Introducing Apollo II

[jstefanop]

Keeping up with tradition I have to make an announcement post here even though im sure most of you have already heard the news!

www.futurebit.io

Product #5 and the one I have been trying to build since the start. This one probably took a few years off my life, and is about 6 months late due to needing to redesign it not once but 3 times.

5nm ASICs are no joke.

As with everything we do we dont announce or ship until we know we can make them and they are ready. This is a first of many for Futurebit, first time we have nearly caught up to the latest node, first time we have integrated a PSU directly in the box for a completely plug and play and seamless experience, first time we have created a completely in house thermal system capable of cooling 400 watts in nearly the same volume as Gen 1, and a first for creating a modern mass producible aluminum case and injection molded parts.

One of the biggest bottlenecks with the Apollo BTC design was the sheet metal case that took forever to make, and with these have already produced thousands of cases and are just waiting on our thermal system and PCBs.


Should have everything in by end of December and start shipping the Founders Edition in January.

One of the biggest announcements is our revamped OS thats finally releasing the Solo mining feature everyone has been waiting for, and the OS will be released on the original Apollo BTC first in hopefully about a month.

We hope the Apollo II launch finally gives us an opportunity to really focus on software this time around, which we never really had the resources for after the Apollo BTC launch.

The hardware has finally caught up to where it needs to be, but software needs a lot of work to make it a seamless experience for people outside of this forum.

We will also be partnering with Lukes pool and offering a one click BTC address setup, and working with them to finally enable lightning payouts for small miners like the Apollo and others, that will finally end the nearly year long payouts on some other pools (FYI we also got braiins pool to reduce their minimum no fee payout to .005 BTC which is half of what it was).

Im sure many of you have noticed but our efforts and others in the small miner space are finally paying off and people are taking notice. People are starting to understand the importance of self-mining no matter how small, and as censorship attacks mount on the Bitcoin network this will be more important than ever.

Can't wait for the first solo block to be mined directly on an Apollo device after we launch the new OS, it will truly be a dawn of a new era for Bitcoin.

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[heslo]

Simply awesome! Can not wait to order this!

[kano]

Great, giving everyone the chance to lose blocks with ck's solo code, like he does.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789369.msg61755036#msg61755036

5 so far, though if anyone found a block during his most recent problem where the solo ckpool kept going for a while, while bitcoin had stopped updating, that would have been another ck block lost ...

At least be sure to point out to your buyers, that you are selling something with a much higher chance of losing a block due to being an orphan, unless they replace the tiny hardware in it with a fast CPU to do fast bitcoin block work changes, and add a distribution of high performance nodes around the world so their blocks are actually seen and not show up seconds late and thus ignored by ALL the pools.

[unicornmangle]

Kano always a crab apple but i guess i do prefer consistency <3

nice work john looks great if this was the first one man oh man what a sight to see. i have considered modifying the 3 v1s using server heatsinks but just cant justify the cost vs hash. im tapped but look forward to watching this progress in this crazy space. i still have futurebit btcs running and an ltc apollo running. i can say these miners just run almost no issues beyond no easy api access perhaps ive overlooked the javascript i dont understand npm and refuse to.

[DaveF]

@jstefanop how 'off the shelf' are the fans?

From the USB sticks you used to sell and the LTC Apollo and the BTC Apollo I have wound up replacing just about every fan over the years.
Probably just bad luck on my end, I don't think the office is THAT dusty, but are the fan(s) in these user replaceable and easily sourceable?

-Dave

[jstefanop]

Great, giving everyone the chance to lose blocks with ck's solo code, like he does.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789369.msg61755036#msg61755036

5 so far, though if anyone found a block during his most recent problem where the solo ckpool kept going for a while, while bitcoin had stopped updating, that would have been another ck block lost ...

At least be sure to point out to your buyers, that you are selling something with a much higher chance of losing a block due to being an orphan, unless they replace the tiny hardware in it with a fast CPU to do fast bitcoin block work changes, and add a distribution of high performance nodes around the world so their blocks are actually seen and not show up seconds late and thus ignored by ALL the pools.

Went to extra lengths to discourage anyone from solo mining directly on the device unless they understand the limitations and risks, they can't enable it without pressing a big red button.

With that being said con has fixed all the bugs you mentioned and we have ensured solo miners have risks mitigated as much as possible compared to the big guys. We have relationships with the major pools and will bootstrap all solo nodes directly to them. Any block found by a futurebit solo miner will propagate to the major pools first before the rest of the network. Our CPU is pretty fast as well and block creation is not a bottle neck.

Also a valid block is a valid block, even if it shows up seconds late as long as no other block is found within those few seconds it will be included. 10 min block times were created for reasons like this where even small miners running regular computers can still participate at base layer...

[jstefanop]

@jstefanop how 'off the shelf' are the fans?

