Bitcoin Forum

This thread is primarily for Bitcoin StickMiners - as it is, I'm only aware of a single altcoin StickMiner anyway, which is the DualMiner 2; a DualMiner, which can mine both Bitcoin and Litecoin, with the BTC portion 'disabled' (and thus not in the list).
I also have no immediate intention of adding altcoin StickMiners - if I do, it will be in the altcoin section anyway.

However, I thought this one was worth pointing out not for its mining prowess (altcoin StickMiners are practically relegated to the same target audience as Bitcoin StickMiners; FUN > ROI), but for a key feature.

Back in the end of june, vs3 (of NanoFury fame) posted in a NanoFury 6 thread:

At that point I posted the following to his official NanoFury development thread:

http://www.btcgt.com/myimg/lku144/lku8.jpg (http://www.btcgt.com/myimg/lku144/lku8.jpg) The lower block is indeed the 'U 盘存储芯片' or 'disk consign store-up core block' (I think I might be doing worse than Google there) - basically the Flash memory chip.

You can probably guess what that key feature is by now; created by LK Group, Ltd. (http://www.lketc.com/enindex.aspx) some time back in July, the 'U disk Wright (http://www.btcgt.com/goods.php?id=41)' or 'U-Wright' or 'USB Wright' (among 'roast cat', 'grilled cat', and 'burnt cat' - you'll have to excuse the Google Translateisms) is a Litecoin miner capable of 144Khash/s standard or 280Khash/s with overclocking (extra cooling required), using up about 5W, and has all the required software on-board on its 8GB Flash memory.

http://www.btcgt.com/myimg/lku144/lkus4.jpg (http://www.btcgt.com/myimg/lku144/lkus4.jpg) And that is the 'U disk Wright' using that Flash memory to present itself as a drive to the operating system.

So today I was proven wrong twice - first there's the new Avalon Nano meaning the NF6 was not the last of the StickMiners after all, and second somebody goes and does exactly what I would have thought cost-prohibitive - and I couldn't be happier about it.

Time for a bit of haphazard ranting.

I just finished (insofar as it can ever be finished) the ASIC page at the Bitcoin wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/ASIC).  Besides being a fair bit of work unto itself, some of the things found along the way and effectively over time since the last wordy post make me want to write a few things here; it's as good a place as any.

More people and/or companies should edit the wiki.
There's a place for everything, and while the wiki is terrible for discussion, it's pretty good for basic findings that tend not to change very often.  This StickMiner thread is effectively one of those things, and I'll be moving it over to the wiki in due time.  Don't worry, I'll still be making update posts here as well and it'll be a while before the main content is moved over anyway.  But it does mean that this list will no longer be at the sole whim of yours truly.
But there are many more threads that are effectively posts of information, rather than pure topics of discussion.  Canaan Creative / Avalon project are, so far, the only manufacturer who have embraced the Bitcoin wiki as effectively the place to go for information about their own hardware - chips, miners, software, people to contact, etc.
In the course of making the ASIC page, I wound up creating pages for most of the manufacturers.  I certainly invite them to flesh out their own pages - it's not wikipedia, original research is perfectly acceptable ;)

Scams are everywhere.
Holy bejeebus are scams everywhere in Bitcoin ASICs.  Not so much any more, but certainly late 2013, early 2014, coinciding with rising Bitcoin exchange rates and people eager to throw money at everything, there was a great boom in scams.  In the wiki I largely refer to them as being 'dishonest', but if you read between the lines on the references (yes, practically everything has source references), 'scam' should be the easy conclusion for most of them.

Now I've had to deal with scammy things before.  Personally - heck, I might be in the process of being scammed right now.  That's okay, I know what amount of money I can stand to lose - but also again in terms of editing the wiki.  Specifically, two curious cases of manufacturers claiming to have certain hardware, (pre-)selling it, but offering no proof whatsoever of that hardware's existence.
In reaction to that, I ended up penning the Why was my hardware removed (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Talk:Mining_hardware_comparison#Why_was_my_hardware_removed.3F) Talk section, which outlines a few things on how a manufacturer can better prove themselves legit.  From providing pictures to providing videos.  However, I aslo concluded that "Ultimately, you may have to have a third party review one of your miners in order to build your credibility."  Poring over pages and pages of information about ASICs really proved that point;

