Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone,

Figuring out what hardware to buy that is profitable is impossible, since everything "profitable" is a pre-order that may or may not be delivered in a month or two or sixteen.
The only thing shipping at the moment that seems to be semi-profitable is the Antminer S1 from Bitmain @ 0.00725BTC/GH but what is next?
Also, the power drain to run 2TH worth of Ants is more than most households can handle...

So what is actually shipping next that you can buy without a pre-order? (<0.00725BTC/GH & < 2W/Gh)

Guesses welcome - we'll see who's right soon enough anyway.

S1

S1

S1

Guys... Maybe I have been unclear - the question is: What ships NEXT that is better than the S1?

S2

Bitmine coincraft A1 chips is deliverd and working, marto74 (technobit.eu) has built his first Board and customers has confirmed that it works. What i know this is the first 28nm Board that is shipped?

Problem is that the boards are realy expensive ( becus the chips are expensive ) so i think the S1 for 1.45 BTC is still the best choise.

The KnC Jupiter was the first 28nm to ship. KnC are 1 step ahead of everyone else in chip node, working on 20nm currently.

You're right the A1 chip is very close to 2W/GH, like an AntMiner, CoinTerra is pretty bad GH/W too, and Black Arrow also went back to the drawing board for another go stating their 1st effort wasn't efficient enough.

Only KnC, who did it Oct/Nov 2013 and HashFast Jan 2014, made a decent close to 1W/GH 28nm chip.

If you want to make money in this game KnC is the way to go, it's pre-order, but they win on early bird eats more worms principle!

No one has shown anything working, BFL, hashfast and More promise to ship soon but i dont think they will deliver.

I think the Chinese companies will continue to push out more products, exatly like BITMAIN..

Do you think knc will deliver in time for next gen? 22nm

The only thing i se as problem is that price is dropping fast right now, 2 w ago Antminer s1 price was 3BTC, now it is 1.45, i am afaid that knc is not the cheapest machine when it will be released, even if it is one of the most high-tec

Also don't forget it's sometimes cheaper to just buy the coins rather than the miner.  ;)

It's a complete gamble either way - if you just buy coins you can chicken out any time. With hardware it can be tough to sell when the price drops. But let's stay on topic..

I suppose it has a lot to do with the western/chinese way of development. In the west we would have quality concerns with putting a product like the S1 on the market. Western quality = a solid, user friendly, government approved product that lives up to development specifications 100%. China quality = it works.

For mining ASICS I belive the Chinese way of development is the only one that has a chance because putting things like these on the market fast is what China does best and in this case a miner that works for three to six months is better than waiting three months for a miner that would last a decade.

I wouldn't mind a KnC miner - if I could have it mining within a week of ordering... But I can't so it's a huge gamble. Before a product like the mythical Monarch hits the market I'm pretty sure my S1 arriving today will have broken even... twice - even though I might sell it before that.

So.. What we really need is cheaper 28nm chips and a Chinese factory to throw them on a bunch of boards and wiring it up. Preferably without buying a new server PSU every 1000w *SIGH*

I suppose the chip/board prices are also extremely inflated because it wouldn't make much sense not to charge extra for money making chips..

Does anyone else have a feeling that Bitmain is actually clearing stocks at a low price on purpose to get rid of S1's before announcing new units with a better chip design?

It is always cheaper to buy the coins... However...

You don't get "transaction rewards", (Most pools keep those anyways)... What is 0.001% of a billion/million/hundred-thousand dollars worth of bitcoins being moved in a block? More then 25 coins, I imagine... (Seen some real big moves lately.)

You also don't get to manipulate the market value on smaller coins, by throwing hash-power and cashing-out... However you can still manipulate smaller markets with buying and selling. (Not much manipulation you can do to a high-volume or high-price or high-diff market.)

I believe the S1 and S2 are the best for "now"... but the A1's are starting to reach the hands of others. So give it a few weeks, and the answer will change to A1's. (KNC's will still be preorder, until they ramp-up production or take greater advantage of the smaller die they are using. It is hardly as efficient as it could be. But then again, it is a first-run design.)

Since every new block is essentially a "lotto-draw", quantity actually still holds better over speed of any single unit. Buying 1,000,000 tickets all at once, is better than buying 1, followed by drawing 1 more, and 1 more. Even if that 1 tickets totals 10,000,000 by the time the other has drawn 10,000,000. (Hard to explain that one. One chip-stream versus 1000 streams from more processors/units.)

