ALLMINE INC - FPGA Cryptominer

[senseless]

It's really great to see FPGAs making a comeback, and in a way that's more accessible to individual miners.

I have some technical questions, if I may;

• It was mentioned in a previous post that the units will come with encryption keys burned in. I'm somewhat familiar with the IP protection mechanisms of previous generation Xilinx devices, so is my understanding correct that these VCU1525's won't load a bitstream unless it's been encrypted using your key?
• If the above is true, if for whatever reason you had to cease your operation, or are unable to provide devs with continued access to development hardware, would you release these encryption key(s) and any other secrets to prevent future development work on bitstreams for fielded units grinding to a halt?

Thank you both for all your efforts in this.

Kind regards,
David

Was it answered? It's very important question to my mind...

Yes, the encryption key will not prevent unencrypted designs from being loaded but will prevent other encrypted designs from being loaded. If you ever did want to run some other encrypted design you would be required to blow the fuse and the same restrictions would be in place. But, for instance, whitefire's unencrypted designs will work just fine.

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[mineroc]

What kind of operation is Xilinx running? Can they produce enough volume to bring these down to sub 1k$?  300$?

[senseless]

What kind of operation is Xilinx running? Can they produce enough volume to bring these down to sub 1k$?  300$?

High volumes are not their typical business model. You can consider this them putting their toes in the water. I think they're pretty happy with how things went / are going. I know I'd be if I was them. We'll have to wait to see where it goes from here

Edit: I should say, volumes high enough to get the price to what we want it are not their typical business model.

[lunobird]

What kind of operation is Xilinx running? Can they produce enough volume to bring these down to sub 1k$?  300$?

Don't have too high hopes.  Your expecting something that hashes 10x more than a 1070ti and uses same wattage for one card to cost the same as a 1070ti? Why would anyone sell it for that cheap with the performance to wattage it can offer.  This type of equipment is not meant for kids.

[senseless]

What kind of operation is Xilinx running? Can they produce enough volume to bring these down to sub 1k$?  300$?

Don't have too high hopes.  Your expecting something that hashes 10x more than a 1070ti and uses same wattage for one card to cost the same as a 1070ti? Why would anyone sell it for that cheap with the performance to wattage it can offer.  This type of equipment is not meant for kids.

There are a lot of reasons.

[2112]

Companies do not spin up $20M worth of product on extremely limited supply chains on letters of credit.

That statement is patently false. Letters of credit were, are, and will be written for various sums, both lower and higher. It is a mainstay of many industries, not just produce importers.

I had to front it, and I can’t front it through August with no concept of demand numbers. This was not a profit taking venture, I’m trying very hard to make sure these cards make it into the community without price gouging that was about to happen. With out that effort, they would have continued to produce small batches and introduced heavy lead times and price increases. I took the risk off them, everyone here benefits. Simple as that.

I don't have an inside knowledge of your venture so I can't make any definitive statements.

What I will comment about is one fact: you may think that you can freely mix true and false statements and they will average to "reasonable". No they average to "are you on drugs?" or "what film set did you came from?" or "did you forgot to take your medications?".

This vacillation between heady optimism and dark paranoia in a single person is not only off-putting. It is the reason to raise suspicion among both crypto-currency people and traditional finance people.

[d.v.]

Their biggest issue is that they're pre-orders and aren't shipping immediately. I completely understand where they're coming from. Don't you? But, It should be a simple matter to find a situation that works for them, works for us, and works for everyone else in the community.

Well, that simple matter is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_credit . People routinely have been paying that way for importing the produce that haven't even grown yet. I feel weird explaining to the highly educated people what I learned as a kid from the bazaar fruit importer.

Companies do not spin up $20M worth of product on extremely limited supply chains on letters of credit. I had to front it, and I can’t front it through August with no concept of demand numbers. This was not a profit taking venture, I’m trying very hard to make sure these cards make it into the community without price gouging that was about to happen.

With out that effort, they would have continued to produce small batches and introduced heavy lead times and price increases. I took the risk off them, everyone here benefits. Simple as that.

I agree with you, but in turn, buyers take a bigger risk with little concept of expectation.  I had to dig deep to get what I now feel is my expectation.  Not saying that it's wrong, just the way it is.

