Mining is going pro, and anyone wanting to get into it needs to understand that.

This is a marginal business, and if you want to actually make a profit doing it you have to treat it like a real business and not as a get-rich-quick gold rush. That was over the second the first Avalons came online, and those folks who owned them are the only ones who really struck gold. Those that followed will be mightily disappointed. 

Jumping in now requires a boatload of capital to build a mining network that is capable of a decent return. You must simply do the math to properly figure your ROI now and into the future as possible projections or face possibly screwing yourself. By my calculations a full Bitfury rack at 400 GH/s is plenty profitable even at a 62% rise in difficulty per month and accounting for a 0% rise in Bitcoin's value, though that means dropping a cool $8000 to get started. Only those brave and bold will be miners going forward as the industry grows up and the buy in cost is substantially more than a cute little BFL Single or ASICMiner USB (winning the award for worst investment ever at 333 Mh/s for around 1.2 BTC as you would need 15 of them to equal a BFL single...though I can't say I dont still want one anyway because the are neat  )

So, those hoping that their single 5 Gh/s Jalapeno was going to let them retire young and rich, probably not going to happen because the mining industry is exploding, just accept it. Remember that BFL still sells them because they are selling you the pickaxe. Just a product like any other for cash money. Mining itself is an entirely different ballgame than simply selling something there is a demand for in terms of making a profit. Though I don't doubt for a second they probably are mining with their own gear, or are at least more than happy to "test" them on the live network.

Keep in mind that part of the ROI problem is more that Bitcoin's market value has flattened compared to the network's dramatic rise in power. What really needs to happen is either some tapering of network speed as the ASICs finally reach saturation, Bitcoin rallies upward again like it did in April to offset the difficulty rise, or ideally some of both. I imagine it will be both, but we will need to be patient and see.

The blinders are definitely on for many with the "gold rush" mentality.

At least BitFury has shown their prototypes, unlike KnC and many others who are all talk and no substance.

But no idea really why so many are so eager to throw their hard earned Bitcoin at blatant scams and otherwise scammy/unprofessional enterprises. There is no problem with crowd-funding a new startup, but they way most of them go about it is just terrible. I pulled my BFL order on moral ground mostly because they are a company that calls their customers and investors idiots and repeatedly lied to everyone for over a year. Demand and short supply do funny things to people's better minds I guess.

I've been waiting to buy until I feel some trust in these options, instead of blindly investing and that company being a repeat of the BFL fiasco. BitFury seems to be on the level, which is my top choice of vendor as I plan out my own operation, but we shall see.

I don't see how they can ban jack squat unless they banned their whole Internet too

A Scrypt ASIC chip cannot just magically switch to SHA and vice versa, this company is telling porky pies, don't send them any money. Bitcoins are valuable why waste them on something as unprofessional and scammy as this dog and pony show.

10.8 Th/s...impressive, most impressive   

It was stated the cards will be mini-molex by Buzzdave on the next revision 

 

That looks awesome, already been working to fund one of these myself  

By the way, this project would go nicely with Bitfury rigs for standard ATX power that takes care of both the boards and the Pi:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=263567.new#new


I know this is still in a prototype stage, but are there any specs available as far as the physical aspects (Size, mounting holes, etc)? Like many I'm sure, I am wanting to start mapping out some kind of mounting system/case.

I can see this being incredibly useful in DIY mining by making using a standard PSU easy. Raspberry Pi's I think will come to dominate as a standard gateway for these mining systems to negate the need for external hosts, this little guy bridges the gap nicely to take any guesswork out of powering these rigs with off the shelf hardware.

Nice work  It is going on my needed parts list

Nice article.

The plight of Detroit is certainly a sad one going from shining beacon of industry to a run down crime-ridden cesspool, unfortunately likely just one of the first high profile failures at the hands of the built-to-fail fractional reserve model. I wonder how bad the fallout will truly be once the financial sector eats all that debt, combined with the resulting job loss and additional exodus from the city by people with nothing left to stay for. This unprecedented failure is hopefully waking America up to the simple fact our entire country and society is tearing apart at the seems, left wondering why the US Government did nothing but watch it burn despite Obama's previous statements in 2012 that the city would not be allowed to come to insolvency. Other cities are teetering on the edge as well. The true reality of our dire economic situation is beginning to hit home now.

Bitcoin has a unique property in it is very easy to generate a macro-economy as demonstrated by the 20 or so new blockchains around now since only about 2-3 months ago all interacting with each other in trade. That got me thinking about the future of cryptographic digital currency in a similar fashion to postulating "What if Detroit switched to Bitcoin?". Obviously the city is now a dead husk of its former self that has finally thrown in the towel, crushed under the weight of crooked politics and banking cartels, it would have nothing to lose by acting out in pure defiance to the FED with such a move.

Thinking further into the future, could we exist in a world someday where each country, city, and possibly even large business entities of sufficient market cap trade in their own unique currencies?