• You can post a picture of a miner, but if you Photoshop an existing miner (https://www.facebook.com/asicrigs/photos/a.235889736536364.1073741828.235882613203743/235890703202934/?type=1), you're gonna have a bad day, ASICRigs
• You can post a picture of a miner, but if you badly Photoshop an external drive enclosure (https://web.archive.org/web/20131028083501/http://bitcoinminingcenter.com/wp-content/themes/hyperion/images/slideshow/slide3.png) you're gonna have a bad day, Phoenix Technologies
• You can post a picture of a board, but if you badly Photoshop a motherboard (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159560.msg2004199#msg2004199) you're gonna have a bad day, CedarTec
• You can post a picture of a chip, but if you badly Photoshop away the markings (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=263445.msg3116166#msg3116166) you're gonna have a bad day, labcoin
• You can post a picture of a mining screen, but if you badly fake the numbers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=417623.msg9823103#msg9823103) you're gonna have a bad day, HashCoins
• You can post a video of a supposed mining rig mining away, but if you screw (https://vimeo.com/90693426) up the (https://vimeo.com/65249930) rest of it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPeen7AJA-o), nobody's going to believe that video.

But here's the thing - those were badly done (even though some took a while to be caught and some people had already lost money at that point) - what if they were well done, or there's simply no good information either way?

Personally, I'd say hold off - let somebody else be the person risking the money on getting a potential product sooner than you, be happily proven wrong.

Thus is the case with, for example, HashCoins.  There's no actual product being shown other than a (render of) a case), and it's known that they have been less than forthcoming with information in the past - be it with regard to a miner that was supposedly their own board design (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=417623.msg9679298;topicseen#msg9679298) (incidentally, an explanation of the difference was for sale for $100,000 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=417623.msg9707938#msg9707938) but bears a striking resemblance to reference HashFast boards, or faking hashing details (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=417623.msg9817742#msg9817742) (yes, two for the price of one), or claiming custom chip and miner solutions for Scrypt miners when it's just another Alcheminer clone (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=417623.msg10881614#msg10881614).

HashRa isn't in a particularly better position, emulating Butterfly Labs' early days of '2 weeks'.  Granted, Butterfly Labs eventually delivered.  Too little, too late, but delivered.

And thus I haphazardly jump back a bit and say, what good is a review if the reviewer is bound by certain conditions for the review?  In this particular case, Dogie was asked to obscure the markings on the chips used in a miner (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=417623.msg10884085#msg10884085).  While the markings would be immaterial to the purposes of his guides, the fact that this was done under an NDA may lead one to wonder what else isn't entirely on the up-and-up (drag the VAT thing (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1018906.0) into this thread and see your post deleted, thanks).

NDAs suck.. mostly
Whether it's the aforementioned NDA, or the NDA that covered Dogie/Spondoolies-Tech (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=456691.msg10593662#msg10593662), KnCMiner's Jupiter datasheet being behind an NDA, or just about any other NDA - they all suck.  They're overly broad in scope and more often than not introduce a very lopsided relationship where the party who drafted the NDA holds almost all of the power.

Just as with preorders, the incentive is often to be privy to information that others will not learn or only learn much later.  But unless that significantly benefits you personally, odds are it'll just haunt you further down the road.  I've rarely signed a voluntary NDA myself for this very reason, but I fully acknowledge that other times there's a good incentive - or it's just not particularly voluntary (e.g. required as part of job)

Patents
Just as a quick aside - as it fits in with the topic of NDAs - remember when HashFast released their Golden Nonce protocol specification as open source (http://hashfast.com/golden-nonce-interface-protocol-released/)?  Well maybe you shouldn't click that, because they neglected to mention that HashFast has patent applications on parts of that thing (http://hashfast.org/14-30725.170.pdf) (page 6).  Who knows what else in Bitcoin hardware is patented - which is a shame, as a lot of Bitcoin technology development came from the early days of open source everything (often by necessity) and collaboration.

'Free' reviews
Haphazard jumping back a bit again and speaking of incentives, there is of course no shortage of reviewers; as long as they get the gear for free.  A good example, SFARDS tape-out announcement thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985400).  There's about a dozen people in there already who will happily do a review if they're sent a sample.  You know, for free.

