all bets are off. The problem is they are not merely content with supporting a company terrible for the Sia ecosystem and making ROI either profit. No, they want more.
Obelisk buyers supported the devs way back when and, yes, being a startup was like the David to the Bitmain Goliath. I think a SF is the slingshot. Obviously, not talking about taking BM down entirely but certainly doen a notch which they honestly deserve for all the people they have stepped on with only regard to pure cold profit.
I'm going to share a comment that I believe was well written that further conveys my sentiment.
Ahhh it was you that countered my meme.
Well good for you. I hope your A3 earns you buttloads of money. I'll take my crumbs from the floor. We supported a company who had good community ethos, the underdog, rather than sleazy Bitmain and we got burned.
This situation is unjust but such is life.
I don't have an ASIC miner, I don't even have a GPU (I use Intel Graphics)! Curiosity, what meme?
Interesting. The meme really served the A3 miners interest. The trolley full story. I made the OG SF dilemma trolley meme. :P The one the Bitmain apologists love to hate.
Watch the Difficulty increases time-lapse on the Sia Coin blockchain after the introduction of ASIC Bitmain Antminer S9 and the profit decrease over time in this 8 hour time span
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
Yes, now even worst, and this is 100% miners' fault.
LOL, how is it miner's fault ? Technology changes and disrupt everything , like ASIC's introduction there was the change from video tapes to DVD to internet streaming.
Cool! I follow you.