DESIGNING the next generation FAST CRYPTO CURRENCY MINING MACHINE

[Viceroy]

Thank you for that post E3V3A!
Beautiful design there owenprescott! 
Welcome, welcome one and all!

[E3V3A]

Another, perhaps more philosophical question. Should we really be using "mining operations" that require wasted energy? It just doesn't seem to make sense to make zillions upon zillions of calculations, just to be able to create a quasi-physical (here crypto) currency to put into circulation... Is there really no other alternatives or ideas how to go about this?

[Viceroy]

>Should we really be using "mining operations" that require wasted energy?

From a system builders perspective, yes.  Building a machine to solve this puzzle is fun and conceptually interesting.  Keeping an overheated computer running is a challenge, and one that I think people enjoy.  Part of my point is that as we move away from these PC's and make this a specialized game we lose a large part of what bitcoin really is (a bunch of geeks mining coins and selling them to people who want to pretend they are anonymous as we await real adoption by a real retailer).  That idea is what brought me here and losing that idea will drive me away.  So whatever you design it sure as hell needs to involve a geek and a computer.  (I like FPGA solutions WAY more than ASICS because you are still dealing with an individual geek... as opposed to having to deal with Inaba's ego.).  This is just my opinion and I may take it down in a bit.  I am really here to learn from others... not tell the world what I think.  I'm not about wasting energy.. I just like what bitcoin has been for me.

[turtle83]

I don't know much about embedded/FPGA/ASIC, but I could help out with higher level tasks. testing, Linux things, automation, coding...  and i always wanted to get into hardware hacking... so this is a good opportunity.

I missed out on the whole bitcoin wave, and since last few weeks I have been procrastinating on the concept of crypto(and p2p) currency -- not to get rich quick or something... but more so for political reasons.

Will watch the progress of this project for something I can contribute.

[Viceroy]

^^This is exactly what I'm talking about.  Nobody here, other than Inaba, would suggest Turtle needs to buy an ASIC to play... right?

[ryepdx]

How then does the 'average Joe' at home get involved without needing to buy specialized hardware?

Who says the "average joe" at home needs to be mining? There are tons of other ways to get involved with Bitcoin. And I don't know that an scrypt-based solution will be much better. The problem you're trying to solve is not one of "off-the-shelf" v.s. "custom," but one of "capital" v.s. "no/little capital." Even under scrypt, the wealthy will have an advantage and will eventually squeeze out the "average joe."

On top of this, you seem to be overlooking the fact that almost 100% of the mining hardware, pre-FPGA, came from AMD. That means AMD was basically the central point for the Bitcoin mining community, just as Avalon and BFL are now, except AMD never had any kind of stake in the fate of Bitcoin...

[Viceroy]

You are right, I favor AMD to BFL.  I favor a useful tool like a GPU to a dedicated tool which has no other purpose.  I am not convinced, though, that big money can win against scrypt so easily but I've only begun to read it.  How are you proposing we get Turtle involved if he cannot do it with his home machine?  Is the Only answer to BUY something from Avalon?  There is no longer a solution for the average joe?  I think there must be a way for Joe or we are always at the mercy of the "richest" guy (who I'm going to fantasize is Vlad).  In the end when bitcoins are worth 1 quintillion dollars US each are you going to let Vlad be the only maker of coin?  Isn't that what we are trying to avoid here (a centralized bank)?.  Out of curiosity I wonder if anyone has actually gone to AMD or NVidia and made a pitch.  Honestly a company that size is the only who can create the next level ASIC as best I can tell.

[MooC Tals]

I believe greed is the variable you guys are trying to control here. Just because the rich can do it does'nt always mean they will imho. If its not worth their time. However we are seeing bitcoin going from a hobby to a business now. So the players motivations are changing. This is the problem you guys need to address here.

Look at how actual agricultural farming has evolved and is it any coincidence that terminology is being used for coin mining now?

[Viceroy]

Q: Has anybody designed/tried to design an FPGA to mine LTC yet?

[qbits]

How then does the 'average Joe' at home get involved without needing to buy specialized hardware?

Who says the "average joe" at home needs to be mining? There are tons of other ways to get involved with Bitcoin. And I don't know that an scrypt-based solution will be much better. The problem you're trying to solve is not one of "off-the-shelf" v.s. "custom," but one of "capital" v.s. "no/little capital." Even under scrypt, the wealthy will have an advantage and will eventually squeeze out the "average joe."

On top of this, you seem to be overlooking the fact that almost 100% of the mining hardware, pre-FPGA, came from AMD. That means AMD was basically the central point for the Bitcoin mining community, just as Avalon and BFL are now, except AMD never had any kind of stake in the fate of Bitcoin...

i say that. first of all amd gpu can be bought almost everywhere today. asic can not. second: security of btc is in numbers of people mining not just th/s. asic will consolidate miners, few large ones will remain, and that makes network weaker. ultimately if there was just one miner left standing, would you consider btc safe? no? even if he had gazzilionH/s? still no?

even if there will be 1000 asic miners left which i doubt it would still be worse than ltc network with 10000 gpu miners.

the point of crypto currency is decentralisation. asic is the force to the opposite.

[Lacan82]

definitely still interested in helping out as much as I can!

[MooC Tals]

Hey there was a governing effect that gave value to the crypto currency which involved the price of electricity. It could be argued that by using asics that require less electricity to create more hashs it devalues the bitcoin. Even though the amount is finite. This is the reason why gpu's are leaving in the first place.