Now, I get it - there's something to be said for both approaches.  If you send a product for free, the reviewer may be biased to write a more positive review (not to mention that they can then go on and sell the product - decent profit to be made there on high value items even when offset against time+equipment; low value items not so much, to the point where a reviewer may opt not to perform a review, even if it's sent for free (alas, NF6, a guide was not meant to be)).  If instead the reviewer has bought the product, they might still be biased because they don't want to admit that they bought a dude.
Of course there is a middle ground - sending a product but expecting it back, for example, is becoming more common for many hardware review sites - but I certainly lean more toward buy-and-review than review-for-free-and-sell-for-profit.

Home mining - Part 1
Hey speaking of SFARDS, they already mentioned that they'd try to target various levels of mining equipment (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985400.msg10746514#msg10746514), which may mean a home miner of sort.
Now, this caught my eye because:

• BitFury has exited the home miner market, including chip sales, at this time (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=896350.msg10909942#msg10909942) (yes, the same BitFury whose chips are found in most StickMiners and oodles of other miners), while they had their share of setbacks (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg8107270#msg8107270).
• Spondoolies-Tech would like to cater to home miners, but doesn't know if the market will exist (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg10511583#msg10511583) (Miner Edge, using SP-Tech chips, squarely target datacenters (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1004552.0), but perhaps there will be more information from SP-Tech at Inside Bitcoins NY 2015 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg11056058#msg11056058))
• ASICMiner is in organizational turmoil (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg10560581#msg10560581) as friedcat appears to have disappeared.  Which sucks for this thread a bit because Block Erupter USB - but I genuinely hope he's okay, personally, regardless of the reason for his absence.
• KnCMiner halted sales a long time ago (and whether one blames the user (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=170332.msg10931668#msg10931668) for not realizing consumer sales means having to know one's way around an oscilloscope (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=170332.msg11011270#msg11011270) or blames KnCMiner for mishandling consumer sales is a bit beside the point) and even took down their Forums (which I mention for a later haphazard jump).  Of course they're also facing potential lawsuits (probably in part leading to the decision to no longer sell - though with their hash rate on the network, selling hardware only made sense if it was obsolete to their purposes anyway)
• CoinTerra went bankrupt (chapter 7) (https://web.archive.org/web/20150202050534/http://cointerra.com/)
• HashFast went bankrupt (forced chapter 7, modified to chapter 11 (http://hashfast.com/hashfast-reorganization-under-chapter-11/))
• Black Arrow is under legal fire (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=807881.20).
• Bitmine and Innosilicon are probably still trying to figure out their IP mess (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=485497.msg5599291#msg5599291)

Which, if you look at the ASICs page in the wiki, doesn't leave a whole lot of companies that make the chips, let alone that put miners together.  Well, let me clarify - there's plenty of other companies in the past, but most of them are either no longer around or simply have no plans for new chips.

Sure BitFury do have some "portable Bitcoin processor" planned (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/interview-bitfury-ceo-valery-vavilov-new-bitcoin-asic-chips-horizon/), and previously secretive 21e6-turned-secretive 21 Inc. have "a suite of consumer products that integrate with bitcoin’s core technology called the “blockchain.”" planned (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/10/secretive-bitcoin-startup-21-reveals-record-funds-hints-at-mass-consumer-play/) as well.  But there's good chances that just means Trezor clones like Black Arrow is selling (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=983471) or other such non-mining products.  They don't even have to be physical products, with all the "Bitcoin 2.0" sidechain action going on.

Intermission: The internet never forgets? Hah!
Speaking of companies that are no longer around - what about sites that are no longer around?
I mean, here you are, getting a bunch of good information on ASICs, sticking them in a temporary document for later perusal in detail, then later comes and *poof* the information is no longer there.

Ah, but "the internet never forgets", right?  "The internet routes around censorship".  Hogwash, I say.  Unless you saved the data yourself, odds are it will disappear at some point in the future.

