the RISK of FPGA mining

[Amph]

it's not like you can do anything here, there is no way to stop fpga from mining, changing algo don't work like against asic, so we are doomed to adapt, the good thing is that the new nvidia gpu are strong enough to make a competition against fpga

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[Kompik]

it's not like you can do anything here, there is no way to stop fpga from mining, changing algo don't work like against asic, so we are doomed to adapt, the good thing is that the new nvidia gpu are strong enough to make a competition against fpga

Why is it a problem to buy a FPGA as a GPU Miner?

[Riptide_NVN]

Once everyone sells their GPUs and moves to FPGA your electricity savings are wiped out as is any advantage in hashing power you had.  Difficulty skyrockets once everyone re-equips.  It'll be good early on in the transition phase assuming this actually happens on a large scale.  Past that not so much.  Balance returns and you've come full circle.

[realaccountakira]

Since there will be a variety of code for each different coin, I can see an FPGA market for software getting pretty nasty. the best code will be kept in house and it will hurt competition more than you would think

With limited number of devices in the market devs are incentivized to release their code. By having multiple devs in the same space it creates competition. Go look at some of claymore's ethereum addresses and tell me that it's not worth it for those who are able

What Claymore earns is probably ant food compared to what huge companies would pay to keep the best source code private. Why? Because it could be more costly for them not do so. If they have centralization of software they could be earning twice than what everyone else is. Thats a lot more than some 1 or 2% dev fee.

This is probably happening now and we just don't know it. #Claymore has a private version that mines 2x the speed.

As someone who secretly mined on FPGA for over a year and in a big way. I can say with absolute 100% certainty you're wrong.

Saying something is one thing but backing it up with real facts is another. If you are absolutely 100% certain then some facts would probably be a helpful and constructive discussion to have.

The thing is, nobody can really even prove that you have an FPGA working. My thinking is just that if you mined FPGA in a "big way" then why would you go about sharing that and decreasing your profit? The only logical reason is that you aren't really earning much from it and selling hardware would be more profitable. It's good that you've sold out your stock and everything but i really do hope you follow through and deliver on your promised products.

[senseless]

Once everyone sells their GPUs and moves to FPGA your electricity savings are wiped out as is any advantage in hashing power you had.  Difficulty skyrockets once everyone re-equips.  It'll be good early on in the transition phase assuming this actually happens on a large scale.  Past that not so much.  Balance returns and you've come full circle.

That's not true.

If you replace a network hash for hash you end up with the same hashrate and 1/10 the ENTIRE NETWORK POWER CONSUMPTION.

If you replace a network board for board you end up with the same power consumption and 10x the hashrate which provides increased ASIC resistance. This makes any ASIC above 45-32nm not profitable and not worth the effort in making. No more private / secret high level 90, 110, 130, etc nm asics!

[senseless]

Saying something is one thing but backing it up with real facts is another. If you are absolutely 100% certain then some facts would probably be a helpful and constructive discussion to have.

The thing is, nobody can really even prove that you have an FPGA working. My thinking is just that if you mined FPGA in a "big way" then why would you go about sharing that and decreasing your profit? The only logical reason is that you aren't really earning much from it and selling hardware would be more profitable. It's good that you've sold out your stock and everything but i really do hope you follow through and deliver on your promised products.

Any proof I'd provide would just be my own personal experience. Which you'd discount in the same way you just did.

You realize, I HAVE POSTED PICTURES OF FPGA WORKING IN MY OFFICE. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED THE BTC ADDRESSES SHOWING $100s of K MINED. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN MINE ON AMAZON F1 FPGA. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN COMPILE ON THEIR VCU1525. Correct?

Going to guess a big NO on the questions above.

[Riptide_NVN]

If you replace a network hash for hash you end up with the same hashrate and 1/10 the ENTIRE NETWORK POWER CONSUMPTION.

