Antminer R1

[toptek]

How much does this thing cost?

I'm guessing 150 at the most maybe because it is a router that mines BTC and will be on all the time if it's in a home or business. my router is . i wonder if it will  run a tv cable off of it like the Verizon router if it can which i know it Polly can't i would replace my Verizon router with it and i would buy it for sure I want one but it depends on the price if i buy it or not and what the router part can do . I don't have a use for three routers I have two now but if I could replace both the Verizon and voyage router that would be awesome , but i sure it's a normal router with nothing special about other then it mines BTC.

I think that is way to much.  I see it competing with tplink nano's and a usb stick miner.  So 20 for tplink, and 25 or so for stick miner.  

I'm hoping to see this around 50.  I would guess though they will jack price some but 150 were talking about a lot bigger and more quality routers then a one usb plug and one Ethernet plug little box with a miner chip in it likely.

I hope so . and I hope we don't have to buy 20 of them then it's gonna cost more if we buy else were .

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[mindtrip]

I agree I think $50-$75 max price

[mindtrip]

Yeah but they are selling it as a new gimmick product also the S1 chips use a lot of power so this has to have the latest chip in it but even if it was $20 for a USB miner and $20 for A cheap router that would be a fair price at $40

[gablay12]

A new phase of mining is approaching.The S7 , the rooter, etc.

The rooter will give control to Bitmain (or her artificial intelligence) to control the BTC generation of the market while she owns less then 50%.It seems to be not only a rooter which mines.It seems to me Bitmain will give reward as long as our rooter is open and collects data for her.

I might have easily misunderstood and misinterpreted.My idea only depends on what I read and my interpret it for myself.

[gablay12]

Today, data is money. Any company would pay signiciant money for a data base related to their sector.I am a sceptical person, I do not have a solid proof for what I have written.That is how I have interprited the info announced at Bitmain's site.

To have the knowledge will enable Bitmain to rule the market.To be their ally seems to be more beneficial untill another big actor enters the game.

[notlist3d]

Yeah but they are selling it as a new gimmick product also the S1 chips use a lot of power so this has to have the latest chip in it but even if it was $20 for a USB miner and $20 for A cheap router that would be a fair price at $40

I'm hoping our right on price as I want one for fun.   Only way I can see going much higher is if they tie it with some other product such as their cloud mining.

Guess time will tell.

[Meech]

It will definately be $150+ and just a novelty item.  Cool nonetheless, but eventually they won't find a market and they will be given away with coupons.

[notlist3d]

It will definately be $150+ and just a novelty item.  Cool nonetheless, but eventually they won't find a market and they will be given away with coupons.

I still say not near the 150 mark.   A router and mining chip will be very very slim chance of selling unless they are throwing in some online hashing or something for that price. 

Really it's competing with tplink nano 20 dollars , powered hub 15 (more or less can be a lot more depending on hub), and a thumb stick miner 25 or so.  So you could build yourself for 60 for sure.  Even if you used a U3 on it a U3 is 20 dollars.

I don't think they will do that on price just to much.  On small thing's they have done where you have to order X amount (20 on U3's).  This I could see them doing.  I think they did it on those PSU switches to.

[alh]

Personally, I think this is only slightly more useful that the BitFury mining light bulb. When I chose my most recent WiFi router I worried about things like range, throughput, configuration, reliability and all that boring stuff. Burdening it with any kind of BTC mining hardware would have been a complete waste of money and power. Whatever hardware is inside would be completely useless, from an economic point of view, long before I would want to replace the router. I don't expect to replace my router every 1, or even 3 years.

Quite frankly when I think of a router, I can think of at least a half dozen other companies that I would trust to make good router, before I would ever get to the name "Bitmain".

I actually hope they do produce this and see that they are NOT a router company.

[notlist3d]

Personally, I think this is only slightly more useful that the BitFury mining light bulb. When I chose my most recent WiFi router I worried about things like range, throughput, configuration, reliability and all that boring stuff. Burdening it with any kind of BTC mining hardware would have been a complete waste of money and power. Whatever hardware is inside would be completely useless, from an economic point of view, long before I would want to replace the router. I don't expect to replace my router every 1, or even 3 years.

