PatrickHarnett
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June 03, 2012, 03:55:52 AM |
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It is not the cost of additional power. It is the cost of renting the space to have that power. Once you max out the power at your panel or in the rack you are done.
So in your specialised scenario, how many people do think are running fpga's in rented racks?
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Entropy-uc
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June 03, 2012, 04:11:47 AM |
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Part 5: Calculation of the reward split between ET and a userNow let's calculate how the split works out between ET and the user. From his FAQ, you can get the commision rate he charges: 12 MH/s / chip. http://www.tricone-mining.com/faq.html. To calculate the split we only need to find the net gain in hashing from the use of his bitstream. The gross change is the difference between the bitstream previously running on the board and ET's. Since we don't have any actual reports in the wild, I'll use his typical number of 270 MH/s. My Ztex boards on average run 228 MH/s, so subtraction gives us the reward value of 42 MH/s. This gives us a split of 28.5% to ET. But that is the gross value. To get the real reward split it it necessary to account for the user's costs that will increase as a result of the bitstream. This would be higher power consumption, reduced hardware lifespan, extra labor managing the signature system, additional downtime and possibly additional space. All of these items are difficult to quantify, and likely to be highly variable across different users, so I'm going to focus only on two items: additional power costs and downtime. The increased power consumption has been noted by ET already. Lacking concrete numbers in the field I am estimating the increase to be 20%, and baseline power costs to be 10% of the earnings generated by the board. So the additional power is the equivalent of 2% of the hash rate. As I discussed before, the additional downtime from ET's server can be brutal on returns. If you need to restart your boards locally due to a server interruption and you are out drinking sleeping, that 8 hours of lost time is 5% for the week. Let that happen twice and ET's share of the net reward will be 125%. For practicality, I will take an optimistic view and assume 98% uptime. This results in a net reward of 31.2 MH/s and ET's share is 38.5%. Not exactly the 5% some folks have been assuming from the headlines!
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Entropy-uc
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June 03, 2012, 04:22:20 AM |
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Part 6: Evaluating ET's potential return
By now you probably have noticed that I think this deal is not very good for miners. But you should always look at both sides of a deal. ET must be raking it in on these terms right?
Uh No. It's a lousy deal for him as well I think.
My calculations suggest he would be doing well to make $30k / year off this plan after the reward halving in December. And for that he is going to have to maintain his server, fend off the DOS attacks, deal with user complaints, and provide technical support to everyone using the system. Whatever he earns is going to be eaten away by whatever downtime compensation he offers. Not to mention his out of pocket costs for hosting.
All of that work is going to detract from what he does best, and what I'd like to see him focus on. Building faster bitstreams.
So the pertinent question here is: How can the community fairly compensate him?
I would like to see something that both encourages him and others to continue working on improvements, and also encourages collaboration so that others with an interest can build off of the baseline.
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Entropy-uc
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June 03, 2012, 04:27:43 AM |
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It is not the cost of additional power. It is the cost of renting the space to have that power. Once you max out the power at your panel or in the rack you are done.
So in your specialised scenario, how many people do think are running fpga's in rented racks? Please read what I wrote: These issues will apply to limited numbers of people, but they do apply for me. [\quote]
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bitfury
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June 03, 2012, 04:44:47 AM |
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Part 6: Evaluating ET's potential return
By now you probably have noticed that I think this deal is not very good for miners. But you should always look at both sides of a deal. ET must be raking it in on these terms right?
Uh No. It's a lousy deal for him as well I think.
My calculations suggest he would be doing well to make $30k / year off this plan after the reward halving in December. And for that he is going to have to maintain his server, fend off the DOS attacks, deal with user complaints, and provide technical support to everyone using the system. Whatever he earns is going to be eaten away by whatever downtime compensation he offers. Not to mention his out of pocket costs for hosting.
All of that work is going to detract from what he does best, and what I'd like to see him focus on. Building faster bitstreams.
So the pertinent question here is: How can the community fairly compensate him?
I would like to see something that both encourages him and others to continue working on improvements, and also encourages collaboration so that others with an interest can build off of the baseline.
Part 7: Would miners prefer to invest upfront paying money for disclosure and make benefits to parties who are not miners yet OR would they invest money into hardware ? What is more profitable ? Even without calculation - I would say that it is more profitable to invest in hardware. Then - who will compensate ? Community in general is not interested in that, community of FPGA miners is likely to invest in FPGAs and not in bitstream (they would better take bitstream "for free" not counting how difficult it is to get one working). Me or someone else with decent bitstream to slow down development of open-source baseline... hmm... actually too late, as 28-nm will be too soon... Hmm... Developers of these boards ? Many do the job as their hobby - no significant volumes - they will return money for ages...
