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

[kano]

My usual comment on the subject ...
Send one to me and I'll write a cgminer USB driver for it ...
...
PM me here or visit IRC FreeNode #cgminer to talk ...

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[Operatr]

My usual comment on the subject ...
Send one to me and I'll write a cgminer USB driver for it ...
...
PM me here or visit IRC FreeNode #cgminer to talk ...

Thanks Kano, I'll run it up the ladder

In the spirit of fairness; how about when the time comes you are accepting preorders you do it in sort of a raffle. I'm guessing the wave of people jumping at the chance to preorder one will be way more then whatever can be manufactured. Even if i was one of the many that didn't get a winning spot for a preorder i'd be fine knowing it was simply a matter of luck, and not because i didn't jump in on the first ten minutes of the announcement or because three guy ran in and ordered them all.

I had something like that in mind, in the way of raffle or randomized batches to eliminate any unfairness when it comes time to deploy. The problem when going a strictly queued route:

1. First in first out creates a rift between the first to sign up and the last, as those who came to the table late feel they are missing out while the initial adopters get theirs. I have a late BFL order, I know this feeling all too well (though it was a Jally so maybe not  )

2. Allows people to sell their early pre-order slot on auction sites for disgusting amounts of money (leading to scams as well), which I think sucks.

I would rather do it in a way that disregards whether you were first or last to hop on, and clips the pre-order auctions at the same time since no one would know what order it would be in.

I am all for community input on this, tell me what you think would be a fair distribution system, I think everyone should have an equal opportunity  

I'd sell neighbor's dog for scrypt fpga

When we have some units in hand we'll talk  

You'd better expect that until someone goes onward to ASIC, these things are going to need to be massively mass-produced, churned out in vast vast numbers... Way more than the puny few hundred a day that seems likely to make BFL take forever to deliver ASICs even if/when they do reach that imagined capacity.

Scrypt is fashionable!

-MarkM-

ASIC for Scrypt would be a fair ways off as the FPGA stage is just beginning now, and Litecoin is more resistant to ASICs as well. It all depends on how much pre-order interest there is when it comes time for that step, in any case we will do our best to supply the demand with haste. I can't speak for BFL's process, though with ASICs there are many more design challenges to overcome as very customized hardware. FPGA's are better in this regard as the R&D time is significantly shorter as much of the hardware needed is available to us already. There is definitely no shortage of love for Scrypt coins  

 
Thanks everyone otherwise, your feedback is very important to us! At the moment we have been discussing the legal aspects of the business before we go much further in the design process, though the design process is very much active.

[Ryu.Hayabusa]

In the spirit of fairness; how about when the time comes you are accepting preorders you do it in sort of a raffle. I'm guessing the wave of people jumping at the chance to preorder one will be way more then whatever can be manufactured. Even if i was one of the many that didn't get a winning spot for a preorder i'd be fine knowing it was simply a matter of luck, and not because i didn't jump in on the first ten minutes of the announcement or because three guy ran in and ordered them all.

But in reality, this isn't how normal business is conducted.  Microsoft, Sony, HTC, Game Developers, etc. do not raffle pre-orders.  They have a set amount of say the "limited edition", the more abundant "regular" edition, and the super rare "elite" edition, or whatever.  If I was to walk into a gamestop say, and ask to pre-order a game and was told "you have to enter a raffle to even see if you're going to be able to," I would walk out immediately and I wouldn't purchase that game in retaliation to the ridiculousness that is the raffle.

Honestly if you're late to the game, then why should you get the same benefit as those who did their diligence.  I'm all for limiting the number that can be ordered per customer, so one can't buy 1000 units and make everyone down the line wait, but it should be FIFO.

Now for BFL, it was handled poorly, those who did pre-order way in advance obviously are at an advantage, but this is not the fault of the customer, more so it is of the company.  If for instance you have a 3 month pre-order wait time before release date, and you know you can produce 10k units in 3 months, then set the pre-order limit to 10k units.  After that you can either have another pre-order round for the next batch, or just have the item as out of stock until they arrive.

If you announce a pre-order in advance, then how is it not fair to everyone?  Everyone who is keeping up with this will be informed, and can then either purchase a pre-order when available or not.  If the pre-order units run out, that's just what happens, wait for the next time its available.

Edit: Also, if the pre-order isn't a crazy long wait, then auctioning wouldn't be near as big of issue as it is with BFL.

