[NEW] Bitmain Announces Antminer A3

[stugots2]

I bought the Decred miner also for August (but its sooooooooooooooo long away)

[1714761977]

1714761977

[1714761977]

1714761977

[1714761977]

1714761977

[rummy]

Even if Sia did something Bitmain could also apply a software patch update too

[stugots2]

Obelisk strikes back 

We prepared for something like this by adding an extra feature to the SC1. We can do a soft-fork that slightly changes the PoW algorithm which would invalidate the bitmain ASICs, but allow the SC1 units to continue working.

yeah well you do that IN AUGUST lol

[rummy]

In 30 days time you have at least a 50% chance of a price increase. You also have a chance to make 150000 Sia coins in a month according to the spec for the Obelisk. Sia pretty much guaranteed the first batch 6 weeks of 250000 siacoins per miner. Thats roughly 5000 a day in siacoins, at todays price thats 280$. I think that was figured for 4k miners in the first release.

[Dlikrot]

I think It’s good the asic manufacturers compete. Prices will go down on the equipment, diffs will go up and coins will be spread more evenly.... I think

[BenRickert]

Obelisk strikes back 

We prepared for something like this by adding an extra feature to the SC1. We can do a soft-fork that slightly changes the PoW algorithm which would invalidate the bitmain ASICs, but allow the SC1 units to continue working.

That would be suicide. They know it.

[Tekno2020]

I bought the Decred miner also for August (but its sooooooooooooooo long away)

Fully expect Bitmain or Halongmining to come out with a Decred Asic miner also, we will see.   

[Stanislav83]

Obelisk strikes back 

We prepared for something like this by adding an extra feature to the SC1. We can do a soft-fork that slightly changes the PoW algorithm which would invalidate the bitmain ASICs, but allow the SC1 units to continue working.

Just wanted to ask about it. If its true how to be if you got some A3 in 10 days and they wont work ? better dont buy it still?

[vegascoinpool]

Obelisk strikes back 

We prepared for something like this by adding an extra feature to the SC1. We can do a soft-fork that slightly changes the PoW algorithm which would invalidate the bitmain ASICs, but allow the SC1 units to continue working.

Just wanted to ask about it. If its true how to be if you got some A3 in 10 days and they wont work ? better dont buy it still?

The Sia community over on Reddit has basically split down the middle on whether or not to accept the A3, but because there's no major consensus NOT to... you'll be fine. The Sia dev team has come out and said that they're welcoming Bitmain to the ecosystem and will be "watching" them to make sure they're not a bad actor in the community. So until (or if ever) something bad happens, they won't be doing anything like that.

While it was a shock to them all that Bitmain has done this, the loose consensus is that it's a good thing in the longer-term.

Honestly, I'd never even heard of the coin until the A3 announcement...so if nothing else, Bitmain has brought a ton of attention and awareness.

[iGotSpots]

Official response from the SIA [SC] Dev Team

"Bitmain has announced an ASIC miner for Sia. This has made a lot of people uneasy, especially those who preordered Obelisk units. So I'll first address the Obelisk units in isolation. Though we don't have the full chips back yet, the chips are in production and we have our final simulations. We can confidently state that the bitmain unit is far less energy efficient, costs more money, and is an objectively worse miner than the SC1. So people who ordered Obelisk units will still be receiving hardware of substantial value.

As a developer, Bitmain moving into the Sia space makes me uneasy. Bitmain has historically been extremely greedy, and very willing to sacrifice the well being of the community, of their customers, and of the ecosystem if it means they can make a couple of extra dollars. The biggest way this has manifested for altcoins is that they will over-sell hardware. When a ton of miners suddenly join the network, the difficulty adjusts. If too many miners join the network, nobody is able to make any money, and everyone eats a loss on their hardware purchase.

