You don't know what the future will hold just the same that I don't know. But my instinct is that miners won't continue purchasing these things to the point where the original price point will never pay back. if miners stop buying at a given price/difficulty, BFL isnt going to stop selling, they will just lower their price. THats the point As you point out, for BFL to sell their boxes, they have to price them such that at the current difficulty, it at least appears to be a sensible investment, otherwise no one will buy. But with every batch of boxes they sell, difficulty goes up a bit and thus soon after they will have to lower their price again or miners wont buy.. which should result in new buyers, but further increasing difficulty, and forcing lower prices. Thats the feedback loop we are facing. Now you may think thats no different as with gpus or fpga, but its completely different, because gpus and fpgas have prices that have almost nothing to do with bitcoin difficulty. If bitcoin difficulty goes x10 higher tomorrow, AMD or Xilinx isnt going to drop their prices. But the asic vendors will, because unlike gpus, they cost ~100x less to produce than what they can be sold for. So why not sell them? And thus this spiral of increasing difficulty and lower prices wont stop until BFL reaches somewhere near their break even point. That wont happen over night obviously, but it does mean between one and two orders of magnitude lower per GH prices, and therefore between 10x and 100x higher difficulty as when you bought your first asic. That could happen in only a few years. Now ask yourself, If difficulty will increase, say "only" 10x over the next 2 years, at what current "payback time price" would you want to buy an asic? 6 months suddenly wont look so good anymore. I agree with you to an extent, but I think the timeframe will be MUCH longer. I can't imagine difficulty increasing 10x over the next 2 years without a corresponding increase in price. We're both speculating though. |
|
|
|
Was that the special gift for preordering more than one month's worth? |
|
|
|
ASIC:
BAD:
It will make it very easy for a small group of wealthy individuals to monopolize Bitcoin mining which will be horrible for Bitcoin.
GOOD:
it will be just as easy for our dedicated and trusted small group of core Bitcoin devs to change the Bitcoin code to render those un-adaptable ASICS completely useless.
I disagree with this. ASIC's being brought to the public market does nothing other than help PREVENT monopolization of Bitcoin mining. As it is now, someone could monopolize mining by producing their own ASIC and not releasing it for sale to the public. You could argue that a wealthy individual could try to buy up all of the supply of ASICs to monopolize it. I'd argue back that that could have been done with GPU mining, or FPGA mining already. BFL isn't the only manufacturer bringing ASICs to the party... EDIT: Also, good luck with getting anyone to agree to changing the Bitcoin code to render ASICs useless. I don't think many people believe ASICs are a bad idea. |
|
|
|
Likely would be offset, not laser. Maybe the curing lamps aren't up to snuff.
Yeah, I don't know much about commercial printing. Regardless, it's something that should be looked in to! |
|
|
|
I got mine on Friday. Enjoying the read so far. Writing is definitely... amateurish, but it'll get better I am sure. The writers still hate commas. :p The print quality is not so great though... if this was printed on a laser printer, it seems as though the paper did not get hot enough to fully fuse the toner on some pages. However it was printed, the text on some pages rubs off very easily.  I certainly do not regret purchasing a couple of copies of the first Bitcoin magazine. And overall, it really is a fantastic job to Matthew and co. on putting out a very professional-looking Magazine from scratch on a small budget! |
|
|
|
|
It's kind of like overclocking a CPU. You can have a CPU running at 25c, but won't overclock any further than 4 GHz regardless. It doesn't have to do with temps at that point, just with what the CPU is capable of.
|
|
|
|
Just for the record, Im not entirely pulling numbers out of my arse. I cant tell you everything I know, but I can tell you what google will tell you if you search for SHA256 performance comparisons between 65nm FPGAs and 130nm ASICs, like this paper here: http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/536.pdfOf course, no one said BFL will use 130nm, they might have picked 90nm or who knows, perhaps even 65nm, in which case you could be looking at closer to 5TH per wafer. But even if they went for 180nm or Im wrong by an order or magnitude, the basic premises remains the same: the variable cost per TH is several orders of magnitude lower than the current market price, and if BFL rides the price / difficulty curve from the current top to the eventual bottom, as a miner you will have a serious problem keeping up. It is true. P4man and me are both scared that BFL will corner the mining market ...  I almost had a stroke when I read this thread yesterday. Looking at BFL's past history it looks like they will deliver, unfortunately for all of us running GPUs and FPGAs now. ( not Singles ) Bowing down to the BFL mining overlords ... all this can be stopped by a community effort and mining can be decentralized again. NDA ASIC = not good plan for us and Bitcoin in general. What's stopping BFL having a ride with the blockchain and 51% ? NOTHING. This needs to be fixed. Algo change is in order IMHO. I wish BFL all success in the world but I don't like where this is going for BTC  1) Why would BFL kill the very project that is giving them almost all of their income? They have no reason or motive to kill Bitcoin or stage a 51% attack on it. 2) BFL is selling to the public. In my opinion, this is the best way to introduce ASICs to Bitcoin. It'll keep it decentralized by giving a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of hashing power. Vlad was/is doing it behind closed doors and NOT offering his tech for sale to the general public. I am glad he likely won't be the first to the market on this. Go ahead and algo change if you want, but I'm sticking with the current Bitcoin code and blockchain.  I'm also think that ASIC's are very bad idea for bitcoin. ALgo will have to change one day, ASIC's will make that sooner, maybe real soon. And one day all that ASIC's will be worthless. Difficulty very high and no equipment capable to get (in reasonable time) to next difficulty drop. And that will be end of bitcoin. It is really bad idea...