[dan99]

I wouldn't agreed to the lucky draw thing, it should be first come first serve and limiting to the number of unit a customer can buy, but any way we don't even had a working model yet or unless they is one that i wouldn't know?

[3ham3]

While the goal that said raffle would achieve is all well and good it would come across as unfair and not a good business practice, I personally would not be interested if such practices were used.

First come, first serve, with a limit of 1 per customer, for the First production run, then with the following production runs and as more are available relax the 1 per customer rule.
This way no one can purchase a huge amount and have an unfair advantage, but yet rewards the people who follow this and are keen to put money down in the first place.

[kano]

My usual comment on the subject ...
Send one to me and I'll write a cgminer USB driver for it ...
...
PM me here or visit IRC FreeNode #cgminer to talk ...

Thanks Kano, I'll run it up the ladder
...

... and I will add that there are clear design considerations to take with USB ... to optimise software performance with the device ...
Different of these issues become more critical depending on the device performance.
This being FPGA, you would need to take critical notice of the similar BTC FPGA considerations ... that no FPGA device does optimally ... but some certainly do better than others.

[Magnate]

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

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

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

1) Yes scrypt mining is pretty mature and popular. There are more than enough people investing in GPUs and tuning them to get the peak performance. If you made a good FPGA scrypt miner at the right price, people would buy them.

2) Just answered that. If your FPGA miner was well priced per hash, used less power per hash, and was neat and tidy to coordinate people would go for it.

3) Would pre-order to fund prototyping, but once you had development boards with guys like Kano who could review and give an opinion I would pre-order to help fund the building of a batch of chips and boards.

My reason for this point to pre-order:
-scam avoidance
-knowledge of a time frame and proven performance. Just look at BFL. Completely screwed up both the period of time to finish the design, then completely screwed up the time line to production, then completely screwed up on end performance. If somebody like Kano would turn around and say "boards look good for X/Y/Z performance software should be finalised soon and board designs look mature enough for production" then I'm happy to part with some cash.
-somebody else might come along with a better offer while you are trying to get to market. I'll hold onto my coins until I know I'll get the best product  in the short term.

Now if you went for a raffle - no way. If I front money right away before somebody else who waits til the week before shipping I should get my gear before they do. If that means the poor cheap risk less baby has to wait a long time, tough so did I from when I put in.
If you went for auctions- no way. Set a competitive price where you are confident you will sell at the rate you can build them, and let me decide if I see that as what I want to spend. I don't want to have to wait for ever until the cash up idiots out there have run out of life savings before I'm willing to spend a more sensible amount. No doubt Auctions are better for sellers when demand is hot, but it doesn't impress me as a buyer.
I would support a limit per customer would make more sense than 1. However you could always order via a friend's/family member's card and address to make more orders.

What would impress me as a price? Well you can get a 7950 for $300 which can easily hash at 600mhs, so that is 50c a mhs. You will still need a host system for a GPU as well as a FPGA board, just you can run more FPGAs per host ultimately. It is likely by the time these FPGAs launch that the 8950 will be out which promises lower power and probably a little more speed (I hear power is more the concern currently). So you would be best to target at most 50c per mhs.
Again a 7950 as the target means 250W for 600mhs -> 2.5mhs per W. You could assume a 8950 might be closer to 3mhs per W. So to impress me on the power front you'd want to be well better than 3mhs per W.

I like the idea of a FGPA with decent ram performance as it opens it up for other uses later. An ASIC could only be used for mining or scypt work, but an FPGA could be used for all sorts of scientific applications later and hence actually have some good resale later. Their flexibility and potential is far higher than low/no ram spartan boards etc.

[dan99]

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

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

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

1) Yes scrypt mining is pretty mature and popular. There are more than enough people investing in GPUs and tuning them to get the peak performance. If you made a good FPGA scrypt miner at the right price, people would buy them.

2) Just answered that. If your FPGA miner was well priced per hash, used less power per hash, and was neat and tidy to coordinate people would go for it.

3) Would pre-order to fund prototyping, but once you had development boards with guys like Kano who could review and give an opinion I would pre-order to help fund the building of a batch of chips and boards.

My reason for this point to pre-order:
-scam avoidance
-knowledge of a time frame and proven performance. Just look at BFL. Completely screwed up both the period of time to finish the design, then completely screwed up the time line to production, then completely screwed up on end performance. If somebody like Kano would turn around and say "boards look good for X/Y/Z performance software should be finalised soon and board designs look mature enough for production" then I'm happy to part with some cash.
-somebody else might come along with a better offer while you are trying to get to market. I'll hold onto my coins until I know I'll get the best product  in the short term.

