LargeCoin, what is that?

[antirack]

I just read an article about GPU mining over at bitcoin.hu (Google translation) and they were talking about LargeCoin.

Can anyone give me a quick rundown what that is supposed to be? I found a web site, a bit of bash here on the forum, but I still don't get it.

[RyNinDaCleM]

Never heard of it!
You might get better responses in the alt crypto-currency sub forum.

[antirack]

Well, despite the name, it seems they are developing a specialized hardware for BitCoin mining. They published some info on their web site and a PDF. But nothing more than that.

Someone here mentioned once that it is a scam and some dude that inherited millions from somebody and has a custodian because he is retarded or something (don't shoot the messenger, that's how I remember it). But I can't really find any concrete infos.

Anyway, since it was mentioned in that article I bothered to search a bit, never mind if nobody knows what exactly they are...


 

[Blind]

Well, despite the name, it seems they are developing a specialized hardware for BitCoin mining. They published some info on their web site and a PDF. But nothing more than that.

Someone here mentioned once that it is a scam and some dude that inherited millions from somebody and has a custodian because he is retarded or something (don't shoot the messenger, that's how I remember it). But I can't really find any concrete infos.

Anyway, since it was mentioned in that article I bothered to search a bit, never mind if nobody knows what exactly they are...


 

Dunno if he's retarded, he writes quite coherently http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/103/whats-the-difference-between-an-asic-and-an-fpga-which-is-better-for-mining/782#782

[ttul]

Yes, we are buliding an ASIC for Bitcoin mining. ASICs take a long time to fab, as there are many convoluted steps in the process both commercially and in the engineering sense. If you're interested in being notified when we have any news to share, please sign up for our mailing list at www.largecoin.com.

[Gabi]

However, I can confirm that our detailed modelling at this point indicates we'll be able to mine 250 GHash/s in a single rack of mining units using 5kW of power. When you consider that this represents the computational power of about 400 AMD Radeon 6990 GPUs (which would consume close to 200 kW), you can immediately see the benefit of ASICs for Bitcoin mining.

By the middle of 2012, ASIC mining will be a substantial factor in the Bitcoin economy.

 
If this is true...

[grue]

Yes, we are buliding an ASIC for Bitcoin mining. ASICs take a long time to fab, as there are many convoluted steps in the process both commercially and in the engineering sense. If you're interested in being notified when we have any news to share, please sign up for our mailing list at www.largecoin.com.

it's going to end up just like butterfly labs.

[fivebells]

It's a bit more technically plausible than Butterfly Labs was.

[ttul]

It's a bit more technically plausible than Butterfly Labs was.

Why is this thread in "Alternate Cryptocurrencies". LargeCoin has nothing to do with alternate cryptocurrencies. Can the mod move this into a more appropriate category? Say, mining?

[jago25_98]

Hmm... I misunderstood this at first...

 inspiring me to think....

 You could have hardware doing something useful as proof of work, something useful. Something physical? Can someone help me expand on this idea into something more concrete?

 Ideally you'd have the proof of work helping in a physical process.

 Imagine oil&gas could be synthesised but required a lot of intelligence to compute.

Now apply this to quantum and probabilities.

 See where I'm going with this? Good because I don't! :p

[runeks]

Yes, we are buliding an ASIC for Bitcoin mining. ASICs take a long time to fab, as there are many convoluted steps in the process both commercially and in the engineering sense. If you're interested in being notified when we have any news to share, please sign up for our mailing list at www.largecoin.com.

Pics or it didn't happen.

Seriously though, I signed up for notifications on your site several months ago (that's what it feels like anyway). Would love to see some progress. I had thought that custom ASICs would be too expensive given the current size of the mining economy for it to be worth it. But I guess it may be possible using an old production process. I mean, 180 nm would still beat the hell out of a GPU I suppose.

Someone has actually already made a chip capable of SHA-256 on an IBM 130nm process:
http://rijndael.ece.vt.edu/sha3/chip/sha3-asic-datasheet.pdf
If I understand the paper correctly, it does 2.95 MH/s (1.51 Gbps / 256 bit / 2) while consuming 5 mW (0.005 W) running at 50 MHz. So that's about 3 GH/s at 5 W . Though I'm not sure if scaling is that easy and simple.

Here's more info: http://rijndael.ece.vt.edu/sha3/sha3chip.html
Free samples are available . You'd need a couple hundred to get decent performance though.