[Announcement] Block Erupter USB

[CommanderVenus]

Yes, i have tried.. Setup is a long process and i did everything correctly, it still wouldnt build. Gonna fresh format windows 7 then try again.
 : (

Are you talking about cgminer on Win7 here? creating a .bat file is a long process? https://ozcoin.net/content/win7-cgminer-setup-guide

I found it simple to run and manage.

QG

Yes! Ill have to try this out. Thanks man.

[klondike_bar]

I haven't read the 21 pages of comments on this, so I may be repeating what others have said.

At 2btc a pop for 600mh, it's about the same price as a 7970.  With a fraction of the power usage.  However, not massively resellable like a 7970 is. 

I think it's overpriced, but in reality it's probably reasonably priced.. especially if you have a rig of 7970s that you can resell and switch to these and cut your power usage down significantly.  The question is do you want to risk being "stuck" with these if/when difficulty jumps through the roof, or GPUs that you can then redeem for cash.  And considering these will continue to be profitable long after GPUs are not, except for those will free or really really low electricity prices.

M

it's 1.99 for 300mhash...

yeah, typo.  fixed.

M

I would be okay with 2btc for 600mHash. but for 300 i dont see it as a ood investment

[tvbcof]

I would be okay with 2btc for 600mHash. but for 300 i dont see it as a ood investment

Most people don't.  I didn't when I purchased one via a group buy.  I had other motives.

Most likely everyone who owns one of these things at $200-ish US is going to feel like they were gypped to some extent every time the look at the thing.  Further, most of the people buying them now will probably be especially active in the mining gear economy going forward.

Due to the rapidly changing events in asic-chip-land, it's possible that ~friedcat would make a decision to do some two-for-the-price-of-one deal or some such which would be much less messy if done before any items were shipped at all.

[klondike_bar]

I would be okay with 2btc for 600mHash. but for 300 i dont see it as a ood investment

Most people don't.  I didn't when I purchased one via a group buy.  I had other motives.

Most likely everyone who owns one of these things at $200-ish US is going to feel like they were gypped to some extent every time the look at the thing.  Further, most of the people buying them now will probably be especially active in the mining gear economy going forward.

Due to the rapidly changing events in asic-chip-land, it's possible that ~friedcat would make a decision to do some two-for-the-price-of-one deal or some such which would be much less messy if done before any items were shipped at all.

I anticipate once the first batch ships, and we see other competition catching up on pre-orders or avalon-based designs, we could see a more reasonable price/power ratio.

I would not purchase any asic design unless i believed it could pay for itself within 6 months, especially since 60% of that would probably occur in the first 3 months. For me, I want to see 4 chips on a device, with a total of >1GHash for less than 4.5 BTC after shipping/taxes/etc and a few reviews before i invest in such a crapshoot.

There will be a period of time where early investors profit (that was avalon batch 1 and batch 2), then a period where the asic technology will advance and drop in price at a rate that makes investing in the earlt part of the phase a poor choice (IMO, this is avalon batch 3 and the block erupter v1). Eventually this will level out somewhat, probably in a few months, and the ideal opportunities will arise with 16-chip designs that push 6Ghash a board in the $750-$1000 price range. Every year this price will half.

[ThickAsThieves]

What I'd like to see is a PCI-e ASICMINER product that hashes at 5000+. Get that going Friedcat!

[jasonpitts]

I think a small scale product like this is necessary for spreading the hashing power out.

It will attract new miners and more importantly smaller, casual miners, but unfortunately I think the price needs to scale to that level as well. I understand there are probably RnD, Fabrication and production costs being considered in this unit right now, but I really couldn't see myself paying more than $30.00 for one. If they were in the $30.00 to $50.00 range I would be buying them as gifts for all of my friends and family to introduce them to bitcoin.

Maybe it would make sense to start by selling a larger unit then move to producing these when all of the overhead costs won't be as much of a problem.

[SpaceCadet]

While I'm in the camp that the price is too high for it's capability, the reality is that you can't just compare it to the price of a GPU.  To run a GPU with that performance, you also have to have a PSU that has the power capacity AND the extra power connectors for the GPU.  These are things the average home desktop lack, so you can't just take your old HP box and pop in a high-end GPU.  But you can just pop an Erupter in the USB port and start hashing away... 

I'm going to hold out for the clones to come at a more affordable price (well, affordable for me

[tvbcof]

While I'm in the camp that the price is too high for it's capability, the reality is that you can't just compare it to the price of a GPU.  To run a GPU with that performance, you also have to have a PSU that has the power capacity AND the extra power connectors for the GPU.  These are things the average home desktop lack, so you can't just take your old HP box and pop in a high-end GPU.  But you can just pop an Erupter in the USB port and start hashing away... 

I'm going to hold out for the clones to come at a more affordable price (well, affordable for me

Voice of reason in several respects.  I bought a sapphire BE at high prices just because I happened to have an interest in such things, but the possibility of more-or-less just plugging it into one of the 10,000 female USB ports I have access to was a factor.  People really expecting it to be a good investment are likely to regret it.  I just wonder if their regret will color their view of Bitfountain.

Hopefully we won't have to hold out for to long for a slew of such devices at moderate price points.

Even better will be when miners are built into device which are just making heat anyway.  My hot water pot is a great example.  And I take several long hot showers per day where I often think of new ideas, so a hot water heater with heat from mining chips would be awesome.  I might even be inclined to install a Jacuzzi if I could mine crypto-currencies with it!

