Bitfury Containerized Plug and Play Datacenter

[notlist3d]

The only thing I wonder is if some of these mega clients really will want the already setup box.  I see a lot of the big players already with investment's in data centers, so likely they will want to put in a spot they already have.   I predict most of clients will just want miners.   But I could be wrong if someone is a new player in the game then they might like this.

Agree. I see technicians in large scale mining farms slowly moving along racks replacing 28nm miners with 16nm miners.  The new miners look identical to the old miners and draw the same power.  The only difference is that they have 5 times the hashing rate.

So the network hash rate grows 500% compared to say June 2015 with no extra space or power needed.  It could rise from 400 Petahash to 2,000 Petahash just from upgrading of existing miners.

In practice some new mines will open as miners move to cheaper power areas.  But mammoth new mines over those previously announced are unlikely.

I think there will be a lot of that going on.  They will replace miners replaced and they might try to sell old miners to another location.

A possible example is over here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1231822.120   armedmilitia noticed that a operation in Venezuela's gear looked just like the one's MegaBigPower wanted to sell in bulk. 

What we see in that thread I predict more of.  Send a container of old gear to some country where electricity is super cheap and high risk, but if since you already replaced gear... high risk is still a bonus if you get more ROI.

[1714837971]

1714837971

[tss]

please be aware that this chip and equipment based on it is ALREADY deployed and in use by large mine farms.  i can state for almost certain fact that the bitfury 16nm has been deployed in a farm in the nyc area for a few months now.  the size takes less than 128u rack space and is hashing 400th.  the reason i say that i am pnly "almost certain" is i have not seen it personally but was told about it by a good friend that has seen it first hand.

[notlist3d]

please be aware that this chip and equipment based on it is ALREADY deployed and in use by large mine farms.  i can state for almost certain fact that the bitfury 16nm has been deployed in a farm in the nyc area for a few months now.  the size takes less than 128u rack space and is hashing 400th.  the reason i say that i am pnly "almost certain" is i have not seen it personally but was told about it by a good friend that has seen it first hand.

Interesting it would make a lot of sense as difficulty has went crazy it seems right now.  Just price staying sub 400, and huge jump coming is not good for miners.  If they get them in before having ... that is huge of these new chips.   

I would think we would see them pushing hard on getting gear as Bitfury seems to have beat all other makers on time and specs, at least that we know about.  I hope it slow's down but I'm not sure what will happen.

[alh]

I don't think we should expect there to be any significant slowdown soon. The ASIC manufacturers want to exract every possible $$$ (mu fiat of choice), while they can. None of them know what the halving will do to the price of mining gear and their ability to sell it. Right now it's a sellers market, and they will try and feed the appetite, along with transferring any risk, to the willing buyers.

Bitmain lit the fuse back in August, and re-ignited the ASIC arms race. They make their money on the front end, and give up some possible appreciation and earnings, to let the buyer take the risk.

Sell while the selling is good.

[mwizard]

I don't think we should expect there to be any significant slowdown soon. The ASIC manufacturers want to exract every possible $$$ (mu fiat of choice), while they can. None of them know what the halving will do to the price of mining gear and their ability to sell it. Right now it's a sellers market, and they will try and feed the appetite, along with transferring any risk, to the willing buyers.

Bitmain lit the fuse back in August, and re-ignited the ASIC arms race. They make their money on the front end, and give up some possible appreciation and earnings, to let the buyer take the risk.

Sell while the selling is good.

Disagree. I suspect the mining manufactures are not selling hardware. They are mining with it.  The best the general public can buy is the S7, which is unlikely to ever give an ROI.

The better miners, from the SP50 onwards, are not available to the general public.  No manufacturer has yet released details of a 16nm miner for potential general sale despite lots of evidence they have been around for some time.  And when they are available they are likely to only be available to large buyers.

In summary if there is one thing the miner manufactures are not doing it is selling the latest miners to the general public.

[QuintLeo]

And if it does .11 watts per gh  before cooling it is poorly designed.

the chip has demoed at 0.06 watts a gh 

 At very low hashrate per chip.

 Definitely a tradeoff on "cost of chips" to run more efficiently vs. "lower power/cooling costs".

 Consider the S7 and the BM1385 - if Bitmain had put more chips-per-string in the S7, it would be noticeably more efficient - but would have cost quite a bit more per TH or they would have had to accept quite a bit less profit per unit.


 BW.com should be starting deployment of the B-Eleven (B11, whichever it is THIS month), might be part of the hashrate jump the last week or two.
 The current large hashrate jump doesn't HAVE to be all about BitFury.

[notlist3d]

And if it does .11 watts per gh  before cooling it is poorly designed.

the chip has demoed at 0.06 watts a gh 

 At very low hashrate per chip.

