High Efficiency FPGA & ASIC Bitcoin Mining Devices https://BTCFPGA.com

[kaerf]

Here's a visual representation for what different wattage will do to income over time


@ 200W you stop making money at 100X difficulty (assuming $0.24 / KWh and 25BTC/block @ $12/BTC)
@ 60W you stop making money at 1000X difficulty (assuming $0.24 / KWh and 25BTC/block  @ $12/BTC)

So it depends on how long you're looking out or how fast you think difficulty will grow.

[1715025174]

1715025174

[gmaxwell]

For the BTCFPGA:
 $1070 costs you $6.88/month in forgone investment income and $29.72/month in lost resale value.  For the BTCFPGA device to match the BFL operating cost ($ * 9/10 =36.60) under this model it must use less than 49.73 - 36.60 = $13.13 in power or 149.77 watts.

Due to lower initial investment per Ghash, the BTCFPGA is still the most profitable at more than twice the power consumption, assuming a three year useful life for both devices.  (Power consumption becomes more important with increasing expected lifetime, but one should not forget Moore's Law.)

They _tie_ at 149.77 under your deprecation schedule. I will be quite surprised if it comes in that low— a more reasonable number would probably be on the order of 300w.  And the deprecation schedule should properly be somewhat longer for the BFL device: Since alternatives on smaller process that use less power would be the major upgrade driver (assuming bitcoin doesn't go bust ). I'll have gotten almost two years out of my GPUs and I don't expect to see progress that rapid on the ASIC front, as we've vastly exceeded moore's law by moving to increasingly specialized hardware.

In any case, my major point was that power really does matter— and I think either of these ways of reasoning shows that it does matter. We can debate exactly how much it matters or if bASIC is tied or worse off¸ based on equipment deprecation which is anyone's guess... but at the end of the day delivery times and vibrant competition are more important factors.

[ralree]

For the BTCFPGA:
 $1070 costs you $6.88/month in forgone investment income and $29.72/month in lost resale value.  For the BTCFPGA device to match the BFL operating cost ($ * 9/10 =36.60) under this model it must use less than 49.73 - 36.60 = $13.13 in power or 149.77 watts.

Due to lower initial investment per Ghash, the BTCFPGA is still the most profitable at more than twice the power consumption, assuming a three year useful life for both devices.  (Power consumption becomes more important with increasing expected lifetime, but one should not forget Moore's Law.)

They _tie_ at 149.77 under your deprecation schedule. I will be quite surprised if it comes in that low— a more reasonable number would probably be on the order of 300w.  And the deprecation schedule should properly be somewhat longer for the BFL device: Since alternatives on smaller process that use less power would be the major upgrade driver (assuming bitcoin doesn't go bust ). I'll have gotten almost two years out of my GPUs and I don't expect to see progress that rapid on the ASIC front, as we've vastly exceeded moore's law by moving to increasingly specialized hardware.

In any case, my major point was that power really does matter— and I think either of these ways of reasoning shows that it does matter. We can debate exactly how much it matters or if bASIC is tied or worse off¸ based on equipment deprecation which is anyone's guess... but at the end of the day delivery times and vibrant competition are more important factors.

300W?  So BTCFPGA is going to be 5x less efficient than BFL @ 60W?  That seems a little high to me, but maybe you know better than I do.  Let's see what cablepair says..

[kano]

...
In any case, my major point was that power really does matter— and I think either of these ways of reasoning shows that it does matter.
...

Using your assumptions that BFL is wrong and that you know bASIC's power figures that Tom hasn't released yet ...

[gmaxwell]

In any case, my major point was that power really does matter— and I think either of these ways of reasoning shows that it does matter.

Using your assumptions that BFL is wrong and that you know bASIC's power figures that Tom hasn't released yet ...

Huh? No. Power matters no matter what sane figures you plug in to either my deprecation free model or sturles alternative. Depending on the power costs you assume you might find that bASIC comes out ahead, or you might find BFL does (which is what I expect based on my prior power estimates at 130nm). But it certainly matters as differences in the figure change which product is more cost effective.

300W?  So BTCFPGA is going to be 5x less efficient than BFL @ 60W?  That seems a little high to me, but maybe you know better than I do.  Let's see what cablepair says..

It's not surprising at all if they're on different process (or have made some improbable breakthrough against SHA256). And I can't believe BFL's numbers at all if they're not on a substantially more efficient process than 130nm.

[Odi]

I'm personally pre-ordered for the btcfpga devices (as well as avalon, which I expect to have similar economics)— but I expect to lose money on them, and I wanted to support secondary players. If they arrive early enough then even if the BFL's use a lot less power a faster arriving alternative still may have turned out to be a better buy. I expect major price wars in the future, and getting on a backlog list now sounds really unwise to me even ignoring BFL's long history of schedule slips (even on this product now).  (I don't begrudge them for this: doing this kind of small scale high tech stuff is hard... but it is what it is)

These are the two key points for me too:

I am not trying to make money on my pre-order of the bASIC.
I do not want to get on a huge backlog list as things will keep changing.