Disregarding the normal fluctuation in value of coins being mined.  I don't see how this conclusion is arrived at.

Nobody interested in these devices is planning on continuing along at the same hash rate they are now with a GPU rig or farm.  They will want and need more to keep up.  Nobody is going to buy one and go "OK, I got the same hash as my 15 1080ti at 10% of the electricity so now I'm good this is it."  Once they re-equip en masse then network hash skyrockets.  Just like it does with an ASIC machine.  They hit the network and difficulty goes through the roof.  People then are under pressure to buy more to keep up.  And so on.

Perhaps this is a better way to illustrate:
I have one gpu.  I hash 1000 h/s @ 1000w.
I buy one FPGA.  I hash 10000 h/s @ 100w.
Am I going to buy just one FPGA then?  No.  I'm going to buy 10 of the things so I can run 100x the hash at the same power.  Just like everyone else will.  While we are all hashing more for the same power.  We are all hashing more.  And difficulty goes sky high to compensate for this.

Would like to know what I'm not understanding here.

[Amph]

it's not like you can do anything here, there is no way to stop fpga from mining, changing algo don't work like against asic, so we are doomed to adapt, the good thing is that the new nvidia gpu are strong enough to make a competition against fpga

Why is it a problem to buy a FPGA as a GPU Miner?

i can think about centralization, because fpga is more expensive and casual miner can not afford it easily, but perssonally i don't have anything against it, after all it's like a gpu...

[lunobird]

If you replace a network hash for hash you end up with the same hashrate and 1/10 the ENTIRE NETWORK POWER CONSUMPTION.

Disregarding the normal fluctuation in value of coins being mined.  I don't see how this conclusion is arrived at.

Nobody interested in these devices is planning on continuing along at the same hash rate they are now with a GPU rig or farm.  They will want and need more to keep up.  Nobody is going to buy one and go "OK, I got the same hash as my 15 1080ti at 10% of the electricity so now I'm good this is it."  Once they re-equip en masse then network hash skyrockets.  Just like it does with an ASIC machine.  They hit the network and difficulty goes through the roof.  People then are under pressure to buy more to keep up.  And so on.

Perhaps this is a better way to illustrate:
I have one gpu.  I hash 1000 h/s @ 1000w.
I buy one FPGA.  I hash 10000 h/s @ 100w.
Am I going to buy just one FPGA then?  No.  I'm going to buy 10 of the things so I can run 100x the hash at the same power.  Just like everyone else will.  While we are all hashing more for the same power.  We are all hashing more.  And difficulty goes sky high to compensate for this.

Would like to know what I'm not understanding here.

What you don't understand and your missing.

The cost of fpga is  expensive so people will hit a certain risk point and stop buying more. Buying 10 FPGA will cost $35k and consume 1000 watts,  whereas a gpu would consume much higher wattage 10x more for same hashrate

Also switching over to FPGA most importantly will filter out those millenials or 14 year old  gamers that gets "free" electric ,that are just wasting us real miners time and eating into our bottom line profits.  Some of us real miners treat this as a real business and we don't need gamers involved looking for to roi for a free gpu to game with.

[Pennywis3]

Watch out, we got a professional miner here 

[FFI2013]

If you replace a network hash for hash you end up with the same hashrate and 1/10 the ENTIRE NETWORK POWER CONSUMPTION.

Disregarding the normal fluctuation in value of coins being mined.  I don't see how this conclusion is arrived at.

Nobody interested in these devices is planning on continuing along at the same hash rate they are now with a GPU rig or farm.  They will want and need more to keep up.  Nobody is going to buy one and go "OK, I got the same hash as my 15 1080ti at 10% of the electricity so now I'm good this is it."  Once they re-equip en masse then network hash skyrockets.  Just like it does with an ASIC machine.  They hit the network and difficulty goes through the roof.  People then are under pressure to buy more to keep up.  And so on.