There are several ways that I have found that the information is effectively lost:

• It was never archived, at all.  Example: http://www.digbig.io/ / https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.digbig.io/ - "Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived."
• It was archived, but only in part, and the part you need isn't there.  Example: https://web.archive.org/web/20150207020110/http://www.landasic.com/doc/info/view.php?id=108&cata=110 - "Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived. Want to search for all archived pages under http://www.landasic.com/doc/info/ ?"
• It was archived, but then the webmaster decided to stick a robots.txt on.  Example: https://web.archive.org/web/bitfurystrikesback.com - "Page cannot be crawled or displayed due to robots.txt".
• It was archived, but then a company completely unrelated to the original company (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=374920.0) decided to stick a robots.txt on.  Example: http://www.coreminer.com/ / http://web.archive.org/web/*/coreminer.com - "Page cannot be crawled or displayed due to robots.txt."
  

These last ones are particularly egregious, as current robots.txt files can make archived pages at archive.org from years ago inaccessible (https://archive.org/post/1019415/retroactive-robotstxt-removal-of-past-crawls-aka-oakland-archive-policy).

With that in mind, almost everything in the ASICs page and every. single. link. in this rant post - and the post itself - is archived at archive.today (http://archive.today/).  archive.today 1. ignores robots.txt as it's not a spider and 2. captures everything on the page (if possible) at the moment of capture, instead of delaying resource capturing to a later date (and thus the many missing images in archive.org captures).  It's also a relatively young service with no clear funding model - so I'm under no illusion that it will stick around - thus the links are also archived locally.

Home mining - Part 2
But what of those that are still around and do have plans for new chips?  Well, there's SFARDS as mentioned.  Bitmain should have a new chip out half-way through this year (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg10882109#msg10882109), as should Canaan Creative (Avalon project) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg10870264#msg10870264).
From Bitman we've already had the Antminer U1/U2, and the Antminer U3, perhaps an Antminer U4 is in the line-up next to the Antminer S6 (presumable name).
From Canaan Creative we already know that their new Avalon chip won't be suitable for a StickMiner (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/31zrl6/hi_im_ngzhang_founder_of_avalon_project_a_senior/cq6hzn2), but as mentioned in that link they do have a small miner planned, at least.

But Canaan Creative have also mentioned that their main business is large deals (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/31zrl6/hi_im_ngzhang_founder_of_avalon_project_a_senior/cq6kg1z), as have Spondoolies-Tech with regard to, effectively, cloud mining (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg10552142;topicseen#msg10552142).  Hey, at least they had a good April Fool's joke (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg10943917#msg10943917) :)

Of course we can't, or at least, shouldn't blame them.  Home mining is a dwindling market, and sales to home miners often don't make sense - a lot of potential profit instead goes into shipping, support, RMA, etc.  All things that can be much better dealt with in bulk.  Not group buys, but bulk. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg10552101#msg10552101)

Bulk almost commands centralization.  We've already seen this in the huge mines in China, Iceland, northernly European countries (I know, I know... Iceland is technically part of Europe, too).

Without getting into whether that is a good or a bad thing (my opinion: a bad thing) on a deep level, let's instead tackle whether home mining was even meant to last.


Well that settles that, then.  Okay, kidding aside, ASICs probably expedited the process that was already foreseen on a level that was possibly not foreseen, but ultimately home mining was not meant to last.  In fact, it can't last, as the way Bitcoin mining works (its Proof of Work algorithm) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1006472) always favors larger miners disproportionally due to economies of scale.

On the one hand that means pools.  Pools aren't bad - even though some would try to convince you otherwise and even attempt to make pools disappear by making them untrusted by default (and miners at pools just as untrusted) (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2ytkkt/nonoutsourceable_mining_puzzles_by_andrew_miller/) - if nothing else, they're the only way that home miners can still meaningfully (for some definitions of meaningful) participate in mining at all, next to playing the solo (http://solo.ckpool.org/) Bitcoin (http://bitsolo.net/) mining (http://solomining.com/) lottery (https://solo.nicehash.com/).

I'm certainly not saying that the PoW algorithm should be changed - though it absolutely could be if it's deemed necesary (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/31k8ng/when_bugs_happen_in_bitcoin_how_will_they_be_fixed/cq2k3zg), and there are interesting alternative proof-of-X models (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TipGy2bOVL4) - but as long as it is what it is, the realities of mining are what they are.