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PatrickHarnett
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June 03, 2012, 08:25:23 AM Last edit: June 03, 2012, 08:24:01 PM by PatrickHarnett |
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It is not the cost of additional power. It is the cost of renting the space to have that power. Once you max out the power at your panel or in the rack you are done.
So in your specialised scenario, how many people do think are running fpga's in rented racks? Please read what I wrote:
These issues will apply to limited numbers of people, but they do apply for me.
Yes, I got one person so far, yourself. So, who are you really? Looks like you created a special account to come and espouse your particular point of view.
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Bitinvestor
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June 03, 2012, 11:44:20 AM |
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Hey Entropy-uc, there hasn't been one report of somebody other than ET using this. You are jumping to conclusions. His solution will be scrutinized and time will tell if it is any good. If you don't like it, don't use it. I am happy to give ET the benefit of the doubt and a big KUDOS too. Everything you wrote is a huge pile of Bulanula.
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Those who cause problems for others also cause problems for themselves.
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bulanula
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June 03, 2012, 02:12:25 PM |
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Hey Entropy-uc, there hasn't been one report of somebody other than ET using this. You are jumping to conclusions. His solution will be scrutinized and time will tell if it is any good. If you don't like it, don't use it. I am happy to give ET the benefit of the doubt and a big KUDOS too. Everything you wrote is a huge pile of Bulanula.
Why I really don't understand ... I still think he should sell bitstream outright like say if you have 10 FPGAs one price and for 100 FPGAs another price and for just 1 or 2 another price like antivirus licenses etc. This whole taking a cut and his own servers is junk for miners. DDos his servers before diff change and everybody wins though as most FPGAs are then neutered ![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
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Keninishna
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June 03, 2012, 05:15:28 PM |
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I think a group buy would be the best then release the source so the community can tweak it as well. Except how much would one charge for a bitstream? 500 btc? 1000?
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MrTeal
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June 03, 2012, 05:36:58 PM |
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I think a group buy would be the best then release the source so the community can tweak it as well. Except how much would one charge for a bitstream? 500 btc? 1000?
Depends if he actually wants to get paid fair market value for his time. I'm an associate Engineer and my company charges out my time at over $100/hr. How long do you think Tyrell spent on this bitstream?
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TheSeven
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June 03, 2012, 05:44:21 PM |
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It would probably be sufficient to match what he's about to get from the profit share model. Which I'd estimate at about 1000-1500 FPGAs * 5% * a year of mining. Probably like $20k or BTC4k.
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rjk
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1ngldh
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June 03, 2012, 06:35:41 PM |
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It would probably be sufficient to match what he's about to get from the profit share model. Which I'd estimate at about 1000-1500 FPGAs * 5% * a year of mining. Probably like $20k or BTC4k.
I still wonder about the accuracy of the 1000-1500 FPGA numbers. I'm not saying anyone is wrong, but do those figures include the various privately licensed production runs that have been done around here? I'm sure Antirack isn't the only one to have done this, and I'm not even sure how many devices his run includes.
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MrTeal
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June 03, 2012, 06:51:47 PM |
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It would probably be sufficient to match what he's about to get from the profit share model. Which I'd estimate at about 1000-1500 FPGAs * 5% * a year of mining. Probably like $20k or BTC4k.
I still wonder about the accuracy of the 1000-1500 FPGA numbers. I'm not saying anyone is wrong, but do those figures include the various privately licensed production runs that have been done around here? I'm sure Antirack isn't the only one to have done this, and I'm not even sure how many devices his run includes. I would actually be surprised if there were only 1500 LX150s around, not including Bitfury. I'd also expect that number to jump pretty quickly in the coming months, unless what BFL is waiting to announce really is as revolutionary as they imply and people believe their specs/timeline.
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TheSeven
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June 03, 2012, 07:35:38 PM |
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I was estimating 1000-1500 in small farms which would actually use the ET bitstream. Larger farms are more likely to get a bitfury bitstream ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
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My tip jar: 13kwqR7B4WcSAJCYJH1eXQcxG5vVUwKAqY
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kano
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June 03, 2012, 09:49:33 PM |
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I think a group buy would be the best then release the source so the community can tweak it as well. Except how much would one charge for a bitstream? 500 btc? 1000?
Depends if he actually wants to get paid fair market value for his time. I'm an associate Engineer and my company charges out my time at over $100/hr. How long do you think Tyrell spent on this bitstream? Well if he does then he is quite literally the first person around here to want to be paid that much for software made for the BTC community in the last year ckolivas has spend way more time and effort on cgminer and got nothing like that for his efforts Even I did one of the highest paying software bounties round anywhere here in a long time when I added the API to cgminer at the end of the year but even over the short time I took to implement it, the 'pay' was certainly less than the time I spent on it It initially only took me 2 days to do the basic implementation ... but a lot more time until everyone was using it ... but I've spent a lot more time and effort on it since for what totals less than 1/2 of that initial bounty hmm - what was that history about Bill Gates and Basic ... ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) But the arguments given above about it - well 1 of them is certainly relevant IMO and that is the cost of mining certainly does make the % higher (that's something thing that many people seem totally oblivious of when they do calculations: the cost of mining) But that other argument is certainly original: People using the bitstream MUST trust eldentyrell but he doesn't trust anyone using it ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) I would imagine it would be difficult in the short term for someone to copy his design and it not be obvious when they released their 'copy' However in the long term, I'd be very surprised if any bitstream released by anyone was 'the best' for more than a few months.
