The Hive and Wasp System

Wasps and their hives are USB-connected peripherals to eCoin mining computers. 
Those computers might be as small as a RaspberryPi, or as large as a fully rack-mounted 
industrial server PC. Each Wasp is a potentially stand-alone mining assembly, with its own 
local work generation, hasher configuration monitoring, and Stratum-II reporting. As a 
peripheral, a Wasp can communicate over its USB 2.0 compatible, Full Speed (12Mb/s) 
link to a program such as bfgminer, running on either a dedicated linux-board 
(R-Pi, BBB, etc) or a consumer PC with one of linux or Windows or Mac OS-X.

Some features of a Hive and Wasp system:

Wasps can be put into service as stand-alone hashing peripherals, in which case the 
stand-alone-Hive is a simple board to apply power and provide a connector for the USB cable.

Wasps can be stacked - they have mounting holes for things like brass standoffs, and up to 
four Wasps can be attached to a stacker-Hive, which would provide both power and USB hub 
for consolidating the 4 USB connections into a single USB peripheral.

Hives usually, however, are full industrial rack-mountable containers for Wasps and their power 
supplies. These containers allow multiple varieties of Wasp to live and work together 
(unlike the real-life wasps!), providing scalable, redundant power for up to 8 Wasps, with full 
hot-plug capabilities, graceful, programmable degradation in the case of power supply failures,
and full industrial strength monitoring and control of Wasps, down to individual or small groups 
(4) of hashing chips.

Current Hives are designed for air cooling; water- and oil-cooled assemblies are proposed, 
which will increase density somewhat.

Wasps are currently designed as USB peripherals to a 'mining computer', but the hardware 
is designed to allow in-place upgrading to fully stand-alone headless blades, using a 10/100Mb
Ethernet link built into each Wasp. Firmware space for this mode of operation is also already 
present on the current design.

The Wasp Project is owned and managed by it’s members. Whether we are customers, 
employees or simply members in good standing we act together to build a stronger 
BTC community and in the process a better world. 

We are currently focused on helping the cryptocurrency community by providing mining hardware 
and mining pool solutions as soon as possible.We are to look at open source projects first and 
foremost as we believe that will bring about much needed change in the hardware / software
BTC community as whole.
 
Guiding Principles
 
We would like to be the hub of a global collective BTC movement, as such  
The Wasp Project Collective, accepts these seven principles that guide all 
cooperative organizations:

Voluntary and open membership
Democratic member control
Member economic participation
Autonomy and independence
Education, training and information
Co-operation among co-operatives and like minded projects in the Bitcoin community
Concern for community

Balanced Job Complexes
 
The WPC uses balanced job complexes which are organized so that every member will be regularly involved in 
both conception and execution of tasks, with comparable empowerment and quality of life circumstances 
for all. The precision of the balance depends on many factors, and would improve over time. At any rate, 
no individual would ever permanently occupy a position that would present himself/herself unusual 
opportunities to accumulate undue influence or knowledge. Every individual is welcomed to occupy a 
position that guarantees him or her an appropriate amount of empowering tasks.
 
In essence, the human cost and benefit of work would be equally distributed. We share the work and 
spread it around throughout the coop. We, as members, are free to choose to work on any project 
and learn from mentors to help support the development of the project.
 
Greater personal sacrifice made in the production of socially beneficial goods and services is legitimate 
grounds for greater access to those goods and services if the members agree. This idea allows our 
members the widest range of teaching/learning internships within the Wasp Project. We learn to be 
generalists not specialists so that we can better ourselves and others.
 
Areas of Economic Interest
 
As Wasp Project members we are interested in a number of diverse areas related to Bitcoin and 
alternative cryptocurrencies. The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:
 
Mining
Mining Hardware
Mining Hardware Accessories
Mining Hardware ASIC Chip Development
Mining Hardware ASIC Board Development
Mining Software Development
Cryptocurrency Exchange
Cryptocurrency Online Escrow Services
Cryptocurrency E-Commerce
Mining Pools
 

 
What does the Hive & Wasp Modular Miner bring to our community?

It will deliver, for the first time to the community, some form of obsolescence protection.
Our prototype Wasps are designed and will test with legacy chips, as well as cutting edge 
chips soon to be released on the market. Imagine a fully populated Hive (backplane) that 
accept a variety of Wasps using Bitfury, V2 Avalon or other legacy chips as well as Wasp 
designed with the A1, Minion or future chips planned for Q2. Not only will we be able to 
produce Wasps with future SHA256 ASIC chips buy our own designers have plans to 
demonstrate the first SHA256 and Scrypt mining in the same modular design. That will 
truly be disruptive innovation for the those doing DIY as well as established resellers looking
to create a truly lasting following base of end user. Our modular design will live on for years 
growing with the needs of the end user.
 
 
What will the Hive & Wasp Modular Miner cost?

We are carefully designing our system to match or provide additional savings over “retail”, 
“pre-order” systems currently available. The one factor that holds back real saving are the 
costs of the ASIC chips and their availability. We avoid some of the vagaries of the marketplace 
as we are able on a moments notice to react and design based on chip prices and availability. 
We can provide short turn around time whether it is a new or older chip and based on our 
ability to redesign our current PCB with minimal changes. The Hive remains the same no matter 
what Wasp slots in.
 
 
When will you be ready to mass produce your Hives & Wasp?

We will be testing our designs in the next few weeks. A fully populated prototype Hive hashing 
with 8 Wasps is probably ready in late December or Early January. We will be showing the 
community some of our work on the prototype in a video to be released after Christmas. 
Ideally we would hope to see Wasps and Hives being put through production at volume 
sometime in January 2014.