An Introduction

As previously a student of a certain electronics and computing program of a certain online university - such that is ostensibly not the same as Trump University, however perhaps semantically similar, namely DeVry University - candidly, I could wish to believe that I know enough about electrical engineering now, enough to at least begin to see how much DeVry has not covered. Although I believe that there are substantial gaps in their program - such as: Altogether a lack of reference with regards to historic computing architectures, viz [Bell 1971] and a complete lack of coverage with regards to mathematical models developed primarily in the physical sciences. Not as though to only complain about these gaps, however, I understand that there is a substantial body of work about the electrical sciences, available via open access journals and public libraries, as well as via book subscription services such as [plug] Safari Books Online. Of course, beyond so much of mathematical abstraction, and beyond so many logical models, there are the works produced of science and technology, in applications of principles of systems engineering - similarly, to an effect of commercial production systems, before there is ever so much of a commercial branding by individual Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) institutions. Candidly, without the pith of the works of architects, designers, and engineers, there might not be anything substantial for a commercial production service to develop a brand with.

Not as though to shake tree of canonical concepts and of popular concepts of Intellectual Property, personally I believe that there was an era in computing - perhaps to a duration before the Personal Computer (PC) and likewise before so many advertising campaigns were developed as about PCs as commercial products, and the corresponding works of operating systems development, from UNIX to CP/M to DOS, and BeOS, and so on - beside all of the works developed of institutions, such as the IETF, the ISO, the IEEE, and the ITU, as to the collective behest of international standards in computing and in communications systems. In that time, perhaps so many commercial institutions may've been more inclined to share knowledge about the designs of computing systems. Perhaps it did not seem like so much of a competitive field, in that time. So much as there are any number and manner of canonical works in literature surviving the competitive commercialization of the PC, perhaps that era is not in all ways lost to the contemporary market, or the contemporary design space.

That the Bitcoin Era clearly represents a distinct era in designs and applications of computing systems, personally I don't believe oneself may be well served as if to simply wait for the canonical academia to "Catch up," as it were - ETA within approximately a decade or so? Maybe once IBM has made an industry of it - ye olde "Big Blue," as though?

So, in proceeding to develop a manner of a reference base with regards to existing designs in Bitcoin Computing - that is, in Bitcoin Mining - but of course there is a lot of topical diversity around, even within that simple subject heading. Not only are there the SHA256 blockchain systems, but also the Scrypt, Scrypt-N, Blake-256, and other various kinds of ways to build a blockchain. Then there are the extensions on the blockchain such as with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and so on, and thirdly the contemporary services of the effective Bitcoin Infrastructure of the contemporary Internet.

So, not as though to rush along to the topic - as might be at the risk of leaving out a lot of the canonical content - but perhaps it's possible to develop some kind of a formal encyclopedia about the state of the art in cryptocurrency systems? and it be an open-source work - whether or not per se conforming to all of a service model of an anonymoumsly updated Wiki.

Towards such a concept, here is a link to an article - albeit not here at the forum: Case Study: "Brute-Force Computing" with FPGA Arrays -
The FPGA Array itself: AntMiner S5+.

Personally - in a context of web content development - I think it's easier to work with the WYSIWYG editor in Evernote, juxtaposed to BBmarkup such as at the Bulletin Board forums. So, not as if to gripe about it though, of course one can develop web content on the Web, and share it in a social context? Not as though to strike out on any new agenda of it, thus, I simply thought it might be apropos to share that resource, and this commentary, if perhaps it could be of any use towards Documenting the State of the Art.

Candidly, I would wish to share a further comment, as an observation: That Bitcoin Miner architectures such as the BITMAIN AntMiner machines - no doubt, in a manner similar to other canonically designed Bitcoin mining machines - that these appear to be designed as to function in a manner of "Brute Force" computing? More specifically, it seems that the total TH/s rate of any single product, as such, might be calculated as a manner of an average over the individual GH/s or MH/s rates of individual FPGA or ASIC components in the same computing machines?  Thus, it may not seem to be likely to achieve such hashrate throughput of any single FPGA chip itself.

The BITMAIN AntMiner S5+ for instance, is designed with 144 each of a certain FPGA chip, in each individual enclosure - to a total of 432 total of such "Hash Chips" in the complete three-part model of the S5+. Not as though to criticize the designers, I would estimate that each such "Hash Chip" may be operating independently of the others, such that the first one to come up with a "Winning Hash" - in any duration - is the one that results in the Proof of Work calculation, while the rest of the chips in the array continue to turn over some bits, similarly, all operating on the same blockchain and with the same fundamentally functional hashing methodology?