From the USB sticks you used to sell and the LTC Apollo and the BTC Apollo I have wound up replacing just about every fan over the years.
Probably just bad luck on my end, I don't think the office is THAT dusty, but are the fan(s) in these user replaceable and easily sourceable?

-Dave

It's a custom 80x35mm 7k RPM PWM fan. Its a much more beefier fan that the original Apollo BTC and should last a pretty long time if your running in Eco/Balanced mode...fan runs at about 5-6k RPM in turbo but no where near max.

[kano]

We have relationships with the major pools and will bootstrap all solo nodes directly to them. Any block found by a futurebit solo miner will propagate to the major pools first before the rest of the network.

So if you are only selling a total of 50 of these, that 'may' be possible.
If you are selling more than 100 of them, it's not possible.
Bitcoin wont allow 100's of connections by default since that would cause dramatic network performance issues.
No pool in their right mind would allow that either.

If instead you said you setup a transaction/block distribution network like bluematt used to run, for all these apollos, then yes that would be possible.
However, without that, it's not possible what you said.

Our CPU is pretty fast as well and block creation is not a bottle neck.

It is a bottleneck on every CPU.
The question that matters is how long it takes.
e.g. does it include the CPU instructions to dramatically speed it up? (no it doesn't)
Can it average block template generation well under 100ms? (no)

Also a valid block is a valid block, even if it shows up seconds late as long as no other block is found within those few seconds it will be included. 10 min block times were created for reasons like this where even small miners running regular computers can still participate at base layer...

Um, nope, seconds late is too late.
It dramatically increases the chances of an orphan.
Orphans still happen with the large pools every so often, they just don't tell anyone.
Since I have a world wide distribution of nodes and I track/report the block submissions/reorgs that happen in my monitoring, I can see them when they happen.

If the blocks generated by these nodes all say they are solo futurebit nodes, then that will be interesting to see what actually happens ...

[SFR10]

@jstefanop
The noise level for the ECO mode ^{[less than 40 dba]} is good for home miners, but I'm curious to know what the noise levels are on the TURBO mode ^{[especially for using custom settings to get it up to 11 TH/s]}.

[W944]

with a fast CPU to do fast bitcoin block work changes

What do you consider to be a fast cpu for that?

Wondering if I get the full node from futurebit or just the miner addon and build my own full node.

We have relationships with the major pools and will bootstrap all solo nodes directly to them. Any block found by a futurebit solo miner will propagate to the major pools first before the rest of the network.

This would only be true for the full node package right? Or could also do that if we run the addon miner off a non futurebit full node?

[kano]

with a fast CPU to do fast bitcoin block work changes

What do you consider to be a fast cpu for that?

Wondering if I get the full node from futurebit or just the miner addon and build my own full node.

Some high end 4+GHz CPU with lotsa cores.

We have relationships with the major pools and will bootstrap all solo nodes directly to them. Any block found by a futurebit solo miner will propagate to the major pools first before the rest of the network.

This would only be true for the full node package right? Or could also do that if we run the addon miner off a non futurebit full node?

As I mentioned above, this isn't possible.
Even if they did setup a distribution network in the future, you talk to that first, not the major pools.
If not, then only a very few of the futurebit's will ever be able to talk directly to a major pool.

[ajaxtempest]

Hope anyone can share the $150 coupon code via PM . Here in India the custom duties are whopping 36%. With shipping and duties it is almost half of the amount.

[Sledge0001]

Just ordered a Founder's edition to help support Futurebit and home miner growth.

Although I won't be utilizing the local solo mining option I do look forward to adding this to my other Apollo BTC's

Edit: Actually maybe I will give the local solo mining a shot. Hopefully either the Apollo UI or integrated pool clearly shows best share!

[SFR10]

do you have any reseller package or local reseller by country or region ?

Apart from the North American region, the closest thing to a local reseller is a couple of retailers in the European ^[bitshopper] and African ^[bitmart] regions.
^{Note: I prefer not to vouch (DYOR)!}

[jstefanop]

We have relationships with the major pools and will bootstrap all solo nodes directly to them. Any block found by a futurebit solo miner will propagate to the major pools first before the rest of the network.

So if you are only selling a total of 50 of these, that 'may' be possible.
If you are selling more than 100 of them, it's not possible.
Bitcoin wont allow 100's of connections by default since that would cause dramatic network performance issues.
No pool in their right mind would allow that either.

If instead you said you setup a transaction/block distribution network like bluematt used to run, for all these apollos, then yes that would be possible.
However, without that, it's not possible what you said.

Our CPU is pretty fast as well and block creation is not a bottle neck.

It is a bottleneck on every CPU.
The question that matters is how long it takes.
e.g. does it include the CPU instructions to dramatically speed it up? (no it doesn't)
Can it average block template generation well under 100ms? (no)

Also a valid block is a valid block, even if it shows up seconds late as long as no other block is found within those few seconds it will be included. 10 min block times were created for reasons like this where even small miners running regular computers can still participate at base layer...

