Bitmain's Released Antminer S9, World's First 16nm Miner Ready to Order

[philipma1957]

    Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:


  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

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[Biodom]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:


  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

I doubt that in the final analysis it will be so, but if it is, then bitcoin as a whole might be f-ed up as a result, unless it changes the POW to GPU or to POS.

[QuintLeo]

I think we will see soon Bitmain S9-LN with PSU about 7 TH/s , 700 watt. Its gonna be more comfortable for home miners. IMHO.

 9.5 TH at just under 1KW would be the stats on a 2-board "-LN" varient.
 Still quite a bit more comfortable for home miners, and I kinda expect to see such a varient in a few months to a year.

 *HOPEFULLY WITHOUT THE ENERMAX POWER SUPPLY* I want to use GOOD Seasonic or EVGA units on it not Enermax that I've had way too many issues with out of their power supplies.

[-droid-]

Bitmain have hacked stratum in the S9 miner.
Adding their own special command for antpool ... who knows what they do with that extra command during authentification ...

We don't allow invalid commands during authentication e.g. to stop DDoS attempts sending rubbish to the pool when they connect.
So, yep as of now the S9 wont work on CKPool.
Any pool that allows the miner to send random rubbish during connection will allow it.

Wow this is pretty messed up..

[SaBit]

I think they opened up for a few more sales because the bitcoin price shot up again --

they didn't adjust the BTC Price when it opened up for a while  -- I managed to get an order in for one lucky I bought the BTC lower -- but wow did they score on that order @ 4.17 BTC for S9 + shipping + PSU 

@ $580 per btc they can cash out $2400 for the deal

[Cashsyur]

I guess that the price will drop by half in next 3-4 monthes.  

oh shiit.. i will waiting next 2-4month to buy it

[leowonderful]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:


  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

That'd be a disaster for all of us bitcoin miners here...  I don't think Bitmain is that corrupted yet, but if they start selling pool choices, then we'll be facing real trouble. That's one of the reasons I'm not buying this yet, I need real people to give real results on this miner, and not just randomly buy this. There are probably more things we don't know about this miner as of now...

[philipma1957]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:


  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

That'd be a disaster for all of us bitcoin miners here...  I don't think Bitmain is that corrupted yet, but if they start selling pool choices, then we'll be facing real trouble. That's one of the reasons I'm not buying this yet, I need real people to give real results on this miner, and not just randomly buy this. There are probably more things we don't know about this miner as of now...

I have 2 on order  was going to get a third.  Now I will wait as a locked miner is not what I want.

[leowonderful]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:


  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

That'd be a disaster for all of us bitcoin miners here...  I don't think Bitmain is that corrupted yet, but if they start selling pool choices, then we'll be facing real trouble. That's one of the reasons I'm not buying this yet, I need real people to give real results on this miner, and not just randomly buy this. There are probably more things we don't know about this miner as of now...

I have 2 on order  was going to get a third.  Now I will wait as a locked miner is not what I want.

Yep. Bitmain probably realized that they had almost no competition and decided to push a new miner with all these limitations just because they could. Who wants a ultra-efficient brick anyway? Not me. Hopefully even if they are this locked when they come out, somebody could make some software for it and "unbrick" it.
They'll probably keep this kind of bricking on the miner until competition comes, like Bitfury. Not particularly hyped about that because, well, by the time Bitfury miners come out, this will already be all around the mining community.

[IconFirm]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:

  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

That'd be a disaster for all of us bitcoin miners here...  I don't think Bitmain is that corrupted yet....

I do. If it's true, it doesn't surprise me at all tbh. Antpool is the worst coded, most harmful to the network & with the worst customer support out of all pools. Because of this, miners have left in their droves - this would be their attempt at getting rid of the competition by forcing miners back on to their pool - only bitmain would use this kind of dirty tactic.

[leowonderful]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:

  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

That'd be a disaster for all of us bitcoin miners here...  I don't think Bitmain is that corrupted yet....

I do. If it's true, it doesn't surprise me at all tbh. Antpool is the worst coded, most harmful to the network & with the worst customer support out of all pools. Because of this, miners have left in their droves - this would be their attempt at getting rid of the competition by forcing miners back on to their pool - only bitmain would use this kind of dirty tactic.

That is true, but unless Bitfury introduces a chip more efficient than these S9s are, then we'll be seeing a huge bump onto the Antpool. For now I'll be waiting for another miner to come out, maybe a community one. At least we have something that isn't as corrupted as Bitmain. This would've happened eventually to any mining company, because they practically control the network hash rate and if they wanted to, the could brick miners to only solomine for them. Not saying that Bitmain would, but money is a big driver for mining companies.

[OgNasty]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:


  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

I doubt that in the final analysis it will be so, but if it is, then bitcoin as a whole might be f-ed up as a result, unless it changes the POW to GPU or to POS.

I also doubt it very much. People have a long history of spreading FUD when it comes to Bitmain hardware and mining pools...

Now I will wait as a locked miner is not what I want.

Don't worry.  It is extremely unlikely to be a "locked" miner.  The FUD is strong with pool competition.

[RoadStress]

I doubt that in the final analysis it will be so, but if it is, then bitcoin as a whole might be f-ed up as a result, unless it changes the POW to GPU or to POS.

GPU isn't a viable solution for mining for the long term! Low security which makes it very cheap to take over the network and there is no guarantee that mining will be much more decentralized than today. I mean we are competing with BitFury who was funded by the Georgian government. Also I suspect that they have enough liquidity for a massive investment in any kind of equipment to match the new mining algorithm. Let's not forget that BitFury was mining on a 110TH/s FPGA rig when everyone was just discovering FPGA mining. If they have been quiet in the last period it doesn't mean that they lost their skill and their ability to do business.

