Bitcoin Forum

I don't want to jump the gun, I would certainly like to see Jihan / Bitmain comment, but this covert ASICBOOST fiasco has made me completely distrust Bitmain and it's entire brand.

Hey, millionaires around here(and I'm sure there's many) - maybe get together and build some industrial ASIC's for us little guys who want a fair chance? I'll pay a premium, anything to avoid these criminals

I would like to see how some talented guy will develop a hack which will enable this "asic boost" an all Bitmain HW all around the world...

I will not become a millionaire because of that hack, I'd just like to see what will happen then... And what will Bitmain say...

Of course all those empty blocks generated wouldn't disrupt anything at all aside from increasing the rate of diff increase...  ::)

Query: Is this ASICBOOST the same idea as the "Golden Nonce" or extra nonce operation that HF and other miners from a few years ago used?

Last I checked, it was a means of paralleling multiple midstates under a single nonce. The most efficient means of generating multiple midstates relied on a change in bitcoin protocol, which is using a zero-padding field as an extra data field. If done right it ends up combining another step (or partial step) of the double-SHA calculation where the efficiency increases slightly the more parallel midstates are used per nonce. I forget the specifics because it's been six or eight months since I read the whitepaper.

I know nothing about the extra nonce operation you're talking about. I wasn't really concerned with chip functions back then.

What's the current Bitmain/ASICBoost fiasco? I seem to have missed that news.

I read that Asicboost is not possible if there is a soft-fork solution to Segwit and that would be the reason why Bitmain would love so much a hard-fork solution like Bitcoin Unlimited for example.

Does not matter much anymore as the shift to other coins will continue.

Frankly bitmain should get its way with bu and use the boost giving a 20 or 30 percent edge for Thier miner.

This would simply drive mining into alts faster.

The segwit vs bu. is a moot point either one won't stop alt coin growth.

The companies that stand to gain from alt coin growth are many with huge wealth.

Intel,AMD,NVIDIA every mobo builder every ram stick builder every case builder every Psu builder.

ASIC builders can't subsidize btc like the companies above can subsidize alt coins.

This shift is not changing.  Do the math on a Nvidia mining Zec power used is 1/4 that of power used with an s9

By power used. I mean this 350 watts earns the same as 1400 watts.

So segwit or bu or ASIC boost does not fix that difference.  


See screen  the s9 makes 7.86 usd a day  using  about 1400 watts.
boost it  30% it makes 10.21 usd a day

here is an s-9:


https://i.imgur.com/MOkh6Dr.png


here is a 2 card amd using 310 watts  it makes 4 bucks a day  so 2x that  it makes 8 bucks using 620 watts

3x it it makes

12 bucks  using 930 watts
this kills the asic boosted s9 never mind the  normal s9




https://i.imgur.com/CLamdbC.png

There's also the consideration that coin prices tend to drift toward the average cost to manufacture and there's no reason your favorite altcoin wouldn't do the same thing. And if you're trading your cheaply-mined alts for bitcoins you also have to consider those coins were generated by a miner somewhere getting the short end of the stick.

But anyways, a question about bitcoin mining hardware and protocols can't really be answered by saying "ignore it and mine something else instead".

nope  as there are more then 100 companies  with more then 1 trillion in assets that can simply  buy some zec or eth or xmr.

this is the factor  that is causing the rush to alts.

Take ZEC  look at tiny market cap 60 million

it is so easy for a company like nvidia  to pump the coin they do it.

this is not true for btc it takes heavy money to pump the coin

https://i.imgur.com/KqN7Aur.png



look at Nvidia  worth more then 59 billion
for them to do a pump of ZEC  one or two times  a month to sell more gpus is a no brainer a very  cost effective commercial.


https://i.imgur.com/lD9df5g.png

I agree with Sidehack here, Phil. The better the profitability the more investment in mining the coin = more hash, less profit / miner and the trend towards equalization. This should always occur in any PoW coin as miners will shut off the machines when unprofitable (better to purchase coins), and will never sell their mined coins at < cost to acquire (this also pressure towards equilibrium and also stabilizes price).