But most importantly, I also want to be a part of making history.  I was not born yet for the first personal computers.  But I look back nostalgically at using Juno for email access, having a 7 digit ICQ number, hashing with a Pentium III on SETI@Home / distributed.net, downloading Linux on the original bittorrent client, and waiting in line for the iPhone 3G on release day.

My bitcoin story is that I found out about it when GPU mining was already the norm and FPGA's were in pre-order, bought 2x5770's at clearance price (I was not willing to spend the money on an FPGA just to save some power), mined in a pool for a while, mined solo for a long time and forgot about it in the background, and now pre-ordering a 1st generation ASIC with 2 lucky blocks I found solo mining.  I don't plan on buying a mining farm, I just want to replace my 2x5770's with something that will remain useful for a few more years.

[Bogart]

I can't believe BFL's numbers at all if they're not on a substantially more efficient process than 130nm.

Would they be believable on a 65nm process?

[dunand]

having a 7 digit ICQ number

My ICQ number was 4 digits (5xxx I can't remember exactly).

[WinTame2012]

Sorry for offtopic, but here is...

A bit of bitcoin pr0n from BFL http://bitcoinmagazine.net/butterfly-labs-releases-more-asic-photos/

I hope Tom will come soon with good news (and pics!) too.

[Shadow383]

Sorry for offtopic, but here is...

A bit of bitcoin pr0n from BFL http://bitcoinmagazine.net/butterfly-labs-releases-more-asic-photos/

I hope Tom will come soon with good news (and pics!) too.

In an upcoming article in our next issue of Bitcoin Magazine, Butterfly Labs, arguably the market leader of manufacturing and selling Bitcoin mining equipment, has released a sneak preview of their current state of development for their ASIC-based Bitforce SC line of computers, scheduled to be released in late November or December. As a sneak peek, we have two images for you.

Tom's current schedule says a release date around the last week of November...
This could get interesting 

[kano]

Sorry for offtopic, but here is...

A bit of bitcoin pr0n from BFL blah blah

I hope Tom will come soon with good news (and pics!) too.

Actually - to be blunt - why are you posting BFL links in here?
Post them in the BFL thread.
That post is actually worthy of a warning IMO.
Lucky I'm not a mod (who edits my posts ...)

[WinTame2012]

Sorry for offtopic, but here is...

A bit of bitcoin pr0n from BFL blah blah

I hope Tom will come soon with good news (and pics!) too.

Actually - to be blunt - why are you posting BFL links in here?
Post them in the BFL thread.
That post is actually worthy of a warning IMO.
Lucky I'm not a mod (who edits my posts ...)

Sorry man, I'm Tom's customer and posted this just as first photo of ASIC board available. This also could bring this thread to the Top in the forum, I bet this is good for bASIC business.

Btw kano why not you rebel on the other topic derailments so far?

[Syke]

If you must write it off over e.g. three years, linearly for simplicity, you can add 27.78 USD to the monthly operating costs for a $1000 miner.  I have re-done your calculations below assuming three years useful life

I think a three-year lifespan for this first generation of ASICs is way too long. I would count on 1 year on average, 2 years at the longest.

[PuertoLibre]

No, just your assumptions on difficulty. I don't expect any of these 60 GH range ASIC products to make even $1000 in 2013 alone. By design, difficulty will always bring the cost-to-mine very close to power costs. When it catches up, power costs will be all that matters. Until then, delivery dates before it adjusts are the key importance.

Agreed.

The people who have the view that the power doesn't matter only have it because they have high profitability expectations.  The people saying that power is all that matters are expecting very long payoff horizons due to difficulty increases.  I think the latter view is safer and also more correct, especially if you're not counting on being very early in your deployment.

Which I think results is another interesting bit to take away from the discussion:   BFL is apparently not expecting their customers purchases to pay for themselves for quite a long time.   This is fine by me, as it's also what I expect— and I mine for fun and to support Bitcoin, and not because I'm expecting to make a a lot of funds doing it... but if you were thinking otherwise you might want to carefully review your expectations.

Of course, at the moment— there is still the potential of getting ASIC based miners before they are widely deployed and the difficulty catches up, so thats a competitive factor thats hard to reason about.  Though you can probably count on it not happening for you if you're last on a long preorder backlog…

+1

I agree with this. Seems they (BFL) don't expect the payoff to be very sudden.

I just wonder what the PR jackknife will be like if the difficulty suddenly skyrockets on a mere 60GH rig. The electricity argument them becomes very valid in the immediate future rather than in the further future.

The ultimate question is whether people will make their deadlines or not. I am thinking...not.

[PuertoLibre]

No, just your assumptions on difficulty. I don't expect any of these 60 GH range ASIC products to make even $1000 in 2013 alone. By design, difficulty will always bring the cost-to-mine very close to power costs. When it catches up, power costs will be all that matters. Until then, delivery dates before it adjusts are the key importance.

Agreed.