Perhaps this is a better way to illustrate:
I have one gpu.  I hash 1000 h/s @ 1000w.
I buy one FPGA.  I hash 10000 h/s @ 100w.
Am I going to buy just one FPGA then?  No.  I'm going to buy 10 of the things so I can run 100x the hash at the same power.  Just like everyone else will.  While we are all hashing more for the same power.  We are all hashing more.  And difficulty goes sky high to compensate for this.

Would like to know what I'm not understanding here.

Ya I don't think anyone relizes the can of worms this is going to open normal home miners can't afford 3500-5000 on one card as more are released the difficulty goes up so your still going to end up using the same amount of power as before because you need to run more to keep up and mining less because of difficulty, but than again the price tag is going to push people out of mining so everything will eventually end up centralized

[Riptide_NVN]

Early on I expect FPGA to possibly end up being very profitable.  Some will sell their GPUs and re-equip with one or two FPGA at the same cost basis.  Some may quit entirely.  It'll be fine for a while.

The thing is people are greedy.  They are going to do the math and figure out how 10 more of them will vastly increase profits.  Which it will in the short term.  They will then take out a loan or whatever it takes thinking they have a gold mine on their hands.  And they will - for a while.

Once enough people do that, and once enough of the big players re-equip, then hello 10x difficulty increase.  It won't happen overnight.  Long term though - doesn't look real favorable to me.

[FFI2013]

Ya you think Bitmain isn't going to get involved they have some of the smartest people working for them and now that the fpga manufacturers realize how much more money they can make your 3500 card will cost 6000

[Riptide_NVN]

What you don't understand and your missing.

The cost of fpga is  expensive so people will hit a certain risk point and stop buying more.

No I do understand.  I remain skeptical this is the correct prediction of future events.

I suppose time will tell won't it?  FWIW - I hope you're right.

[vapourminer]

What you don't understand and your missing.

The cost of fpga is  expensive so people will hit a certain risk point and stop buying more. Buying 10 FPGA will cost $35k and consume 1000 watts,  whereas a gpu would consume much higher wattage 10x more for same hashrate

Also switching over to FPGA most importantly will filter out those millenials or 14 year old  gamers that gets "free" electric ,that are just wasting us real miners time and eating into our bottom line profits.  Some of us real miners treat this as a real business and we don't need gamers involved looking for to roi for a free gpu to game with.

just a small time hobby miner here, 7 card rig. bought a single vcu1525 for 3.6k USD, i could easily of bought more but want to see how it pans out. dunno what percentage hash we hobby miners represent, any guesses?

as for "gaming only" rigs with one or two cards that mine part time whats that percentage of hash? i would think its pretty low. so i doubt they are eating into our profits.

fpga should help lessen the advantage 90, 45 nm asics that private organizations have in the wild now and are mining privately with. make the cost of asics much more expensive (like needing 14 nm instead of 130 nm to compete with current fpgas, or whatever the numbers are, (sorry not knowledgeable in node sizes of fpga vs old tech asics vs cutting edge asics, so consider these numbers guesses)

[HardwareCollector]

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN MINE ON AMAZON F1 FPGA. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN COMPILE ON THEIR VCU1525. Correct?

I have searched and I cannot find the download links, any help in locating them would be appreciated.

[senseless]

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN MINE ON AMAZON F1 FPGA. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN COMPILE ON THEIR VCU1525. Correct?

I have searched and I cannot find the download links, any help in locating them would be appreciated.

Search for "aws-keccak.zip" on discord

https://discord.gg/M6CyRh

There's like 30+ developers on discord who are going to be releasing software and bitstream support. I can't believe it's still possible for anyone to question the legitimacy of the hardware or that it exists.

[senseless]

If you replace a network hash for hash you end up with the same hashrate and 1/10 the ENTIRE NETWORK POWER CONSUMPTION.

Disregarding the normal fluctuation in value of coins being mined.  I don't see how this conclusion is arrived at.