Quite frankly when I think of a router, I can think of at least a half dozen other companies that I would trust to make good router, before I would ever get to the name "Bitmain".

I actually hope they do produce this and see that they are NOT a router company.

I would agree it fit's in the area of fun mining, not roi mining most likely.  I'm hoping the usb port allows additional miners to hook to it.  Then it has router with chip in it, and can add thumb sticks to it.

But I will not be switching my netgear nighthawk for it an time.

[RichBC]

So looks like it's going to have a BM1384 chip in it, part of their use up the old stuff, Global Dominance Strategy? Quote from Jihan Wu

A router that also mines Bitcoin has been a very long time dream of early Bitcoin miners, and we hope to help realize this dream. This product is…(what people have wanted)

The AntRouter is its final stage of development. The first generation will use the BM1384 chip. Mining bitcoin with the router is a long time dream for the Bitcoin miners. We make it into reality.

So unclear if this is a single chip or more than one? Will of course be an easy change to move it up to BM1385 with increased Hash & lower Power. Not sure that I want a Router from Bitnmain, but it's an interesting alternative to a Stick Miner.


Rich

[notlist3d]

So looks like it's going to have a BM1384 chip in it, part of their use up the old stuff, Global Dominance Strategy? Quote from Jihan Wu

A router that also mines Bitcoin has been a very long time dream of early Bitcoin miners, and we hope to help realize this dream. This product is…(what people have wanted)

The AntRouter is its final stage of development. The first generation will use the BM1384 chip. Mining bitcoin with the router is a long time dream for the Bitcoin miners. We make it into reality.

So unclear if this is a single chip or more than one? Will of course be an easy change to move it up to BM1385 with increased Hash & lower Power. Not sure that I want a Router from Bitnmain, but it's an interesting alternative to a Stick Miner.


Rich

Sidehack has been able to do an AMAZING job with the BM1384 on his miner.   We can hope Bitmain will follow same strategy of getting the most out of the chip.  We won't know till release I guess on that.

They show a usb on the router.  I really hope it's running something where we can plug other stick miners into this usb.  To make it even more of a lotto type device.  But guess that is another we will see.

[lovenlifelarge]

So now they have released spec's for the new chips...

0.25gh then at 2w, Lets say the router takes 0.5 to run leaving 1.5 for mining...

At 2w this is a 6gh always on miner, Mining at bitmains pool....

& as a solo device for us but if bitmain puts this on for themselves...

They could pool mine with it, Make us solo mine with it but as its pool mined for them...

They only have to pay a miner running a R1 when & if they hit a block.....

Imagine being able to hit ur own pool with 6gh x ? miners (? would be determined roughly by how many miners on average bitmain has sold per unit...  ie they sold 1000 S1's 10,000 S3's etc & average that out across all miners sold to date..)

Lets say for arguments sake they sold on average across all miners 100,000 units

100,000 units x 6 gh is = 600,000gh all pointed at there own pool on top of there on units & managed farms...

This might not sound like much & my figures may understate this by miles (U never know - Well bitmain does)

This extra hash for nothing is worth something, They don't have to pay for power & to top that off they prob collect the fee's that come off the top...

Now if CK can run his solo pool collecting 0.5% off the top of any coin earnt then if bitmain takes all the fee's off the top & only pays the block coins, Then this will make them a tidy sum, esp if u take into consideration the block halving & going into the future fee's going up & up...

Any other thoughts??

[RichBC]

We are still to be told the exact modes of use that will be possible? My guess is that you will be able to set it up however you want, Pool, Solo etc. The key to success will be how it's priced and how it's marketed. I suspect if they tried to tie it to their Pool or make it a Solo only Lotto device someone would just come up with an alternative firmware to open it up.