I definitely understand. Let me know what I can do to help anyone feel comfortable.

My opinion is that anything in the crypto space is a risk; and sometimes a lot of risk. Even this venture with FPGAs is very risky. Some have already commented that a bunch of us is trusting two faceless forum handles with our money to deliver on nothing more than their words. Of course, GPUHoarder and senseless have done their very best to ease our speculations and that's awesome. It is up to each of us individually to do our own homework, ask questions, and research this technology (and the people behind it) and come up with a personal decision based on our own risk tolerance (as well as our wallets) on whether or not this is worth the risk.

As with anything new, there is always risk and when it comes to crypto, always remember: only play with money you're wiling to lose or don't play at all

On a side note, I'm already in for 2 units and possibly a 3rd if the paypal fiasco irons out... and if these units become paper weights then I've got no one to blame but myself however I believe in this technology and the potential of where it will go so I'm in this for the long run. Look at how the Antminer Z9 Mini saga has been running... you want to talk risk, go see how that's progressing with price and FUD against the equihash network, plus a 50k-sols-miner was just announced by Innosilicon a couple days ago for $10k... all those people with pre-orders for Z9 Minis are shaking their heads (me included) but that's how the game is played.

In short, pay to play and if you lose, don't complain. *grabbing popcorn and enjoying the show*

[GPUHoarder]

Companies do not spin up $20M worth of product on extremely limited supply chains on letters of credit.

That statement is patently false. Letters of credit were, are, and will be written for various sums, both lower and higher. It is a mainstay of many industries, not just produce importers.

I had to front it, and I can’t front it through August with no concept of demand numbers. This was not a profit taking venture, I’m trying very hard to make sure these cards make it into the community without price gouging that was about to happen. With out that effort, they would have continued to produce small batches and introduced heavy lead times and price increases. I took the risk off them, everyone here benefits. Simple as that.

I don't have an inside knowledge of your venture so I can't make any definitive statements.

What I will comment about is one fact: you may think that you can freely mix true and false statements and they will average to "reasonable". No they average to "are you on drugs?" or "what film set did you came from?" or "did you forgot to take your medications?".

This vacillation between heady optimism and dark paranoia in a single person is not only off-putting. It is the reason to raise suspicion among both crypto-currency people and traditional finance people.

Every statement I made is true. I offered a letter of credit - they required upfront. I’m not sure what your angle is here, but there’s no conspiracy for you to play on here.

[s1gs3gv]

When do you expect to start shipping ?

[GPUHoarder]

When do you expect to start shipping ?

I don’t want to overquote - August.

[OhGodAGirl]

Companies do not spin up $20M worth of product on extremely limited supply chains on letters of credit.

That statement is patently false. Letters of credit were, are, and will be written for various sums, both lower and higher. It is a mainstay of many industries, not just produce importers.

I had to front it, and I can’t front it through August with no concept of demand numbers. This was not a profit taking venture, I’m trying very hard to make sure these cards make it into the community without price gouging that was about to happen. With out that effort, they would have continued to produce small batches and introduced heavy lead times and price increases. I took the risk off them, everyone here benefits. Simple as that.

I don't have an inside knowledge of your venture so I can't make any definitive statements.

What I will comment about is one fact: you may think that you can freely mix true and false statements and they will average to "reasonable". No they average to "are you on drugs?" or "what film set did you came from?" or "did you forgot to take your medications?".

This vacillation between heady optimism and dark paranoia in a single person is not only off-putting. It is the reason to raise suspicion among both crypto-currency people and traditional finance people.

I'd just like to pipe up for a moment.

The hardware industry is very, very different to other industries. It's upfront, capital intensive, and companies like NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Xilinx and TSMC don't take 'letters of credit', which may as well be a credit card with chargebacks.

The hardware industry doesn't like risk.

[2112]

and if these units become paper weights then I've got no one to blame but myself however I believe in this technology and the potential of where it will go

No well-designed FPGA board became paperweight ever. There's a quite thriving secondary market in them, they have so many different uses.