Now if you went for a raffle - no way. If I front money right away before somebody else who waits til the week before shipping I should get my gear before they do. If that means the poor cheap risk less baby has to wait a long time, tough so did I from when I put in.
If you went for auctions- no way. Set a competitive price where you are confident you will sell at the rate you can build them, and let me decide if I see that as what I want to spend. I don't want to have to wait for ever until the cash up idiots out there have run out of life savings before I'm willing to spend a more sensible amount. No doubt Auctions are better for sellers when demand is hot, but it doesn't impress me as a buyer.
I would support a limit per customer would make more sense than 1. However you could always order via a friend's/family member's card and address to make more orders.

What would impress me as a price? Well you can get a 7950 for $300 which can easily hash at 600mhs, so that is 50c a mhs. You will still need a host system for a GPU as well as a FPGA board, just you can run more FPGAs per host ultimately. It is likely by the time these FPGAs launch that the 8950 will be out which promises lower power and probably a little more speed (I hear power is more the concern currently). So you would be best to target at most 50c per mhs.
Again a 7950 as the target means 250W for 600mhs -> 2.5mhs per W. You could assume a 8950 might be closer to 3mhs per W. So to impress me on the power front you'd want to be well better than 3mhs per W.

I like the idea of a FGPA with decent ram performance as it opens it up for other uses later. An ASIC could only be used for mining or scypt work, but an FPGA could be used for all sorts of scientific applications later and hence actually have some good resale later. Their flexibility and potential is far higher than low/no ram spartan boards etc.

good point...

[Operatr]

In the spirit of fairness; how about when the time comes you are accepting preorders you do it in sort of a raffle. I'm guessing the wave of people jumping at the chance to preorder one will be way more then whatever can be manufactured. Even if i was one of the many that didn't get a winning spot for a preorder i'd be fine knowing it was simply a matter of luck, and not because i didn't jump in on the first ten minutes of the announcement or because three guy ran in and ordered them all.

But in reality, this isn't how normal business is conducted.  Microsoft, Sony, HTC, Game Developers, etc. do not raffle pre-orders.  They have a set amount of say the "limited edition", the more abundant "regular" edition, and the super rare "elite" edition, or whatever.  If I was to walk into a gamestop say, and ask to pre-order a game and was told "you have to enter a raffle to even see if you're going to be able to," I would walk out immediately and I wouldn't purchase that game in retaliation to the ridiculousness that is the raffle.

Honestly if you're late to the game, then why should you get the same benefit as those who did their diligence.  I'm all for limiting the number that can be ordered per customer, so one can't buy 1000 units and make everyone down the line wait, but it should be FIFO.

Now for BFL, it was handled poorly, those who did pre-order way in advance obviously are at an advantage, but this is not the fault of the customer, more so it is of the company.  If for instance you have a 3 month pre-order wait time before release date, and you know you can produce 10k units in 3 months, then set the pre-order limit to 10k units.  After that you can either have another pre-order round for the next batch, or just have the item as out of stock until they arrive.

If you announce a pre-order in advance, then how is it not fair to everyone?  Everyone who is keeping up with this will be informed, and can then either purchase a pre-order when available or not.  If the pre-order units run out, that's just what happens, wait for the next time its available.

Edit: Also, if the pre-order isn't a crazy long wait, then auctioning wouldn't be near as big of issue as it is with BFL.

Excellent points!

I had actually not considered the real problem with BFL was simply the length of the pre-order campaign. Ours would certainly not be running for a year, probably more like 1-2 months at most with a production plan already secured ahead of it, so once funds are secured production would begin immediately.

So, no raffles or randoms, we just need to be sure to keep the campaign short. BFL got way ahead of themselves that bred many other issues and a large amount of mistrust in that year long wait. We don't want that, you don't want that, which is why we're being careful not to go that route.

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

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

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

1) Yes scrypt mining is pretty mature and popular. There are more than enough people investing in GPUs and tuning them to get the peak performance. If you made a good FPGA scrypt miner at the right price, people would buy them.

2) Just answered that. If your FPGA miner was well priced per hash, used less power per hash, and was neat and tidy to coordinate people would go for it.

3) Would pre-order to fund prototyping, but once you had development boards with guys like Kano who could review and give an opinion I would pre-order to help fund the building of a batch of chips and boards.