Without getting into a lot of immediate depth about SHA256 or models for Marakov Decision Processes and Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes,  I believe it may serve to ask a question as to the design of these ostensibly "Brute Force" computing architectures. I'm certain that they've all been designed with a great amount of consideration as towards parallelization in the compute+verify procedures. I'm sure they're not all simply applying the vanilla IEEE SHA256 VHDL module with a small series of logical switches for the checksum verification process - that would certainly be a naive thing to suppose. Certainly, they're all making the most optimal use possible of the very nature of a reconfigurable computing machines, as clock-oriented architectures juxtaposed to pulse-oriented architectures? I'm sure that something as archaic as the old AI Memo 514 may seem to hold absolutely no relevance for these modern things.

I would not wish to suppose to present any too bold claims with regards to this "State of the Art," though I believe it needs a sense of skepticism - like many things in commercial or quasi-commercial products and services. Thus, I propose to document this "State of the Art" - I only hope it doesn't offend the community!

Why I'm not publishing this content as a Wiki - Synopsis: Personally I'm not a huge fan of the anonymous nature of publishing at web-based Wikis - favoring instead, some perhaps more classical frameworks of technical documentation, as with DocBook or with DITA and viz a viz the FreeBSD Handbook, such that I understand is developed in a DocBook format. In lieu of DITA or DocBook, of course there are also the web-based annotation tools such as Diigo and Evernote, such that may also serve in a role with regards to content development

Today, having kept a profit of only $2 but it's a profit after all - a short and altogether free description about one's experience is available as so: On Small Profit Indicators and Long-Term Analysis – Profiting with Ethereum at Kraken

It's an algebraic inversion of a sort of "Buy Low, Sell High" methodology, simply, but it's advancing very very slowly as the market rate meets volumes of more than 1000 Bitcoin at singular price-point orders in the {Ethereum,Bitcoin} currency trading market at Kraken. I have less than 1 BTC and am not able to trade with leverage, so it takes a long while for me to turn any profit in that exchange.

I'm afraid it's one of the most active exchange markets at Kraken - so, have started looking at FOREX instead.

What an extraordinarily useful "Heads-Up," and seriously so.

I certainly wouldn't want to muddy up the discussion with any too off-hand speculation, but if one may endeavor to extrapolate as towards any application of this knowledge: In noticing that each transaction e.g at Kraken might be, to any extent, publicly - though anonymously - advertised at least via the Kraken web API -- perhaps, with some exceptions?* -- and there may be some fairly novel, if not altogether technical things found online as with regards to any manner of a system of material provenance, ostensibly applicable as towards a manner of a data forensics, namely as among developments of a sort of a Semantic Web standards-making community -- e.g the PROV-O ontology developed in the W3C standards track -- moreover, in considering the essentially transparent though immediately anonymous nature of transactions onto the Blockchain, in short, I believe that the Blockchain is already doing a lot of the book-keeping, itself? Sure, it doesn't all bridge the gap onto individual identity, but I believe it's not as though anyone was trying to keep any Bitcoin transactions "Secret" altogether?

I certainly wouldn't want it to seem like a "Buzkill" that so many transactions on a Blockchain may be already publicly advertised - as may be necessary to the authentication algorithms applied throughout the numerous finite state machines that make up the quintessential "Bitcoin System". I believe it could pose a concern as with regards to data mining, as such, but hopefully such a concern may never develop too tall of a shadow in the Bitcoin community?

Considering that an AML/KYC burden must be legally and somehow shared as a responsibility, shared as by any hypothetical Bitcoin exchange broker extending of any single Bitcoin exchange's own material services, I would like to speculate that it could be - in any semantics - leveraged onto the trust provided/developed by the individual Bitcoin exchange institution? There are some concepts of a Web of Trust, developed in some IS/IT practices?

I believe that the initial post serves to elucidate so much of a legal side of running a formal, commercial service onto a Blockchain. Certainly, it's not all about Unicorns and Silk Superhighways, LoL?

* Maybe not as much publicly available about the "Dark" Bitcoin/altcoin currencies though?

