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

[billotronic]

1. Do you think the market and community is ready for FPGA Litecoin?
Market, maybe. Community, YES! If you can pull better numbers per joule and come in cheaper on hardware cost vs gpu, people will eat em up!


2. Is there definite interest in FPGA Litecoin machines? Would you buy one if the price was reasonable? What is reasonable?
Yes!
Yes!
Free! That will depend on the output. What suckered me into pre-ordering a jala was the price point provide a LOT of hash for the money... If possible, make em scale. There are a ton of people who want to get in on crypto currency because of ideals or greed and typically it's easier to get your feet wet on any endevour if it does not require a second mortgage to do so.

3. Would you pre-order one to support first round funding for prototyping and first wave production?
Thats a hard one to call. I think that would tie in directly to price. Same with answer 2, it was easier to take a chance on a BFL pre-order because it was not a lot of money. Will I shell out $15k? Not on your life. Will I shell out $200 to be an early adopter? Probably.

Some thoughts: I LOVE the mere mention of escrow for funds on a pre-order on your site. If you just manage to do the opposite of everything BFL has done with their ASIC offerings, you will do very well for yourself.

I wish you luck

[WindMaster]

1. Do you think the market and community is ready for FPGA Litecoin?
Market, maybe. Community, YES! If you can pull better numbers per joule and come in cheaper on hardware cost vs gpu, people will eat em up!

This part (cheaper than GPU's for a given hash rate) is unlikely.  When it comes to scrypt(1024,1,1), a modern Radeon GPU (prior to the 7xxx series, anyway) very nearly is an ASIC already optimized for scrypt, and designed at optimal process node and with economies of scale of being a consumer product.  I've already given it a go with the Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA's surrounded by large quantities of DDR3 and tried a variety of approaches across the TMTO spectrum for the known methods of calculating scrypt, ranging from no use of external memory at all and pipelining the entire calculation, to replicating the way cgminer does it in OpenCL (with various lookup gaps).  In the end, the best use of the prototype hardware was actually to mine the heck out of Yacoin, since scrypt+chacha20/8+keccak(N,1,1) with N=32 (as it currently is for Yacoin until tomorrow) was almost trivial to optimize for FPGA's:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=203216.msg2127307#msg2127307

For the probable FPGA vs. GPU cost relationship to change, someone needs to find and disclose a method of further shortcutting the already-known TMTO of scrypt(1024,1,1).  And at that point, whatever that optimization happens to be, is very likely going to be equally applicable to OpenCL to speed up GPU processing of scrypt too.

What I have yet to see is either the BlockBurner team or jasinlee say "Oh yeah, we're genius cryptanalysts and found ways that scrypt(1024,1,1) can be calculated much faster and/or with significantly less logic than anyone else has figured out how to."

[LOG123]

Should I jump off a cliff covered in green jello?

Yes, but just for fun

[WindMaster]

Should I jump off a cliff covered in green jello?

Yes, but just for fun the entertainment of Youtube viewers everywhere.

Fixed that for you!

[billotronic]

That is a very well thought out and technical rebuttal to my pipe dream. Thanks for ruining christmas.

My (unskilled) thinking was that scrypt is ram heavy, ram is pretty cheap these days. Math, on the other hand, is not my strong suit. Thanks for the perspective and publically abusing limitless in that thread you linked to.

[jasinlee]

"Oh yeah, we're genius cryptanalysts and found ways that scrypt(1024,1,1) can be calculated much faster and/or with significantly less logic than anyone else has figured out how to."

Oh yeah, we're genius cryptanalysts and found ways that scrypt(1024,1,1) can be calculated much faster and/or with significantly less logic than anyone else has figured out how to.  Just kidding.

[billotronic]

With enough whiskey, we can solve anything!

[joshki]

1. Do you think the market and community is ready for FPGA Litecoin?
Market, maybe. Community, YES! If you can pull better numbers per joule and come in cheaper on hardware cost vs gpu, people will eat em up!

This part (cheaper than GPU's for a given hash rate) is unlikely.  When it comes to scrypt(1024,1,1), a modern Radeon GPU (prior to the 7xxx series, anyway) very nearly is an ASIC already optimized for scrypt, and designed at optimal process node and with economies of scale of being a consumer product.  I've already given it a go with the Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA's surrounded by large quantities of DDR3 and tried a variety of approaches across the TMTO spectrum for the known methods of calculating scrypt, ranging from no use of external memory at all and pipelining the entire calculation, to replicating the way cgminer does it in OpenCL (with various lookup gaps).  In the end, the best use of the prototype hardware was actually to mine the heck out of Yacoin, since scrypt+chacha20/8+keccak(N,1,1) with N=32 (as it currently is for Yacoin until tomorrow) was almost trivial to optimize for FPGA's:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=203216.msg2127307#msg2127307

For the probable FPGA vs. GPU cost relationship to change, someone needs to find and disclose a method of further shortcutting the already-known TMTO of scrypt(1024,1,1).  And at that point, whatever that optimization happens to be, is very likely going to be equally applicable to OpenCL to speed up GPU processing of scrypt too.

