Next Generation ASIC's - How do we recycle the past?

[sgi02]

With the halving upon the horizon, every ASIC manufacturer from Avalon to Zeus will have produced a great deal of hardware that has achieved "legacy" status. The question being posed is this; what happens when all utility from these machines lost? Take for example the Antminer S1, "the staple of the home miner" is how BITMAIN described the S1 and they were right... for the time. Currently the S1 only has utility to those that DIY and make custom solutions with the blades, or to those that want to mine for a incredibly small amount of BTC and use the unit for a heating source. As of today's date a S1 will make about 0.004 a week. In year or two, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that the utility of these devices will be rapidly approaching those of a USB stick miner today.

So the question is this; just what the hell do we we do with all of this old mining equipment? S1's can be had for 20-$30 shipped to your door now, people are basically selling them at a loss just to get rid of them. What happens this time next year? Do they just wind up in the dump because nobody wants them? The Atari 2600 can still play games, a 386 PC can still run applications that wont work on newer hardware, the miners of today on the same timeline....

Do you think ASIC manufactures should potentially begin a recycling process with their products? Apple will recycle their products free of charge as well many other  tech companies today. We've seen USB miners made from recycled parts, why not create more? Maybe offer a slight discount / loyalty program and send in your outdated hardware and receive a discount on the newest models? What are your opinions? Thanks for reading!

[icezer0z]

With the halving upon the horizon, every ASIC manufacturer from Avalon to Zeus will have produced a great deal of hardware that has achieved "legacy" status. The question being posed is this; what happens when all utility from these machines lost? Take for example the Antminer S1, "the staple of the home miner" is how BITMAIN described the S1 and they were right... for the time. Currently the S1 only has utility to those that DIY and make custom solutions with the blades, or to those that want to mine for a incredibly small amount of BTC and use the unit for a heating source. As of today's date a S1 will make about 0.004 a week. In year or two, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that the utility of these devices will be rapidly approaching those of a USB stick miner today.

So the question is this; just what the hell do we we do with all of this old mining equipment? S1's can be had for 20-$30 shipped to your door now, people are basically selling them at a loss just to get rid of them. What happens this time next year? Do they just wind up in the dump because nobody wants them? The Atari 2600 can still play games, a 386 PC can still run applications that wont work on newer hardware, the miners of today on the same timeline....

Do you think ASIC manufactures should potentially begin a recycling process with their products? Apple will recycle their products free of charge as well many other  tech companies today. We've seen USB miners made from recycled parts, why not create more? Maybe offer a slight discount / loyalty program and send in your outdated hardware and receive a discount on the newest models? What are your opinions? Thanks for reading!

Thats a good question / statement.  It would be nice to see Bitmain take some S3's that are becoming more and more power hogs everyday, and to be able to get credit towards say an S7 miner.  But they still sell right now for about $150 via eBay but by the time halving comes theyll drop dramatically.

My suggestion: Sell them now, and keep a few or one for the history books to show your kids / grandchildren.

[VirosaGITS]

With the halving upon the horizon, every ASIC manufacturer from Avalon to Zeus will have produced a great deal of hardware that has achieved "legacy" status. The question being posed is this; what happens when all utility from these machines lost? Take for example the Antminer S1, "the staple of the home miner" is how BITMAIN described the S1 and they were right... for the time. Currently the S1 only has utility to those that DIY and make custom solutions with the blades, or to those that want to mine for a incredibly small amount of BTC and use the unit for a heating source. As of today's date a S1 will make about 0.004 a week. In year or two, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that the utility of these devices will be rapidly approaching those of a USB stick miner today.

So the question is this; just what the hell do we we do with all of this old mining equipment? S1's can be had for 20-$30 shipped to your door now, people are basically selling them at a loss just to get rid of them. What happens this time next year? Do they just wind up in the dump because nobody wants them? The Atari 2600 can still play games, a 386 PC can still run applications that wont work on newer hardware, the miners of today on the same timeline....

Do you think ASIC manufactures should potentially begin a recycling process with their products? Apple will recycle their products free of charge as well many other  tech companies today. We've seen USB miners made from recycled parts, why not create more? Maybe offer a slight discount / loyalty program and send in your outdated hardware and receive a discount on the newest models? What are your opinions? Thanks for reading!

Thats a good question / statement.  It would be nice to see Bitmain take some S3's that are becoming more and more power hogs everyday, and to be able to get credit towards say an S7 miner.  But they still sell right now for about $150 via eBay but by the time halving comes theyll drop dramatically.

My suggestion: Sell them now, and keep a few or one for the history books to show your kids / grandchildren.

That would never happen. Its cheaper to get brand new components than let say recycle the re-usable components on S1/S3 boards. Recyling stuff cost more money than just getting new stuff.

Also if you re-use used PCB components, maybe you'll have things near death that still pass the check, but will die soon. I am not sure what that would do to the failure rate of the rebuilt miner.

