NERDMINER: Bitcoin lottery miners

[fillippone]

It would need to cost about $15-20 to be worth it.

Mining efficiency is the same at chip level. Of course having 300 chip together make the machine more efficient, and for this reason industrial miners are built with so many chips.

Bitaxe cost is outrageous, we do agree (and I guess the final cost could be double of what you mentioned above). Bear in mind that the project is till in the tinkering phase: both software and hardware are continuously updated and optimised. This keeps cost high, because limit the volume production. I guess that once platform stabilise prices will go down sharply.

[dkbit98]

But also, for the twofold reason I explained in the OP, these are useful gadgetry for at least the couple of reasons I outliner there.

I know for a fact that you can use LILYGO T-Display to create bitcoin wallet, something similar like  DIY hardware wallet, and I also seen people are using them to make DIY bitcoin clock showing price and blocks, LNURLPoS, etc.
I wrote about some of thisprojects before, so anyone who don't want to use this device as Nerdminer anymore can easily transition to any other project.

It really sucks that laws of scale made miners so large, power hungry and loud to be efficient.

There are some near-silent asic miners, but this cases or enclosures are only making asic miners bigger

[LoyceV]

It would need to cost about $15-20 to be worth it.

Mining efficiency is the same at chip level. Of course having 300 chip together make the machine more efficient, and for this reason industrial miners are built with so many chips.

Bitaxe cost is outrageous, we do agree

How about this: put one of those chips in other hardware! If that would be possible without raising the price per hash too much, it could have a market. Then again, I wouldn't keep my Bitcoin mining hardware wallet connected to a PC 24/7 just for this, and I wouldn't want it to be very hot all the time. I regret missing the days that a home computer could mine Bitcoin.

[fillippone]

It would need to cost about $15-20 to be worth it.

Mining efficiency is the same at chip level. Of course having 300 chip together make the machine more efficient, and for this reason industrial miners are built with so many chips.

Bitaxe cost is outrageous, we do agree

How about this: put one of those chips in other hardware! If that would be possible without raising the price per hash too much, it could have a market. Then again, I wouldn't keep my Bitcoin mining hardware wallet connected to a PC 24/7 just for this, and I wouldn't want it to be very hot all the time. I regret missing the days that a home computer could mine Bitcoin.

There is no “other hardware” to connect to that chip.
That is a closed-source, proprietary undocumented chip. The community is trying to squeeze hash rate out if this with open-sourc, custom-built hardware.
The bitaxe is self-sufficient. It doesn’t need to be connected to other devices (we might not be there as of today, but very close): neither PC nor HW.

[fillippone]

In my forum wanderings, I just discovered that BITAXE has a thread on the forum:

Open Source Bitcoin ASIC miner project that uses 2x BM1387 (Antminer S9)

Title reference to an old project version that used two chips instead of a single one.

Adding the reference to OP as well.

[paid2]

Interesting thread OP 

You maybe could be interested about the topic I made for the begginers, related to Gekkoscience products : My USB SHA256 lottery


However, I would prefer to promote the Bitaxe project or Gekkoscience's products than Nerdminer.
I am a big fan of solo mining, home mining, and of USB mining especially since I know that most fellow Europeans don't have the luck of paying a cheap kw/h. So we know most of them are doing that as a random lottery, or for the beauty of learning something.

My point is, that they could learn the same things with Bitaxe and Gekko products, and they will have a small chance to find a block. For example, someone found a block with a Compac F recently.
With nerdminer, they will learn more or less the same things, but the hashrate doesn't give any chance to find a block.

Ok, a R606 or R909 is not standalone, but will give a very good experience to anybody interested by home mining.

[stompix]

How about this: put one of those chips in other hardware! If that would be possible without raising the price per hash too much, it could have a market.

Yeah, bring back the miner toaster:
https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/is-someone-using-your-toaster-to-mine-bitcoin-it-may-be-possible-in-todays-internet-of-things/

This won't be posisble
- it will raise the price of cheap electronics by too much, you need the chip, the board, and integrate it in the design, not worth
- large companies won't do it because they know consumers won't buy this new thing, and a few influencers doing so for fun is nothing compared to the millions that don't want it
- it adds a lot of possible problems, they need a new branch of customer support/tech/repair/design to deal with those and their gain in this?

No, the combining has failed, not for toasters or tvs or fridges, but even when we talk about heating, I've seen tens of strat-ups that wanted to sell you a bitcoin heater or water heater go bust because it doesn't make sense economically.

But, I have to add this as it's just so funny!
A 8TB SSD is too expensive so god forbid we would increase the block size to 4x times as it would put us in the hands of google and amazon, but of course, having 4 million people hosting a 3000w and $3k machine or 40 million at least a 500W (less efficiency, not all running 24/7) one to achieve decentralization is totally doable!!!!! 

Mining efficiency is the same at chip level. Of course having 300 chip together make the machine more efficient, and for this reason industrial miners are built with so many chips.

As long as any other device is using Bitmain chips you will never! and I say never!!!! be able to compete with them even if you try building your 100+ chp hashboard.  Once there is somebody else making those chips and selling them at basically manufacturing cost price, you could have a chance, till then, never!

I can get a BM1398BB for 20$ via trusty sources and for $10 via less trusty ones and basically no guarantee for DOA, how could I compete with my home-built miner when the 342 chips packed in miner with 1 one-year warranty sell for under 3k?

[fillippone]

<...>

I can get a BM1398BB for 20$ via trusty sources and for $10 via less trusty ones and basically no guarantee for DOA, how could I compete with my home-built miner when the 342 chips packed in miner with 1 one-year warranty sell for under 3k?

