Let's recap on what we've seen in the past few months

[molecular]

Every post I will ever make in the future will be at a lower average price than the last.

And anyone that believes FPGAs will ever be cost effective for mining is deluded.

Anyone who believes there will ever be a Bitcoin ASIC is simply fucking retarded.

If the first statement is true, bitcoin price will be really low at some point. GPU mining is not power-efficient, FPGA-mining more so. FPGAs will be mining while GPUs have to be switched off. Difficulty goes to januar-levels and an FPGA can pay its investment when prices rise again. Far-fetched? yes. "Never" possible? no.

As for the ASICS: Ask ArtForz, he has at least 200, probably more, read #bitcoin-dev chatlogs from around February 2011.

Simply fucking retarded my ass

[Minsc]

If the first statement is true, bitcoin price will be really low at some point. GPU mining is not power-efficient, FPGA-mining more so. FPGAs will be mining while GPUs have to be switched off. Difficulty goes to januar-levels and an FPGA can pay its investment when prices rise again. Far-fetched? yes. "Never" possible? no.

As for the ASICS: Ask ArtForz, he has at least 200, probably more, read #bitcoin-dev chatlogs from around February 2011.

Simply fucking retarded my ass

Ugh more hardware investments in mining.  This is what is harming bitcoins.  Mining needs to stop being profitable so people can get good amounts with the cheap emachine hardaware at walmart and 5 year old computers with built in video cards most people have.

See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=41886.0

Also Mt. Gox low today is 6.12 so anything above that ($6.50 now) is too high.

[molecular]

So, remind me again which brain-damaged asshole with millions of inherited dollars and their loving relative with custodianship on vacation is gearing up to produce ASICS?

ArtForz, although he doesn't fit the description.

[Minsc]

So, remind me again which brain-damaged asshole with millions of inherited dollars and their loving relative with custodianship on vacation is gearing up to produce ASICS?

ArtForz, although he doesn't fit the description.

Brain damaged you say?

http://www.bitcoinminingaccidents.com/?p=271

Oh and he has millions of dollars too.

[Synaptic]

So, remind me again which brain-damaged asshole with millions of inherited dollars and their loving relative with custodianship on vacation is gearing up to produce ASICS?

ArtForz, although he doesn't fit the description.

ArtFortz's ASICs are a myth.

[molecular]

Not so sure that I wish to wade into the toxic soup, but...

Someone please correct me if I misunderstood how far ArtForz was able to take this, BUT, to the best of my understanding:

ArtForz, a German person, successfully ordered and implemented his(?) own ASIC design. It set him back ~$60,000, and for his pains, he was mining about a 20-25% of all the bitcoin production, somewhere around May or June of this year.

The 60,000 might have been euros. The 20-25% might (and probably was) some other specific quantity.

Was this bunk, or did it happen? I read this somewhere out on the interwebs, but so what?

I'm pretty sure it happened.

18:38 molecular   ArtForz: how long roughly until you have 100 asics up and running?
18:38   ArtForz   I'll get em mid feb, probably late feb/early mar

There's a lot more talk about the specifics after that, if anyone's interested.

[fcmatt]

So, remind me again which brain-damaged asshole with millions of inherited dollars and their loving relative with custodianship on vacation is gearing up to produce ASICS?

ArtForz, although he doesn't fit the description.

ArtFortz's ASICs are a myth.

I read enough of his posts to believe he does indeed have some ASIC type gear running. But they are not
the mass produced things we are thinking of in general. I would have to find his chat logs to explain it
properly.

http://bitcoinstats.com/irc/logs/2011/01/15/9 start reading here i suppose.

[Synaptic]

So, remind me again which brain-damaged asshole with millions of inherited dollars and their loving relative with custodianship on vacation is gearing up to produce ASICS?

ArtForz, although he doesn't fit the description.

ArtFortz's ASICs are a myth.

I read enough of his posts to believe he does indeed have some ASIC type gear running. But they are not
the mass produced things we are thinking of in general. I would have to find his chat logs to explain it
properly.

http://bitcoinstats.com/irc/logs/2011/01/15/9 start reading here i suppose.

I don't believe for a minute that he's telling the truth.

He's never provided any proof whatsoever, just some bullshit claims.

Probably a liar like most people on the Internet...

[fcmatt]

based on what i have read.. Art is not your average bitcoin user. So I guess I will leave it at that.

[Synaptic]

based on what i have read.. Art is not your average bitcoin user. So I guess I will leave it at that.

And I'll leave it there's plenty of hobbyists with a lot of time on their hands who like fishermen catching "The Big One" in their friendly stories with fellows, aren't exactly being 100% honest with their claims.

I knew a guy in college who knew so much about flying airliners from playing flight-sims that he successfully convinced a number of people that he had flown as an airline pilot for a number of years before being laid off. Completely full of shit.