Um, nope, seconds late is too late.
It dramatically increases the chances of an orphan.
Orphans still happen with the large pools every so often, they just don't tell anyone.
Since I have a world wide distribution of nodes and I track/report the block submissions/reorgs that happen in my monitoring, I can see them when they happen.

If the blocks generated by these nodes all say they are solo futurebit nodes, then that will be interesting to see what actually happens ...

Yes we are in the process of creating a few regional supernodes that are all connected to major pools, and those nodes are connected to our backend infrastructure that will send a block notify to every single solo miner that is opted in within milliseconds of a valid block detected. Backend is a propriety network that bypasses the p2p bitcoin network similar to what all major pools use among themselves.

Regardless you are still exaggerating the chances of an orphaned block even on the normal p2p network. There are 600 seconds within a block, lets say you are on a slow network and broadcast hits the major pools 6 seconds late, thats just a 1% chance someone will find another block before you (ie if EVERYONE solo mining has a slow connection, for ever 100 solo blocks found one will be extremely unlucky and get their block orphaned).

If you really want to get into the meat of the matter and the type of research I do to come up with the systems we do you can read these research publications for a deep dive on the topic:

https://sites.cs.ucsb.edu/~rich/class/cs293b-cloud/papers/bitcoin-delay#:~:text=The%20median%20time%20until%20a,not%20yet%20received%20the%20block.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363879722_Analysis_of_segregated_witness_implementation_for_increasing_efficiency_and_security_of_the_Bitcoin_cryptocurrency

Mean block propagation times were on the order of 6 seconds in the early days (2013 when the first article was published), due to more efficient core upgrades/computational increase/network bandwidth increases the mean has come down to around 2 seconds.

For everyday users trying to secure the network a .333% chance of orphaning a block compared to lets say major pools of .1% wont matter at the end of the day (and im not discounting the fact that it will matter HORRIBLY for that one person that will find a solo block after mining solo for years and it ends up orphaning but that is the nature of the bitcoin network and the risk solo miners take).

[jstefanop]

@jstefanop
The noise level for the ECO mode ^{[less than 40 dba]} is good for home miners, but I'm curious to know what the noise levels are on the TURBO mode ^{[especially for using custom settings to get it up to 11 TH/s]}.

It's a 7k RPM fan and Turbo mode ~9-10TH sits at around 55dB @5-6kRPM depending on local environment. If you max it out you'll max out the RPMs and will prob be over 60db.

We left a lot overhead on the original Apollo BTC (and mostly limited by the 6 Pin power connectors). Now that we eliminated that with internal PSU and high gauge internal connections the limitation is cooling on the high end and noise levels are much louder but wanted to give everyone the option to take full advantage of the ASICs especially in winter/heating conditions.

In short turbo mode will live up to its name this time so dont expect to be able to run it in your bedroom. I would say up to 8TH or so is doable in most room settings based on my personal testing.

[Frisco415]

@jstefanop
The noise level for the ECO mode ^{[less than 40 dba]} is good for home miners, but I'm curious to know what the noise levels are on the TURBO mode ^{[especially for using custom settings to get it up to 11 TH/s]}.

It's a 7k RPM fan and Turbo mode ~9-10TH sits at around 55dB @5-6kRPM depending on local environment. If you max it out you'll max out the RPMs and will prob be over 60db.

We left a lot overhead on the original Apollo BTC (and mostly limited by the 6 Pin power connectors). Now that we eliminated that with internal PSU and high gauge internal connections the limitation is cooling on the high end and noise levels are much louder but wanted to give everyone the option to take full advantage of the ASICs especially in winter/heating conditions.

In short turbo mode will live up to its name this time so dont expect to be able to run it in your bedroom. I would say up to 8TH or so is doable in most room settings based on my personal testing.

So when is the release date for this..

[kekeck33]

I preorder standard unit, releise date?

[jstefanop]

I preorder standard unit, releise date?

We are getting ready to start shipping this month. Tail end of pre-orders might slip into bigining of April but majority should go out by end of the month!

FYI follow the @futurebit account on X for more regular updates.

[OgNasty]

Hope anyone can share the $150 coupon code via PM . Here in India the custom duties are whopping 36%. With shipping and duties it is almost half of the amount.

What is this coupon code you speak of?  This is the only time I've seen it mentioned.  I did see that gift cards through Fold were available temporarily with a cash back % offer.

I preorder standard unit, releise date?

We are getting ready to start shipping this month. Tail end of pre-orders might slip into bigining of April but majority should go out by end of the month!

FYI follow the @futurebit account on X for more regular updates.

If we placed an order today for shipping in the United States, when could we realistically expect to receive a unit? 

I'm glad to see that you guys continue to roll out new units.  There aren't enough people building miners for 110v home users that don't want to sound like they live in an airplane hanger.