The people who have the view that the power doesn't matter only have it because they have high profitability expectations.  The people saying that power is all that matters are expecting very long payoff horizons due to difficulty increases.  I think the latter view is safer and also more correct, especially if you're not counting on being very early in your deployment.

Which I think results is another interesting bit to take away from the discussion:   BFL is apparently not expecting their customers purchases to pay for themselves for quite a long time.   This is fine by me, as it's also what I expect— an I mine for fun and to support Bitcoin... but if you were thinking otherwise you might want to carefully review your expectations.

Although I generally try to take a conservative approach, in this particular case I would tend more towards the former idea: that power is not likely to play a significant role immediately (or more accurately, it is only PART of the equation). Rather, it is the ROI - Return On Investment - that matters. ROI takes into account both net income (from mining) and expenses (capital cost and running cost).

Consider this: I a purchased a mining device 6 months ago for $600 that generates $3/day and costs $0.25/day to operate. Assuming these numbers don't change over time, I can expect an ROI of about 220 days. Not bad.

Now consider a hypothetical device identical to the one above, except that it uses TWICE the power. Thus costing me $0.50/day to operate. Now instead of an ROI of 220 days I can expect an ROI of 240 days. A 10% increase. Is this significant? I would argue that it is not; there is little difference between 220 days and 240 days. Both are equally reasonable.

Let's take this further: if my running costs (electricity) ever became a SIGNIFICANT percentage of the mining income, I would stop mining altogether. I imagine many other miners would as well. For instance, back to my original device making $3/day and costing $0.25/day to operate : if difficulty went up so high to reduce my mining income to, say, $1/day, I would be unlikely to purchase another one. The ROI at that point would become too long (800 days) and it would not be worth buying such a device. Especially in an unstable and risky ecosystem as bitcoin.

So I don't believe that difficulty will ever rise to a level where running costs become a very significant percentage of the gross income; the ROI would simply become too long and many people would stop mining (or, perhaps more pragmatically, people would become increasingly unlikely to invest in new mining hardware, thus capping difficulty).

In this case, the first ASIC manufacturer to diversify into different cyrptocurrencies would have the edge in second and third gen mining devices.

[Syke]

I just wonder what the PR jackknife will be like if the difficulty suddenly skyrockets on a mere 60GH rig. The electricity argument them becomes very valid in the immediate future rather than in the further future.

The current network is rougly 350 60GH rigs. For the energy costs to skyrocket, we'd have to see 35,000 new 60GH rigs come online! That ain't gonna happen in the immediate future. Energy costs are a distant 3rd priority, behind date of mining start and initial costs. By the time it does matter, next generation ASICs will take over.

[Graet]

Wow, what a mess.

Tom,

I suggest starting a new thread for your product. Maybe you can just condense the info here into an initial starting post and go from there.

Unfortunately this derailment overshadows your great product and customer service.

bASIC will ship as soon as possible, some of us will be working directly to make that happen.

As many here have stated, power is bullshet when it comes to ASIC. Josh is accurate in stating power efficiency in absolute terms allows a device to remain "competitive" longer. Now as Josh stated earlier though, what is "competitive" ? Making $10 more per month in 3 years ?

Any sound economic analysis shows that capital cost is the most important factor in these devices. You can't just isolate marginal profitability years down the road as a determining factor. No reasonable business person would base a decision on that principle.

Tom, just focus on your product and customers.

+1 to this as well, too hard finding real info when all the other stuff is going on
maybe even post important info in a new threads then lock it until more info is available and do an update - might solve some of the "same question asked every page coz I cbf looking back one page to see if it has already been answered" ppl too

seems there are concerted efforts to bury useful info in this thread

Good luck getting info out to those of us interested
pointless asking the tards to take the crap elsewhere - it just makes them worse - evidence of this all over the forum
good luck
Graet

[PuertoLibre]

I can't believe BFL's numbers at all if they're not on a substantially more efficient process than 130nm.

Would they be believable on a 65nm process?

[gmaxwell]

The current network is rougly 350 60GH rigs. For the energy costs to skyrocket, we'd have to see 35,000 new 60GH rigs come online! That ain't gonna happen in the immediate future. Energy costs are a distant 3rd priority, behind date of mining start and initial costs. By the time it does matter, next generation ASICs will take over.

Wha?   The halfing will double energy costs, and there is 48TH in the BFL waitlist thread made public (actual orders are probably much greater)— I understand there will be 1000 bASIC units made, so thats another 54TH, and then another 20 from avalon. So thats 122TH. Plus whatever deepbit and the other efforts do.

Just from the numbers there and the halving you have a 12x increase in power usage per unit reward— 10x if all the existing hashpower turns off as a result of the increases, and I think its not unrealistic to call that a conservative lower bound. And this should all happen in the next couple months? Thats not skyrocketing enough for you?  It will rescale the difficulty charts so significantly that the introduction of gpus will be nearly invisible on them.

[f41lover]

Now that BFL has released pictures of their Single SC ASIC, Tom should keep pace and show us something, it's been a while since last announcement.
Anyways, keep up the good stuff guys! You Rock!