Just like ArtFortz.

[mizike29]

Uhhh that sounds like a movie we watched awhile ago buddy

[ArtForz]

You forgot a few:
I never provided any proof I had a opencl miner capable of ~150Mh/s on a 5770 back in july 2010.
I never provided any proof I had a CAL IL miner doing ~650Mh/s on a stock 5970 about 3 months later.
I never provided any proof of starting development of a sASIC miner around the same time.
I never provided any proof of getting actual devices in early march, which while providing excellent hash/J sucked at attainable clock(= hashrate) relative to cost.
And you'll probably also never see any proof I've managed to get a good deal > 200Mh/s from a S6-LX150.

[Synaptic]

You forgot a few:
I never provided any proof I had a opencl miner capable of ~150Mh/s on a 5770 back in july 2010.
I never provided any proof I had a CAL IL miner doing ~650Mh/s on a stock 5970 about 3 months later.
I never provided any proof of starting development of a sASIC miner around the same time.
I never provided any proof of getting actual devices in early march, which while providing excellent hash/J sucked at attainable clock(= hashrate) relative to cost.
And you'll probably also never see any proof I've managed to get a good deal > 200Mh/s from a S6-LX150.

So, you claim you had a functioning ASIC, and now you're using the lowest tier consumer FPGA...

uh huh.

I really believe you had a functioning ASIC...

[ArtForz]

If you could read, I wrote sASIC, aka structured asic, pretty much the same thing as xilinx easypath but without the niceness of 1:1 FPGA-to-ASIC on a HDL level.

[Minsc]

If you could read, I wrote sASIC, aka structured asic, pretty much the same thing as xilinx easypath but without the niceness of 1:1 FPGA-to-ASIC on a HDL level.

I don't know what that is, but can it let me mine lots of coins without buying a bunch of expensive hardware?  Anything over $50 is too much.

[Synaptic]

If you could read, I wrote sASIC, aka structured asic, pretty much the same thing as xilinx easypath but without the niceness of 1:1 FPGA-to-ASIC on a HDL level.

Thank you for the further clarification, and also illustrating once and for all to the people that have been arguing ASICs with me lately that your project did not validate the ASIC path theory, and from what you've written, actually strengthen the argument that ASICs are completely infeasible.

[ArtForz]

I guess we're agreeing then. IMO the current bitcoin economy is not anywhere near the size and the future way too uncertain to have anyone blow the money required on the NRE of designing a real ASIC at a competitive structure size. But who knows.

[Synaptic]

I guess we're agreeing then. IMO the current bitcoin economy is not anywhere near the size and the future way too uncertain to have anyone blow the money required on the NRE of designing a real ASIC at a competitive structure size. But who knows.

DEFXOR, IF YOU'RE AROUND, PLEASE READ THIS A FEW MILLION TIMES.

[defxor]

I guess we're agreeing then. IMO the current bitcoin economy is not anywhere near the size and the future way too uncertain to have anyone blow the money required on the NRE of designing a real ASIC at a competitive structure size. But who knows.

DEFXOR, IF YOU'RE AROUND, PLEASE READ THIS A FEW MILLION TIMES.

Why? You've still been wrong on everything you claim and you still haven't produced any calculations of value for the rest of us

You're not saved by the ASIC/sASIC/ASIC(EasyPath FPGA)/FPGA distinctions either. To remind you:

There is no FPGA/ASIC uptake, you're just fucking stupid.

And anyone that believes FPGAs will ever be cost effective for mining is deluded.
Anyone who believes there will ever be a Bitcoin ASIC is simply fucking retarded.

I'd really like for you to start showing us some calculations. I've done with BTC at $8 and $4 respectively.

[Synaptic]

I guess we're agreeing then. IMO the current bitcoin economy is not anywhere near the size and the future way too uncertain to have anyone blow the money required on the NRE of designing a real ASIC at a competitive structure size. But who knows.

DEFXOR, IF YOU'RE AROUND, PLEASE READ THIS A FEW MILLION TIMES.

Why? You've still been wrong on everything you claim and you still haven't produced any calculations of value for the rest of us

You're not saved by the ASIC/sASIC/ASIC(EasyPath FPGA)/FPGA distinctions either. To remind you:

There is no FPGA/ASIC uptake, you're just fucking stupid.

And anyone that believes FPGAs will ever be cost effective for mining is deluded.
Anyone who believes there will ever be a Bitcoin ASIC is simply fucking retarded.

I'd really like for you to start showing us some calculations. I've done with BTC at $8 and $4 respectively.

You fucking idiot.

ArtForz himself, the man who supposedly spend a shitload of his own cash, to pursue as close to an ASIC as he could get (the sASIC he mentioned) doesn't believe ASICs are viable...

I'm not posting calculations! They would  be a waste of my time, as anyone with any fucking common sense already knows these things!