Bitcoin Forum

I didn't know of this forum user Friedcat, not until I read a recent tweet (https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1825155695202750535) about his Asicminer company; Bitfountain. Friedcat is a Bitcoin talk member that made his last appearance, in 2015, after which he stopped paying investors. One characteristic of his that made me look him up is that he got his PhD in computer science at 15 years old. How?  ::) Talking about his Asicminer company, I believe some forum users experienced this when he launched the thread ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1088043#msg1088043). And, I saw some community members on Twitter who mentioned how many shares they lost after his disappearance. While the Twitter page is based on Bitcoin history, I also read recent crypto blogs  (https://coingape.com/trending/friedcat-shocking-bitcoin-mystery-biggest-btc-miner-vanished/)that published similar content published on the Twitter thread, and still, no traces of his location were found.

I was curious, is he becoming a history-maker in the crypto space? A lot of people seem to know about him and I could see Reddit posts and multiple old content based on the downfall of his company. How his Asic miners exploded and were stolen by his cohorts. Do you think he would have stayed if his Asic Miners were still very suitable for mining Bitcoin?

              https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GVRBbtBWkAAsdYh?format=jpg&name=small


A forum member's announcement on Friedcat's disappearance https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=735728.msg10663910#msg10663910
A brief detail of Friedcat and Asicminer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=996135.msg10819598#msg10819598

Appologies it's not Thursday, it's a throwback.

Friedcat's story is a fascinating one, and it's interesting to see how his ASIC miner history is still resurfacing in the crypto space. His claim of earning a PhD in computer science at just 15 years old is certainly impressive, but it's hard not to wonder if it's true.

I remember him and his thread, but i was not an investor. At that time I avoided similar projects, trying to make some money from bitcoin, without really understanding the true value behind it. As for Friedcat, since he held BTC in 2012 he probably made a small fortune and decided to bail when the value of his assets reached a level that allowed to live happily ever after, although 2015 was probably one of the worst years to do that.
I remember the success they had with USB miners (USB block erupters). You can still find them for sale, for instance on Ebay. I had some myself in 2014 just for fun, to see if I can get lucky with them and find a block (I did not). So much history in that thread, so many people that are not around anymore, even some dead ones...

A good article about him is at here (https://coinstats.app/news/1e3f35d82a19595359719d35995ad29a0c2b7d2d96b50e71b549106f009cbb5d_Friedcat-Shocking-Bitcoin-Mystery-Biggest-BTC-Miner-Vanished/)
One very important advancement he made to miner design was perfecting how to power the chips in strings to allow using a higher Vcore (>10vdc) string voltage. That was a drastic improvement over the previous method of powering pairs of chips with numerous separate Vcore regulators that delivered only 2v or less to each pair of chips. That rapidly led to far better efficiency and much smaller packaging.

I had his big tube miner. did about 1 th and was hot as fuck.

I must have sold 200 of his usb sticks on ebay.

canaryinthemine or some name close to that was his dealer.

bitmain came around and drove him out of business.

Should I add Friedcat story of innovation and failure /scam to Bitcoin mining history (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5432341.0)?

I did not know about this story if you didn't share it in our forum.

According to Bitcoin electricity consumption (https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2023/bitcoin-electricity-consumption/) from the University of Cambridge.

The first generation of ASICs was announced in 2012, that is exactly the year of Friedcat's announcement creation day in our forum but the source of this information does not write about Friedcat.
The link is dead, can not find today but searching with its title, I find an announcement thread in our forum
[Announcement] Butterfly Labs (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97269.0). It is on 1 August 2012.

The surprise is Friedcat's ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0) is on 9 August 2012, 8 days after Butterfly's announcement.

I've also come across his story once again on social media. I don't exactly know why. After all, there seems to be no relevant update about his location or existence anyway.

I should have made fun of friedcat's exploding miners because they're made in China, which is synonymous with substandard, so not much should be expected, only to realize the most powerful ones that the industry can offer today are all made from there. LOL!


You're probably referring to Phasebird (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=337449) and not CanaryInTheMine (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=18614). They're both birds but Phasebird was the dealer as mentioned (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=715382.msg8079873#msg8079873) by friedcat himself. CanaryInTheMine also confirmed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=735728.msg10739404#msg10739404) it.

I purchased tons of usb stick from the canary in 2013 sold a lot on ebay

It looks like his Prisma was the 1st to use long strings of chips (https://www.flickr.com/photos/121870988@N08/15856474394/in/album-72157650305673590/) That collection of Prisma pics shows no individual Vcore regulators which are identified by the large inductors they use. Pics I found of the Tube show it using the numerous Vcore regulators, 1 for each 3 chips.

Gotta say that from thermal design and visual design points - both the Tube and Prisma are gorgeous.

This site and the link (https://coingape.com/trending/friedcat-shocking-bitcoin-mystery-biggest-btc-miner-vanished/) I shared have the same content (word for word) on Friedcat. The differentiation is the backlink below the article, but one ranked on Google. In this forum’s policy—they would have been banned, for plagiarism. In detail, Peter’s tweet is well off, and the both sites cited his thread.

Why did the story resurface now if it's been 10 years since his disappearance? Is it some kind of anniversary in August?
It is an unfortunate story of a very smart but young person who got himself in big debt trouble and either committed suicide without his body ever being found or ran away to start a new life from scratch. In both cases, it's sad, especially if it wasn't his intention to set other people up financially. I hope he is alive, but I honestly don't think it's likely, considering that he was feeling suicidal, he was in a very complex situation, and his family doesn't know where he is.

Me too. I was making a lot of usd on the markup but I would now consider it one of my mistakes in my time in crypto. Adding pain to the mix, I think friedcat still owes me like 8 BTC or something like that from shares of his operation that I purchased on behalf of my mining project. I think if he stuck around he could’ve changed the mining landscape of today.