Bitmain has no qualms about overselling their units to buyers. They take massive margins on their hardware (>50%) and make more money than the total block reward at the expense of their customers. They over-saturate the mining market in a way that hurts their buyers. I think we will see this with Sia. Bitmain will sell more units than the Sia ecosystem can sustain, and many people end up with large losses. Bitmain will not end up with losses, because they were paid up-front with non-refundable money.

Bitmain also has a history of doing things like mining empty blocks, and like refusing to activate soft-forks that are beneficial to the network. They were openly hostile to the Bhttps://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2769785.120itcoin-core developers, and actively blocked the activation of a very valuable network feature (Segwit).

We, the dev team, are not happy that Bitmain has made an ASIC for Sia. We are not happy that many Sia supporters are at risk of losing money by buying these miners (from over-saturation), and we are not happy that Bitmain may choose to interfere with our network. This is not a commentary on general ASIC companies, this is a commentary on Bitmain specifically.

We did add an extra feature to the SC1 unit that would allow us to invalidate the Bitmain hardware without invalidating the SC1. The community would need to choose to adopt a soft-fork (it's not something we could just magically activate, we have to change the hashing algorithm slightly), and then we could get rid of this cycle of Bitmain hardware. Of course, they could just create another round of hardware (likely taking ~3 months). And, it would hurt Bitmain customers more than it would hurt Bitmain. Bitmain has already sold around $20 million of non-refundable hardware. They have made their profit, and a soft-fork wouldn't change that.

As much as I would like to punch Bitmain in the nose, I don't think a soft-fork achieves what we want. If the hardware is used to harm the Sia network, either by doing double spends, rejecting soft forks, mining empty blocks, we will invalidate it without hesitation. But for the time being, I think the best thing to do is to advise people not to buy the Bitmain hardware (to protect yourself from the oversaturation that Bitmain tries to create), and then to watch and wait, and respond more if it appears that the network is under attack. Overall though, I do not think Sia is in trouble.

I am looking forward to the thoughts from the community."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4bxnepOcyM

[marcin1987]

well, Sia Coin Devs team are considering a Soft Fork to make the Antminer A3 a piece of junk
It is weird how fast they announced and sold the miner makes us think what is going on between Bitmain and Sia team !

Looks like a crypto cold war

[Greem4ik]

Can some one help me to know.
They are announcing their product A3 on 17 January, and delivery will be within 10 days after full payment. So 27 January first customers will plug their A3?
Thanks

[kilojay]

Obelisk strikes back 

We prepared for something like this by adding an extra feature to the SC1. We can do a soft-fork that slightly changes the PoW algorithm which would invalidate the bitmain ASICs, but allow the SC1 units to continue working.

For a fork to work they would need all their coin holders or at least a majority of them to change to the new fork which isn’t easy to do (Bch for example)

[BenRickert]

Official response from the SIA [SC] Dev Team

"Bitmain has announced an ASIC miner for Sia. This has made a lot of people uneasy, especially those who preordered Obelisk units. So I'll first address the Obelisk units in isolation. Though we don't have the full chips back yet, the chips are in production and we have our final simulations. We can confidently state that the bitmain unit is far less energy efficient, costs more money, and is an objectively worse miner than the SC1. So people who ordered Obelisk units will still be receiving hardware of substantial value.

As a developer, Bitmain moving into the Sia space makes me uneasy. Bitmain has historically been extremely greedy, and very willing to sacrifice the well being of the community, of their customers, and of the ecosystem if it means they can make a couple of extra dollars. The biggest way this has manifested for altcoins is that they will over-sell hardware. When a ton of miners suddenly join the network, the difficulty adjusts. If too many miners join the network, nobody is able to make any money, and everyone eats a loss on their hardware purchase.

Bitmain has no qualms about overselling their units to buyers. They take massive margins on their hardware (>50%) and make more money than the total block reward at the expense of their customers. They over-saturate the mining market in a way that hurts their buyers. I think we will see this with Sia. Bitmain will sell more units than the Sia ecosystem can sustain, and many people end up with large losses. Bitmain will not end up with losses, because they were paid up-front with non-refundable money.