When I referred to mining efficiency I never meant to state you would be competing with professional miners on an economic basis. I think I made sufficiently clear those machines are meant only for educational purposes.
I instead stated that the mining efficiency of a single basic chip could be comparable to the one of a single chip on a professional mining machine.
Of course, all the other conditions, namely efficiency at the hash machine and price of production factors (electricity, miners), have to be accounted for to prospect a true economic return.

[MusaMohamed]

I have a shower idea that we know heat from Bitcoin mining can be reused for water heating, tulip bulb heating and more types of heat to energy conversion. It helps to use power and heat in Bitcoin mining cycle better.

My idea is ASIC Bitcoin mining farms can install those Nerdminer equipment and do mini solo mining to try their luck. I believe it does not cause any big cost on those big mining farms.

Analyzing cost and benefit, I see it is worthy for big ASIC mining farm operators to try with NerdMiner.

[stompix]

~

Of course, all the other conditions, namely efficiency at the hash machine and price of production factors (electricity, miners), have to be accounted for to prospect a true economic return.

That's the thing I was trying to point out, maybe it got the wrong way and emphasis on a different thing but none of those devices will ever make sense economically matter how you pack them or to what other thing you glue them to, and people should really stop treating them as miners and look at the cost and revenue. Those are more like toys or collectibles or the stuff you buy out of curiosity, I don't think anyone plans to go into the printing business with a 30$ machine or bake goods for its bakery with a single microwave.

It's a fun thing, and it does its job but to be completely honest if it were about learning only I would advise everyone to simply buy an old miner that goes for the same price as those USB miners and explore that since for $40 you can still get a running S9.  You don't need to keep it running 24/7 if you're only learning, and you would deal with a real ASIC, not to mention all the experience gained when that 5yo miner starts to give errors, disconnect, reboot, and lose power all by himself
Pretty much depends on what you want to do and what you want to learn from it.

My idea is ASIC Bitcoin mining farms can install those Nerdminer equipment and do mini solo mining to try their luck. I believe it does not cause any big cost on those big mining farms.
~
Analyzing cost and benefit, I see it is worthy for big ASIC mining farm operators to try with NerdMiner.

Did you actually read the thread?
Oh forget the thread, did you read the FIRST paragraph? The one with red letters?

[LoyceV]

Did you actually read the thread?
Oh forget the thread, did you read the FIRST paragraph? The one with red letters?

Lol.

Greenhouses in the Netherlands used to use electricity from the grid for lights, and natural gas for heat and CO2. Natural gas was very cheap (for them). Later, they became power producers by running their own gas turbines. They still got the CO2 and most of the heat, but at lower price.
Nowadays, with much higher gas prices, they (also) use industrial waste heat, and industrial waste CO2.

Gas turbines can be combined with steam turbines to further improve the efficiency. That's possible because the exhaust gasses coming out of the gas turbines still have a very high temperature.
As far as using miner heat goes: it's futile. Low-temperate heat has a very low value (think about the Carnot cycle in physics). The heat isn't produced on locations where it's useful. I'm familiar with the edge case of using Bitcoin miners to heat greenhouses. The flaw is: it replaces electric heaters. You shouldn't use electric heaters in the first place, and I'm pretty sure you can get a better business case with a different heating system.

There's a reason Bitcoin miners are concentrated in areas with low electricity prices. Using the waste heat isn't enough to make up for high prices.

[fillippone]

New Firmware has been released.
Update 1.16.3 grants a certain boost in performance.

You can get your update from the usual source:

https://bitmaker-hub.github.io/diyflasher/

The upgrade allows for a 77/80 Kh/s rate.

[kalagangs]

Just registered on this legendary forum. Although there is almost no chance of solving a block with a Nerdminer, I think the project is extremely interesting. It's also cool how it's constantly being developed by the community.

[fillippone]

I found this little new website called www.solochance.com.
There, you can plug your Hashpower, and find out the computations, updated in real-time, about the chances of finding a block:



Funny.
I just discovered you need 18,000 s21 to expect to mine a block a day.

[LoyceV]

Time estimate: 12,336,955,676 years

So you're telling me there's a chance (source of this quote)

[joker_josue]

Time estimate: 12,336,955,676 years

So you're telling me there's a chance (source of this quote)

Based on this chance I'll want to try it. 

In this sense, maybe buy this: https://aliexpress.com/item/1005006102451859.html
Good choice?

[stompix]

I found this little new website called www.solochance.com.

I'm a bit confused:

But I don't have 5m S19 to test how accurate it is 

Anyhow, came back here because of this:

What would it take to add a small ASIC miner into this? Would it be possible to take 1/1000th of the chips of an ASIC miner, and instead of 3500W run at 5W (a bit more per hash but still small enough to run off USB power)? It would be great for decentralization to have millions of people do some mining, but I guess the market isn't big enough to make production economically viable.

Seems like Canaan is getting interested in the idea of downsizing, not to 5w but 150W for now, not going to advertise the thing here since it already has it's own topic but I find it surprisingly the seeing the big guys going down this route. So, let's see how that part about economically viable plays out!

[joker_josue]

Seems like Canaan is getting interested in the idea of downsizing, not to 5w but 150W for now, not going to advertise the thing here since it already has it's own topic but I find it surprisingly the seeing the big guys going down this route. So, let's see how that part about economically viable plays out!

Can you provide the link to this topic?
I happened to see this ad on their website a few days ago, but I haven't read anything about it here yet.

[Pazuzo]

Do you plan to add new boards in the future? 

[fillippone]

Apparently a solo miner using a Bitaxe mined their first block today:



This image has been reported as a clear demonstration of the fact:



Yet it makes me wonder why the has rate skyrocketed just before they found a block.

According to https://solochance.com anyway it was an incredible luck.