[BTC-TC] BTC-Mining

[Tritonio]

At what price will amazingrado buy back the bonds?

The same as the one that we got them at. For every 1BTC we gave him we will get the same 1BTC back.

[Namworld]

Exactly as Tritonio said. They don't gain or lose any value.

[ciuciu]

Exactly as Tritonio said. They don't gain or lose any value.

This is actually great. It means you are in a good position for buying ASICS. Change thread title to reflect this!

[Tritonio]

If you look a few posts above you I was asking about that thing to. The answer was let's wait for the actual specs cause most people don't believe they'll be that high.

On they other hand don't forget that 40% of the mined bitcoins are reinvested. So if things go as intended sometime we will probably buy ASIC hardware too.

Also keep in mind that BFL promises (well, for what their promise is worth) that they will buy back FPGA miners at full cost when you buy ASIC from them. I have totally no idea how they are going to do that to be honest though.

[Namworld]

Mining returns of 28.83860097 BTC paid @ 0.01491909 BTC per share for the week of 17th June to the 23th June of 2012

[P4man]

ASICs shouldn't end up being much more efficient than FPGA. They cost more to design but end up being cheaper to produce so it is good for volume. But they don't end up being a whole lot more performant, even if they are.

You are so wrong. Of course I cant vouch for BFLs promises (particularly when it comes to delivery times), but anyone not believing the numbers BFL publishes are even possible with an ASIC, simply doesnt know what he is talking about. Go ahead and request a free asic here:

http://rijndael.ece.vt.edu/sha3/sha3chip

Or at least read the datasheet. Yes, its a miniature SHA3 test chip but it also has a tiny SHA2 engine as reference. You will find that despite being build on an old 130nm process, despite not being optimized for bitcoins peculiar way of using SHA, despite not even being optimized for generic SHA2 hashing (big compromises were made to include all the SHA3 test algorithms), its actual performance/W seems in line with BFLs claims and some 50x better than current FGPA solutions. 

Bashing BFL is popular around here, and they certainly deserve some flack,  but stop putting your head in the sand when it comes to ASICs. They do have the potential of achieving two orders of magnitude higher performance and higher efficiency than FPGAs, while their variable costs are negligible. Once they start shipping,  28nm FPGAs  will be as relevant for mining as 32nm CPUs were last year.

[Namworld]

But they don't end up being a whole lot more performant, even if they are. Not on such a large magnitude.

Not sure for Jalapeno vs Single or SC Single vs Single, but I calculated for MiniRigs only and the efficiency difference was 20x
MiniRig: 25 000 mhash/15 000 USD = 1.66 mhash/USD
SC MiniRig: 1 000 000 mhash / 30 000 USD = 33.33 mhash/USD

It's not to say that they won't dislodge FPGAs. We're going to motion for going with ASICs instead of FPGAs.

However, from what I read about FPGA vs ASICs, it seemed like performance would be closer to a range of 2 to 4 the performance of FPGAs. 20x just seemed wrong. Although I do have to admit I do now know about specifics for SHA256 ASICs. I do know they should be a lot more power efficient. Around 10x the efficiency. It's really the expected extra performance I had in mind (2 to 4). 20x seems unrealistic, even for ASICs. ALTHOUGH I've heard they did use older chips for those FPGAs. That might have played in there too, although a 20x efficiency jump really is a far shot from what I estimated from reading about the difference between FPGAs and ASICs.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Smart move. 

[P4man]

Not sure for Jalapeno vs Single or SC Single vs Single, but I calculated for MiniRigs only and the efficiency difference was 20x

When I said efficiency, I meant power efficiency as in GH/W.

The price/GH you are talking about is something else entirely. Development of an ASIC is very expensive, production is almost free. As a result,  BFL can price those things almost arbitrarily. I made the estimates in a different thread, assuming BFL used an old 130nm process, a single wafer would yield somewhere between 1 and 10 TH worth of asics. Such a wafer costs about $1000 to process (and a few dollars per chip on top of that for cutting and packaging).  IOW, the PCB, assembly, housing and power supply will cost a lot more than the chip itself. That gives them enormous pricing flexibility.

