BlockBurner LLC - Crucible FPGA Scrypt Miner - Announcement Aug-19

[wizzardTim]

Definitely interested! If things look like they'd have a good ROI term, would look at maybe 50-100BTC~ of pre-orders (if you have a pre-order newsletter list, please append me to it )

That is definitely a goal. This machine is to be specialized for Scrypt unlike other FPGA miners available now, which perform better for SHA256. While they can mine Scrypt coins as well they are not as productive as they could be. Though the power savings alone over running several GPU's may be enough 

Along with BTC, I think as a Litecoin mining device there will be an option for Litecoin payments too, and regular USD to appeal to those who want to mine coins instead of buying them (naturally they would have no coins yet).

As part of the web building I will be doing through the rest of the week, bi-weekly newsletter will be incorporated We'll have Facebook, Twitter and some other things as well coming up to keep everyone updated in a variety of ways.

Operatr

Glad to hear that. Please notify us when the fb/twitter accounts are ready. Will you accept PayPal as a payment for preorders? Or you will accept only LTC/BTC?
Anyhow, count me in for the preorders.

PS: how about if you made a subreddit with "LTC-FPGA" that we can watch? Just saying..

[Operatr]

Definitely interested! If things look like they'd have a good ROI term, would look at maybe 50-100BTC~ of pre-orders (if you have a pre-order newsletter list, please append me to it )

That is definitely a goal. This machine is to be specialized for Scrypt unlike other FPGA miners available now, which perform better for SHA256. While they can mine Scrypt coins as well they are not as productive as they could be. Though the power savings alone over running several GPU's may be enough  

Along with BTC, I think as a Litecoin mining device there will be an option for Litecoin payments too, and regular USD to appeal to those who want to mine coins instead of buying them (naturally they would have no coins yet).

As part of the web building I will be doing through the rest of the week, bi-weekly newsletter will be incorporated We'll have Facebook, Twitter and some other things as well coming up to keep everyone updated in a variety of ways.

Operatr

Glad to hear that. Please notify us when the fb/twitter accounts are ready. Will you accept PayPal as a payment for preorders? Or you will accept only LTC/BTC?
Anyhow, count me in for the preorders.

PS: how about if you made a subreddit with "LTC-FPGA" that we can watch? Just saying..

I am hoping to have everything set up by the end of the week. Beyond FB and Twitter I would like to have an IRC channel, teamspeak/skype/vent options maybe, etc. BFL's problem is based around keeping their customers either in the dark or reporting conflicting information. Starting up this way hopefully will alleviate any "is Blockburner a scam?" posts in the future. All official announcements will be handled by me to ensure no one is left behind through a variety of effective public mediums. A subReddit is a great idea, I will incorporate that as well.

I am thinking payment options would include BTC/LTC, and USD, so Paypal would be an option. Diversifying  will allow everyone to pre-order no matter your currency of choice How best to mitigate crypto-currency holding price fluctuations are something to be decided a bit later.

[Operatr]

Incoming subReddit! 

http://www.reddit.com/r/BlockBurnerFPGA/

[BartW]

Cool, subscribed. Can't wait to see where this goes. I'm definitely in for a few of these units.

[dan99]

May I know the hashing power? 10 or 20 mg/s?

[razorfishsl]

May I know the hashing power? 10 or 20 mg/s?

It is not bitcoin.. for FPGA it should be in the KH/s, even multiple graphics cards only give you low MH/s

[CryptoCurrencyMiners]

We're working on developing FPGA technologies as well. We can collaborate if you'd like.

[sneef]

You need a good old fashioned email newsletter, for those of us who are not into fb/tw/reddit

Also we would buy about $3,000-$7,000 of equipment, provided the price is right etc. etc.

Unlikely to spend more than $500 on any pre-orders, you can thank those who came before you (and might deliver after you) for that.

[TheSwede75]

May I know the hashing power? 10 or 20 mg/s?

It is not bitcoin.. for FPGA it should be in the KH/s, even multiple graphics cards only give you low MH/s

Wrong. FPHA has nothing to do with it. It's because LTC is SCRYPT, and I am assuming the goal of the FPGA's would be to reach into MH/Sek otherwise why design them?

[wizzardTim]

Will the FPGAs take more than a month to be completed? Is there a pre-estimation?

[razorfishsl]

May I know the hashing power? 10 or 20 mg/s?