But back to reality, it would be great if people who were not planted in a rich country could mine.  Great both for them and great for the robustness of distributed crypto-currency systems.  That is why I am pretty excited that things have progressed as far as they have as fast as they have.  I'd not expected to see such a think as this BE until the end of 2014 (when I was projecting out in 2011.)

[friedcat]

Update

The issue on supporting CGMiner is solved by the May 10 patch:

https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/commits/master

[tkone]

any idea if this will work with bitminter in mac osx, for example on a macbookpro maybe with a usb hub?
that would make it very versatile,

and for the price, at current difficulty seems like less then a year to get your initial investment, which is pretty good if you ask me, and if difficulty doubles? which is highly unlikely for now (atleast i think so) it will pay for itself in less then 2 years?

now imagine if bitcoin goes up to a stable 150, or even 200?

then this will pay for itself and over so many times in 2year peroid,

now tell me another investment that can pay for itself in a 2year peroid???

seems legit for the price, dont drop it because that would make you have less earnings, and also would spread out earnings to others that arent investing as much as you might of to create such a thing,

[friedcat]

(1) are they interruptible (sending down a new work unit discards the one in progress immediately) to minimize stales?  This is a headache with my BFL FPGAs.

Yes they are - sending down a new work unit discards the one in progress immediately

(2) If not interrupted, will they scan the entire noncerange or abort after hitting a share?
(3) Do they report found shares immediately or at the end of the work?

They will continue to scan the entire range, every nonce found is sent back immediately.

(4) Do they implement notification on exhausting the noncerange without finding a share?

No - it will simply time out and be idle - you will have to send a new job before it times out.

[rudrigorc2]

Im in China, can I still buy one or two? Can i pick it up in person?

[Syke]

and for the price, at current difficulty seems like less then a year to get your initial investment, which is pretty good if you ask me, and if difficulty doubles? which is highly unlikely for now (atleast i think so)

Difficulty will double in a months or two, easy.

now imagine if bitcoin goes up to a stable 150, or even 200?

then this will pay for itself and over so many times in 2year peroid,

now tell me another investment that can pay for itself in a 2year peroid???

Bitcoins. Just buy and hold 2 bitcoins and you'll make much more profit.

[MineForeman.com]

Im in China, can I still buy one or two? Can i pick it up in person?

I am organising a group buy for International people such as yourself, I know it is a bit odd getting them sent from China to New Zealand and then back again but those are the rules that Bitfountain set down (probably for good reason though).

Anyway, my international buy in thread is at;-

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=201577.0

It already has a few paid orders and even more people have expressed interest.

[rudrigorc2]

Im in China, can I still buy one or two? Can i pick it up in person?

I am organising a group buy for International people such as yourself, I know it is a bit odd getting them sent from China to New Zealand and then back again but those are the rules that Bitfountain set down (probably for good reason though).

Anyway, my international buy in thread is at;-

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=201577.0

It already has a few paid orders and even more people have expressed interest.

IF someone pay my air tickets I would love to fly NZ with them.  But friedcat is hard to compete with, free shipping right?

[markyminer]

and for the price, at current difficulty seems like less then a year to get your initial investment, which is pretty good if you ask me, and if difficulty doubles? which is highly unlikely for now (atleast i think so)

Difficulty will double in a months or two, easy.

now imagine if bitcoin goes up to a stable 150, or even 200?

then this will pay for itself and over so many times in 2year peroid,

now tell me another investment that can pay for itself in a 2year peroid???

Bitcoins. Just buy and hold 2 bitcoins and you'll make much more profit.

Network hashrate was 66.73 t/hash on 23/4/13 and difficulty was 9 million (just under). I took a sceenshot from bitcoin watch. Today network hashrate is 78.94 t/hash. This is a 12.21 t/hash increase in less than 3 weeks! And many ASIC have not even shipped yet!

I repeat again unless BTC rockets in price again, and it's holding steady under $120, you will never make an ROI on these.

M

[SolarSilver]

I repeat again unless BTC rockets in price again, and it's holding steady under $120, you will never make an ROI on these.

The USD / BTC exchange is irrelevant, if you pay in BTC and you get your return in BTC, then it's just a matter of calculating in BTC. No USD or EUR in play here

[apetersson]

i have created a group-buy thread for local pickup in Vienna, Graz and Bratislava. we have currently 130-161 preorders.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=201958.0

Shipping is also possible, but with restrictions (min 10, extra shipping cost)

[markyminer]

I repeat again unless BTC rockets in price again, and it's holding steady under $120, you will never make an ROI on these.

The USD / BTC exchange is irrelevant, if you pay in BTC and you get your return in BTC, then it's just a matter of calculating in BTC. No USD or EUR in play here

Only partially true, without a FIAT exit BTC is almost worthless. If the USA made trading BTC into USD illegal watch the value of BTC plummet. And good luck trying to pay your electricity supplier in BTC in the near future, if ever!

Only when Unit abd all BTC mining costs are issued and payable in BTC will this statement be true. And those using "Free" electricity from parents /work etc, you are actually stealing!

M

[tom_o]

I repeat again unless BTC rockets in price again, and it's holding steady under $120, you will never make an ROI on these.

And those using "Free" electricity from parents /work etc, you are actually stealing!

M

Unless its "included with rent", then we're just taking advantage