 Definitely a tradeoff on "cost of chips" to run more efficiently vs. "lower power/cooling costs".

 Consider the S7 and the BM1385 - if Bitmain had put more chips-per-string in the S7, it would be noticeably more efficient - but would have cost quite a bit more per TH or they would have had to accept quite a bit less profit per unit.


 BW.com should be starting deployment of the B-Eleven (B11, whichever it is THIS month), might be part of the hashrate jump the last week or two.
 The current large hashrate jump doesn't HAVE to be all about BitFury.

You do have a good point on B11.  Some reseller posted in hardware saying it was coming soon.   Only thing is I don't think we have seen anything besides renderings.  So they are really good at keeping secrets or they don't have it perfected yet.   

On this container there was another company that sold containers they were rediclous on price.   It did not take off they showed 1 or 2.  I suspect bitfury will be the same they don't sell many of these.   And it could be like the light bulb.... were still waiting for it to sell to customers, which looks like it will never happen.

[RichBC]

Do these Containers actually exist, surely there ought to be a real picture of one somewhere?

Rich

[notlist3d]

Do these Containers actually exist, surely there ought to be a real picture of one somewhere?

Rich

I believe it is just rendering with bitfury.  I don't think it exists or they would show it off.  And I'm guessing if they do have miners they are more worried about switching in regular data center.  I dont see to many buyers of this if any.

The one company that sold containers before for mining I believe had 1 or 2 they showed off.   I think it was SP gear in it.  I can't find a link.  It was also not near as impressive as this rendering on cooling.

[RichBC]

I had a scout round to see what I could find and there are a couple of similar Containers / Data centres from other people.



Impressive looking with 1.2MW, but just another render, so perhaps just a concept?

The only other Container I could find was an Icelandic Data Centre, but at least it's real. 




Rich

[2112]

Allied Control is not "other people". Bitfury acquired Allied Control some time ago.

[RichBC]

Allied Control is not "other people". Bitfury acquired Allied Control some time ago.

Good to know, but still just an, impressive, render, or has anyone actually seen one of these containerised Miners?


Rich

[notlist3d]

Allied Control is not "other people". Bitfury acquired Allied Control some time ago.

Good to know, but still just an, impressive, render, or has anyone actually seen one of these containerised Miners?


Rich

Took me a while to find but here is one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=948523.msg10770794#msg10770794

And there is: http://www.cryptokube.com/

Those are only ones I have seen actually go from rendering to actual one. I think data centers win out over these things.

[RichBC]

Took me a while to find but here is one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=948523.msg10770794#msg10770794

Those are only ones I have seen actually go from rendering to actual one. I think data centers win out over these things.

Some nice pictures in that thread, not quite as impressive looking as Bitfury, but at least they are real....


Rich

[notlist3d]

Took me a while to find but here is one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=948523.msg10770794#msg10770794

Those are only ones I have seen actually go from rendering to actual one. I think data centers win out over these things.

Some nice pictures in that thread, not quite as impressive looking as Bitfury, but at least they are real....


Rich

They are not near as impressive and are kinda dated as I think the idea of container just sounds better on paper then it turns out to be.    I don't know if either of those companies had sales.   

The second company had price of like 35k for just it being wired up, and cooling.  No miners were in that price which seems insane.   I think bitfury will stay in renderings as sales just are not there on these, unless they do it much cheaper then others did.

[brontosaurus]

I thnk that Bitfury are very unlikely to sell these containers, on their webpage blurb they mention the phrase 'maintained by Bitfury' which to my mind suggest a leasing agreement. Look at it this way, if they rent oiut the equipment then they get the best of both worlds - they can get someone to essentially fund it, charge them monthly maintenance fees then take it back at the end of the lease period and upgrade it with new chips, also throwing in terms that if Btc rises in price then then get a cut of the extra profit (but not a cut in rental if it falls).

Imagine this scenario:

Btc = $400, Network hashrate is at 1500PH, block reward has halved to 12.5Btc.

1 PH earns approx US$ 11.7k per month after electricity cost of 3 US cents per kWh, for 16PH it's $187k

Network hashrate rises linearly by 100 PH per month, over a year the 16 PH container will earn a total
of roughly $1.56 million, again after electricity costs.

I estimate that Bitfury can build this containerised system for about $900 k, including 11kV input capability. Of that amount around $550k will be 160,000 chips on plug in modules, so the actual infrastructure costs about $350k. If they build the container with borrowed money at, say 8% then after a year then will have paid for the container and have around $590k in the bank.


Is it better to keep the container and mine with it themselves or charge a third party a rental fee?

