Announcing the FutureBit Apollo BTC - A Full Node/Mining Platform for the Home!

[kano]

Wow, a bit heated here. Kano, appreciate that this is being marketed as a hobbyist solution. jstefanop has a good history here of delivering what he promises and his preorder seems both fair and transparent. So long as he delivers on his promise of the product and specs I don't see why you should take issue; he isn't forcing anyone to buy. Full disclosure, I've purchased one myself, not to turn a profit, but to run a node and to solo mine on the extremely off chance I'll hit a block, exactly the same as what I'm going with sidehacks R606 product

Whatever you do, don't use the node as the solo mining source - that's just asking to orphan the block and lose it.

Since I'm the second main developer of that free software

And the primary jack-ass, as far as the rest of Bitcoinlandia is concerned.

You really need to calm the fuck down.

Coming from me, that says a lot.

No, I was simply replying to his completely incorrect statement:

...
You gave us nothing.
...

[heslo]

Whatever you do, don't use the node as the solo mining source - that's just asking to orphan the block and lose it.

Fair, thank you for the advice

[crypto_curious]

Just make sure you don't use any BTC miners ok
Since I'm the second main developer of that free software
(FutureBit uses the 'other' clone of cgminer, though it is full of my code also)

Who fucking cares. I do use cgminer and bfgminer everyday and will continue to do so. Whole thing is GPL. So your claims are useless. We don't need you. Goodbye

[jstefanop]

Whatever you do, don't use the node as the solo mining source - that's just asking to orphan the block and lose it.

Why? This is not Ethereum. Chances of an orphan block are super slim. Will probably enable a solo mining option for people that want to play the lottery.

Obviously would also implement variants of public/private FIBRE protocols to ensure any block broadcast by a FutureBit node is seen by the major nodes first, as well as Stratum V2.

You should probably look into those for your own pool...maybe youll find a block for your users faster this way

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Um, a little out of touch perhaps? The FIBRE relay network was taken offline late last year and no longer exists. The operator finally got fed up with no one paying him to use what was a very excellent service.

[jstefanop]

Um, a little out of touch perhaps? The FIBRE relay network was taken offline late last year and no longer exists. The operator finally got fed up with no one paying him to use what was a very excellent service.

Public network was taken offline, major pools still use a version of it privately. Either way the solution is simple. We have super nodes running, as well as know the nodes of a a few major pools and exchanges. Simple broadcast to these nodes in addition to the gossip network minimizes any chance of propagation delay.

[dwood443]

Will probably enable a solo mining option for people that want to play the lottery.

Please do. I only want to lottery mine  

[NotATether]

The powerful SBC with our custom designed NVMe drive bay can host a Full Bitcoin node and run almost any Bitcoin Application we can throw at it. We hope more Bitcoin devs join our Platform in the future and provide even more utility to the device.

First off I'm really fascinated by the idea of a cheap home miner running a desktop OS.

Can you tell us more about the software stack? Like is it running stock Raspbian or is the kernel modded to make it faster by compiling it with different options?

I also read the product page on your website and my first thought was that you pre-install a bunch of bitcoin software on it. Can you clarify if this is really the case or is bitcoind and a mining software (cgminer?) the only thing preloaded?

If you guys are preloading more stuff then it would be really cool if you hosted a repo where all these bitcoin-related programs can be auto-updated. Just think about it. A mining box that's also a private key cracker/BTCPayServer gateway/vanity address generator/wallet recovered hybrid already makes me relish. Yeah I know some of these uses are not possible due to the SBC but imagine if one day a USB port was fitted on them to connect things like external graphics cards for these uses

[jstefanop]

Its a variant of Armbian, not changing much on the stock kernel other than some boot loader stuff to make our custom nvme drive bay work properly. The board actually exposes two pcie gen2 lanes, thats how we can get M.2 drives to work with it, so technically you could probably connected a GPU to it, but ARM based drivers might be an issue. I'm sure some of the open source stuff could work especially on the AMD side.

[BobLawblaw]

Why? This is not Ethereum. Chances of an orphan block are super slim. Will probably enable a solo mining option for people that want to play the lottery.

Not advisable for a first iteration; a lottery machine.

Best to have support for the most relevant pools, out of the box, to maximize payout opportunities ASAP.

[kano]

Whatever you do, don't use the node as the solo mining source - that's just asking to orphan the block and lose it.

Why? This is not Ethereum. Chances of an orphan block are super slim. Will probably enable a solo mining option for people that want to play the lottery.

Most people just don't see the orphan races, unless they have many nodes in a world wide node distribution like I do for the pool ...
Even with my setup I only see a few of them, whereas small miners/small pools and solo miners using their own dodgy home node like this thing, will get orphaned out and no one would even know about it except them, and then only if they paid very close attention to what was going on.

