FPGA Miners

[wdBTCtrader]

Does anyone know what the FPGA manufactures plan on doing with the trade in as they deploy their ASICS

[mjc]

Butterfly Labs will be accepting returns.  I read in the forum somewhere that they had plans to sell them to other markets.  I believe that they can be used for things like protein folding.

I've heard that some people will be interested in using them for litecoin mining.

Basically their are other markets for them.  Probably not as profitable.  Who knows if they resell them for real cheap they may end back up on the BTC network.

[securo]

Basically their are other markets for them.  Probably not as profitable.  Who knows if they resell them for real cheap they may end back up on the BTC network.

BFL seems to only accept the FPGAs on upgrades, so this will effectively set a quite high price on the old miners. However, the ASICs does essentially the same thing, but so fast I wonder if the price/performance of the FPGAs will be so miserable in comparison, that they will be quite uninteresting, really.

[wdBTCtrader]

For Bitcoins yes, but as 'mjc' stated and I had forgotten.  They can easily be re purposed for other applications.  We are talking about "Field Programmable" devices after all.  I guess I've been so hung up on the ASIC hype that fact just went over my head. 

[securo]

For Bitcoins yes, but as 'mjc' stated and I had forgotten.  They can easily be re purposed for other applications.  We are talking about "Field Programmable" devices after all.  I guess I've been so hung up on the ASIC hype that fact just went over my head. 

You are absolutely right. I am also quite singleminded in this regard.