[notlist3d]

With the halving upon the horizon, every ASIC manufacturer from Avalon to Zeus will have produced a great deal of hardware that has achieved "legacy" status. The question being posed is this; what happens when all utility from these machines lost? Take for example the Antminer S1, "the staple of the home miner" is how BITMAIN described the S1 and they were right... for the time. Currently the S1 only has utility to those that DIY and make custom solutions with the blades, or to those that want to mine for a incredibly small amount of BTC and use the unit for a heating source. As of today's date a S1 will make about 0.004 a week. In year or two, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that the utility of these devices will be rapidly approaching those of a USB stick miner today.

So the question is this; just what the hell do we we do with all of this old mining equipment? S1's can be had for 20-$30 shipped to your door now, people are basically selling them at a loss just to get rid of them. What happens this time next year? Do they just wind up in the dump because nobody wants them? The Atari 2600 can still play games, a 386 PC can still run applications that wont work on newer hardware, the miners of today on the same timeline....

Do you think ASIC manufactures should potentially begin a recycling process with their products? Apple will recycle their products free of charge as well many other  tech companies today. We've seen USB miners made from recycled parts, why not create more? Maybe offer a slight discount / loyalty program and send in your outdated hardware and receive a discount on the newest models? What are your opinions? Thanks for reading!

Thats a good question / statement.  It would be nice to see Bitmain take some S3's that are becoming more and more power hogs everyday, and to be able to get credit towards say an S7 miner.  But they still sell right now for about $150 via eBay but by the time halving comes theyll drop dramatically.

My suggestion: Sell them now, and keep a few or one for the history books to show your kids / grandchildren.

My suggestion is close sell all to lower or free electricity once it's close to not being profitable.  With this you gain some more money invest right back into BTC with that money.

I don't suggest keeping one for history unless it's special.  Sell them all you can buy one in 2-3 years for much cheaper and have the history then if you want, again that is if not special miner with limited run.

But then you later can buy new miners or just hold.  Option is yours and it is very good and helps add to ROI.

[goxed]

BTW which miners do you think are most likely to be assigned to the annals of history?

[barrysty1e]

Gridseed Blades (40 chip); look sideways at them and either the regulator hardware will burn out or the MCU will die.

[notlist3d]

BTW which miners do you think are most likely to be assigned to the annals of history?

I think it will be based on the first's like usb from asic miner.  Or some of limited quantity run's that there are fewer in number.

Those are the two I see as being most collectable long term.  But not sure as far as value in 10-20 years... hard to tell could just be a cool item on wall.   Also one's with multiple colors... people love collecting a set always will.

[sidehack]

Sure be nice if companies would design new versions of gear that mounted to to the previous version's mechanicals. Save a lot of money on heatsinks. Possibly they could offer a slight rebate for returned hashboards, but scrap value for basic electronics isn't all that high.

[QuintLeo]

See Innosilicon, they seem to be the only company to date (of the majors) that has done ANY "build new units to be able to reuse old hardware" at all (Farmboy/Zeus stuff).

 Despite Bitmain claims, they have never actually done so, and I don't think anyone else has ever even talked about "upgrading".

[fr4nkthetank]

You could always mine some low diff altcoin with the s1, and hope the price jumps in the future.  Other than that....what if btc price goes up ?  then your small amounts of btc are worth something....so dont mine at a loss, but why not if the profit is small ?  Also, you may consider to mine solo (solo ckpool for example) and have a little lottery thing going on.  I sold all my old miners, but I did keep a usb block eruptor for posterity. 

[VirosaGITS]

You could always mine some low diff altcoin with the s1, and hope the price jumps in the future.  Other than that....what if btc price goes up ?  then your small amounts of btc are worth something....so dont mine at a loss, but why not if the profit is small ?  Also, you may consider to mine solo (solo ckpool for example) and have a little lottery thing going on.  I sold all my old miners, but I did keep a usb block eruptor for posterity. 

My S1 still generate 0.027BTC per month, its above what i could call a "small amounts of btc", that would be dust for me, like what a old usb miner would do. I find it pretty reasonable and them being completely silent is really nice, imo. I can undervolt them to get them to about 1W/GH and run them without a fan.

Nice quiet heater and with the profitability so high right now, they're even profitable BEFORE taking into account money "saved" by using them as a heat source for winter.

So to recycle the past, i'd say its just about getting them to the right home.

[QuintLeo]

Any miner can be "recycled" as a space heater. I suspect quite a few older ones are already used that way.

 Granted the USB stick miners aren't very good at it.....

[lcharles123]

I was thinking about breaking the big and obsolete boards into small boards that can be powered by USB of TVs and other devices, basically transforming an big ASIC into "block erupters".
So people will not mind of keeping them running for less than 5KWh / month and a lottery ticket every 10 minutes.
Its is also good for decentralization of mining.
Anyone knows initiatives to reverse engineering these boards?

[sidehack]

5kWh/month means a draw of about 7 watts to the chip. I think people still mine on S9-era gear, so let's look at S7 for the "best of the obsolete" category. Down around 7 watts, the BM1385 ASIC used will get you about 30GH/s, which is definitely not zero hashes but puts your odds of hitting a block in the neighborhood of, I think, 1 in 6 billion.

Which is probably still better than a regular lottery?

Of course, that assumes the device you're plugging into is internet-connected and can run the software to configure a pool and pipe work into the miner without a significant power hit. That's probably doable given how much crap is "smart" these days.