DragonMint T1 16TH/S halongmining.com

[gentlemand]

Ah, looks like a happy ending.

I still don't understand the obfuscation though. They could've been upfront about who and what they were without letting the important details slip. Even if they don't need the custom, they should've respected the well earned paranoia around here.

[Dr.Mann]

I never meant anything bad with my criticism, I was just worried because we've seen many bad cases during Bitcoin mining history. So my apologies for my suspicions, I hope you understand my concerns earlier. [....]

HaggsFIN, you have nothing for which to apologize. Your skepticism and criticism have been reasonable. On the other hand, Halong Mining's treatment of its customers has been unacceptable, and no one has yet to receive a functioning DragonMint. While I am cautiously optimistic to see today's postings from Halong Mining and -ck and find this information encouraging (-ck's credibility is impeccable), Halong Mining has still left many critical questions unanswered, which are documented in Unicornflex's post. (See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2443327.msg29757421#msg29757421.)

Hypothetically, if a valid reason arises, such as Halong fails to deliver the DragonMint to its purchasers, or if the DragonMint has a design defect that makes it unsafe to use, do we, the purchasers of the DragonMint, have enough information to hail Halong Mining into court to answer? The answer is clearly no. Halong Mining has refused to disclose any information about its jurisdiction of operation and its incorporation, even basic information such as its physical address or mailing address. I'm sorry, people, but you can't sue an email address or a domain name. Does this lack of basic information bother anyone else? It should. You need this information if you need to seek a legal remedy. Do we know the name of anyone who is employed by Halong Mining, such as management or any engineers? No. If we had such information, we could evaluate their record for honesty and safety. -ck is the sole shining star affiliated with the DragonMint, and -ck's posts are the only bits of information that give me any reason for optimism, but let's be clear: -ck has stated that he is not employed by Halong Mining; he has stated that he has a contract with MyRig. (See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2443327.msg30859496#msg30859496.) MyRig purports to be a Colorado corporation, but it isn't. (See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2443327.msg30805144#msg30805144.) Halong Mining and MyRig do not operate in the manner in which credible companies operate. Credible companies provide a path in which they can be held accountable for their actions. Delivering a product is not enough to make a company credible.

Let's say, once again, hypothetically, that a design defect in the DragonMint causes them to fail prematurely, or that the DragonMint poses an unacceptable fire risk. (We've seen serious fire risks with extremely low wattage iPhones, which use about 1 kWh per year, and which are manufactured and designed by Apple, one of the best and most reliable companies that has ever built electronics. It does not strain the imagination that we could see a fire risk with a DragonMint (a 1480W device), which is manufactured and designed by anonymous engineers under the supervision of anonymous management. The lack of accountability is disturbing to me. Does it disturb anyone else? Anyone who is considering placing a new order from Halong Mining should heed these facts.

[Albortz]

Ok so I am really lost.


When Bitmain used AsicBoost, everyone and their grandma was angry and upset and Evil Evil Bitmain was shouted...


Why are we celebrating AB now? I really dont get it lol


Makes no sense to me, to suddenly praise something we hated, just because its Not Bitmain for once :/

[polltroy]

The company name is Little Dragon Technology LLC, or did I misunderstand something from their blog?

[-ck]

So is it 16 TH/S only on an ASICBOOST pool? How does that number adjust for a non-ASICBOOST pool?

Yes, only with asicboost. The driver will not try to mine on pools that don't support it. It can work in a crippled manner with non-asicboost pools, but only produces 1/4 the hashrate.

[kebabman]

Ok so I am really lost.


When Bitmain used AsicBoost, everyone and their grandma was angry and upset and Evil Evil Bitmain was shouted...


Why are we celebrating AB now? I really dont get it lol


Makes no sense to me, to suddenly praise something we hated, just because its Not Bitmain for once :/

Read the article in my reply I posted above, Bitcoin was (allegedly) using covert AsicBoost which is 'bad' for the network and shady (so surprising Bitmain would be shady) without the permission of the original patent holders (Little Dragon). Since then AsicBoost became part of the BPDL(https://blockchaindpl.org/) as overt AsibBoost and Halong is using overt AsicBoost, which is not bad for the network, but requires pool support (currently slush and ck pool that I know of).

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/halong-mining-first-bitcoin-mining-hardware-producer-implement-overt-asicboost/

[-ck]

Ok so I am really lost.