The only FPGA boards that had fallen badly in price either:

1) didn't have any memory attached and no way to attach memory
2) didn't have sensible communication channels to get the data in and out

Historically on this forum most FPGA talk was about ngzhang's Icarus & Lancelot and Enterpoint's Cairnsmore. Those are the quite perfect examples of not being well-designed. In particular Cairnsmore had problems with internal clock distribution between the 5 FPGAs on the board.

Every statement I made is true. I offered a letter of credit - they required upfront. I’m not sure what your angle is here, but there’s no conspiracy for you to play on here.

I have no angle here (or "I have no alpaca in this race", as they say on this board.)

I'm just observing and it is quite obvious that "I offered a letter of credit" and "Companies do not spin up $20M worth of product on letters of credit" are not even nearly synonymous and you somehow suddenly switched sides between yourself and Xilinx. This is a very definition of a word "shifty" as it is used in business negotiation. It is quite obvious that you hiding something material and they must have found this while negotiating the terms. If you habitually talk in a business meetings like you post here on this forum then I completely don't wonder why they get suspicious, require prepay for everything and count their fingers after shaking hand with you.

[i_like_bits]

I have no angle here (or "I have no alpaca in this race", as they say on this board.)

I'm just observing and it is quite obvious that "I offered a letter of credit" and "Companies do not spin up $20M worth of product on letters of credit" are not even nearly synonymous and you somehow suddenly switched sides between yourself and Xilinx. This is a very definition of a word "shifty" as it is used in business negotiation. It is quite obvious that you hiding something material and they must have found this while negotiating the terms. If you habitually talk in a business meetings like you post here on this forum then I completely don't wonder why they get suspicious, require prepay for everything and count their fingers after shaking hand with you.

Resorting to semantics and ad hominem. You don't seem to possess the business acumen that you think you do.

[2112]

I'd just like to pipe up for a moment.

The hardware industry is very, very different to other industries. It's upfront, capital intensive, and companies like NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Xilinx and TSMC don't take 'letters of credit', which may as well be a credit card with chargebacks.

The hardware industry doesn't like risk. It's capital intensive.

This is just plain bullshit, based on misunderstanding between consumer finance (credit card) and business finance (letter of credit). My bet is that you didn't even click through to skim the Wikipedia page. Such strawman wouldn't even be worth further comment, but for the benefit of other readers I will comment:

The semiconductor manufacturing industry is capital intensive, therefore they are heavy users of credit (and other classical, non-crypto, financial instruments), but they use it very intelligently. This has nothing to do with consumer finance chargebacks or anything related to retail finance.

I had personal experience working with Actel, Xilinx, and some less well known names from Taiwan, Malaysia & Korea. Everything was financed with some form of credit, although as an engineer I wasn't really involved in the financial details beside general interest.

I think my former colleague summed it the best: "Rectoscopy is a less invasive procedure that what you will go through with drafting and acceptance of a letter of credit."

Resorting to semantics and ad hominem. You don't seem to possess the business acumen that you think you do.

Thanks for the comment. I really appreciate it now. Back then a coworker showed me the "show me the money" scene from the "Jerry Maquire" movie and I couldn't find it either funny or educational. But now I understand how, while an artistic exaggeration, it is a perfect representation of certain type of business dealings. Some find it offensive, but it is just short and to the point.

Edit: The point being: people don't like when you burn the candle from both ends.

[HansHagberg]

Transactions like this is the perfect use case for blockchains and smart contracts.
Kind of funny we are not using the tech ourselves. Maybe some brainstorming is in order from the entire community on how to implement that in cases such as this.
I mean end-to-end, miner - middle man - Xilinx.

Would be an interesting exercise.

[Techman34]

@GPUHoarder @Senseless - this is Ian aka @Techman34 from YouTube and recently covered the FPGA thread from Whitefire and the VCU1525.  Thanks for the comment to help Tom!  

Just want to comment that I love what you guys are doing with FPGA.land.  I come from an IT Sourcing background and can appreciate the complexities in dealing with suppliers and to see you guys bridge that gap to bring discounts passed through to the community is huge.  This is really going to help folks get these cards running (and safely modded) with support.  Keep up the great work.  I ordered another card through you guys - order #1249 and wired the money.  I will also give you guys a shout out on my next FPGA update vid.  