It is not bitcoin.. for FPGA it should be in the KH/s, even multiple graphics cards only give you low MH/s

Wrong. FPHA has nothing to do with it. It's because LTC is SCRYPT, and I am assuming the goal of the FPGA's would be to reach into MH/Sek otherwise why design them?

FPGA's are likely to continue to lag behind GPU for litecoin, currently there are no products I know of that can produce in the MH/s range for a single unit.

I.E a single GPU/ FPGA (even with multiple cores), and the reason to design with FPGA are numerous, I will give you two.

1. lower power consumption
2. Ebay scrap. (this works fine for individual miners, but not if you want to build and sell to the public.....)

So even if I cannot match GPU:FPGA on a 1:1 basis, I can out purchase on a 1:n basis

[Operatr]

May I know the hashing power? 10 or 20 mg/s?

It is not bitcoin.. for FPGA it should be in the KH/s, even multiple graphics cards only give you low MH/s

Wrong. FPHA has nothing to do with it. It's because LTC is SCRYPT, and I am assuming the goal of the FPGA's would be to reach into MH/Sek otherwise why design them?

FPGA's are likely to continue to lag behind GPU for litecoin, currently there are no products I know of that can produce in the MH/s range for a single unit.

I.E a single GPU/ FPGA (even with multiple cores), and the reason to design with FPGA are numerous, I will give you two.

1. lower power consumption
2. Ebay scrap. (this works fine for individual miners, but not if you want to build and sell to the public.....)

So even if I cannot match GPU:FPGA on a 1:1 basis, I can out purchase on a 1:n basis

LTC difficulty is set to jump again in about 2.5 hours (62 blocks to go) and is currently skyrocketing, even to scale up and remain profitable GPUs become unviable at a point. They simply don't scale well from the massive power and cooling cost.

The only FPGAs used with Scrypt so far were available Spartan units, which gave decent performance. We are out to build a device with Scrypt in mind. We will not give any numbers until there is something concrete to report.

Will the FPGAs take more than a month to be completed? Is there a pre-estimation?

At this time we have no estimations, or even pre-estimations on any dates. The team is just coming together and we are still seeing what we need, but the groundwork and planning has begun in our JIRA dev site (if you are a mac/windows/linux desktop developer PM me!). We have no desire to be a shipper of vaporware or make promises we have no idea that we can keep in the end. As such, announcements will be made when we have real information. Talk is cheap in this industry, we are more interested in letting real results speak for us.

It is my own personal desire to see us have a production sample in our hands within 6 months. BlockBurner is only about a week old now, so we have a ways to go before I can say anything more concrete.  We are designing a ground up FPGA opposed to using off the shelf parts like FPGAs before it, so there are certainly some unknowns to overcome.


I will be creating a FAQ soon with the most common questions I am getting, stay tuned!

Operatr

[FullLife]

obviously I would be highly interested but I'm also high interested in what the performance increase is really going to be.   I think the excitement over these devices is based on the fact people know the next step in Bitcoin mining was FPGA's and they are expecting a similar improvement in hashing when thinking of a scrypt mining FPGA.  I just do not see the gains being worth it, but perhaps I will be wrong.  Considering something like a 7970 gets 650-700 kh/s at 200 watts a card (excluding cpu/mb wattage for arguements sake) and one can safely assume the 8970's will be in the 750-800 kh/s maybe even 850 kh/s at around the same watts or possibly less - I just do not see there being good enough gains to justify it.  

Trust me though - I PRAY that I am wrong.  But I'm also thinking these things aren't going to be cheap.  So while you may save on electricity because say it only eats 75-100 watts (its just going to consume more power then a bitcoin fpga because of the memory, lets face it) If your getting saying 800-900 kh/s for I''m guessing around $1000-1500 somewhere in there?   To get to my current hashrate I'd be looking at around a 7 unit array at 7000-10,000 investment.  

That' s a whole lot of electricity before I finally break even.  At roughly a 1300 watt savings a month, your looking at what... $1500 a year in savings for electricty.  The initial investment in my rigs was a little over 3k so your looking at a minimum of 2 years before you start to see any kind of return.  And that is figuring things at my high 13.8 cents a kw/h cost!  There are a lot of people that pay a lot less which means your looking at an even longer time frame before you are able to see any kind of return.  

