Exactly 16 years have passed since a milestone development in the Bitcoin ecosystem. On May 10, 2010, developer Laszlo Hanyecz announced on the Bitcointalk forum that Bitcoin can now be generated not only with the processor (CPU), but also with the NVIDIA 8800 GTS graphics card. This sharing caused a dramatic 130,000 percent increase in the network’s processing power by the end of the year.
Mining revolution with GPU
Laszlo Hanyecz’s GPU mining proposal was a technical revolution for Bitcoin. In his forum post introducing this method, Hanyecz stated that he developed code in accordance with OpenCL and CUDA architectures. While sharing his own experience, he revealed that an Intel E8600 processor accelerated to 4.1 GHz could produce 1.8 million hashes per second, while a single NVIDIA 8800 GTS graphics card increased this speed to 3.8 million hashes per second during the same period.
Thanks to this development, Hanyecz, who used the CPU and GPU together, was able to mine thousands of Bitcoins daily at that time with a single computer in his home. This advantage provided by the technology of that time soon sparked a new competition in the Bitcoin network.
Decentralization debates and Satoshi’s attitude
Laszlo Hanyecz is generally known in the Bitcoin community as the person who started GPU mining and the person who bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC. However, what happens behind the scenes is also remarkable. Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous founder of Bitcoin, stepped in after this method developed by Hanyecz became widespread. Nakamoto told Hanyecz on the forum that he did not want GPU mining to spread too quickly, and that he thought Bitcoin was a fair system that was open to everyone and was “one CPU, one vote”.
Satoshi shared his concern about this rapidly developing method at that time and stated that he wanted the Bitcoin network to be initially supported by single computers and the rewards to be shared more equally.
Loss of balance in mining and its consequences
The widespread use of GPU mining soon changed the principles of Bitcoin. While the main aim was for everyone on the network to participate with their home computer, with the new method, the chance of ordinary users to produce blocks has almost disappeared. This development, instead of bringing the community closer ideologically, turned it into a field of competition where those with strong technical equipment gain an advantage.
In particular, the rapid increase in graphics card-based mining revenues has caused a serious accumulation of power in the network. This change, which went down in cryptocurrency history, weakened the initial “democratic” structure of Bitcoin.
In the 16 years since, it is thought that Hanyecz’s invention did not “disrupt” BTC, but rather ensured its growth and security. Without the switch to GPU, the BTC network might not have been able to fend off both massive user influxes and potential attacks.