Also, @OhGodAGirl (since I know you're around these parts) love what you're doing with mineority.io as well.  Keep up the great work!

Cheers,

Techman34

[lunobird]

Who else is happy to have pre-ordered before the dump.

Ya good move maybe.  But what if BTC goes back up to 10k by the time you ROI.  Your not gonna be as happy from an accounting point of view.

You should also take into account the IRS man in the USA will want his capital gains right when you traded your btc for mining equipment,  irs will also want his cut when you mine daily, however you do have the ability to deduct equipment which offsets your gains which is good.  A lot to consider.

[Rafael Oliveira]

Hey Senseless and GPUHoarder,

I forwarded an email with some questions in response to the email I received from order #1179 confirmation of eight boards with modifications and RAM. I took advantage of it and made a new order #1290 with ten cards in the same configuration.

I am waiting for your reply to be able to effect the bank transfer from Brazil.

Thanks for your attention.

[gizmohenry]

Newbie here, can I get an invite to the discord? the previous link shows expired. Thanks!

[senseless]

Companies do not spin up $20M worth of product on extremely limited supply chains on letters of credit.

That statement is patently false. Letters of credit were, are, and will be written for various sums, both lower and higher. It is a mainstay of many industries, not just produce importers.

I had to front it, and I can’t front it through August with no concept of demand numbers. This was not a profit taking venture, I’m trying very hard to make sure these cards make it into the community without price gouging that was about to happen. With out that effort, they would have continued to produce small batches and introduced heavy lead times and price increases. I took the risk off them, everyone here benefits. Simple as that.

I don't have an inside knowledge of your venture so I can't make any definitive statements.

What I will comment about is one fact: you may think that you can freely mix true and false statements and they will average to "reasonable". No they average to "are you on drugs?" or "what film set did you came from?" or "did you forgot to take your medications?".

This vacillation between heady optimism and dark paranoia in a single person is not only off-putting. It is the reason to raise suspicion among both crypto-currency people and traditional finance people.

I started this project to get the VCU1525 going once bittware entered the space. After having tried dealing with them as far back as august/september 2017. I already knew they were not going to provide the pricing that was required to really move into the space. I didn't want to see anyone be taken advantage of with high mark ups. I had already been dealing with Xilinx for over a year trying to get them to open up to the crypto markets. They wouldn't deal with me. I had no previous business with them. As far as they knew I was just some crazy guy walking in off the streets asking for 10s of 1000s of units of product and pricing that's hard to get for even their best customers. David had that relationship, he's done business with them, and knows how they operate. After a little 1, 2 action we got a KO and were able to execute on what by industry standards is considered an unheard of deal. There's one caveat to that, we had to lock up the market to do so and required large purchase amounts. It's not unreasonable to get a sense of what market demand will be. Further, this is not a pre-order where you're ordering some imaginary asic a year or 2 out that may not even function correctly after tape-out. This is a proven product with existing supply channels and production lines. The risk on our end offering pre-orders is minimal as Xilinx is contractually obligated to fulfill their role.

Here's where Xilinx is at. They don't know what to make of this market. They don't know what if I've been telling them and others have been telling them is true. But, they've decided to find out for themselves and put their toes in the water. I can say they're watching this space very closely and I have no doubt that multiple people from Xilinx, possibly even C-level, have read the posts from these threads or at least received a summary of what's going on. If we went to them with some letter of credit instead of cold hard cash, it's quite possible this deal would have never happened. They're saying "show me the money" -- not -- "show me a letter of credit".

Again, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to open up pre-orders. I'm excited that Xilinx gets to see what this market looks like and how it operates. Yes, it's fast and loose, wild west, crazy, insane, pick your word. I can imagine even their lawyers being on the edge of their seats watching the space. We're doing the best we can, we've been transparent with everything that's been going on as much as we possibly can be. Yes, we're not perfect, we make mistakes. I was a little snippy to a customer before and I'm not very happy about it. Give us a chance and let's see how this thing goes. Maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised by the end of all this. We have no intention of "going bitmain".