Also Sidehack as per your question above, i'm sure you're up to date now, but there's allegations floating around (which appear accurate) that Bitmain has been using covert ASICBOOST, but not disclosing it, and gaining 20-30% efficiency gains. This shines a light on the whole reason they oppose Segwit etc. The reason it makes me angry is that I consider this practice unethical (not being open about it). I would have hesitated to buy their equipment had I known they do business like this. Their customers should be included in the "optimization".

Hopefully someone smart on this forum will post anhow-to guide to get our S9's to run ASICBOOST (I assume the pool would have to enable it + firmware update to the S9?)

So Phil - you're saying you want to mine a coin whose value is being held artificially high as a sales gimmick?

ASICBOOST is a hardware implementation. I wonder how they built it into the S9 in a way that would work with the typical. Maybe if I get time this weekend I'll go back over the whitepaper and refresh on some concepts. If Bitmain was doing something that wouldn't be surprising in the least; those guys really really like profits and don't seem to mind screwing people to get 'em. At least they always deliver the gear, got that going for 'em, but that's about it.

Agreed and i don't think we heard the end of this story yet.
Lots of posts are floating or reddit re antpool and this feature.

Re btc and altcoins, I agree with Phil that btc mining reputation got damaged by nefarious actors.
It is not individual miners fault per se, but we all share some blame in a sense of unwittingly supporting them.
Personally, I regret buying their equipment knowing what i know now.
Commodity mining, where you don't rely on a single or dominant manufacturer, should avoid such problems.

Phil is just guessing that NVidia and AMD could do something to promote alts.
There is absolutely no evidence that this already happened or will happen in the future.
However, there is clear and accumulating evidence that asicboost/Bitmain screwup did happen in btc space.

No you wont, and neither will anyone else. Thats why the market is the way it is....

don't count on me, so there are at least two of us, hence NOT anyone.

Feel free to split hairs if it makes you feel good

I bought an S7LN, that's the last new Bitmain miner I've purchased since the S3 days and that was so I could figure out how to hack it. Right now it's providing heat for the crapper at the shop. Figure I'll stick to mining on secondhand gear and stuff I build myself.

Not supporting nefarious actors would be nice. ASICBOOST itself wouldn't be too bad (I mean, it is a good idea) if it wasn't being patented and licensed out. That's pretty counter to Bitcoin philosophy in general. But Biodom, I figured out a long time ago that people who stuck to their ethics are a sore minority in the bitcoin world. People here really like to make money and don't often care how.

No I don't want to do that.  But I am mining Zec and I am pretty sure Zec keeps its value do to subsidies from companies like Nvidia .

The vast majority of btc is mined and in wallets/btc addys.

It is worth close to 20 billion.

If I can mine Zec and trade it in for btc which is what I do and Nvidia props the value of Zec which I believe happens.  I can earn btc at a 75% power discount .

This beats bitmains supposed ASIC boost by a lot.

I pay far less to get btc this way.

Now. If no one subsidizes any alt and never did and the alts are doing this on their own. The up side is better
Since sooner or later they will  subsidize alts since my idea would work.

The down side is. They are propping up the price as I type.  Well if they stop and alts crash. I still mine btc with s9 r4 and Avalon.


Back to ASIC boost. If it is an angle that works and ant miner uses it. Fine they just have a better miner and other companies need to build it.

It they keep a 130% miner in house and never sell it.  That's fine by me it is business for them.

ASIC builders do this hold back better gear.

Going to segwit to stop them is wrong.  Think about it.

This means every time some one makes a faster better chip btc will change to stop it from working.

That is a terrible idea.

I say if they really can do ASIC boost and score let them.