I am saying that "1 person 1 vote" certainly doesn't apply in mining of just about any coin, least of all Bitcoin - and believing otherwise is, in my absolutely not so humble opinion, delusional.
In fact, the Bitcoin paper states this:
The subversion by allocating many IPs is instead a subversion to allocating many CPUs.  Thus even a CPU-only coin is still fully at the whim of people who can afford to buy faster CPUs, or simply more CPUs.  The only way to get a "1 person 1 vote" style setup is by issuing black box devices impervious to attack (down to decapping the chip yielding little more than a tangled mess that takes significant resources to untangle, at which point new devices could be issued) to registered individuals.  But that presents problems in the 'impervious to attack' part - The Trezor got hacked via power analysis (http://johoe.mooo.com/trezor-power-analysis/), for example (by johoe, who has previously uncovered nasties in Bitcoin transactions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=581411.0) as well - props) - and of course in anonymity.  Plus it still doesn't entirely eliminate the issue - as Alice could sell her device to Bob and now Bob has two votes.  For that matter, Bob doesn't need Alice to sell it to him, he could just take it surreptitiously / forcefully, which would require further security measures to mitigate (and I'm not a fan of biometrics - that's a rant for a different forum).

Should the algorithm ever be changed, I do believe it should incorporate a mathematical curiosity (hard to analyze, easy to duplicate).  Not including this in the beginning for simplicity (less things that could be broken) was a good idea, but it would be a missed opportunity not to do so at a later stage.

One other approach would appear to be in not giving out rewards at all, but then where's the incentive?  Would Bitcoin have grown as quickly as it did, if there wasn't the potential for 'mad profits'?  I doubt it, and PrimeCoin gives some credence to this notion, as most of the difficult submissions to the project that this mines have come from PrimeCoin miners (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TipGy2bOVL4#t=23m), rather than altruistic citizen scientists.

For now there's no reason to expect a PoW change anyway, so let's haphazardly jump back again.

Home miners
This is 'ers', the other was 'ing'.  So even though a lot of companies are looking toward business-to-business type solutions, does that mean home mining is dead or dying?
Well, no.  Miners - the completed hardware - are made by effectively two companies: the chip developers themselves, and systems integrators.  So even if Bob Corp Int'l decides to only make their miners for datacenters, as long as Bob is willing to sell some chips to Alice, LLC and provide the necessary technical data, then Alice can put that chip on a board of her own design and sell that to whoever wants to buy one.

We have seen this in the past with BitFury, but also with Avalon, Spondoolies-Tech, Black Arrow, Innosilicon/Bitmine, etc.  Sometimes this requires signing NDAs, and sometimes you might have to badger people at the chip company, but as long as you can get the chips you can conceivably make miners with them.  This StickMiner thread is obvious evidence of this at generally the smaller integrators, but also consider companies like TechnoBit (http://technobit.eu/index.php) (Avalon, Black Arrow, Spondoolies-Tech, ASICMiner, Innosilicon/Bitmine, Bitfury chip - Say what you will of their customer support, but if they can get the chip, they will at least attempt a miner.), Pepper Mining (https://peppermining.com/) (ButterFly Labs, HashFast chips), DrillBit System (http://drillbitsystem.com/) (Avalon, BitFury chips - sadly disappeared), GekkoScience (http://gekkoscience.com/) (Bitmain chips).
If you build it they will come?  If you provide the chips, they will build it.

Which brings me back to GekkoScience's thread - GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675) - which is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting threads on the Forum right now, certainly when compared to the threads currently seeing page after page of trolling and memes.
Not only are GekkoScience building new miners, integrating Bitmain's BM1384 chip (again, kudos to Bitmain for providing them), but you've got valkir and vs3 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg10825161#msg10825161) (nanofury) popping in, goodney (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg10857336#msg10857336) (twin chip fury) getting ready to adjust his (canceled) BE200 StickMiner, The WASP project (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg10839150#msg10839150) (various, unfulfilled, miners) and Philipma1957 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg10816237#msg10816237) (assembly and sales) offering resources, and a whole bunch more.  If intron and c-scape joined in as well, it would be one veritable cluster of home mining people).