IF the algo has to change one day, people will know about the change far ahead of time. And if Bitcoin is still anything by the time that day arrives, there will be plenty of companies offering miners for sale before the algo changes, just to take advantage of the change. I don't see an algo change killing Bitcoin. And who in their right mind would accept an algo change without first ensuring that adequate mining equipment is/was in place anyway? Remember, miners and users are both in it to see Bitcoin succeed. No one is going to make a Bitcoin-killing change to the algorithm - it wouldn't make any sense for any parties involved. But AMD is not making video cards for mining. They can be used for that but it's not they only purpose. ASIC designed for mining have only one purpose, and that makes them very dangerous for bitcoin that depends on mining.
Why are dedicated miners very dangerous for Bitcoin? That makes absolutely no sense. If a company was to keep the technology all to themselves and only mine by themselves, then I could see it being dangerous. But BFL will be offering an ASIC miner to the general public. ASIC mining couldn't come about in a better way, in my opinion, as it offers the change to continue to keep mining a decentralized project. Vlad is also coming out with an ASIC, but is keeping it all to himself and his own company. That is the worst way to do it, because then you truly do have fears about 51% and all of that. But BFL, selling to many people, means that many people will have access to ASICs and mining will be spread between them. How is this bad or dangerous for Bitcoin? |
|
|
|
|
Will you answer no to this question?
|
|
|
|
Time will tell. I'll just say that I still disagree with you that miners won't be able to pay off their ASICs.
And how would you know that? The only way to be able to make even an educated guess of your payback time is knowing how many terrahash BFL will sell over that time. Are you saying you have an educated guess for that? Cause I certainly dont. But I do know the potential is almost limitless, if BFL have a full wafer maskset, they will have a GH printing press with a capacity that far exceeds what you considered possible just a few posts above. You will be utterly at their (and/or their competitors) mercy for you ROI. You don't know what the future will hold just the same that I don't know. But my instinct is that miners won't continue purchasing these things to the point where the original price point will never pay back. When the payback period is that long, and the margins that slim, people will lose interest on investing their money in mining equipment, reducing the payback period and increasing the margins again. It's a market that naturally balances itself out. |
|
|
|
I think you're worrying a whole lot about nothing. The potential for future price breaks should already be considered by anyone purchasing new mining equipment. And even if you're buying equipment that takes a year to pay off, the price/difficulty isn't going to increase 4900% in that year. Oh yes it can. Easily. http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin-ever.pngSorry P4man, I just don't see your doomsday scenario happening. Most miner's aren't going to waste time with something that'll take > 1 year to pay off, and that'll keep prices and difficulty in check. And 12 TH/s is a LOT of hashing power to double.
By my estimate, it takes all of 10 8" wafers on 130nm. That will cost you less than $10K for the chips. You cant even order so few wafers, typically a run will be 25 wafers. I dont think you fully realize how disruptive asics are. Time will tell. I'll just say that I still disagree with you that miners won't be able to pay off their ASICs. |
|
|
|
|
I doubt RadioShack (or anyplace, for that matter) will have a 12v power adapter with that kind of amperage. I remember looking for one a while ago, and couldn't find anything in town. Ended up buying a specialized transformer off eBay.
I'd go the PSU route that BFL suggests. Or just get a new Chinese special from BFL themselves.
|
|
|
|
Maybe it cost them less than a "few" million to develop. Even if it cost them $0 to develop the asic, the problem remains. Unless you would expect them to give it away for free. That's not even taking in to account that ASICs will be profitable miners for a LONG time. If they could get it down to say, 25w for 1 GH/s, then difficulty would have to increase 49 times what it is now, with NO increase in price, for them to start being unprofitable in many areas. Granted, the payback period would be far extended if difficulty were to increase that much, but 49 times is 588 TH/s. Even if BFL only had a fraction of those sales, they would still payback far more than their initial investment. Forget about electricity costs, Im not even factoring that in. That makes the problem for miners worse, not better. I used some numbers to illustrate my point, but the underlying cause remains true regardless of the actual numbers, as long as you assume a trivial marginal cost compared to market value, which is a fair assumption for a bitcoin asic. The real problem is that BFL or any early asic provider will price their product at a level the market will currently bear. You can argue what that is, but I would say 6-12 months before you earn back your investment seems like a sensible investment, they will sell at that price. But that 12 months ROI, will become 12 years and 120 years as more and more asics flood the market at ever lower prices. How can you know how long it will take before it gets there? As a miner, you cant. You could write a check for 1TH asic miner expecting it to break even in 6 months but never actually get there. The only way I can see this going wrong for BFL Oh, but Im not worried about BFL. If they are indeed first to market, Im sure they will make a nice pile of money, and they should, they deserve it. Its the miners that will get in to trouble. I think you're worrying a whole lot about nothing. The potential for future price breaks should already be considered by anyone purchasing new mining equipment. And even if you're buying equipment that takes a year to pay off, the price/difficulty isn't going to increase 4900% in that year. Heck, even if the price/difficulty drops in half, you'd still have most of it paid off in one year. Sorry P4man, I just don't see your doomsday scenario happening. Most miner's aren't going to waste time with something that'll take > 1 year to pay off, and that'll keep prices and difficulty in check. And 12 TH/s is a LOT of hashing power to double. |
|
|
|
I suspect the difference will be based on, if anything, a typical quanity discounting curve and not a technological difference. That is, since you probably only have one ASIC chip designed and ready. Is that a correct assumption?