The best way to combat it is mine an alt with a gpu.

Looks like anyone can activate ASICBOOST on their Antminer?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/63yo27/some_circumstantial_evidence_supporting_the_claim/dfy5o65/

that's not exactly the contention (licensing, etc).

The contention is that ASICBOOST was build-in into hardware and Bitmain rendered this feature inoperative for customers, but enabled it for themselves only.

Now, they admitted building it into hardware and also said that they did not use it. Would you believe this: building a secret non-disclosed feature into hardware, NOT using it, but still opposing a software change that will negate it? Plus, opposing segwit because it would have rendered the feature useless, essentially stopping all softforks upgrades because most of them would have also negated the secret hardware feature.
Now people are finding code in Antpool that supports the hardware feature (covert asicboost).

I am sure they took the edge.
I am taking the edge mining zec with nvidia cards and converting to btc.
btw  my  edge is open to all and I never hide it from anyone.

Antminer/bitmain  have punished the btc coin  a lot... 

Still   segwit  is not the answer  it will not fix the issue  it will slide to another angle.

Gpu mining of alts are fundamentally more honest way to mine. 

Mostly due to asic builders fucking around for years.

it's totally in reverse, actually.
They opposed softforks (including segwit) ONLY because segwit would have broken their secret feature.
Segwit was specifically made compatible with ALL mining. It could not have been made compatible with something that was not disclosed.

Personally, i don't even care about segwit per se, but i do care about one manufacturer vetoing bitcoin's progress because they put something in their chip. You can solve this with alts or you can solve it with rendering the offender unable to do so in the future.

Bitmain has a standing policy of putting features in their miners and not making them accessible to end users. The S7 was able to adjust core voltage in software (the hardware to do it was definitely there) much like the S9 does with auto-tuning, but controlling that ability has never been given to end users.

Changing the protocol every time someone makes a faster chip isn't really a problem, likely won't be the case. It's not the case now. The open-source bitcoin protocol change that breaks a particular manufacturer's closed-source backdoor implementation of a closed-source licensed feature, that I'm okay with.

GPU mining of alts is a fundamentally more honest way to mine alts. It's not a more honest way to mine BTC because it's not a way to mine BTC at all. But you're right, BTC miner manufacturers have been screwing people and the network since the beginning.

no  rendering the offender unable is not good.

So I build a chip with new math  that  is 5x better then any chip in the world to mine sha 256.

and segwit II is built to stop my chip.

Joe Blow builds a better chip  then mine  and segwit III stops it.

Segwit to stop asicboost  is about as bad an idea as can be.

I don't design a chip, but I do come up with an idea that uses a fork of the current protocol to enable a trick to hash more efficiently. I then sit back and collect money from chip designers who want to implement that idea in an otherwise open-source endeavor. The "new math" isn't the problem, it's the one guy who does no work and profits from the labors of many in a way fundamentally at odds with the philosophy of bitcoin that's the problem. That problem is exacerbated by a single manufacturer who paid the fee and implemented the trick and didn't allow the buyers of their hardware access to it (and other features). My opinion, screw those guys and the horse they rode in on.

But Phil, there's a lot of stuff you and I will never agree on.

it would have been bad if it WAS as you described it, but it is NOT so.
Segwit was built a long time ago when nobody knew about the secret asicboost feature.
I am not sure what is the contention since timeframes are clear.
as sidehack had said, if an open protocol breaks some secret undisclosed feature of some asshole hardware implementation, so be it.
A feature of an open system, not a flaw.

That said, i am not a segwit proponent or opponent, but count me in opposition to undisclosed secret features that results in delays of the protocol development.

For the record, I've had my nose so deep in my own hardware projects that I actually have zero idea what "segwit" even means, so like Biodom I'm not in favor or opposed (as I lack the requisite information to have an opinion). But I am in favor of specifically not ASICBOOST and more specifically not screwing customers.

You know what? You're probably right.