My reason for this point to pre-order:
-scam avoidance
-knowledge of a time frame and proven performance. Just look at BFL. Completely screwed up both the period of time to finish the design, then completely screwed up the time line to production, then completely screwed up on end performance. If somebody like Kano would turn around and say "boards look good for X/Y/Z performance software should be finalised soon and board designs look mature enough for production" then I'm happy to part with some cash.
-somebody else might come along with a better offer while you are trying to get to market. I'll hold onto my coins until I know I'll get the best product  in the short term.

Now if you went for a raffle - no way. If I front money right away before somebody else who waits til the week before shipping I should get my gear before they do. If that means the poor cheap risk less baby has to wait a long time, tough so did I from when I put in.
If you went for auctions- no way. Set a competitive price where you are confident you will sell at the rate you can build them, and let me decide if I see that as what I want to spend. I don't want to have to wait for ever until the cash up idiots out there have run out of life savings before I'm willing to spend a more sensible amount. No doubt Auctions are better for sellers when demand is hot, but it doesn't impress me as a buyer.
I would support a limit per customer would make more sense than 1. However you could always order via a friend's/family member's card and address to make more orders.

What would impress me as a price? Well you can get a 7950 for $300 which can easily hash at 600mhs, so that is 50c a mhs. You will still need a host system for a GPU as well as a FPGA board, just you can run more FPGAs per host ultimately. It is likely by the time these FPGAs launch that the 8950 will be out which promises lower power and probably a little more speed (I hear power is more the concern currently). So you would be best to target at most 50c per mhs.
Again a 7950 as the target means 250W for 600mhs -> 2.5mhs per W. You could assume a 8950 might be closer to 3mhs per W. So to impress me on the power front you'd want to be well better than 3mhs per W.

I like the idea of a FGPA with decent ram performance as it opens it up for other uses later. An ASIC could only be used for mining or scypt work, but an FPGA could be used for all sorts of scientific applications later and hence actually have some good resale later. Their flexibility and potential is far higher than low/no ram spartan boards etc.

good point...

We are in fact talking to Kano  

There does exist a certain performance target in relation to GPU performance and price are aiming at. I won't say which just yet, but is definitely a large consideration.

I have an expectation of running a tight campaign that is not too long and is only happening when a fully functioning reference board exists as proof-of-work and not a moment sooner. It isn't fair (and in fact fraudulent I think) to be selling what you don't have. BFL sold theirs well before the design was finished and fully tested, which is BS of the highest degree. As a future Jally owner (assuming they ever respond to their support email! Another thing with them that is making their customers nuts...) I know this pain all too well myself. BlockBurner is holding to a higher standard, based on facts and not guesses.


The main site will be down for a bit as I rebuild it and email along with it for the moment, when it comes back later today there will be some new features   Stay tuned

[dan99]

good points hope you could get a working model soon, once you have tested and tweak you know where to send for mass production, ya.

[dbabo]

...

On Pre-Orders
...
I don't believe it is fair to hold pre-orders in a way that in a way fakes it as if it is a real product sold online, knowing full well it does not exist. I think this practice itself is fraudulent in nature itself.
...

you have my attention.

[Operatr]

Well, since the Altcoin forum here has quickly outgrown this place, I have set up our own 

http://blockburner.net/forum/index.php

[joshki]

Well, since the Altcoin forum here has quickly outgrown this place, I have set up our own 

http://blockburner.net/forum/index.php

You should continue to update this one... 

[dan99]

ya, i agreed

[mycketbra]

Well, since the Altcoin forum here has quickly outgrown this place, I have set up our own 

http://blockburner.net/forum/index.php

PM'd about admin capabilities and such

[Operatr]

I intend to keep this thread updated, certainly.

The problem now is the Altcoin board here has exploded so this thread is getting insta-buried in it, and our own forums was a gimme anyway 

Operatr

[zdavidi]

In reference to pre-orders, what kind of currency are you considering as payment? Or maybe you guys haven't thought that far ahead. :x

[Operatr]

In reference to pre-orders, what kind of currency are you considering as payment? Or maybe you guys haven't thought that far ahead. :x

I am not settled on that detail at the moment, but likely USD and LTC for sure, maybe BTC if I see a demand for it, but I would like to support Scrypt coins as this is a Scrypt device.



How would you all prefer to pay is perhaps a better question

Ill add this to our FAQ

[zdavidi]

I feel as though LTC should be the currency of choice. BTC owners will have no trouble transferring their funds to LTCs.

[dan99]

Really hope Operatr could give us a head start over Jasinlee fpga... I hope we are still leading