Put yourself in their shoes. Assume you invested a few million dollar and you now have an asic design that costs $1 per GH to produce. What do you do? Ill tell you what I would do; I would sell the first systems at a GH/$ ratio thats better than FPGAs, but no more than a factor 2x or so. Why would you? Better performance per $ and vastly better performance/W, that will make you dominate the market anyway, nothing else would make sense to buy, so you basically capture 100% of the bitcoin mining hardware market. Yet you are selling for say $300 per GH while the chip costs you $1 in marginal cost. But thats okay, you do have to make up for those millions you invested. Fast forward a few months. You've sold a few terrahash worth of those chips, as a result, difficulty begins to rise, and therefore, demand for your product begins to drop, because the ROI starts taking much longer. What do you do? Simple, you slash prices, cut them in half if you must, its not like your margins wont allow it. And so you sell a few more thousand units at $150 per GH. Until difficulty catches up again and demand slows.... rince, repeat. until you reach $3 per GH and the bitcoin network is 100x faster than it is now. And early asic customers are making 100x less than they were when they invested. Now BFL may say they dont want to rip off their customers, and Im inclined to believe them its not what they want to do, but even absent a competitor it will be very hard to avoid doing just that without resorting to a non profit business plan. Factor in a competitor in the above scenario and a price war is a certainty and therefore difficulty will explode even faster and render all those early ASIC miners expensive paperweights that will never earn their investment back. Unless BFL comes up with some sort of guarantee or promise to limit their sales (!) AND they retain a monopoly, Id like to short all mining corporations that invest in those early asics. Or later asics for that matter. Maybe it cost them less than a "few" million to develop. And 12 TH/s would have to be added to the network before the price/earning ratio would be dropped in half. If they managed to get 12 TH/s of sales @ $300/1GH/s, that'd be $3.6M. I doubt we'd see very much of a drop in demand with less than a halving in the price/difficulty ratio. That's not even taking in to account that ASICs will be profitable miners for a LONG time. If they could get it down to say, 25w for 1 GH/s, then difficulty would have to increase 49 times what it is now, with NO increase in price, for them to start being unprofitable in many areas. Granted, the payback period would be far extended if difficulty were to increase that much, but 49 times is 588 TH/s. Even if BFL only had a fraction of those sales, they would still payback far more than their initial investment. The only way I can see this going wrong for BFL is if the Bitcoin price drops drastically, down to the $0.10 range or less. But I don't believe that will happen any time soon at all. |
|
|
|
|
Well, 3 of the four were throttling and/or had inconsistent hashrates, so I'm just going to put them all back to 872 for the time being.
|
|
|
|
The new units might cost $100000.
That is FUD Maybe if they come up with a new form factor that does 500 Gh/s... BFL-Engineer already said pricing is far below $100K They didn't sell many (as best I know) MR at $15,290 -- how many will buy a $100K unit? They already stated that one, and possibly two forms of the SC will be available under $5,000. |
|
|
|
|
Excellent, going to try it on all four of mine now.
|
|
|
|
|
I am a happy BFL customer.
2 questions:
1) Where can I sign an NDA to get more information?
2) Can I order yet?
|
|
|
|
One of my singles worked with the 872 firmware without further improvements.
On the others I had to improve the cooling/airflow - now they are also working @872 without problems.
@BFL: Any plans to release further firmwares with a higher clockrate? I wonder why you stop with the 872 firmware. Could it be that something else (e.g. voltage regulators) could overheat because they are not or not sufficient covered by the existing one-point temperature monitoring?
Probably because a large percentage of miners wouldn't even be able to run that clockrate without throttling, and people would complain even more than they are. |
|
|
|
The new units might cost $100000. !!! I love the fact that they're doing trade-in's at 100% for old hardware... makes me want to order more singles! I'll have to buy a lot of singles then... |
|
|
|
!!! I love the fact that they're doing trade-in's at 100% for old hardware... makes me want to order more singles! |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
