Just a shower thought: When ASICs hit Moore's efficienty level and at the same time becoming very cheap, does "mining at a loss" solve the centralization problem on its own?

Andreas A. said in a talk that I recently saw, that Bitcoin-ASIC production is getting very close to the current efficienty level predicted by Moore's law. The pace, in which the ASIC efficiency increases, is therefore getting very slow compared to the past.

Let's assume that Bitcoin is becoming mainstram and a vast amount of people are using Bitcoin-ASICs to reduce costs they already have, like producing hot water with electricity. These people would clearly have a benefit by doing so, when we further assume that the cost of ASICs reduced to a level that is insignificant compared to the cost of electricity.

Mining companies are profit organizations, when there is nothing to make, they wouldn't invest, right? In such a situation, what would be the benefit of building a mining farm? Even though, when they have special very cheap electricity deals, there will be a certain point where it does not make any sense for them to mine. On the other side, when mining hardware is extremely cheap, it will always be beneficial for people to reduce heating costs that they have anyway.

Submitted November 07, 2016 at 04:05AM by tommy1802 http://bit.ly/2eMGDqu