What will happen to people with non-BFL FPGAs (once ASIC arrives)

[Dalkore]

GPUs could potentially be profitable (with free electric), and FPGAs as well (with cheap electric), at least at the beginning of the ASIC rollout. The resale value won't be that high, but with the nearly insignificant electric draw why, would you not mine with them?

I am not sure about this in the long-run because of rent.   Now if you have free electricity, free rent, sure maybe sometime down the road, as long as your GPU doesn't die, it can be profitable on a relative basis to not running GPUs at all.   This assume difficulty skyrockets which I believe it will around Dec-Jan.

Dalkore

[allinvain]

When it's released? Well, my miners will be worthless. Till then? Well I'm making more than the preorderers...

Yeah I think many will dump their GPUs precisely when ASIC miners start shipping. That's what I plan to do unless I can figure out another use for the several 5870s I still have. I also have a few Icarus fpga miners but those I think I'll have a much harder time selling, so it would be neat if someone released a distributed.net or Folding@home or Seti@home bitstream for them - basically anything to repurpose them away from mining when mining with them is no longer worthwhile.

[Fjordbit]

You just keep mining and hope that your efficiency will keep you profitable... and also hope that the GPUs leaving the hashing market will let you stay profitable for a bit longer...

By my calculations, if you have an FPGA in your hands right now and mine it, you will come close to break even before reward halving and the difficulty rise. Of course it's much better to have a BFL for the trade in, but you aren't completely out of luck.

I would not order a non-BFL FPGA at this point though.

[crazyates]

When it's released? Well, my miners will be worthless. Till then? Well I'm making more than the preorderers...

Yeah I think many will dump their GPUs precisely when ASIC miners start shipping. That's what I plan to do unless I can figure out another use for the several 5870s I still have. I also have a few Icarus fpga miners but those I think I'll have a much harder time selling, so it would be neat if someone released a distributed.net or Folding@home or Seti@home bitstream for them - basically anything to repurpose them away from mining when mining with them is no longer worthwhile.

You should ditch them when it's not longer profitable, and no sooner.

[Qoheleth]

Also, you should investigate Litecoin. I've heard someone's written a GPU miner for it, and the only reason people aren't using it is that their video cards are better served mining Bitcoin. If ASICs squeeze GPUs out of profitability... that could change!

[zvs]

You just keep mining and hope that your efficiency will keep you profitable... and also hope that the GPUs leaving the hashing market will let you stay profitable for a bit longer...

By my calculations, if you have an FPGA in your hands right now and mine it, you will come close to break even before reward halving and the difficulty rise. Of course it's much better to have a BFL for the trade in, but you aren't completely out of luck.

I would not order a non-BFL FPGA at this point though.

if i had an FPGA in my hands right now

i'd sell it while it still had some value

[Zeronic]

I don't believe this *** hype, I'm just going to let my FPGA keep mining until the boards burn out. If any other vendor comes out with ASIC I might look in to it.

[BR0KK]

Same here

Or someone designs a new fpga miner on 28nm Tech. Then ill rather switch to that before thinking of being a SC from BFL :/

[GernMiester]

Its simple.  The ASIC users create such a massive difficulty increase all other miners make tiny fractions of a BTC a day or quit.
ASIC centralizes mining further by reducing the number of people who want to play. 
Look at ANY pool to see how many miners they have. There are not nearly as many individuals mining as one would think.  Now ASIC will give power to even fewer people and that centralizes mining even more. The higher the difficulty the less players period...

Do you really think the average person will learn all about BTC and is going to buy a $150 coffee warmer?  Its not going to happen.
So many people know about BTC and simply don't care. Raising the bar for entry means even less people will even bother to look.

IF BTC ever becomes a threat to any currency it will be made illegal and then no reputable business or person will want to bother with it. Think EGOLD and its money laundering issues of 2008 or was it 2009


Simpler version

Game is Tag = CPU for BTC - everyone gets to play nothing is required but you.

Game on XBOX = GPU for BTC - now you need a special box but its not very expensive and so many already have one its no big deal

Snowboarding/Skiing = FPGA for BTC - now you must absolutely have the right gear to play and you have to pay for access to get in the door.

Professional Sports = ASIC for BTC - now you need incredible skill that the average guy will never possess. They don't bother to even try and only watch. Many people don't even care to watch.

[enquirer]

they also can change the algorithm a little bit, and continue mining on the split blockchain

[grue]

Password cracking for hire?

because a lot of password systems use double sha256

[rudrigorc2]

we can always donate samples to the bitcoin museum that is yet to be founded.

[randomguy7]

Password cracking for hire?

because a lot of password systems use double PBKDF2* sha256

Fixed that. But it doesn't make a difference as PBKDF2 basically does lots of sha256 iterations.

What I would like is a generic PBKDF2 brute force bitstream (to brute force wpa2 passwords i.e.). Or a litecoin miner . Could the ztex boards be used for this or is it impossible because of the ram requirements of scrypt?

[Badonkadonk]

just point your hardware / cgminer at litecoin and keep smiling the world isnt ending

[meebs]

Doing LTC mining on my CPUS (bout 11 ltc a day worth) is nice, as you actually feel like you are earning something (in terms of units, not $$), compared to the lowly 0.65 BTC I earn a day from my 4 GPU's.

[Chrstian]

Hi guys, this thread is to discuss the options for people with non BLF FPGAs. While GPUs can be resold, the FPGA probably cannot. What do you do if you just bought your board, and are no-where near it's repayment period ?

Well FGPA'S (field programmable gate array's) can always be resold. with a little bit of effort they can be used for a multitude of other applications. resale might be quite a bit lower proportionally than a graphics card though, considering alot may be dumped if ASIC does indeed arrive soon. i expect graphics cards will also devalue, just not as much.

[Badonkadonk]

gogo sell ure fpga`s cheap, ill have them all, free powah ftw 

[Gabi]

ASIC centralizes mining further by reducing the number of people who want to play. 

Nice trolling

Too bad that being able to buy a Jalapeno for 150$ make your point totally fail. It's easier to buy an ASIC for 150$, plug it via USB and tell it mine or having to buy GPUs, mess with driver and overclocks and having a computer running them?