But, there will come a day (probably when we are close to the limit of chip efficiency) where there will be multiple manufacturers. Sure, I will indeed continue to buy the best miners for now (Bitmains), but they've destroyed their brand as far as I'm concerned. As soon as I have another choice, I'm going with it.

Something you all are missing, it's only a little world this crypto currency world and only the coders and nerds are in it with their money.
Go to the street and ask from 100 people passing by and 99 will tell you that they even know what bitcoin or alt coins are.
I mean how can I know if I'm mining the same amount of coins with the same GPU/CPU/ASIC as the other guy? not considering the electricity cost, anyways someone could steal electricity from government and practically mine coins with advantage over everyone else right?

yep  but we agree on enough including agreeing to sometimes disagree.

Back to post

    My take is the amount of sleaze shown by  bitmain and quite a few other asic companies  has been really bad.

  The asic-boost was mentioned for more then six months.  It is not new   it is old  in fact  it may be older then segwit  any date for segwit?

asic-boost news was floating around since  pre s-9  which would be  last  feb 2016  maybe just maybe as old as  dec 2015.(iirc)

how old is segwit? 

Segwit concept was first introduced at the Scaling Bitcoin conference (Dec 6-7th 2015).
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/segregated-witness-part-how-a-clever-hack-could-significantly-increase-bitcoin-s-potential-1450553618/
It probably was in the works for month(s) beforehand.

ASICBOOST paper was published during March of 2016
http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Timo.Hanke/AsicBoostWhitepaperrev5.pdf

Hmmm I am lazy but pretty sure ASIC boost was mentioned n this forum in dec 2015.

Almost like the disease and the cure came at the same time.

Ever think ASIC boost does not work well but was created to make the sale for segwit to be put in?

I have and never talked about it much.

My issue with segwit is pretty simple I think it will kill Btc.

my issue with -ASIC boost and bu is bitmain scores again.

But as a small player I can mine gpu alt to.btc with bu
Segwit scares me as it will be the complete end to btc.

Now with ltc doing it maybe we can see how it works before we jump to it.

I actually like that you think I am insane.
Time will tell if segwit ever gets approved .

And if it works well.

The op is angry bitmain cheats.

Get over it mine gpus to get an alt to trade for btc.

Realize the all ASIC companies cheat one way or the other .

If you don't see that gpu is a better way to keep asics in line .

Maybe your insane not me.😀

I don't need to explain why  in order to think it will kill BTC.

I Have no reason  as you said I am insane.

Which means my reasoning is not valid so I simply think segwit will' kill btc.

I think lots of things some turn out true some don't.
My thoughts on segwit killing btc are just that thoughts.
At this point in the coin game pretty much anything can happen.
The industry is still under 30 billion in coin value that's all coins.
The gear mining coins is about 750 million in gpu gear maybe a billion
And maybe 2 billion in asics.
So 3 billion in gear.
Lots can happen.
Including a shift away from btc to multiple alt coins.

I hope that we can get some useful info from the upcoming Litecoin Segwit (it will happen most likely) and then when all the info is on the table, come to some kind of consensus, the best option for Bitcoin's future.

What ever the solution will be it must be for the best for Bitcoin.
No fork should be made for some company's best and for example for Asicboost's best.

I think that as a big Bitcoin industry company Bitmain has not been up to Bitcoin's best and be a responsible company, but all the possibilities and forks it is willing to accept are connected to possibility to use ASICBoost and have better price/coin ratio a.k.a. make more profit.

I would like to see LTC run segwit  for 2-3 months myself.

We are in uncharted waters  with any coin that is crypto based.     BTC is the oldest  with more mined wealth sitting in btc addys then all other coins combined.

around 20 billion in BTC is out of the the emptiness of cyberSpace stored in  btc addys.

(main reason I am against segwit) 

If we do segwit lets be sure it can be done on a smaller model like LTC.