Rich

[alh]

I think this be fine until the R1 actually gets some reviews AS A ROUTER, and then the wheels will come off. The Bitcoin "add on" won't save them if the actual router stuff is weak or unstable. When you wife can't use her tablet, or your son's  Xbox  won't connect rom the other end of the house, the Bitcoin "feature" will look pretty silly.

If somebody in marketing at Bitmain is projecting 100K units for it's life, they are going to be sadly disappointed at review time when there are 50K unsold units on the shelves. The Internet router business has very little to do with Bitcoin and there  are dozens of other manufacturers that can probably beat them on features, marketing, distribution, and costs. Netgear, Cisco, Asus and others are going to send Bitmain back to school in a big hurry. Sure they will sell hundreds of R1's to geeky Bitcoin enthusiasts, and that will be it.

Just my opinion of course.

[alh]

Thanks for the education kingolex. In general though I think my comments still apply. Their competition will still be pretty fierce and well entrenched. Maybe the "Bitcoin hook" will tip a few sales their way, but I still think that the networking aspects and features will limit their ability to sell R1's. I wouldn't plan on there being an R2 once folks get the taste of the R1 for a year.

[Meech]

Firmware and dozens of different manufacturers plague this router field.  Who has ever bought that couple hundred dollar router only to find it connects slower than your previous one?  It's definately not an easy field to be in and not as easy as Bitmain thinks.  They better get their support staff ready.  Too many variables plague the wireless standard.

[RichBC]

I feel that this one is either going to fall into the category of an inspired innovation, or a dismal failure? It all depends on what their objective is and then how well it is executed, priced & marketed.

It obviously falls into the same category as the BitFury Lightbulb and what intrigues me is the motivation behind these distractions? I can only speculate that it is an attempt to get Bitcoin mining to the general public? If that is the case the Lightbulb is the lower risk in terms of functionality, however I can see the logic of a router as there is more room to play with and it simplifies the internet access.

Ideally you would want to come up with a product that either sells at the same price as the item it includes but with the added value of a miner, at a lower price because of the value to the supplier of getting large volumes into the market, or at a higher price because of the perceived value by the customer. What I do feel however is that unless these types of product are sold in very high volumes there is very little point to them.

So if I was doing one of these type of products the obvious one is a Fan Heater. Use some older technology chips and sell it as being free to run.... So for the moment I will run with dismal failure... Let's hope there is some hidden secret not yet revealed


Rich

[notlist3d]

Firmware and dozens of different manufacturers plague this router field.  Who has ever bought that couple hundred dollar router only to find it connects slower than your previous one?  It's definately not an easy field to be in and not as easy as Bitmain thinks.  They better get their support staff ready.  Too many variables plague the wireless standard.

I am sure most will be buying as bridges for their antminers, this was probably in the works since they started removing wifi from their miners and kept ethernet as the only connection. I know I own bridges just for miners myself.

I think it will be just a fun toy for miners.  I'm not sure they will really buy for using as a router. I know it won't compare to my nighthawk router.  So I won't be using it as a main router.

My biggest hope is still that it runs stick miners through usb port and not just a charger there.   I think if it mined a little and could plug in stick miners it would be a nice device to fool around with.

[alh]

While the "Fan Heater" almost makes sense, it's got huge drawbacks:

1) None of the heaters I have seen have Internet connectivity. This will be an added cost of the "Bitcoin Heater" that's got to get paid for somewhere. Beside serious amounts of electricity, a miner needs Internet, or it's just a useless brick. The router has that for "free" (i.e. it's already present for the normal function). Neither heaters, nor light bulbs, do.

2) While ASIC's, and surrounding electronics, can produce plenty of heat, it's an uneconomical way to do so. A few feet of nichrome (or whatever is better today) has got to be dirt cheap compared to an ASIC, by several orders of magnitude. Heater manufactures are a very mature bunch, and I'll bet they have margins that are pretty small. It's hard to see what the market will be for an electric heater that is way more expensive than an existing one (say $50-100 currently).

I should probably just shut up and let the market render it's verdict on the value of a "Bitcoin Router" or a "Bitcoin Heater".