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I am trying to figure out when the ASIC mining era began. A Bitcoin magazine article from January 23rd 2013 announces the imminent arrival of the first batch of Avalon miners in early February.
Is there more accurate information: What day did the first ASIC miner become operative?
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Jeff Garzik received an Avalon miner on january 30th, 2013 and posted pictures at http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/01/once-upon-time-in-china-package-shipped.html and http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/01/avalon-modular-room-to-expand.html
The next day he posted a review at http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/01/avalon-asic-miner-review.html
For many this was a milestone that you might call the beginning of the ASIC era. Of course the manufacturer had the first bitcoin ASIC chip operative long before this. Also, this did not mean that you could just order an ASIC miner and receive it within a reasonable timeframe. But it did mean that the first bitcoin ASIC machine had shipped. For better or worse, it had begun.
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I'd say you are pretty close with that date. It's fun to go hover over this chart (https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=) and follow the hash rate over time. It jumped back and forth from 10-20,000 from 2011 - 2012. From spring to summer 2013 there was a very large increase from about 30,000 to 300,000.
– m1xolyd1an – 2015-10-19T17:34:33.560What about FPGA? They out-performed early ASIC, they were 2012 or earlier. – Anonymous – 2015-10-20T02:11:40.690