Bitmain also has a history of doing things like mining empty blocks, and like refusing to activate soft-forks that are beneficial to the network. They were openly hostile to the Bhttps://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2769785.120itcoin-core developers, and actively blocked the activation of a very valuable network feature (Segwit).

We, the dev team, are not happy that Bitmain has made an ASIC for Sia. We are not happy that many Sia supporters are at risk of losing money by buying these miners (from over-saturation), and we are not happy that Bitmain may choose to interfere with our network. This is not a commentary on general ASIC companies, this is a commentary on Bitmain specifically.

We did add an extra feature to the SC1 unit that would allow us to invalidate the Bitmain hardware without invalidating the SC1. The community would need to choose to adopt a soft-fork (it's not something we could just magically activate, we have to change the hashing algorithm slightly), and then we could get rid of this cycle of Bitmain hardware. Of course, they could just create another round of hardware (likely taking ~3 months). And, it would hurt Bitmain customers more than it would hurt Bitmain. Bitmain has already sold around $20 million of non-refundable hardware. They have made their profit, and a soft-fork wouldn't change that.

As much as I would like to punch Bitmain in the nose, I don't think a soft-fork achieves what we want. If the hardware is used to harm the Sia network, either by doing double spends, rejecting soft forks, mining empty blocks, we will invalidate it without hesitation. But for the time being, I think the best thing to do is to advise people not to buy the Bitmain hardware (to protect yourself from the oversaturation that Bitmain tries to create), and then to watch and wait, and respond more if it appears that the network is under attack. Overall though, I do not think Sia is in trouble.

I am looking forward to the thoughts from the community."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4bxnepOcyM

Okay.....I had to stop listening to that. While your premise is correct and THEY KNOW it. You are the rudest, most loudmouthed little asshole I've ever heard. You spend 5 minutes telling everyone what an amazing force you are in the Block Chain and then you start talking like a typical little nutless punk. You rage empty threats, swear constantly to try and sound tough yet, you can hardly even express a cogent thought. You like threatening people? Here's a promise, not a threat. If I had to spend more than 30 seconds in a room with a loudmouthed shitstain little punk like you, I  would literally beat you into retardation. What a complete piece of shit you are.

[MrJaekin]

So, does everyone think the boat has passed on this one?  Is it still smart to grab one on the next batch?  Even it difficulty jumps 5x, you'd still be making $100 a day or so...

[alpha-miner]

I hear bitmain is a reputable company and before the A3, they supported 3 algos for 3 major coins. I would imagine they researched SIA before investing time and $$$ into the A3. In the crypto market things move fast so wasting time and money into development of the A3 would be a fatal mistake. Flooding the market with too many A3s would also be fatal especially after the D3 fiasco and with new competition moving into the ASIC market. With that said, I think bitmain has done their due diligence on this venture and the A3 will be profitable for many.

On the flip side; SIACOIN is one of the few coins with a purpose. In other words, bitcoin, dash and litecoin are speculative, whereas SIA is backed my cloud based storage which apparently looks to be enterprise level if they are comparing it to Amazon's and Microsoft's. Amazon's web storage is something used by major companies with millions of users. If SIA is better and cheaper and better as they claim then you have companies like Netflix and DropBox who may switch to SIA which would create huge demand for this crypto considering you need it to buy their service.

Ultimately I see bitmain as putting SIA on the map and their coin will appreciate in value as a result. The smart folks out there will start hording SIA which will drive the price up. Assuming SIA can get their technical difficulties figured out.

Personally, if I had an A3 in hand I'd probably mine on Nicehash for part of the time and then devote some time to mining SIA directly and hording it. Sure you can make $500/day by cashing out, but you're missing the possible upside of the market movement of SIA long term. $500 SIA today might be worth $500k in the next few years. If you were mining bitcoin back in the day would you have rather cashed it out as you mined it or hold it until now??