From the investors perspective they might pay anything up to $1.35 million in the hope of making 15% on their money, where else could they enjoy short term potential profit at this rate? At $1.35M Bitfury makes a $450k profit on the deal less their 'maintenance' costs - if charged, but they will be using someone else's money to build the container in the first place and that might be a very inportant factor in their decision - more containers built means lower parts costs AND deters competitors. They also still have the container at the end of the years contract. The investors could sell their hashing power onto others and so increase their effective margins without using so much (if any) of their own money.

Naturally, all of this is highly speculative and depends on many factors but I though it was worth taking a stab at how things might shape up.

Any other theories / conjectures? All comments welcome

 

[2112]

I estimate that Bitfury can build this containerised system for about $900 k, including 11kV input capability. Of that amount around $550k will be 160,000 chips on plug in modules, so the actual infrastructure costs about $350k. If they build the container with borrowed money at, say 8% then after a year then will have paid for the container and have around $590k in the bank.

I think you may be lowballing the cost and lead time for the required quantities of Novec fluid.

Before I knew about Novec as a cooling fluid I though that this was just another reagent used in medical industry. There I overheard people talking about borrowing a 50 gallons drum of some used Novec to keep their medical test processing line up. Novec isn't some neutral or noble fluid. This is some sort of super-solvent that can leach nearly anything out of nearly everything. Keeping it reasonably clean is a tightly controlled information, one that Allied Control/Bitfury folks will not disclose.

Anyway my take is that the Allied Control folks are their own biggest enemy. They sales tactics are such that if they were selling illicit drugs to junkies the Narcotics Anonymous would have had a banner year.

In the absence of real news, how about a repost from 2013 about ASICMINER DragonFire and ChainForker?

Speak for yourselves, I'd like a full rack the size of a refrigerator at minimum. 

Let BFL and Avalon make the rinky-dink consumer crap.  AM should make industrial shit with fat profit margins.  Go huge or go home!

Like IBM and Oracle, we need to be selling high-ticket Big Iron (and lucrative consulting) to deep-pocket commercial customers.  Not Joe Sixcoins.

Hoping for something trailer mounted as an upgrade, so I can haul them it to wherever power is cheapest.

20TH ASiCMiNER DragonFire


100TH ASiCMiNER ChainForker

[notlist3d]

Before I knew about Novec as a cooling fluid I though that this was just another reagent used in medical industry. There I overheard people talking about borrowing a 50 gallons drum of some used Novec to keep their medical test processing line up. Novec isn't some neutral or noble fluid. This is some sort of super-solvent that can leach nearly anything out of nearly everything. Keeping it reasonably clean is a tightly controlled information, one that Allied Control/Bitfury folks will not disclose.

(made it smaller on quote)

I'm not sure they want to disclose anything really.  I view this as the bitfury lightbulb.   They put something out there to make some news, no doubt some sites showed it. 

The lightbulb they said they would sell.... and just never came.  I predict this container will not even make it as far as the lightbulb.  I think it will remain a rendering.  If they make one even as proof of concept I will be surprised.

[2112]

I'm not sure they want to disclose anything really.  I view this as the bitfury lightbulb.   They put something out there to make some news, no doubt some sites showed it.  

The lightbulb they said they would sell.... and just never came.  I predict this container will not even make it as far as the lightbulb.  I think it will remain a rendering.  If they make one even as proof of concept I will be surprised.

The proof of concept obviously did exist even in the days of ASICMINER. They had some pilot installation with 2 or 3 half-rack vats of Novec cooling then current ASICMINER boards and power supplies. The video used carefully staged angles (and possibly VFX) to make it look that there are whole rows of full racks in operation. The pilot installation was located in Singapore or some such are with extremely limited and valuable real estate.

The containers (steel cages) obviously do exist. The second stage water pump and water cooling radiator & fan combos are also standard industrial equipment.

I do share your doubt that they will ever close a sale or lease contract. With their sales tactics the whole thing stinks too much of snake oil. It will be hard (but not impossible) to find somebody stupid enough to plunk the money for the full installation. I was actually somewhat disappointed when I read that Bitfury acquired Allied Control.

[alh]

It's kind of interesting to see what drives this kind of product. Obviously it's all about density in terms of hashrate per square foot (or meter if you prefer). I am wondering though, where is real estate for a mining enterprise expensive, but has low electricity costs? Sure you could decide to put mining farm in downtown Tokyo, but wouldn't the electricity cost also be large?

It seems to me that there has got to be a fairly limited market, and for a truly cost efficient mining enterprise, you need cheap electricity, modest to cheap real estate, and reliable Internet. So far it seems that this will be the mining "holy grail" for the future, and that you could go ahead and optimize one, but completely lose on the others (e.g. cheap real estate and electricity, but poor Internet).

Either way, I think it's unlikely that any of the forum members will be trying to purchase one of the containerized mining farms anytime soon. I would be interested though on what it costs, and the surrounding infrastructure items and costs (e.g. 480VAC? Chilled water? What?).