[Archive] BFL trolling museum

[ice_chill]

If they release USB powered coffee warmers at 3.5Ghash, then these could be bought as gifts for friends by friends and given to anyone who uses Bitcoin to shop, even if they don't mine for profit.
Then it would be more about contributing to the network security rather than profiting with such devices.

Half a dozen of 3.5Ghash coffee warmers can only be a good thing for Bitcoin to guard against government or institutional attacks.

[JWU42]

Somethings nobody has posted as best I can tell...

• What are the network requirements for 1 Th/s?
• How many pools can support a handful of users each pushing 3-4 TH/s each?
• Will it be more efficient to solo-mine (assuming bonus PPS pools/proxies do not exist)?
• Doesn't bitcoind start to chose around 200-300 Gh/s?

I think we have seen problems with home routers choking on 40-50 Gh/s 

[MXRider]

Somethings nobody has posted as best I can tell...

• What are the network requirements for 1 Th/s?
• How many pools can support a handful of users each pushing 3-4 TH/s each?
• Will it be more efficient to solo-mine (assuming bonus PPS pools/proxies do not exist)?
• Doesn't bitcoind start to chose around 200-300 Gh/s?

I think we have seen problems with home routers choking on 40-50 Gh/s  

Problems occur because right now we are dealing with difficulty 1 shares. That can be changed any time if your mining software supports it. So I don't think there will be any problems.

[Clipse]

This leaves me in a depressing situation.

I have Mini-Rig on order, and it looks ridiculous now that you can have 40Ghash for $1300. However as they said from begining you can't cancel MiniRig orders.
This means I have to pay 20% import tax, wait until the MiniRig makes that back, then spend money sending it back, etc.

I feel like an idiot to be honest.

What did you use to pay for the minirig ? Hopefully it wasnt BTC heh. If you used paypal or something reversable then simply make use of it.

[Epoch]

Sigh. Yet another needlessly noisy BFL thread gone haywire. I guess I've been here long enough to expect this ... 

Scribed. Grudgingly.

[Dargo]

I am going to have a good laugh at all the little sheep that are going to be throwing their money at "Nasser G" and "Nick W" at "??address??" when BFL either disappears and/or goes bankrupt with all the sheep's money.

Hate to say it, but damn : ME TOO dude !

I am here for the entertainment, drama and the mining.

Hopefully BFL will go belly up and won't kill the latter just the fool's pockets.  

Maybe you will get that laugh, but keep in mind that the "little sheep" who threw their $ at BFL for the first singles have been mining on them for 6 months and could easily sell them for more than they paid.

At 1gh/s @ 20 watts right?

This is a completely different ballgame.  I'm an honest guy but if I suddenly found myself with several million dollars in unsecured loans I might start thinking about strategically defaulting (especially if I'm unable to deliver what I "promised" to deliver).  Do you consider BFL honest?

So far they have over-promised and under-delivered, both in terms of originally stated specs and wait times, but they have delivered nonetheless. Their initial promises can't be trusted obviously, but I don't think that amounts to outright dishonesty. They could take the money and run, but I don't think there is much reason to think that will actually happen at this point. I think they probably will deliver ASIC mining units eventually, with specs not nearly as good as they have promised (but very good nonetheless), and the wait or this will again be very very long.  

[ice_chill]

I am going to have a good laugh at all the little sheep that are going to be throwing their money at "Nasser G" and "Nick W" at "??address??" when BFL either disappears and/or goes bankrupt with all the sheep's money.

Hate to say it, but damn : ME TOO dude !

I am here for the entertainment, drama and the mining.

Hopefully BFL will go belly up and won't kill the latter just the fool's pockets.  

Maybe you will get that laugh, but keep in mind that the "little sheep" who threw their $ at BFL for the first singles have been mining on them for 6 months and could easily sell them for more than they paid.

At 1gh/s @ 20 watts right?

This is a completely different ballgame.  I'm an honest guy but if I suddenly found myself with several million dollars in unsecured loans I might start thinking about strategically defaulting (especially if I'm unable to deliver what I "promised" to deliver).  Do you consider BFL honest?

So far they have over-promised and under-delivered, both in terms of originally stated specs and wait times, but they have delivered nonetheless. Their initial promises can't be trusted obviously, but I don't think that amounts to outright dishonesty. They could take the money and run, but I don't think there is much reason to think that will actually happen at this point. I think they probably will deliver ASIC mining units eventually, with specs not nearly as good as they have promised (but very good nonetheless), and the wait or this will again be very very long.  

The MiniRig is already 1Ghash above spec and 100watt below spec, so they have overdelivered here this time.

[makomk]

Well, if this is true. The CEO of BFL (or the VCs who may be able to replace him) can own the network at trifling cost and there is jack shit anyone can do about it. You deluded idiots and your precious decentralization. What a fucking joke.

Well, yes, sort of. This has always been true. Didn't have to be BFL of course, but it was obvious for a long time that owning the network was within the grasp of anyone with a decent amount of money who could get ASICs designed and manufactured.

However, as several people have pointed out already, what you need to bear in mind is that even if this is true we don't know how many THash/s worth of chips BFL would need to sell in order to reach this kind of pricing. We can guess, though, and it's not likely to be a small amount. Once you factor in that and the resulting increase in difficulty those prices will probably look rather less attractive.

[crazyates]

Somethings nobody has posted as best I can tell...

• What are the network requirements for 1 Th/s?
• How many pools can support a handful of users each pushing 3-4 TH/s each?
• Will it be more efficient to solo-mine (assuming bonus PPS pools/proxies do not exist)?
• Doesn't bitcoind start to chose around 200-300 Gh/s?

I think we have seen problems with home routers choking on 40-50 Gh/s 

If you're mining with 1TH/s, it would be more profitable to solo mine.