What I have yet to see is either the BlockBurner team or jasinlee say "Oh yeah, we're genius cryptanalysts and found ways that scrypt(1024,1,1) can be calculated much faster and/or with significantly less logic than anyone else has figured out how to."

This is what worries me, and it matches a couple of other people's analyses -- people who I believe are very good at this kind of stuff.  However, if it can be done for the same price but much lower power draw, that could be a big help for those of us who have issues based on power availability.

Hardware's not my thing at the moment (it's something I want to learn in the future, but probably not for a couple of years).

[jpyao78]

That is a very well thought out and technical rebuttal to my pipe dream. Thanks for ruining christmas.

My (unskilled) thinking was that scrypt is ram heavy, ram is pretty cheap these days. Math, on the other hand, is not my strong suit. Thanks for the perspective and publically abusing limitless in that thread you linked to.

dram size is cheap, sram is expensive, and bandwidth is very expensive.
GPU can easily have more than 300GB/s bandwidth, but FPGA less than 30GB/s.
IF there exists a FPGA can reach a bandwidth >100GB/s, I think we can do it.

[joshki]

That is a very well thought out and technical rebuttal to my pipe dream. Thanks for ruining christmas.

My (unskilled) thinking was that scrypt is ram heavy, ram is pretty cheap these days. Math, on the other hand, is not my strong suit. Thanks for the perspective and publically abusing limitless in that thread you linked to.

dram size is cheap, sram is expensive, and bandwidth is very expensive.
GPU can easily have more than 300GB/s bandwidth, but FPGA less than 30GB/s.
IF there exists a FPGA can reach a bandwidth >100GB/s, I think we can do it.

There are FPGAs that can do it.  The problem is they cost 5k and up. 

[jpyao78]

1. Do you think the market and community is ready for FPGA Litecoin?
Market, maybe. Community, YES! If you can pull better numbers per joule and come in cheaper on hardware cost vs gpu, people will eat em up!

This part (cheaper than GPU's for a given hash rate) is unlikely.  When it comes to scrypt(1024,1,1), a modern Radeon GPU (prior to the 7xxx series, anyway) very nearly is an ASIC already optimized for scrypt, and designed at optimal process node and with economies of scale of being a consumer product.  I've already given it a go with the Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA's surrounded by large quantities of DDR3 and tried a variety of approaches across the TMTO spectrum for the known methods of calculating scrypt, ranging from no use of external memory at all and pipelining the entire calculation, to replicating the way cgminer does it in OpenCL (with various lookup gaps).  In the end, the best use of the prototype hardware was actually to mine the heck out of Yacoin, since scrypt+chacha20/8+keccak(N,1,1) with N=32 (as it currently is for Yacoin until tomorrow) was almost trivial to optimize for FPGA's:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=203216.msg2127307#msg2127307

For the probable FPGA vs. GPU cost relationship to change, someone needs to find and disclose a method of further shortcutting the already-known TMTO of scrypt(1024,1,1).  And at that point, whatever that optimization happens to be, is very likely going to be equally applicable to OpenCL to speed up GPU processing of scrypt too.

What I have yet to see is either the BlockBurner team or jasinlee say "Oh yeah, we're genius cryptanalysts and found ways that scrypt(1024,1,1) can be calculated much faster and/or with significantly less logic than anyone else has figured out how to."

What is the frequency and total data bits width of your DDR3  used?

[crazy_rabbit]

I've spoken with Enterpoint, http://enterpoint.co.uk/ and they have told me they are thinking about developing a Litecoin FPGA miner in the next couple months.

[dan99]

I've spoken with Enterpoint, http://enterpoint.co.uk/ and they have told me they are thinking about developing a Litecoin FPGA miner in the next couple months.

opps more competition, at the end is always who can finished the race faster..

[Operatr]

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

I can't speak for Jasinlee beyond what he has publicly stated to the community, I have no desires to start a rumor mill. I hope they succeed as well, as it is only good for the network. It is great there are others taking the initiative. We'll let our work speak for itself

1. Do you think the market and community is ready for FPGA Litecoin?
Market, maybe. Community, YES! If you can pull better numbers per joule and come in cheaper on hardware cost vs gpu, people will eat em up!


2. Is there definite interest in FPGA Litecoin machines? Would you buy one if the price was reasonable? What is reasonable?
Yes!
Yes!
Free! That will depend on the output. What suckered me into pre-ordering a jala was the price point provide a LOT of hash for the money... If possible, make em scale. There are a ton of people who want to get in on crypto currency because of ideals or greed and typically it's easier to get your feet wet on any endevour if it does not require a second mortgage to do so.