And at the end of it what do you have?  Something you MAY be able to sell for use as a miner or sold to someone to re-purpose or play with for an extreme discount.  Where as the GPU's you would at least be able to offload to possibly miners - but there will ALWAYS be a gaming market.

Maybe I'm not looking at this 100% correctly and I'm completely open to hearing other peoples opinions on the matter.  I just can not see the benefit for scrypt mining.  Maybe in an asic device?  Because then you might be able to crank out redonkulous hashing power at very little wattage.  Then, we are talking about something that makes a bit of sense.  Sure, the asic device can't be used for anything else but mining.  But at least the hashing power to wattage used will be advantageous enough to warrant the risk.

This pretty much sums up my exact thinking.  These FPGAs need to be at an absolute minimum 1.5Kh/$ to even be worth it.  In addition to the points made in the quoted post, you also have to factor in that computer hardware can be resold more easily and GPUs obviously hold more value than a custom-made FPGA.  Yes, heat is an issue when running a sizeable GPU farm, but it's not that big an issue and is a little overblown in my opinion.

[joshki]

obviously I would be highly interested but I'm also high interested in what the performance increase is really going to be.   I think the excitement over these devices is based on the fact people know the next step in Bitcoin mining was FPGA's and they are expecting a similar improvement in hashing when thinking of a scrypt mining FPGA.  I just do not see the gains being worth it, but perhaps I will be wrong.  Considering something like a 7970 gets 650-700 kh/s at 200 watts a card (excluding cpu/mb wattage for arguements sake) and one can safely assume the 8970's will be in the 750-800 kh/s maybe even 850 kh/s at around the same watts or possibly less - I just do not see there being good enough gains to justify it. 

Trust me though - I PRAY that I am wrong.  But I'm also thinking these things aren't going to be cheap.  So while you may save on electricity because say it only eats 75-100 watts (its just going to consume more power then a bitcoin fpga because of the memory, lets face it) If your getting saying 800-900 kh/s for I''m guessing around $1000-1500 somewhere in there?   To get to my current hashrate I'd be looking at around a 7 unit array at 7000-10,000 investment. 

That' s a whole lot of electricity before I finally break even.  At roughly a 1300 watt savings a month, your looking at what... $1500 a year in savings for electricty.  The initial investment in my rigs was a little over 3k so your looking at a minimum of 2 years before you start to see any kind of return.  And that is figuring things at my high 13.8 cents a kw/h cost!  There are a lot of people that pay a lot less which means your looking at an even longer time frame before you are able to see any kind of return. 

And at the end of it what do you have?  Something you MAY be able to sell for use as a miner or sold to someone to re-purpose or play with for an extreme discount.  Where as the GPU's you would at least be able to offload to possibly miners - but there will ALWAYS be a gaming market.

Maybe I'm not looking at this 100% correctly and I'm completely open to hearing other peoples opinions on the matter.  I just can not see the benefit for scrypt mining.  Maybe in an asic device?  Because then you might be able to crank out redonkulous hashing power at very little wattage.  Then, we are talking about something that makes a bit of sense.  Sure, the asic device can't be used for anything else but mining.  But at least the hashing power to wattage used will be advantageous enough to warrant the risk.

This pretty much sums up my exact thinking.  These FPGAs need to be at an absolute minimum 1.5Kh/$ to even be worth it.  In addition to the points made in the quoted post, you also have to factor in that computer hardware can be resold more easily and GPUs obviously hold more value than a custom-made FPGA.  Yes, heat is an issue when running a sizeable GPU farm, but it's not that big an issue and is a little overblown in my opinion.

Heat and power usage are HUGE issues, depending on where you live.  I live in Japan -- I can basically support one single computer running up to three 7970's in my apartment.  That's it, for both power consumption and heat dissipation reasons (in the summer -- it's so cold in the winter time I'll just open the windows in the computer room and let the outside air do the cooling).

An FPGA, even if it were more expensive, could alleviate my issues significantly.  If the power and heat came down, I could run a far more expansive system.

GPU's certainly hold resale value to computer gamers, but FPGAs have resale value as well, arguably more as they can be reprogrammed to do other things.  I suspect most of the bitcoin fpga networks are going to get sold off and repurposed to do other things eventually as the ASIC devices take over the market and make them unprofitable to run.