[stugots2]

Did they end up releasing more yesterday / last night??

[BenRickert]

@ Alphaminer;  This is an excellent synopsis. I couldn't agree more. Nicely done....thank you.

[l1sec]

So anybody knows that how many A3 have Bitmain sold yet?  I knew that they sold 6K miners in Chinese mainland.

[iGotSpots]

Official response from the SIA [SC] Dev Team

"Bitmain has announced an ASIC miner for Sia. This has made a lot of people uneasy, especially those who preordered Obelisk units. So I'll first address the Obelisk units in isolation. Though we don't have the full chips back yet, the chips are in production and we have our final simulations. We can confidently state that the bitmain unit is far less energy efficient, costs more money, and is an objectively worse miner than the SC1. So people who ordered Obelisk units will still be receiving hardware of substantial value.

As a developer, Bitmain moving into the Sia space makes me uneasy. Bitmain has historically been extremely greedy, and very willing to sacrifice the well being of the community, of their customers, and of the ecosystem if it means they can make a couple of extra dollars. The biggest way this has manifested for altcoins is that they will over-sell hardware. When a ton of miners suddenly join the network, the difficulty adjusts. If too many miners join the network, nobody is able to make any money, and everyone eats a loss on their hardware purchase.

Bitmain has no qualms about overselling their units to buyers. They take massive margins on their hardware (>50%) and make more money than the total block reward at the expense of their customers. They over-saturate the mining market in a way that hurts their buyers. I think we will see this with Sia. Bitmain will sell more units than the Sia ecosystem can sustain, and many people end up with large losses. Bitmain will not end up with losses, because they were paid up-front with non-refundable money.

Bitmain also has a history of doing things like mining empty blocks, and like refusing to activate soft-forks that are beneficial to the network. They were openly hostile to the Bhttps://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2769785.120itcoin-core developers, and actively blocked the activation of a very valuable network feature (Segwit).

We, the dev team, are not happy that Bitmain has made an ASIC for Sia. We are not happy that many Sia supporters are at risk of losing money by buying these miners (from over-saturation), and we are not happy that Bitmain may choose to interfere with our network. This is not a commentary on general ASIC companies, this is a commentary on Bitmain specifically.

We did add an extra feature to the SC1 unit that would allow us to invalidate the Bitmain hardware without invalidating the SC1. The community would need to choose to adopt a soft-fork (it's not something we could just magically activate, we have to change the hashing algorithm slightly), and then we could get rid of this cycle of Bitmain hardware. Of course, they could just create another round of hardware (likely taking ~3 months). And, it would hurt Bitmain customers more than it would hurt Bitmain. Bitmain has already sold around $20 million of non-refundable hardware. They have made their profit, and a soft-fork wouldn't change that.

As much as I would like to punch Bitmain in the nose, I don't think a soft-fork achieves what we want. If the hardware is used to harm the Sia network, either by doing double spends, rejecting soft forks, mining empty blocks, we will invalidate it without hesitation. But for the time being, I think the best thing to do is to advise people not to buy the Bitmain hardware (to protect yourself from the oversaturation that Bitmain tries to create), and then to watch and wait, and respond more if it appears that the network is under attack. Overall though, I do not think Sia is in trouble.

I am looking forward to the thoughts from the community."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4bxnepOcyM

Okay.....I had to stop listening to that. While your premise is correct and THEY KNOW it. You are the rudest, most loudmouthed little asshole I've ever heard. You spend 5 minutes telling everyone what an amazing force you are in the Block Chain and then you start talking like a typical little nutless punk. You rage empty threats, swear constantly to try and sound tough yet, you can hardly even express a cogent thought. You like threatening people? Here's a promise, not a threat. If I had to spend more than 30 seconds in a room with a loudmouthed shitstain little punk like you, I  would literally beat you into retardation. What a complete piece of shit you are.

I don't care and good luck with that lol