3. Would you pre-order one to support first round funding for prototyping and first wave production?
Thats a hard one to call. I think that would tie in directly to price. Same with answer 2, it was easier to take a chance on a BFL pre-order because it was not a lot of money. Will I shell out $15k? Not on your life. Will I shell out $200 to be an early adopter? Probably.

Some thoughts: I LOVE the mere mention of escrow for funds on a pre-order on your site. If you just manage to do the opposite of everything BFL has done with their ASIC offerings, you will do very well for yourself.

I wish you luck

I find BFL's situation appalling, they are certainly a good example of what not to do

When funding time comes we'll have a real number to hit to meet the requirement for a certain number of production units before receiving the funds, anything over would start the fund for batch 2.

We are eyeing a price/performance target similar to an upper end GPU, while being a lot less costly to operate long term.

What I have yet to see is either the BlockBurner team or jasinlee say "Oh yeah, we're genius cryptanalysts and found ways that scrypt(1024,1,1) can be calculated much faster and/or with significantly less logic than anyone else has figured out how to."

We'll, I can say watching the devs chat is like a different language to me, even with my own technical background. Our design is in progress, much of which currently is certainly centered on the best route to take on many specific aspects in regard to Scrypt hashing. I'm careful to release more information that we should, but I'm dying to give a proper update  

Should I jump off a cliff covered in green jello?

Yes, but just for fun the entertainment of Youtube viewers everywhere.

Fixed that for you!

Well, anything for the cause  

I've spoken with Enterpoint, http://enterpoint.co.uk/ and they have told me they are thinking about developing a Litecoin FPGA miner in the next couple months.

opps more competition, at the end is always who can finished the race faster..

We can always use more motivation



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[3ham3]

Seeing that there is huge interest in this product and the interest in pre ordering,
Would it be wise to set up pre order registration?

Allow names/details to be put down, once pre ordering comes around, those people who registered for the pre order get first lash/ or are locked in pending their approval, and if the price is not to their liking, then they can decline and that would free up a slot for someone else, there could be a time limit on how long a person who registered for the pre order has to accept the price, thus making it so no one holds up the whole process.

Lets say your first production run goal is X, accept pre order registration for 75% of X, leaving a guaranteed 25% available for new comers when pre orders go live.

Pre Order Registration will also give you insight into many people are interested, and give you a rough target number for your first production run.

Looking at the over all picture, with my business experience I reckon the method will work great, plus it's used by many businesses, especially in the concert sales ticket industry.

Already Sold, would order now if I could.

Just my two cents worth, No doubt you guys are working on a sales plan etc.

[Operatr]

Seeing that there is huge interest in this product and the interest in pre ordering,
Would it be wise to set up pre order registration?

Allow names/details to be put down, once pre ordering comes around, those people who registered for the pre order get first lash/ or are locked in pending their approval, and if the price is not to their liking, then they can decline and that would free up a slot for someone else, there could be a time limit on how long a person who registered for the pre order has to accept the price, thus making it so no one holds up the whole process.

Lets say your first production run goal is X, accept pre order registration for 75% of X, leaving a guaranteed 25% available for new comers when pre orders go live.

Pre Order Registration will also give you insight into many people are interested, and give you a rough target number for your first production run.

Looking at the over all picture, with my business experience I reckon the method will work great, plus it's used by many businesses, especially in the concert sales ticket industry.

Already Sold, would order now if I could.

Just my two cents worth, No doubt you guys are working on a sales plan etc.

In an industry riddled with scammers and liars we're being very careful with our pre-order plans, this is an interesting option to consider when it comes time.

The design only exists on paper, I will make no illusions of this fact. The dev team is starting to dig into the more complex aspects.

I have seen a prototype UI interface, though until it is actually functioning with cgminer at it's heart I won't be releasing any details just yet.


The software division has been formed consisting of Kano on cgminer support and programming, as well as babcoccl heading the GUI interface side.


Monday marks week 5 as we pile deeper into the details and becoming a legal entity in the state of Montana.

One detail that I can release today: I have decided a name for our new line

Welcome to Crucible FPGA  

[dan99]

Hi, Thanks for giving some insight about yourself. Great that you will move full speed a head on these projects. Looking forward to the FPGA Litecoin Miner soon 

[makkapakka]

I like to thank you for your sincere self introduction and your background. I feel that you are very passionate on things you work on as well as your involvement in your local community. I would like to said from that, I feel more confident how you approach things in general. Like to wish you all the best.

[Operatr]

A couple more details-

My LinkedIn profile

My real life face  

[btceic]

Operatr,
Thank you for taking the time to be as open as you are with your latest post, the community sincerely thanks you for that.

Regarding the "Crucible" can you comment on your expectations and goals?

In your OP and on the FAQ you state that you do not have any hashing details yet, but I and others here would like to know "Your" expectations and goals about the final design.

KH Goal: ??
Price per KH: ??
Any other goal details that you would like to share?