Nobody interested in these devices is planning on continuing along at the same hash rate they are now with a GPU rig or farm.  They will want and need more to keep up.  Nobody is going to buy one and go "OK, I got the same hash as my 15 1080ti at 10% of the electricity so now I'm good this is it."  Once they re-equip en masse then network hash skyrockets.  Just like it does with an ASIC machine.  They hit the network and difficulty goes through the roof.  People then are under pressure to buy more to keep up.  And so on.

Perhaps this is a better way to illustrate:
I have one gpu.  I hash 1000 h/s @ 1000w.
I buy one FPGA.  I hash 10000 h/s @ 100w.
Am I going to buy just one FPGA then?  No.  I'm going to buy 10 of the things so I can run 100x the hash at the same power.  Just like everyone else will.  While we are all hashing more for the same power.  We are all hashing more.  And difficulty goes sky high to compensate for this.

Would like to know what I'm not understanding here.

Maths is hard...

Let's say a network has 1000 gpu miners each with 1Mh/s. Each GPU is like 300 watts. A total of 1000Mh/s and 300kW.
Now let's say we have a network of fpga using the same algo. 100 FPGA with 10Mh/s. Each FPGA is around 150 watts. A total of 1000Mh/s and 15kW.

So, by switching this network over to FPGA and replacing the hashrate hash for hash we have decreased the total electrical power consumption by 285kW (95% reduction in power consumption).

..

But, what we really want is ASIC resistance, right?

Ok...


Let's say we have a network of 1000 gpu miners each with 1Mh/s. Each GPU is like 300 watts. A total of 1000Mh/s and 300kW.

Someone goes and spends 2 months and $300,000 developing a 90nm asic that gets a 4x performance improvement over GPU plus significant cost reduction at scale. Now we have a device that will have 4Mh/s and consume let's say 100 watts... This is bad right? We have a secret miner on the network who paid very little cost to rapidly have an ASIC developed and they could quickly launch a 51% attack with as little as 250 devices!

Let's make the assumption that I've achieved significant cost reduction and FPGA can be bought for the price of a gpu and are available in the same quantities......

We've now replaced our 1000 gpu miners board for board with FPGA. So, we have 1000 fpga each with 10Mh/s. Each FPGA is around 150 watts. A total of 150kW (still significant power reduction over gpus...) and 10,000Mh/s.

Someone goes and spends 2 months and $300,000 developing a 90nm asic that gets a 4x performance improvement over a GPU plus significant cost reduction at scale. Now we have a device that will have 4Mh/s and consume let's say 100 watts... This is bad right? NOPE! This device would not be as profitable as the FPGA and is zero threat to the coin. The device would more than likely operate AT A LOSS depending on the cost of electricity for those running it. The total number of devices required to launch a 51% attack (and costs associated with it) would be increased by 10x.

By replacing these GPU board for board we've made high level cheap asics unprofitable, we've reduced the power consumption for the entire network by 50%, and significantly increased the security of the network.


...


So tell me, which is the better general purpose solution? GPU or FPGA?

[senseless]

My goal in this venture is to reduce the RETAIL cost of FPGA to under $1000, to utilize 50% of the power of a gpu, and provide 10x the performance of a gpu ... ON ANY ALGORITHM..... That's pointed directly at you ethash+progpow.

The current pricing we've achieved is a big step in the right direction. But there's still a lot of work to be done.

I want GPUs OUT of this market. They DO NOT belong here.

[reb0rn21]

This is all pure FUD and nice talk....... we know as soon as HW stock is sold best profit algos will be done just for big farms....... ppl will start to curse and be mad...

I hope I am wrong but that is how its done

the released bitstream will get you ROI of +2 years or so , while the big one milk the coins and play stupid, and GPU miners cry someone is harvest their shit and no one has FPGA for it

PS: I still hope I be wrong, but I would not bet on that