So its not because BFL now charges "only" 10x less per GH than for FPGAs, that this difference will not go up substantially when difficulty goes up and market value of these ASICs comes crashing down proportionally. Unlike GPUs or FPGAs, these asics can not be sold for anything other than bitcoin, so their price will follow bitcoins price/difficulty from the current peek, to a bottom thats somewhere between one and two orders of magnitude lower. So yeah, Im predicting 1 TH for less than $3000 over the next year, maybe two, depending how many people buy in to this crazy gamble. Or less if a competitor emerges.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Its a bit like buying a new car as opposed to one thats a year or two old.

[Namworld]

It has occured to me that the new MiniRig SC would raise the mhash/share to new, tremendous levels. I almost feel ridiculous stating such vast numbers. But this IPO has always been about buying the best Butterfly Labs equipment and as such, we're now motioning on buying the new ASICs Mini-Rig.

For all people having a stake in this co-purchased operation, please vote now.

[Mushoz]

It has occured to me that the new MiniRig SC would raise the mhash/share to new, tremendous levels. I almost feel ridiculous stating such vast numbers. But this IPO has always been about buying the best Butterfly Labs equipment and as such, we're now motioning on buying the new ASICs Mini-Rig.

For all people having a stake in this co-purchased operation, please vote now.

Why not go with the mini-rig now, and trade it in for an ASIC later? They allow people to trade in their old BFL purchases for 100% of the price you paid for it.

[Namworld]

Technically, until motion pass, we are still going for the Mini-Rig. We might motion about this later. However their delivery time might be long if they ship us a Mini-Rig from the returns they receive and we then have to ship it back. It wouldn't be an advantage in that case. Once motion passes, I will inquire about this and see if it would be advantageous to still pre-buy a MiniRig and request a trade in later.

[ianspain]

subbed

[Tritonio]

If this vote doesn't pass, are we ordering the old mini rig soon? Also if we do, and can we trade it back for the full price to buy the ASIC one?

Right now I lean towards voting No. We'd better buy something to start mining on our own ASAP and we'll switch to ASIC by trading the FPGA back. Or we could even get the FPGA now and use the rest of the shares for the ASIC when all of them are sold.

Can I change my vote later? Anyone care to list the reasons to vote yes?

[Namworld]

Why not go with the mini-rig now, and trade it in for an ASIC later? They allow people to trade in their old BFL purchases for 100% of the price you paid for it.

Technically, until motion pass, we are still going for the Mini-Rig. We might motion about this later. However their delivery time might be long if they ship us a Mini-Rig from the returns they receive and we then have to ship it back. It wouldn't be an advantage in that case. Once motion passes, I will inquire about this and see if it would be advantageous to still pre-buy a MiniRig and request a trade in later.

That. Voting "no" means no ASICs. If we go for ASICs, we will have to motion about if we still go for the FPGAs while we wait.

I'll also have to inquire first:
- If they'd make a new Mini-Rig or give us a refurbished one they get sent for a trade for an ASICs when the order is ready. If they would send us an old one, then obviously the ASICs are ready since you ship the old FPGAs to them when your ASICs order is ready to be shipped.
- If they do send old ones when ASICs are already out and we would have to buy one off of someone else instead to trade it in later, I would also need to get information about equipment return (What if it's broken/doesn't work & what happens if we want to return that unit for the trade in).

Basically, vote no only if you don't want to use ASICs at all. We'll see the options for going FPGAs temporarily after that. According to what I know about people owning shares and their vote, the motion will pass. We're already over 50% "yes" of the total shares sold and only actual votes count in the percentage.

[Tritonio]

Ah OK then. I got that the opposite way. Well yes for me then. One way or another we will move to ASIC IF there is such a hue difference in performance AND the initial Hash/$ ratio.

[Namworld]

https://glbse.com/vote/view/81

Voted Yea:1619
Voted Nay:0
Sold shares: 1933

Over 80% of shares voted yes, with ZERO no. I think the decision has been taken. We will go ASICs

[Namworld]

Mining returns of 31.39996128 BTC paid @ 0.01624416 BTC per share for the week of 24th June to the 30th June of 2012

[Tritonio]

Can anyone predict if the dividends will be higher than the current ones when we get the equipment? Of course we will be making more btc but 40% will not be paid as dividends. (suppose we go FPGA for the prediction)