Though at a fundamental level, digital currency knows no borders or boundaries as we know them. The freedom to create a new currency with publicly available tools could have a much different economic effect very contrary to how we perceive currency today. With borderless currencies that bow to no governmental master, there is no saying how this will all play out. It will not be a simple matter of every country just creating its own, as every person on Earth could start a new chain and make it popular enough for adoption, rendering borders of countries to be meaningless when it comes to economic activity since that country could be using several digital currencies. Such a macro-economic system where every person, business, and market sector has all manor of choices on what currencies(s) it prefers to deal in would likely be incredibly stable. The death of a currency, or even a whole macro-economy would certainly cause other markets to fluctuate, but with easy access to other alternatives the damage would be contained to that area and able to heal itself naturally when the markets/currencies absorb the aftermath. Possibly the dawn of the first truly free market system?

Well, hopefully someone runs with that idea to create DTC and start pushing it, or just help Detroit adopt cryptocurrencies of any kind to start healing the city and bring fire back to its face-punched economy.

Bitcoin needs to have some fat rallies to support the rapid climb in hashpower/difficulty, or ROI will suffer until it does.

It seems dire, but remember that Bitcoin's value increased 722% in the first half of the year, right as ASICs started to hit the network, and GOX decided to freeze USD withdrawls that stifled trading (also a good thing so people start using other exchanges). Ben Bernake's announcements a few days ago also caused a slide in USD/BTC as this pair actually has a freakishly close relationship.

I am siding on the idea that the state of the world at the moment will push Bitcoin again to new highs soon enough and miners won't see their investments evaporating any longer.


I try not to look at the hashpower increase like a bad thing. What this means is that the Bitcoin network is rapidly becoming more distributed and secured with professional grade hardware, which is needed if this is to be the banking system of the future. We can't rely on cobbled together rigs on basement floors that look like a fire in the making forever. Every drop of ASIC power makes the whole network stronger. Pro-miners dropping large investments will keep them invested long term, which means the network becomes more stable and solidified as well long term.

On this level, the rise in hashpower is phenomenal and really speaks on how much support and interest there is behind this technology. Mining ROI is taking it in the pants at the moment, but won't be forever. This is the time for patience, Bitcoin has some surprises in store I think 

Gen1[CPU]<Gen2[GPU]<Gen3[FPGA]<Gen4[ASIC]

That aside, given ASIC specifications already exist in public space, can't imagine any need to "reverse engineer" anything like it is a lost technology or something.

Seems like wishful thinking to me more than anything, unless they have a Buy button for their ghost rig I didn't see then yes it would be a scam probably.

This whitepaper is crap

Got my miners all over it 

Added, seems pretty scamalicious 


Noticed that as well. They seem right on track to be a repeat of Butterfly Labs...

Well, lets go down the list shall we-

CEO not revealing who he actually is, or who the team is: Check
Half-assed website: Check
Outrageous performance claims with zero evidence or screenshots: Check
Claims to have hardware but provides zero evidence or photos: Check
Stock photo of a PC case as a product image: Check
ID protection on domain: Check


The only thing that says "wishful thinking" more than scam to me is the fact they at least have no buy button on there yet.


That aside Scrypt ASIC, like any ASIC, requires a lot of R&D capital, I just can't see it being viable yet with Litecoin's current valuation. And given Scrypt ASICs would not give nearly the performance gains like SHA coins did, they may not be much better than FPGAs for price/performance.

Looks plenty scammy but is so far harmless until they start accepting orders

VMC is getting a lot of flak for their conduct already, from myself included for deleting posts.


FCTTaiChi, any linkage is appreciated probably just to the landing page would suffice. I want to do more with this, I will contact you soon about that.

Sure, thanks!

19wZL8eKXeMTojXdaEvZ7yZaQ3ZBtiDDd7

I have updated the forums to be much more specific as in essence an independent version of this single thread, all known vendors and services are being added in with the same colors to reflect status.

The next step is porting over this information, and leaving a nice clean table at the head of this thread with some linkage.

Always looking for suggestions and feedback to make it better and more informative 

Kslaughter grow some balls and quit deleting posts, answer for your business instead of censoring negative press because you can't produce any actual evidence of what you claim.

You have a price and performance on products that do not currently exist in any form

Who are you to these guys lewicki?

Why are those pics not being posted by kslaughter himself?

Shady, very shady
And if you delete this one I will just keep reposting

I can also confirm he deleted every single one of my questions pertaining to his other businesses and calling him out on the very shady aspects of anything attached to his name.

I was just in Springfield, Missouri where he claims his shop is and offered to come take a look while I was there, never PMed to set something up.

And by the way kslaughter deleting posts only sent my posts back to my own inbox, so when I have a minute I will compile them and put them on CoinCanary for all to see instead.

Don't send your money to this guy, he is dirty