So while home mining may be diminishing, it's not dead yet - and neither is some of that early collaborative spirit.

Thus ends the rant, and on to happier things, like the StickMiners thread update :)

2015/05/13

• Thread clean-up time!  For a full copy of the thread as it appeared before I zapped posts, check out: https://archive.is/kSk6E .  Thanks to ManeBjorn, Mikestang and notlist3d for helping several users out in this thread, unrealistic for not reading ;), vs3 for being vs3 (I have merged the post about the NanoFury project ending into the first post), Anonymailer for asking an obvious question that I did not obviously answer (“what software supports which miner?”, now answered in the first post).
• Thanks also to people in general for partaking in the three+one Block Erupter USB contests: mod contest (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1011866) (now updated with my 'mods'), Three Days of Mining lottery (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1028498), StickMiners Horizons (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1043833) and StickMiners Googly Eyes (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1053725).  There'll probably be a new contest soon :)
• I've updated some of the pictures in the first post with shiny new recent resolution angle shots, replaced broken links with archive.org links where available – probably plenty broken things left.

Some peculiar bits:

• The Dualminer is now available for $22 from eyeboot.com (http://www.eyeboot.com/Litecoin-Miners-Scrypt/Scrypt-ASIC-Dualminer) (was: $30)
• The Red Fury is now available for $25 from eyeboot.com (http://www.eyeboot.com/Bitcoin-Miners-btc-mining?product_id=65) (was: $30)

Why peculiar? Because they're not actually in stock, and haven't been for a very long time :P

The above ranty-post will also disappear soon, but just to touch on some developments since:

• We still don't know what 21, Inc. wants to do, exactly (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1065077) - and few people are seeing a solid business plan other than "get VC now".
• BitFury's "portable Bitcoin processor" may or may not have ended up being a lightbulb (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1072425) - but at least their network hash rate is up.
• Spondoolies-Tech moved forward with the BTCS merger (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/20792/bitcoin-shop-inc-btcs-spondoolies-tech-move-forward-merger/) - at the same time rebranding miners as transaction verification servers - oh, and you can get shares of BTCS
• Miner Edge holds off on commercial production (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1004552.0) - profits are too slim and SP-T chip supply is limited, but plans to keep going with newer chips
• Bitmine AG (CoinCraft miners, CoinCraft A1 chip) went bankrupt (http://bitmine.ch/) - and largely blames Innosilicon
• KnC continues to claim hardware progress, deploying 16nm (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1078353) - while still facing legal threats
• Black Arrow Software cancels their 14nm chip plans (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294197.msg11460264#msg11460264) - ..yep
• Avalon wiki is updated with a reference to an Avalon Mini (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon4_mini) - but not yet launched.
• SFARDS delivers their chips (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985400.msg11573448#msg11573448) - and they're very shiny and hopefully integrated into a miner by J4bberwock soon
• GekkoScience delivers their prototype StickMiners (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011) - chip's not as shiny, but the product is certainly more relevant to this thread

And, finally, after I messed a bit with retro calculations (a la http://retrocalc.net/) for StickMiners, I have to say congratulations to the Drillbit Systems / Barntech's Fury Thumb /for actually giving positive financial ROI.  At least, in simplistic theory:
Introduced August 1st, 2013.  Price was $130.  USD/BTC at that time was ~$96.62.  Purchasing BTC would have yielded BTC1.345477
If you started mining right here and then, assuming 2.5Gh/s, you'd now be looking at about BTC1.6.  Electricity doesn't put much of a dent in that.
It was in the sweet spot of being launched just before the difficulty starting going through the roof, and having vastly more hashing power (~2.7Gh/s) than the Block Erupter USB (0.330Gh/s) for the price.

note:

KNC's chips are for their own use ONLY and IPO $$$ for their new data hall they want to control  20% of bitcoin mining fyi... so no hope of getting that 16nm chip
their www.kncminer.com site CLAIMS deployment of such happening now

currently KNC is at 7%? according to the below article

https://bitcoinist.net/knc-miners-announces-20mw-data-center-near-the-arctic-circle-after-turning-backs-on-their-customers/

Yeah, KnC claims a lot of things.  Sadly, one of those things is ~5-7% of the network hash rate.  ( organofcorti (http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/) should have an updated block maker stats post later today. )

Unfortunately, that is the business model for most of the hardware makers now - while those who propose to do something else entirely, or still cater to the little guy by making a StickMiner (next to a planned bigger board), get mocked; though by a company that seems to have itchy keyboard fingers and nothing as of yet to show for it.  Hey, at least they read these forums.