[FullLife]

obviously I would be highly interested but I'm also high interested in what the performance increase is really going to be.   I think the excitement over these devices is based on the fact people know the next step in Bitcoin mining was FPGA's and they are expecting a similar improvement in hashing when thinking of a scrypt mining FPGA.  I just do not see the gains being worth it, but perhaps I will be wrong.  Considering something like a 7970 gets 650-700 kh/s at 200 watts a card (excluding cpu/mb wattage for arguements sake) and one can safely assume the 8970's will be in the 750-800 kh/s maybe even 850 kh/s at around the same watts or possibly less - I just do not see there being good enough gains to justify it. 

Trust me though - I PRAY that I am wrong.  But I'm also thinking these things aren't going to be cheap.  So while you may save on electricity because say it only eats 75-100 watts (its just going to consume more power then a bitcoin fpga because of the memory, lets face it) If your getting saying 800-900 kh/s for I''m guessing around $1000-1500 somewhere in there?   To get to my current hashrate I'd be looking at around a 7 unit array at 7000-10,000 investment. 

That' s a whole lot of electricity before I finally break even.  At roughly a 1300 watt savings a month, your looking at what... $1500 a year in savings for electricty.  The initial investment in my rigs was a little over 3k so your looking at a minimum of 2 years before you start to see any kind of return.  And that is figuring things at my high 13.8 cents a kw/h cost!  There are a lot of people that pay a lot less which means your looking at an even longer time frame before you are able to see any kind of return. 

And at the end of it what do you have?  Something you MAY be able to sell for use as a miner or sold to someone to re-purpose or play with for an extreme discount.  Where as the GPU's you would at least be able to offload to possibly miners - but there will ALWAYS be a gaming market.

Maybe I'm not looking at this 100% correctly and I'm completely open to hearing other peoples opinions on the matter.  I just can not see the benefit for scrypt mining.  Maybe in an asic device?  Because then you might be able to crank out redonkulous hashing power at very little wattage.  Then, we are talking about something that makes a bit of sense.  Sure, the asic device can't be used for anything else but mining.  But at least the hashing power to wattage used will be advantageous enough to warrant the risk.

This pretty much sums up my exact thinking.  These FPGAs need to be at an absolute minimum 1.5Kh/$ to even be worth it.  In addition to the points made in the quoted post, you also have to factor in that computer hardware can be resold more easily and GPUs obviously hold more value than a custom-made FPGA.  Yes, heat is an issue when running a sizeable GPU farm, but it's not that big an issue and is a little overblown in my opinion.

Heat and power usage are HUGE issues, depending on where you live.  I live in Japan -- I can basically support one single computer running up to three 7970's in my apartment.  That's it, for both power consumption and heat dissipation reasons (in the summer -- it's so cold in the winter time I'll just open the windows in the computer room and let the outside air do the cooling).

An FPGA, even if it were more expensive, could alleviate my issues significantly.  If the power and heat came down, I could run a far more expansive system.

GPU's certainly hold resale value to computer gamers, but FPGAs have resale value as well, arguably more as they can be reprogrammed to do other things.  I suspect most of the bitcoin fpga networks are going to get sold off and repurposed to do other things eventually as the ASIC devices take over the market and make them unprofitable to run.

No offense, but you're in the minority, not the majority.  Also, GPUs hold more value than FPGAs for one simple reason, demand.  The demand for GPUs is much higher than it is for FPGAs because the market is many times larger.

[btceic]

1. Do you think the market and community is ready for FPGA Litecoin?
Yes

2. Is there definite interest in FPGA Litecoin machines? Would you buy one if the price was reasonable?
Yes and Yes

2.3 What is reasonable?
Reasonable to me is around $300, (I blow that on a good weekend with the wife and kids), not too much risk for a device that may or may not exist, from a company that is just getting started, from someone that I personally do not know

3. Would you pre-order one to support first round funding for prototyping and first wave production?
Yes

[anderl]

No offense, but you're in the minority, not the majority.  Also, GPUs hold more value than FPGAs for one simple reason, demand.  The demand for GPUs is much higher than it is for FPGAs because the market is many times larger.

It's true.  My accounting factors in resale value for the rigs I build, subtracting depreciation, it's a sizable chunk of change.  On the other hand Bitcoin FPGAs had a high resale value up to the point ASICs came out.  Now they are drastically depreciating.