When Bitmain used AsicBoost, everyone and their grandma was angry and upset and Evil Evil Bitmain was shouted...


Why are we celebrating AB now? I really dont get it lol


Makes no sense to me, to suddenly praise something we hated, just because its Not Bitmain for once :/

Bitmain had it hidden from the public and had the patent for it meaning no one else could use the technology giving them an unfair advantage. The halong group paid dearly for the patent to buy it and then opened it up with the blockchain defensive patent license - this license means anyone can use the asicboost technology provided they don't patent anything else in their hardware. Think about it - they paid for the license, only to open it up for everyone. No one has an unfair technology advantage now.

[kebabman]

Ok so I am really lost.


When Bitmain used AsicBoost, everyone and their grandma was angry and upset and Evil Evil Bitmain was shouted...


Why are we celebrating AB now? I really dont get it lol


Makes no sense to me, to suddenly praise something we hated, just because its Not Bitmain for once :/

Bitmain had it hidden from the public and had the patent for it meaning no one else could use the technology giving them an unfair advantage. The halong group paid dearly for the patent to buy it and then opened it up with the blockchain defensive patent license - this license means anyone can use the asicboost technology provided they don't patent anything else in their hardware. Think about it - they paid for the license, only to open it up for everyone. No one has an unfair technology advantage now.

I thought Bitmain only held the China patent and the original creators / US patent holders (Timo Hankeh and Sergio Lerner) were the ones that published it via the BDPL?

[Sandal_Hat]

I never meant anything bad with my criticism, I was just worried because we've seen many bad cases during Bitcoin mining history. So my apologies for my suspicions, I hope you understand my concerns earlier. We have now reached more open environment around the DragonMint and after Phil gets one for review, even more info is to come.  

Matti

I don't even think you need to apologize for your suspicions man. They brought a lot of it on themselves. Despite the secrecy, they came off very cocky and uncaring... which fosters more suspicion.

The one thing I've learned in my short time here is that you have to realize what folks here have been through. Some of the paranoia comes off very harsh and unfounded, until you take a step back and look at all the crazy stuff the folks in the community have been through. Halong, at the barest of minimums, hasn't been very sensitive to that. At least until now.

I'm just happy to see it come to fruition. As has been said so many times here... if its real... the competition is much needed, and I think in the end everyone wins with another serious ASIC player in the marketplace.

Agreed that the way they function, the public naturally reacted as such. This has been a surprise. I dont think it matters too much though because there is major oversupply of asics now. Asics are not selling despite discount coupons. Breaking even is difficult even with low electricity cost for new miners. Dragonmint should have come in a year ago. Market timing can be everything at times. I guess we shall see how this goes.

[Sandal_Hat]

Is really demand for miners low now? Last time I checked "instant" ROI for S9 is back to 180-200 days which seems to have been the standard for a long time except during the November to January period.

Does anyone have statistics of selling price and waiting time for S9 for the last year or so?

Ok lets see:

It used to be breakeven 3-4 months and waiting time 2 months. Breakeven can be abit longer because difficulty increase by the time u get the miner.

Rough calculations:
S9 with psu = 1915 x 1.10 (vat) = 2106 USD
Dragonmint with psu = 2844 x 1.1 (vat) = 3128 USD

Currently S9/Dragon makes 200/245 USD per month at 10 cents electric.
So breakeven for S9 is 10.53 months and dragon is 12.76 months.
This doesnt take into account setup costs and rental costs though.

Breakeven is faster if u gotten S9/Dragon it in the past at lower prices though.
The biggest issue is u have 6 months warranty only and difficulty has been rising alot faster than bitcoin price in the last year.

As always, this is a guide, do your own due dilligence.

[Dr.Mann]

The company name is Little Dragon Technology LLC, or did I misunderstand something from their blog?

Yes, with all due respect, you misunderstood the owner of the blog. Halong Mining's blog is not https://www.asicboost.com/blog.

Halong Mining's actual blog is https://halongmining.com/blog.

The blog on the site asicboost.com is owned by Little Dragon Technology LLC, whose sole member according to the California Secretary of State is Mingming Mao of Saratoga, California. This fact can be verified here:

https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/CBS/SearchResults?SearchType=LPLLC&SearchCriteria=Little+Dragon+Technology+LLC&SearchSubType=Keyword

[kebabman]

How to compare 16Th with Asicboost to a miner without Asicboost? Is 16Th with Asicboost equivalent to 16Th without Asicboost in terms of mining profit?