That said, there's plenty to smile about.. if not SFARDS's chip or Avalon's plans or GekkoScience's progress, then you can always go watch a Block Erupter USB beep or get smashed about :D

Link?

I'd say start here :)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=844727.msg11611547#msg11611547

I read some mocking for 21e6 embedded stuff and Bitfury Light Bulbs, both of which ideas I openly despise. But yeah, that was a lot of words that didn't actually say anything (or instill any confidence in them). I hope they're full of hot air and can't do what they say, because it sounds to me like they want to centralize mining almost entirely, dole out subscriptions to their gear, and glut the blockchain with billions of stupid transactions for completely unrelated things. None of which is an actually good idea. Once a few more halvings occur and transaction fees dominate the mining revenues, how many miners are still going to be in business when the blockchain is dominated by your zero-fee authentication and communication microtransactions for (id)IoT everything everywhere? How many nodes are there going to be when you're trying to transfer several gigabytes of zero-fee transactions per minute? Why should anyone think this is a good idea?

I think I'll continue to work with real people instead of overwealth'd jackasses. Thanks for the link.

Small cosmetic update, just putting a few notes here:
The Avalon Nano has sold out at ehash.com (http://ehash.com/product/avalon-nano/).
The Avalon Mini (http://ehash.com/product/avalon4-mini/) may become available mid-august (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1114143.msg11823204#msg11823204).

J4bberwock Unveiled one of his SFARDS SF3301-based designs (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985400.msg11844685#msg11844685), it's a podminer (a la Gridseed Orb, Antminer U3, R-Box) design with 2 chips.

GekkoScience are also entertaining the idea of a podminer (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1114329.msg11834948#msg11834948).
The GekkoScience Compac single BM1384 miner (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675) may go on presale as early as next week with a German licensee and seller also lined up for those on that side of the pond.  You can read several impressions of the GekkoScience Compac in the official combined review thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011), including my own (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011.msg11816899#msg11816899).  Keep in mind that it's for an earlier version.

In bigger miner news, Bitmain's S7 may or may not get announced (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1003216) this month, the same applies to SFARDS' SF100, BitFury's 'Bitlamp' should go on sale before the end of the year (http://kuna.com.ua/bitcoin-mining-lamp/), and Spondoolies-Tech teased a little:

I was happy they said something.  Raises my hopes they might be getting closer.  I really do like my SP20's.

Now I just need to hope they will sell to small customers.  They do make great gear.

Final minor bump regarding the GekkoScience Compac (see earlier post):

Official sales started July 21st, 2015

Pricing off of GekkoScience is at $25/unit (excluding shipping) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg11874267#msg11874267), 10 unit maximum, contact them if you need bulk.

Because of the low price of these units, shipping can seem daunting.  Group buys or waiting for retail sales can be an option in that case.

Region	Forum User	Where to go
Global	sidehack (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=130792)	https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1126705
United States	HolyScott (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=35090)	http://holybitcoin.com/ - TBA
Canada	valkir (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=214808)	https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1121237
Australia	AJRGale (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=97056)	https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1123519
Venezuela	chiguireitor (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=257547)	http://contimita.com/ / TBA
Europe	MacEntyre (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=168223)	https://www.bitshopper.de/shop/usb-miner-bitcoin/gekkoscience-compac/ (design licensee, own manufacturing run)

Design thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675
Reviews thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011
My non-technical review/feedback: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011.msg11816899#msg11816899
My technical review/feedback: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086011.msg11902625#msg11902625

While still little is known about the Avalon Mini (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1114143), Canaan Creative (http://canaan-creative.com) have additionally hinted at an Avalon nano2 (http://www.canaan-creative.com/avalon-nano2-%E5%8D%B3%E5%B0%86%E5%88%B0%E6%9D%A5/).  As with the mini, they appear to plan building a Chrome App for control.