And everyone's variables are different.  Like people in this thread have mentioned.  Some live in areas where electricity costs are prohibitive to mining others have offloaded the electrical costs to their landlords, employers, the parents they still live with.  We can't determine if the FPGA are viable just because its not viable to ourselves.  There will be a market for it.  People with high electricity costs will buy it outright.  Others like myself pay anywhere between .07 to .14 USD per kW.  I have to determine if buying FPGAs (paying the premium over GPUs for them) is better than the rates I'm  paying plus the additional investment in adding more service, or finding a location to run them from.


I don't think FPGA will break LTC coins.  I'm expecting that they will be priced factoring the electrical savings one would get and a premium to to their initial scarcity.

[FullLife]

No offense, but you're in the minority, not the majority.  Also, GPUs hold more value than FPGAs for one simple reason, demand.  The demand for GPUs is much higher than it is for FPGAs because the market is many times larger.

It's true.  My accounting factors in resale value for the rigs I build, subtracting depreciation, it's a sizable chunk of change.  On the other hand Bitcoin FPGAs had a high resale value up to the point ASICs came out.  Now they are drastically depreciating.

And everyone's variables are different.  Like people in this thread have mentioned.  Some live in areas where electricity costs are prohibitive to mining others have offloaded the electrical costs to their landlords, employers, the parents they still live with.  We can't determine if the FPGA are viable just because its not viable to ourselves.  There will be a market for it.  People with high electricity costs will buy it outright.  Others like myself pay anywhere between .07 to .14 USD per kW.  I have to determine if buying FPGAs (paying the premium over GPUs for them) is better than the rates I'm  paying plus the additional investment in adding more service, or finding a location to run them from.


I don't think FPGA will break LTC coins.  I'm expecting that they will be priced factoring the electrical savings one would get and a premium to to their initial scarcity.

I understand your point of view.  I was thinking about the average American when I was making my points, not just myself.  Here in the US, electricity rates are quite reasonable for most people.  

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say about the value of GPUs vs FPGAs.  The reason I think GPUs definitely hold more value than FPGAs is because of demand, not because of the items themselves.  Gamers create a much larger market for GPUs than the FPGA market that is created by miners (by miners I mean people who are into mining enough to buy a dedicated mining device like an FPGA, not people who casually mine with their GPU when they're not gaming).  Basically, there are many times more gamers than miners, thus allowing GPUs to hold their value longer.

[joshki]

No offense, but you're in the minority, not the majority.  Also, GPUs hold more value than FPGAs for one simple reason, demand.  The demand for GPUs is much higher than it is for FPGAs because the market is many times larger.

It's true.  My accounting factors in resale value for the rigs I build, subtracting depreciation, it's a sizable chunk of change.  On the other hand Bitcoin FPGAs had a high resale value up to the point ASICs came out.  Now they are drastically depreciating.

And everyone's variables are different.  Like people in this thread have mentioned.  Some live in areas where electricity costs are prohibitive to mining others have offloaded the electrical costs to their landlords, employers, the parents they still live with.  We can't determine if the FPGA are viable just because its not viable to ourselves.  There will be a market for it.  People with high electricity costs will buy it outright.  Others like myself pay anywhere between .07 to .14 USD per kW.  I have to determine if buying FPGAs (paying the premium over GPUs for them) is better than the rates I'm  paying plus the additional investment in adding more service, or finding a location to run them from.


I don't think FPGA will break LTC coins.  I'm expecting that they will be priced factoring the electrical savings one would get and a premium to to their initial scarcity.

I understand your point of view.  I was thinking about the average American when I was making my points, not just myself.  Here in the US, electricity rates are quite reasonable for most people. 

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say about the value of GPUs vs FPGAs.  The reason I think GPUs definitely hold more value than FPGAs is because of demand, not because of the items themselves.  Gamers create a much larger market for GPUs than the FPGA market that is created by miners (by miners I mean people who are into mining enough to buy a dedicated mining device like an FPGA, not people who casually mine with their GPU when they're not gaming).  Basically, there are many times more gamers than miners, thus allowing GPUs to hold their value longer.

Fpgas have value apart from being "mining devices". If they are being sold for more than that value, they are being sold for more than they are worth.

I may not represent you in the US, but I doubt I'm in the minority world wide. Most people in the world don't have central air and 200 amp home service.

[Operatr]

Update

New FAQ on the home site (which also got some polish) -

http://www.blockburner.net/faq/

We now have Facebook and LinkedIn pages in addition to our subReddit


The dev team getting settled in and the plan is being mapped out, stay tuned

Operatr