Think of it like this... You and 10,000 other people are all standing at individual counters. You is your one unit, the 10,000 others is another persons 10,000 slower units... Doesn't matter how fast you buy tickets, you all get the first ticket at the same time. Only your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth... come faster then their following second ticket. By that time, chances are, the block was found. 1/10001th of the time it is you, the other 10000 times it was the other guy. (But only for that first-hit. If it is found in three tickets, the other guy is screwed... you always get that block, because he didn't find it in two shots, which was all he had. (That is with all things being equal... him having 1THs, and you also having 1THs. Thus, solo-man vs miner-factory.)

Just don't buy billions of USB-stick-miners, as a strategy... lol. Sure, it might work, but chances is, it will never pay-out in the end. (Well, it could if BTC hits $300,000 in the next year! Not! Only $6000...)

OP is asking what is actually shipping, not as pre-order. So, we are still here - S1.

Thanks for keeping it on topic, but actually I'm open for suggestions on what comes next - but still not as a pre-order.

If the coincraft A1 chips become cheaper they would make sense to be the "next big thing".

Coincraft A1.

However, btc dropped to 650 dollar. Mining will not be really profitable at the moment.

I suppose it's all down to difficulty speculation. I wonder if/when people start turning off their Block Erupter Cubes / Blades / USB miners - it might actually be sooner than most of the new 1-2TH rigs are delivered. But who knows.

Yeah, the current drop just made the S1 a bit cheaper $-wise - I wonder if that's worth a gamble.

Bitmine A1 chip may be the 'next thing', if they can supply chips to other developers, if there are any. (developers, not chips ;)
For now, only marto from Bulgaria has a working board, but his bussiness is pre-order: you pay for a board, wait for a batch to pile up, then the whole batch is assembled, tested, and delivered. Right now he is taking pre-orders for end of march batch. Still pre-order.
Asicminer is developing a new chip promising a 0.35 J/GH efficiency on 40nm node. Tape-out mid of this month, delivery...?

I actually wouldn't be surprised if ASICMiner suddenly launched something shipping in two weeks. China FTW!

My bet is on something new from asicminer, bitmain or maybe some avalon clone before us "westerners" finally put something on the market in a steady stream.

How I wish KnC would pump the assembly line speed though..

there is some more developers working on design for these board, hope bitmine will lower the price in next chip-batch, at the moment it is to high :(

bitfury also

Yeah feels like they are cleaning out a farm, did you see the rows and rows of them on shelves in the photos?

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0314/3997/products/ip.bitcointalk.org_08.28.03_grande.jpeg%3Fv%3D1391682417
Source: http://cryptoware.co.uk

If there is an S2 I don't expect them to be selling it, right away, but using it!  ;)

Considering how clean the S1 I got today was, and how "open" the environment is at that farm, it almost seems like it is straight off the assembly line and hasn't been mining at all. Not a speck of dust on it... (?) If I leave anything out in the open in my semi-clean office for two weeks it will get dusty - way more dusty than the 100% clean Ant I just got.

Could it be that Bitmain actually doesn't pre-mine(much)? ... or maybe they just clean them before packing.

Maybe they're just on the shelf for a 24hr burn in test.  :P

I asked Sushi, (a Bitmain disrirubutor) if my incoming miners would be new or pulled from the farms.
He said they'd be brand new. Only tested for a day or so on the QC line. My whole question to him was largely about about shipping and hosting and the associated costs. My take is that it's not cost effective for them to pull used ones from the farm, tidy them up, and ship them. I expect that mine (to be shipped 2/11/14 I'm told) will be brand new.  On the other hand, the ones on the farm wouldn't be there if they weren't working properly, so maybe that wouldn't be so bad to get one :D

Selling these machines for 1.5 to 3 BTC is a great deal anyway and i think they want to cash home the money as fast as possible.
So i dont think they mine for themself, its to risky. i think its the same for almost all chinese manufacturers.

the US/EU manufacturers do i think mine for themself for some weeks..

Yeah heard rumor BitFury 2 by March, sample chips end of February.

No idea what specs but Punin said "Just you wait" in the Friedcat's 40nm/0.35J/GHash thread! 8) It's on like Donkey Kong!