There is a book about this. It focuses on Forex - Forex being a lot like Kraken though Kraken might not have a lot of liquidity  -  the exchange rates not moving quite as quickly overall - as when there is not a lot of capital volume being exchanged in the respective exchange markets

It is possible to turn a profit at Kraken, but when the markets are stagnating, it takes a little bit of time.

A definition of Cheapest for an exchange from any  single base currency A - e.g Yen - to a stock currency B - e.g Bitcoin - it may depend on - primarily - the (1) exchange rate for the (A,B) currency pair at (2) the broker, trading house, or other institution where one is proposing to conduct the exchange. Of course, the market exchange rate may shift over time, for any single currency pair in any single exchange market. Ideally, the trading house with the highest A*B rate would offer, in a sense, the cheapest alternative for purchasing more Bitcoin from currency A.

PS


dood that was like an hour. Communications takes time, bruh?

Have you taken a look at FOREX? They have a lot of high-volume markets, frequently shifting, could be risky but could ostensibly be very profitable - even more so, at large volumes of market share.

Candidly, I'm wary of seeing the Bitcoin exchange markets flooded with capital in any way that might lock out those of us who trade at small volumes - where, at least, our Black Wednesdays are scaled down too. I don't believe there are any brokers exclusively on the Bitcon markets, yet, other than so many wallet companies themselves.

A diversified portfolio, in a sense?

Personally, I managed to turn a profit of about $24 yesterday in a series of exchanges onto Kraken, in a process that took all of an hour's duration. However, I then saw about $8 of that profit eroded in subsequent exchanges there - ironically, loosing $4 per iteration in two iterations of the small system of the trades. So, the net profit after all was about $16

Hypothetically, the amount of profit may depend on (1) the volume invested and (2) the rate margins at which one is investing the volume in the markets, as well as (3) the trends in those markets, such that may or may not match up with one's ideal exchange bids. Of course, in those trends there's also: Whether any exchanges are currently happening in the markets.

 I'm not sure if it may seem so simple outside of the Kraken exchanges though. They've made a pretty well FOREX-like model over at Kraken, but there are some relatively "Stale" markets over there, where the "Last Trade" may not have occurred for a number of hours, if not for a number of days. If there are not a lot of trades happening in a market, the market rate may not ever shift into any profitable margin.

Also, in some of the exchanges, there are literally hundreds of bitcoin - all invested at some specific price-points at some bids near the market split.  This also makes the markets not shift by a whole lot. Ostensibly, some traders might be better intersted in a safe deposit box for their Bitcoin, as it might not then clog the market for the rest of us.

Candidly so, I think that the reality of it is not all great, at the time, but the ideal model is superb - a thing of great Unicorns and so on [eg]

One's mileage may vary!

New to the Bitcointalk community, but as a long-time reader about Bitcoin, I thought it might not be a bad idea to share some views about Bitcoin Exchanges. Candidly and personally, though I have been a little put-off by the latent centralization trends in Bitcoin mining - ostensibly, the mining empires of the early adopters - I think Bitcoin Exchanges can serve to provide a profit incentive to getting involved with Bitcoin, regardless of how computationally expensive the mining itself has become, and the hardware for the mining too.

I started reading about the Kraken exchange, shortly ago. I've begun to see albeit a very mild profit in my own exchanges there - have been trying to work out something of a trading system onto the exchange, as so, but there's not yet a lot of clear mathematical proof I could share about that much. I think it's great that Kraken makes currency trading so simple, though.

In reviewing the order books on the exchange - applying the TabTrader app - I've noticed that a lot of the exchanges don't seem to be showing a lot of volume turnover. The 'last trades' list in TabTrader's exchange Watchlist panel provides a nice, convenient metric to that much  - that when the last trade was over an hour ago, it may not be a very fast moving market, one could even say it is then a stagnant market.

Not as though to think in all of a Bitbox, I've noticed that there are some FOREX brokers that offer deposit services for Bitcoin, and such that are available to FOREX traders in the US - such that many brokers are not, perhaps unavailable in the US as due to the new CFD shares, as may be offered by some FOREX brokers in the EU and so on. I'm favoring Profiforex. Of course, there's also TradersWay, both of which are available to FOREX traders in the US.

If I was in the EU, I believe I might look at FXOpen or plus500 as FOREX brokers.

I've found a few books about FOREX at Safari Books Online, such that might serve to explain the nature of capital exchange trading overall, but I wouldn't want to write a book about it here in the forum, of course. My main concern, I believe, is that we need more people trading or the markets all start to grow moss, LoL.