Bleeding Bags, Boosted #Hashrates — A Quick History of #Bitcoinmining Evolution

While waiting for red positions to cool off, let’s turn the pain into productivity and walk through the evolution of Bitcoin mining — from humble CPUs to industrial-scale mining farms.

But first — how did a "fossil hand" mine 200,000 BTC in 2011 if ASICs weren’t around yet?

Simple: GPU mining. ⛏️

Before Butterfly Labs rolled out the world’s first commercial ASIC miners in 2012, GPU mining ruled the scene. In fact, Laszlo Hanyecz — famous for spending 10,000 BTC on two pizzas — was also the first to pioneer GPU mining, dramatically increasing mining efficiency over CPUs. His innovation laid the groundwork for the mining arms race that followed.

Here’s a quick recap of Bitcoin mining’s key eras:

1️⃣ CPU Mining Era (2009–2010)

The OG phase. #Satoshi and early devs mined blocks with basic desktop CPUs.

Block rewards were 50 BTC — and competition was basically nonexistent.

2️⃣ GPU Mining Era (2010–2011)

Laszlo Hanyecz introduced GPU mining, offering 10x–100x efficiency over CPUs.

Solo miners could still profit, but the game was changing fast.

3️⃣ FPGA Mining Era (2011–2012)

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays entered the scene, offering better performance and energy efficiency.

This short-lived era bridged the gap to true industrial mining.

4️⃣ ASIC Mining Era (2012–present)

Butterfly Labs and others launched Application-Specific Integrated Circuits — machines designed solely for mining BTC.

Hashrate exploded. Home mining became mostly unprofitable.

5️⃣ Mining Pools & Clusters (2013–present)

As solo mining died out, mining pools rose to power, letting miners combine efforts and share rewards.

Today, massive mining farms operate globally, competing for increasingly scarce BTC rewards.

So yeah, the guy mining 200K BTC in 2011? No ASICs, no magic — just a GPU, good timing, and a bit of history in the making.