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nedbert9
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June 03, 2012, 10:05:58 PM |
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I think a group buy would be the best then release the source so the community can tweak it as well. Except how much would one charge for a bitstream? 500 btc? 1000?
Depends if he actually wants to get paid fair market value for his time. I'm an associate Engineer and my company charges out my time at over $100/hr. How long do you think Tyrell spent on this bitstream? Well if he does then he is quite literally the first person around here to want to be paid that much for software made for the BTC community in the last year
ckolivas has spend way more time and effort on cgminer and got nothing like that for his effortsEven I did one of the highest paying software bounties round anywhere here in a long time when I added the API to cgminer at the end of the year but even over the short time I took to implement it, the 'pay' was certainly less than the time I spent on it It initially only took me 2 days to do the basic implementation ... but a lot more time until everyone was using it ... but I've spent a lot more time and effort on it since for what totals less than 1/2 of that initial bounty hmm - what was that history about Bill Gates and Basic ... ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) But the arguments given above about it - well 1 of them is certainly relevant IMO and that is the cost of mining certainly does make the % higher (that's something thing that many people seem totally oblivious of when they do calculations: the cost of mining) But that other argument is certainly original: People using the bitstream MUST trust eldentyrell but he doesn't trust anyone using it ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) I would imagine it would be difficult in the short term for someone to copy his design and it not be obvious when they released their 'copy' However in the long term, I'd be very surprised if any bitstream released by anyone was 'the best' for more than a few months. This is exactly why, when I first read of the share commission model, that I felt that greed was the sole motivator of this work. Maybe this was a snap reaction that warranted further deliberation. Whether ET gets what he wants, much greater or much less I really have no clue. I do know that I always dislike perpetual relationships where I have no negotiating power and, most importantly, no idea how much I will eventually pay for a product or service.
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DILLIGAF
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June 04, 2012, 12:23:32 AM |
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I do know that I always dislike perpetual relationships where I have no negotiating power and, most importantly, no idea how much I will eventually pay for a product or service.
And introduces a centralized point of failure into the equation as well...
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arklan
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June 04, 2012, 01:23:56 AM |
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seems there's gotta be some sort of reasonably fair compensation method we could all agree on... though i've no idea what it is. upfront pricing is disagreeable to some, this commission idea disagreeable to some... hmm. this just struck me as i type this.
what if the commision system was intentionall shut off say, a year from now (or whatever) after appropriate compensation had been given? ET gets the compensation he feels apropriate, we get another small increase in hash, and no one pays upfront either.
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i don't post much, but this space for rent.
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kano
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June 04, 2012, 03:25:25 AM |
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seems there's gotta be some sort of reasonably fair compensation method we could all agree on... though i've no idea what it is. upfront pricing is disagreeable to some, this commission idea disagreeable to some... hmm. this just struck me as i type this.
what if the commision system was intentionall shut off say, a year from now (or whatever) after appropriate compensation had been given? ET gets the compensation he feels apropriate, we get another small increase in hash, and no one pays upfront either.
Though, of course, if the commission system is shut off, that means you will have to put your FPGA's back to their original firmware. The new firmware will not work with any other pool directly. So I'd take that to mean that no FGPA developer would supply hardware with the new bitstream If you want it you will have to be able to update your bitstream yourself ... since it depends on another person keeping an internet resource available to work.
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fpf
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June 04, 2012, 04:07:33 AM |
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I can't understand the harsh criticism from people here on him / his concept. It's actually simply perfect for everyone involved. Fact is - no other concept is better for him and his "customers" - Donations? Most people don't donate - fact - and even if some do - those are usually rather small amounts - Selling the bitstream? (some) people will resell it to recover their "investment" and sooner or later it will be "free" - Further, he couldn't make a difference in terms of pricing for one or a hundred fpgas in use at that customer (it wouldn't be a fair system) He created it - it's his property - it's his decision what to do with it... Simple as that. He did what was fairest to everyone - and puts everyone including himself in a winning position. You don't need to pay upfront, you get more performance out of your existing hardware - and he gets a 20% cut of that additional performance. Don't like it ? Don't use it ! Same goes for server down times, higher stress on the hardware, higher power consumption... and so on - nobody forces you to use Elden's system "of course we don't just want to sell it to you outright - we want to be able to license it to you" ![Grin](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
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