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Bitcoin => Bitcoin Discussion => Topic started by: citronick on December 03, 2015, 05:58:55 AM



Title: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: citronick on December 03, 2015, 05:58:55 AM
I tried to look for a similar thread but couldn't find any so here it goes...

Can a SHA256 or Scrypt ASIC rigs be repurposed/rented out to be used in other industries like Oil & Gas, supercomputer type applications?

Just wondering, if one day there is no more use of a ASIC miner...


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: ranochigo on December 03, 2015, 06:26:13 AM
No. SHA256/Scrypt ASIC miners are only designed for cryptocoin mining. They are designed for calculating double SHA256 hashes. ASIC miner takes the header and hash while increasing a nonce after each failure (not reaching the target). You can mine alt coins that uses that specific algronithm designed for that machine or heat your house :).


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: traderbit on December 03, 2015, 06:33:16 AM
I don't know what algorithm use vanitygen to generate customs bitcoin address.
But has anyone tried to use the Asics miners to use the vanititygen?


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: JeWay on December 03, 2015, 07:18:20 AM
Maybe it can, if you have a smart and creative brain.


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: mocacinno on December 03, 2015, 07:20:51 AM
I've seen a couple guys using their ASIC's as a space heater, but i guess that's about it  ;)


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: odolvlobo on December 03, 2015, 07:27:43 AM
Can a SHA256 or Scrypt ASIC rigs be repurposed/rented out to be used in other industries like Oil & Gas, supercomputer type applications?

ASIC stands for Application-Specific IC, which means that it is designed for a specific application. In this case, the application is Bitcoin mining (or other similar cryptocurrencies). But it could also work as a heater, as mocacinno  suggested.


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: mattjack on December 03, 2015, 07:29:21 AM
You can use Asics to mine for vanity addresses, and probably sell these addresses for more than you'd get for mining..


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: BADecker on December 03, 2015, 07:34:46 AM
Computer chips are like little ASICs, sort of. Re-develop the ASIC to work well in combination with other ASICs, and build a gigantic ASIC computer. Then crack the blockchain rather than the mining code.

:)


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: QuestionAuthority on December 03, 2015, 07:39:52 AM
You can play video games on them.........


......if you can stack them high enough to use as a chair.


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: Gleb Gamow on December 03, 2015, 08:23:21 AM
You can play video games on them.........


......if you can stack them high enough to use as a chair.

Since they came in different designs, you could connect a mess of them together like over-sized Lego pieces.


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: Amph on December 03, 2015, 08:35:02 AM
worst case the whole board will be used for something else, you just need to remove the chip

maybe int he future they will discover a way to re-program them like with fpga or at worst to add another fuction on top of the one that is there already


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: mezzomix on December 03, 2015, 08:54:57 AM
You can use Asics to mine for vanity addresses, and probably sell these addresses for more than you'd get for mining..

No, you can't. At least not Bitcoin vanity addresses. The vanity address calculation algorithms are different from the mining algorithms.


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: USB-S on December 03, 2015, 09:00:04 AM
You could use them as space heaters. I've seen some people doing that.


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: btckold24 on December 03, 2015, 10:26:29 AM
for one thing you gotta sell them off before they became huge boat anchors! hey a boat anchor theres a use!

I have a old school jalepeno from BFL that took 1 year to get and could only use for 4 months
sitting on my desk as a reminder to sell the machine I have before its useless for some profit


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: Mickeyb on December 03, 2015, 10:39:55 AM
I've seen a couple guys using their ASIC's as a space heater, but i guess that's about it  ;)

God Lord that's one expensive heater, I can tell you this! :)

No, at the moment the only usage is for Bitcoin mining or some other alts mining that share Bitcoin's algorithm, which in the end almost always turns out to be a waste of money since these alts are 99% all of the scams!

Mining business is pretty ruthless when you think about it more closely! No place for mistakes!


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: Soros Shorts on December 03, 2015, 11:50:32 AM
The heatsinks from KnC miners are pretty high quality. You should be able to use them as CPU heatsinks if you can fabricate the mounting hardware.

Also don't forget PCB coasters: https://www.google.com/search?q=pcb+coaster&biw=1366&bih=620&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjipsH788DJAhVKOj4KHXhaA3YQ_AUIBigB


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: mocacinno on December 03, 2015, 12:17:53 PM
I've seen a couple guys using their ASIC's as a space heater, but i guess that's about it  ;)

God Lord that's one expensive heater, I can tell you this! :)

No, at the moment the only usage is for Bitcoin mining or some other alts mining that share Bitcoin's algorithm, which in the end almost always turns out to be a waste of money since these alts are 99% all of the scams!

Mining business is pretty ruthless when you think about it more closely! No place for mistakes!

True... But if you use them for mining, and as a space heater at the same time, you can heat your space for free (since reasonable HW will produce enough BTC to cover the electricity costs).  ;D

I'm actually on the lookout for a dirtcheap S1-S5 for exactly this reason (it's winter, and we heat part of our house electrically anyways, so why wouldn't i use a dirtcheap secondhand antminer and make almost enough coins to cover my electric bill)


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: unamis76 on December 03, 2015, 02:07:21 PM
Chip re-purposing for your own ASIC :D Heatsinks and PSU's can also be used :)


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: Elwar on December 03, 2015, 02:57:46 PM
Random number generator.


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: johnyj on December 03, 2015, 04:13:14 PM
Extremely useful heater (after down clock and apply quiet fans), it runs 24/7 so you don't need extremely large power consumption to heat a house, and the electricity cost is compensated by the mined coins


Title: Re: Can ASICS miners be repurposed for other use?
Post by: Amph on December 03, 2015, 06:32:56 PM
Extremely useful heater (after down clock and apply quiet fans), it runs 24/7 so you don't need extremely large power consumption to heat a house, and the electricity cost is compensated by the mined coins

i've heard bad things about health problem with an asic running in your home, there was one guy that had this problem

air get toxic after a while if too much heat is generated because of the fumes of some HW parts inside the asic