It's 16th with Asicboost, if you run it on a pool that doesn't support AsicBoost it performs much worse (1/4 speed I read). So basically forget about AsicBoost in comparing just know that this is a 16th miner that only works on pools that support AsicBoost vs the S9 which is a 13TH miner that works on any pool.

[fanatic26]

It's 16th with Asicboost, if you run it on a pool that doesn't support AsicBoost it performs much worse (1/4 speed I read). So basically forget about AsicBoost in comparing just know that this is a 16th miner that only works on pools that support AsicBoost vs the S9 which is a 13TH miner that works on any pool.

If thats true, this miner is junk. If you arent free to run it on any pool you want, its useless. All the people worried about centralization should be freaking out about this since it limits the choices of where you can put your hash power.

[Searing]

How to compare 16Th with Asicboost to a miner without Asicboost? Is 16Th with Asicboost equivalent to 16Th without Asicboost in terms of mining profit?

It's 16th with Asicboost, if you run it on a pool that doesn't support AsicBoost it performs much worse (1/4 speed I read). So basically forget about AsicBoost in comparing just know that this is a 16th miner that only works on pools that support AsicBoost vs the S9 which is a 13TH miner that works on any pool.

Also pools that support ASIC boost are essentially Bitcoin Cash pools right? From what I understand ASIC boost does not work on Bitcoin Core Seq Witness...

[dimaze]

The overt Asicboost is advertised as 20%. What does that mean the miner is without ASICBoost? About 12.8TH.

That's a bit worse than a S9.

The current pricing of the Dragonmint 16T is still excessive compared to what is available from Bitmain. It's just not cost effective compared to an S9.

That's pretty awesome though what they did with the patent. That explains why the miner was pointed to slush

They're just not competitive at the latest 16T batches with pricing unfortunately. The early batches for 2k were relative steals though.

[dimaze]

Also pools that support ASIC boost are essentially Bitcoin Cash pools right? From what I understand ASIC boost does not work on Bitcoin Core Seq Witness...

In a nutshell, there are two common approaches on AsicBoost. One is Covert, which Bitmain used, which is not compatible with Segwit.

The other is overt, which is Segwit compatible. The early Cointerra machines were advertised with AsicBoost with Timo Hanke working for them.

[SkyLakeMine]

So is it 16 TH/S only on an ASICBOOST pool? How does that number adjust for a non-ASICBOOST pool?

Yes, only with asicboost. The driver will not try to mine on pools that don't support it. It can work in a crippled manner with non-asicboost pools, but only produces 1/4 the hashrate.

The phrase "one trick pony" comes to mind.
But it is a good trick.
 

[SkyLakeMine]

Also pools that support ASIC boost are essentially Bitcoin Cash pools right? From what I understand ASIC boost does not work on Bitcoin Core Seq Witness...

I am reading it the other way around. Correct me if I am wrong.

Overt asicboost needs pool support and those are ONLY BTC pools currently.

There would be NO ADVANTAGE to using these machines on a BCH pool. Effectively these machines will be used to mine BTC exclusively. As the designers of these halong machines intended.

For 90% of miners on this board that is not a problem. For other people it could be.

Its part of the deceptive business practices that we have seen.
The initial sales pitch should have come with a disclaimer:
"Works better at some pools than others."
"16TH but your mileage may vary"

[rifleman74]

Essentially trying to milk more money out of this chip set instead of going to the 7m's...I guess it's better than nothing?

[SkyLakeMine]

Now let's see what Bitmain will come up with.

Speculating, but my crystal balls are hazy. Gotta find a fix for that.

1. Bitmain price drop. This seems to already be happening with flood of coupons
2. New BM machine with updated chips from samsung. sans asicboost? blows halong out of the water even without asicboost
3. New machine s9++ with covert asicboost for mining BTC at chinese pools or mine BCH, does not encroach upon overt BDPL patent?
4. flip a bit on all existing s9 in the field that suddenly enables asicboost that was there all along? no new machine required

My guess is Wu's lawyers are reviewing patent and options. It seems like a legal question as much as a tech question.

Seems certain that covert asicboost will have to come out to the open now.

Wu's hand is forced. And that might not be a bad thing.