[johnyj]

Hey there was a governing effect that gave value to the crypto currency which involved the price of electricity. It could be argued that by using asics that require less electricity to create more hashs it devalues the bitcoin. Even though the amount is finite. This is the reason why gpu's are leaving in the first place.

Eventually a 600W ASIC device will only mine several dollars worth of bitcoin per day, barely pay the electricity, but by that time the amount of people who are mining might be magnitudes higher than today

It is difficult to follow the hardware trend, eventually people will just buy coins and leave mining to a couple of companies to handle the infrastructure of this payment network

[MooC Tals]

Sorry I won't I might as well trust the bank.

[pizza]

The whole wealthy vs joe blow is extremely hard to solve without creating a managed crypto-currency. Even if you control technology progression, the wealthy can build a bigger farm and push Joe out by the sheerness of difficulty.

The only solution I have come to is to tie the price of the currency to the difficulty itself, so as difficulty goes up so does the price equally. What this would accomplish would be fixed profitability. By price in this part I mean the exchange rate to other currencies.

For example a 5gh/sec machine will always produce the same income. The next problem is how can you control the price against other currencies? I guess the only way to acomplish this would be that the currency itself is also a decentralized exchange.

So the crypto currency quotes the ask and the bid not the buyers and sellers. Basically the ask/bid would always be the same on any given day, and people can only buy and sell at that price.

So the Rich guy can buy more machines to make more money if so he deems, and Joe can make the same income. These are just some thoughts on re-writing the abilities of the currency.

At the end either way you look at it bitcoin or lightcoin or any current coin will become centralized because of the opposite things outlined in this post. The only time that might stop is if transaction fees are high enough to make it worth while for avg joe to run.

If you even reply to this, make sure you read each point slowly and re-read it, I'm re-reading it now and new ideas and thoughts are coming to my mind. I will sit down at a later time and work on this some more and improve upon it, as there are many more questions. Such as how would the above said coin work if becomes a world currency and replaces other currencies or makes then absolete?

I guess then goods and services would alter their price based on the daily value of the currency all done automatically of course. I will post this to a new thread later as it will hijack this one, I am going to sleep now to tired to keep thinking about this hopefully it doesn't keep me awake lol

To add to this a good solution to decentrilization would be insanely low energy as it run off a solar panel type of energy, at least if the operational costs are none or almost none. Either by free energy sources or the operational costs are covered by the transaction fees in the end, once all coins are created. Then people will run the miners to support decentralization.

In the end though the ideals of bitcoin or even our above fantasy coin will falter and die. What bitcoin, through the idea of de-centrilization stands for is freedom. Absolute freedom, the highest form of morality. Freedom from fiat. Freedom from the machine of debt and inflation which destroy wealth. Freedom from enslavement. Freedom of life! This freedom is very dangerous to the "Vlad" (The elite in this definition). As we move toward a new world order, a world of fascist enslavement. The "Vlad" will corrupt the ideals of bitcoin into a centralized one world currency. The transactions will be encrypted for the masses, but not for Vlads centralized monotoring system. Encrypted, Centralized, and controlled for the benefit of the Vlad. Meanwhile the masses, will without question blindly accept the corrupted ideals under the guise of "safety and security". Through the corruption of their souls, their only goal will be self preservation, they will easily give up the ideal of freedom.

 No one will care about the dream that once was and will never be...

[Viceroy]

I have to crash too, but I'll sleep on this.  we need a solution from now until the end where the miners are always decentralized and always reasonably compensated.. else it's just "vlad the mining empire".

[MooC Tals]

How about limiting the ghs/ip and/or ghs/pool/ip's connecting to it. The ip is the only local denominator here. So that brings another limit. Unless there is a way of spoofing ip addresses then its a no go.

I really don't want to go into licenses as that becomes taxable although that would make the currency legal and most would hate that.

However if you could make this p2p to generate temporary tickets according to locations it would be harder to spoof. I dunno I guess people would see they can't expand and stop mining.

// end rambling

[qbits]

How about limiting the ghs/ip and/or ghs/pool/ip's connecting to it. The ip is the only local denominator here. So that brings another limit. Unless there is a way of spoofing ip addresses then its a no go.

I really don't want to go into licenses as that becomes taxable although that would make the currency legal and most would hate that.

However if you could make this p2p to generate temporary tickets according to locations it would be harder to spoof. I dunno I guess people would see they can't expand and stop mining.

// end rambling

i have access to at least 8192 different ip addresses from at least one /19 sub. you see this will not work.

[Lacan82]

How about limiting the ghs/ip and/or ghs/pool/ip's connecting to it. The ip is the only local denominator here. So that brings another limit. Unless there is a way of spoofing ip addresses then its a no go.

I really don't want to go into licenses as that becomes taxable although that would make the currency legal and most would hate that.

However if you could make this p2p to generate temporary tickets according to locations it would be harder to spoof. I dunno I guess people would see they can't expand and stop mining.

// end rambling

i have access to at least 8192 different ip addresses from at least one /19 sub. you see this will not work.

Even after NAT?

[Signus]

Q: Has anybody designed/tried to design an FPGA to mine LTC yet?

Yes there have been those that have tried with their own solutions. Not many people have gotten it to perform adequately because everybody wants BTC right now.

Many modern FPGA's would be just fine at mining LTC, however it just takes dedicated coders to actually develop the Verilog for scrypt on FPGA's.

As far as building ASIC's for scrypt goes, it would require the understanding that developed through SHA256 with bitcoin and FPGA's first. So essentially the same evolution of hardware.