[crazyates]

Sooo... by guess is we won't see these in 2012? Regardless I'm still ordering 4.

[bitfoo]

I think we have seen problems with home routers choking on 40-50 Gh/s 

If you're mining with 1TH/s, it would be more profitable to solo mine.

I would assume that when this becomes common-place, pools will simply start asking for higher difficulty shares.

[MXRider]

Somethings nobody has posted as best I can tell...

• What are the network requirements for 1 Th/s?
• How many pools can support a handful of users each pushing 3-4 TH/s each?
• Will it be more efficient to solo-mine (assuming bonus PPS pools/proxies do not exist)?
• Doesn't bitcoind start to chose around 200-300 Gh/s?

I think we have seen problems with home routers choking on 40-50 Gh/s 

If you're mining with 1TH/s, it would be more profitable to solo mine.

Probably not. Remember that everyone else is also buying four or more. Terahash is not the same thing then as it is now. Terahash in 2013 = Gigahash in 2012.

[Garr255]

Somethings nobody has posted as best I can tell...

• What are the network requirements for 1 Th/s?
• How many pools can support a handful of users each pushing 3-4 TH/s each?
• Will it be more efficient to solo-mine (assuming bonus PPS pools/proxies do not exist)?
• Doesn't bitcoind start to chose around 200-300 Gh/s?

I think we have seen problems with home routers choking on 40-50 Gh/s 

If you're mining with 1TH/s, it would be more profitable to solo mine.

Probably not. Remember that everyone else is also buying four or more. Terahash is not the same thing then as it is now. Terahash in 2013 = Gigahash in 2012.

Unless BFL doesn't deliver for years. We have no idea and are just assuming 6-12m here, no?

[JWU42]

Fair point about diff 1 shares probably changing to some >1 - I know CGminer supports higher difficulty.

[LazyOtto]

BFL is full of shit.  Nothing has changed within the company.  BFL saw a real company (Enterpoint) come to market with a product at the same price with double (quadruple?) the efficiency of the single.  Around the same time, some very clever bitstream developers (eldentyrell and bitfury) brought the performance of the Spartans up significantly so that even boards with 2 Spartans could get closer to what the Single offered (mh/s wise) while being much more efficient.

Just to keep statements accurate. (The lack of which, IMO, is our biggest complaint against BFL.)

1) The Enterpoint product currently costs more. And will soon cost even more more.
About 8% more until the end of June. 63% more starting in July.

2) The Enterpoint product currently *matches* the BFL single on a MH/w basis.
IIRC, the best currently being delivered is about 400mh/s at 40w using two of the four FPGAs. About 200mh/s when using all four.

In the future the Enterpoint product *might* be double with 800+ at 40 to 50w.
But that is a future / hypothetical situation. *After* that is achieved it will be legitimate to sing their praises. (While acknowledging that all the BFL competitors, at that future point in time, cost greater than 50% more at the entry point level.)

3) IIRC, the best that has been achieved on Spartans is about 250mh/s per FPGA. Two times that for 500mh/s is substantially less than the BFL Single 800+mh/s. And, again IIRC, the other bitstreams you refer to are not generally available for use.

[crazyates]

Somethings nobody has posted as best I can tell...

• What are the network requirements for 1 Th/s?
• How many pools can support a handful of users each pushing 3-4 TH/s each?
• Will it be more efficient to solo-mine (assuming bonus PPS pools/proxies do not exist)?
• Doesn't bitcoind start to chose around 200-300 Gh/s?

I think we have seen problems with home routers choking on 40-50 Gh/s 

If you're mining with 1TH/s, it would be more profitable to solo mine.

Probably not. Remember that everyone else is also buying four or more. Terahash is not the same thing then as it is now. Terahash in 2013 = Gigahash in 2012.

Huh?! The 1TH/s is the 30,000 unit. You're telling me "everyone" is plopping $120,000 into BFL? I know the difficulty will skyrocket, but srsly? It's still gonna be on the high end of things.

[MXRider]

I didn't mean that as an absolute truth. My assumption is that positive ROI for mining equipment will be 7-12 months. If 40Ghash is 1300$ that means the difficulty is around 60 000 000, BTC price where it is now.
So with those numbers Terahash in 2013 = 29 Gigahash right now.

I don't think terahash is enough for solo mining in 2013. You said you are going to buy four so I assumed that everyone else is also buying four. And I think you were talking about SC Singles. (1,3k$ each)

IF BFL delivers... I think they are just pre announcing and you can wait to get on a wait list. Although money is welcome right away Developing ASIC will take at least 6 months and BFL was founded last august I think. No way they have an ASIC ready this year.

But of course BFL can correct me and give us some details about their schedule. The fact that they haven't already tells enough.

[Dhomochevsky]

Don't worry guys, I was already preparing for a situation like this, my new design will come to the rescue.

It can do 42 googol yottahashes per planck unit of time with a measly 0.3 milliwatt power usage. You'll be able to run dozens of units off your USB ports.


And the kicker? They'll be distributed for a quarter each in dispenser machines.



Joking aside - That press release is clearly FUD; such units will not be available for quite some time, barring some magical technology breakthrough and a shitload of money just landed in BFL's lap. I think everyone is safe from the ASIC boogeyman for at least 4 to 6 months from now. And I have a hunch that when the transition to ASIC will be made, it won't be that rough.

[BR0KK]

I think that this announcement is some sort of pr gag to stop users from buying other fpgas then theirs .....

If they had an asic by now we would have seems that in the total hash rate?

[BR0KK]

Or Could it be that someone hacked into bfl's account and .... ?  Since there is no official announcement made on their website ..... (I know of the comment on their page to prepare for june. But there nothing more to that?)