Obviously would also implement variants of public/private FIBRE protocols to ensure any block broadcast by a FutureBit node is seen by the major nodes first, as well as Stratum V2.

You should probably look into those for your own pool...maybe youll find a block for your users faster this way  

Unfortunately, this statement shows ZERO understanding of how bitcoin hashing works.
Yet you're selling a miner - that's a major worry.
Your node distribution/connection just means how often you are involved in orphan races and lose blocks due to these orphan races.
It has ZERO effect on how often your hashing finds a possible block.

The way all the large pools attempt to reduce their orphans is by SPV(Spy) mining and not verifying the transactions in the blocks.
Solo mining on your own node will not do this without writing a new section of code for cgminer/cloneminer and connecting your miner to accounts on all the large pools ...

StratumV2 is just an advertising gimmick for slush. It's GBT renamed and we all know why no pool uses GBT and it sank into obscurity ...
The main problem with Stratum that I argued with slush, that he didn't fix coz it meant fixing code in his pool also, is not fixed in StratumV2.

[jstefanop]

That was meant as a sarcastic dig at your product, since you have done nothing but dig at mine. I obviously know your pool is not going to find a block "faster" this way. Im the lead engineer as well as the founder of futurebit, im not some marketing guy thats selling hardware others designed for me.

FYI I dont hold grudges, if you still want to work together for the common good of Bitcoin my DMs are open.

[kano]

Since you made the comment above about connecting ALL the nodes you sell to a fast network - I'm curious about what you consider this fast network is?

As mentioned before Matt's is long gone.

Someone in my channel mentioned "Falcon" - alas Falcon's got no idea what they are doing.
They don't understand why Matt's network was pretty much twice as fast as any other network.
Also, they don't high prioritise all blocks, which is like - WTF - what's the point of that? If they are slow sending ANY blocks out to the network, they fail.
It would seem you'd have to get every single person who buys your node to sign up to them before they'd bother to transmit using their 'so called' fast network, for any blocks they're sent.
It's not about the IP address a block comes from, that may not be the originator, it's about sending ANY block you see out as fast as possible to stop orphan races.
Gotta love people who get involved in Bitcoin and spout garbage about their expertise but don't understand the basics.

Any other network you are supposedly using?

[sidehack]

So, what advice do you have for improving the efficacy of the device?

[crypto_curious]

jstefanop can you please confirm power usage and hashrate in normal and turbo mode? According to your opening post in this thread we can expect (with more accuracy than product spec on the website):

2 TH/s @ 125W in Eco mode (16 GH/J)
3.0 TH/s @ 200W in Turbo mode (15 GH/J)

Is that correct? Is that at the wall reading? Thanks!

[jstefanop]

Yes thats at 12v. Our power supply is 94% efficient, so depends if your are using ours or 3rd party and how efficient they are.  These are preliminary specs based on our prototypes we are testing with, hopefully well squeeze some more efficiency out of them before shipment.

FYI these ASICs are very sensitive to temps. You can easily get another 10% efficiency out of them if you dont care about noise and max out the fan. We chose to go the super quiet route, but you can override almost any options in custom mode.

[crypto_curious]

That's great, thank you. Will all customisation options be available to just miner without full package? I bought just mining board option as I have plenty computers and Raspberry Pis lying around so I want to utilize them. No need for another server/Bitcoin Full Node as I already have one on my network.

[jim3900]

Thank you for making the FutureBit Apollo BTC available to me and others. I am very excited to be joining the Bitcoin ecosystem and, as a newbie, I have much to learn. I am a computer engineer and also an iOS indie developer. But, I very often want my all-in-one home computer solutions to save me time (i.e., my most precious resource). The small size, the quiet operation, and low power consumption were extremely important to me, partly for the WAF. The $150 add-on cost for a capable & customizable & integrated controller is far more affordable (in dollars and time and desk space) than me putting those parts together. Well done and also thank you.

I do not desire to build my Bitcoin full node and/or home mining rig from the ground up. I prefer to quickly setup and later customize my Bitcoin home mining/system configure based on the R&D experience of others in this space, including this Bitcoin forum but also grass root shops like FutureBit. The FutureBit Apollo BTC was made for people like me. I have a desire to quickly setup & run a Bitcoin full node and home mining rig out-of-the box. For $600 (or so), I am not expecting any ROI in Bitcoin or dollars but I am expecting to enjoy the ROI in Bitcoin experience. For a while, I suspect that I will be contributing to keep the blockchain decentralized; while not my primary objective, this is a nice benefit.

The FutureBit mission is outstanding for the Bitcoin ecosystem. I look forward to make use of your home mining system and platform. Thank you.

order # 3909

[crypto_curious]

Apollo BTC is sold out on both Futurebit and Bitshopper.de. Well done jstefanop! 

[digg_er]

I was late with finding this. Is it possible to order this miner somewhere?