Last chance, for now, to pledge for a GekkoScience Compac: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1126705 
Either direct, or through one of the group buys (see 2 posts up in this thread).

I got some to test, looking forward to having a stick miner to play with again :)

I'm already looking forward to the next one(s) :)

Avalon have put up a product page for the Avalon Nano 2 (http://ehash.com/product/avalon-nano2/) in their ehash.com store.
( Price is either incorrect or for unspecified multiple units )
It still uses a single A3222 chip - just like one up from the Avalon Nano - but has a fancy new body and a new mining interface (Chrome App - though I would be surprised if cgminer/bfgminer failed to work).

Unfortunately for this thread, one other change makes it run afoul of one of the defining characteristics of a StickMiner; "Does not require a cable to interface with the USB port"
The Avalon Nano 2 has a small USB port (presumably microUSB and not USB C), rather than a USB connector (A or C) instead.  While using a USB A to USB micro B adapter (https://www.google.com/search?q="usb+a"+"usb+micro+b"+adapter&tbm=isch) plug (and those could easily be more compact than shown) circumvents the exact wording, it doesn't stop it from violating its spirit.  At the same time, given its form factor, it clearly is much closer to a StickMiner than it is to a desktop/podminer like an Antminer U3, Gridseed Orb or Avalon Mini (2015). Yet bending the rules means that previously excluded miners would suddenly also become valid and the list would require further criteria, especially going forward into USB C connectors with high power delivery.

At this time, I have added it to the list of excluded miners as a form of honorable mention.

7,2 BTC for "1 to 3,6 GH/s according to the changes of temperature" : are they crazy ?

large-printed the smallprint, just for you ;)

I'm leaning towards 'incorrect', as the same price is being applied to the Avalon Mini, which was listed at BTC1.08 just the other day (itself a rather hefty price).  Webmaster snafu, I'd imagine :)

Thank you ;-)

The Avalon Nano doesn't use the 3222. Pretty sure it has the previous-gen chip on it.

Oop, you're right - A3233 as per my own list.  Go figure :) Correcting.

2015/09/12

• Added the missing CoinPal give-away version of the NanFury, added Bitshopper.de's version of the Compac (hopefully for sale soon), added an odd NanoFury-based miner that uses a QFN20 of the MCP2210 - if anybody has more information on that one, please do post – and updated some of the pictures.
• Avalon have made further progress on the Avalon Nano 2 (http://ehash.com/product/avalon-nano2/) – however, as it attaches to the host device using a cable (it has USB port), it doesn't qualify as a StickMiner.

---

Aside: If you have, or will have, a GekkoScience / Bitshopper Compac and aren't sure where to mine - consider the Sidehack stick solo pool club (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1177508)

What about this lketc miner here - http://lketc.com/goods/show-1193.aspx

Anyone know much about it?  

Here is full review.  http://www.cybtc.org/article-40-1.html

Once you get time Steve I think you should add this one.  It appears it is not very limited that pretty easy to get as far as Chinese market.

Only thing that stopped me from getting one to play with is it appears program is all in Chinese.  I did not see a English version.  I hope someone finds one of it though.

Would be cool if you added my scrypt stick to the thread. And I don't want to sound biased but I've seen that USB stick and its crap...its based on the old Zeus chip and overheats easily. That thing hashes at 220kh max if you can get it to not burn up, my stick starts off at 400kh at under 2 watts and goes up to 1mh.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1248914.20

Jstefanop's scrypt stick is probably your best bet for litecoin mining. I'm not sure on availability, but I believe CrazyGuy (asicpuppy.com) and holyscott (holybitcoin.com) have some if you can't get 'em from the manufacturer.

new generation stick miners for litetcoin or bitcoin are available here still:

https://www.eyeboot.com/gekkoscience-2pac-bitcoin-miner.html
https://www.eyeboot.com/futurebit-moonlander2-litecoin-miner.html
https://www.eyeboot.com/ttbit-bitcoin-miner.html

Thank you for the info, but it is just for the hobby : the chip BM1384 is completely outdated.
Waiting for a stick with a actual SHA256 chip...
Maybe yes, probably not.

yup this hobbyist mining at its greatest...
the next gen can do 100+ gh easy  ;)