[not.you]

I think some people are misunderstanding what Kano said.  The miner sends extra information while negotiating the stratum connection.  Presumably this extra information means something at antpool and serves some purpose.  But Kano's pool is setup so that if you don't follow protocol exactly you get dropped.  He said it was for anti-DDoS reasons.  Makes perfect sense.  So Kano's pool will drop this miner at connection because it doesn't follow the rules exactly.  Other pools may not be setup the same way.  They may see the extra info, disregard it, and let the miner connect and start mining anyway.  We don't know yet.

Sort of reminds me of email server configurations.  Some mail servers conform with the rules exactly to reduce spam and eliminate the ability of others to spoof email from them, some mail servers are much looser about it.  Some mail servers will still inter-operate with misconfigured mail servers, and some won't.

But this miner hasn't really been released yet.  The one that gets shipped may not include this stratum change.  We don't know yet.  If it does include it, it still doesn't mean the miner only works at antpool, other pools might still work, we just know for sure that Kano's won't. 

Finally, the config files may be fixable by SSH.  But it seems certain that even if you can't permanently change a file and fix it, you could replace the files using SSH to eliminate the issue until the miner is rebooted at least.  That would be a PITA but it seems likely that that work around would work.

[kano]

   Well back to a very simple question  to bitmaintech:


  Please confirm if you restricted your miner's pool choices?

I doubt that in the final analysis it will be so, but if it is, then bitcoin as a whole might be f-ed up as a result, unless it changes the POW to GPU or to POS.

I also doubt it very much. People have a long history of spreading FUD when it comes to Bitmain hardware and mining pools...

Well then I'll describe it in more detail so that people will learn why to ignore your comment.

The stratum protocol has a set of 'methods' involved in connecting to a pool and starting mining.
They do NOT include the new, undocumented, unknown 'method' Bitmain has added to the S9 called "mining.multi_version"

In CKPool we don't allow random changes/additions to the stratum protocol to "just work".
Thus the change means that until we implement a change in CKPool to ignore it, after somehow finding out somewhere what exactly it is, you can't mine on any CKPool pools.
I have no idea what other pools do, you'd have to ask them.
CKPool pools are only around 5% of the bitcoin network as far as I know, though it could be higher ... since BWPool used it at one stage and there was some talk about Bitfury considering it at one stage.
(Yes someone has pointed an S9 at 2 large CKPools)

Do you allow random changes/additions to the bitcoin protocol to "just work" on your pool?
No.
Why would you allow random changes/additions to the stratum protocol to "just work"?

As for the actual change:

Bitmain's cgminer git:
https://github.com/bitmaintech/cgminer

Notice any of the new code in there? No.
They are required by the cgminer license to make it available to anyone who has an S9.

What haven't they done? Type one single simple command to update the public git.

What's the usual excuse given to me by Bitmain employees each time this happens?
They're too busy, they'll get around to it later.
Too busy to type one command ... ... ... ... for code that's already compiled and live in the S9.

[OgNasty]

as of now the S9 wont work on CKPool.
Any pool that allows the miner to send random rubbish during connection will allow it.

Thus the change means that until we implement a change in CKPool to ignore it, after somehow finding out somewhere what exactly it is, you can't mine on any CKPool pools.
I have no idea what other pools do, you'd have to ask them.

We get it.  CKPool won't work with the Antminer S9 by default at this time.  It is a shame Bitmain doesn't respect software licensing.  No need to take it any further than that.

[CarrollFilms]

14Th/s sounds like a nice big number. I threw it into a mining calculator and even with free electricity and the halving reward put in it would take 200+ days. But that is with a fixed a difficulty.

I feel sorry for the folks that will end up buying one of these at the price they're currently at.

I'm hoping, either, higher hashing power machines come out, or they are made and sold cheaper.

[RoadStress]

We get it.  CKPool won't work with the Antminer S9 by default at this time.  It is a shame Bitmain doesn't respect software licensing.  No need to take it any further than that.

Weren't they trying to improve the p2pool protocol which failed miserable?

[notlist3d]

14Th/s sounds like a nice big number. I threw it into a mining calculator and even with free electricity and the halving reward put in it would take 200+ days. But that is with a fixed a difficulty.

I feel sorry for the folks that will end up buying one of these at the price they're currently at.

I'm hoping, either, higher hashing power machines come out, or they are made and sold cheaper.

Keep in mind it could change with BTC value.  Say you put in the 2kish and mine if there keeps being surges in BTC price that will also help for longer mining.  Leading up to having btc value has been nice.  

After having some miners might come offline to due to efficiency, it's all speculation.  S9's with amazing efficiency they will be able to run after having no doubt.  So again difficulty I think is hard to say after having.   There are some circumstances that would make it a good investment, but mining never has been a sure thing.

[Newcoins2020]

14Th/s sounds like a nice big number. I threw it into a mining calculator and even with free electricity and the halving reward put in it would take 200+ days. But that is with a fixed a difficulty.

I feel sorry for the folks that will end up buying one of these at the price they're currently at.

I'm hoping, either, higher hashing power machines come out, or they are made and sold cheaper.

Keep in mind it could change with BTC value.  Say you put in the 2kish and mine if there keeps being surges in BTC price that will also help for longer mining.  Leading up to having btc value has been nice. 

After having some miners might come offline to due to efficiency, it's all speculation.  S9's with amazing efficiency they will be able to run after having no doubt.  So again difficulty I think is hard to say after having.   There are some circumstances that would make it a good investment, but mining never has been a sure thing.

It's hard to predict the amount of hashrate going away because of inefficient miners. Nor any price rise because of the halving. Which makes it quite risky to buy a miner where you got no guarantee  of how much it will let you earn you.

Suppose the price goes back to 400 after the halving, then you are screwed...