King gold crypto

⚙️ MINING TECH EXPLAINED: ASIC vs GPU
A thread on what's REALLY happening inside
mining hardware 🧵👇
(As told by a chip designer)
1/ First, let's understand what mining actually IS:
It's trying random numbers until you find one that
creates a hash starting with enough zeros.
Like trying 1 billion lottery tickets per second.
2/ GPUs (Graphics Cards) were the OG miners:
✅ Powerful processors
✅ Thousands of cores
✅ Good at parallel math
✅ Can mine ANY coin
But they have a problem...
3/ GPUs are designed for GRAPHICS, not mining:
Inside a GPU:
- Texture units (useless for mining)
- Display outputs (not needed)
- Memory controllers (overkill)
- Geometry processors (wasted)
Only ~10% of the chip is actually hashing! 😱
4/ Then ASICs changed everything:
ASIC = Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
Built for ONE purpose: SHA-256 hashing
100% of the chip does mining. Nothing else.
5/ The speed difference is INSANE:
RTX 4090 (top GPU): 0.13 TH/s
Antminer S21 (ASIC): 200 TH/s
That's 1,538x faster! 🤯
6/ But speed isn't everything. What about EFFICIENCY?
GPU: 3,461 J/TH (Joules per Terahash)
ASIC: 17.5 J/TH
ASIC uses 198x less energy per hash!
Your electricity bill would be 198x higher with GPU! 💸
7/ Here's what an ASIC looks like inside:
[Imagine chip diagram]
Hundreds of SHA-256 cores
Each doing the same thing
In parallel
24/7
That's it. Nothing fancy.
8/ So why do people still GPU mine?
Some coins are "ASIC-resistant":
- Ethereum Classic
- Ravencoin
- Ergo
They use algorithms that NEED lots of memory.
ASICs can't efficiently add huge memory.
9/ Fun fact from the semiconductor world:
Latest ASICs use 5nm chip technology!
Same as iPhone processors!
Cost to design one: $50-100 MILLION
Manufactured in Taiwan (TSMC)
That's why only big companies can make them.
10/ CURRENT STATE (2024):
Bitcoin mining:
🔴 99.99% ASIC
🔴 GPU mining = waste of money
🔴 Network hashrate at ATH
Altcoins:
🟢 GPU still profitable
🟢 Easier to start
🟢 More flexible
11/ BOTTOM LINE:
Want to mine Bitcoin?
→ You NEED an ASIC ($2,000-$8,000)
Want to mine altcoins?
→ GPU works ($500-$2,000)
Hobby mining?
→ Probably not profitable anymore 😅
12/ Questions I get all the time:
"Can I mine BTC with my gaming PC?"
→ Technically yes, but you'll earn $0.01/day and
spend $5/day in electricity
"Why not just use more GPUs?"
→ Physics. ASIC is fundamentally more efficient.
13/ END OF THREAD
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