ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[velacreations]

so most if not all blades are going to be sold and franchised.

We are in ASIC bubble (which isnt sustainable) and people today are much more aware of the risks and implications of buying ASIC miners. 

I think that time of hysterical buys of overpriced hardware is over. why would anyone spend and risk their bitcoins to buy asic miner?

well, they are currently selling just fine, and if prices continue to decrease as time goes on, people will continue to buy.

People still need hardware, and right now, you can wait or buy from AM.  People are choosing to buy from AM.

[velacreations]

Was this supposed to be the answer? I wanted to know how far the design is, possibly projected energy usage, hashing power per Watt and chip, if similar delays as with gen1 can be expected or if it will go smooth and so on, not something like: we haven't yet decided on the order size, that's it.

he's not going to release specs of Gen2 hardware before they are ready to sell.

[Franktank]

Custom Cooling Systems
We have been finalizing on our HK datacenter with our professional partner on immersion cooling. This product will be of interest both miners, and other industries that require cooling of similar hardware. Our cooling system partner built it as an exhibition house where everything is clean and shiny for investors/buyers to visit and for ASICMINER to make videos as a demonstration.

This is the most interesting part of the news. Their first datacenter is in Shenzen, curious about the capacity of this second data center. The immersion cooling news means they are expanding beyond just Bitcoin mining and hardware sales.

[BitCsByBit]

Friedcat: Could you please specify where in the production cycle you are with the Gen2 hardware and what your current time projections are?

• The size of the Gen2 order will be decided as appropriate, according to the
network difficulty when it is time to finalize the order size

Was this supposed to be the answer? I wanted to know how far the design is, possibly projected energy usage, hashing power per Watt and chip, if similar delays as with gen1 can be expected or if it will go smooth and so on, not something like: we haven't yet decided on the order size, that's it.

Why didn't you ask that?

All I read was a question about the production cycle and time projections, and they are not being produced and the order size has not yet been finalised. Huh.

[wtfvanity]

Friedcat: Could you please specify where in the production cycle you are with the Gen2 hardware and what your current time projections are?

• The size of the Gen2 order will be decided as appropriate, according to the
network difficulty when it is time to finalize the order size

Was this supposed to be the answer? I wanted to know how far the design is, possibly projected energy usage, hashing power per Watt and chip, if similar delays as with gen1 can be expected or if it will go smooth and so on, not something like: we haven't yet decided on the order size, that's it.

Why didn't you ask that?

All I read was a question about the production cycle and time projections, and they are not being produced and the order size has not yet been finalised. Huh.

It sounds to me, like they haven't even pushed the gen2 design to fab yet. Sounds like AM is being stomped by bitfury, knc, cointerra, who else? They probably were about to push out a new design around what, 45-65 dies and then realized their head is about to be crunched by 22 dies and had to make a change.

AM defined BTC ASIC's, however, unless their power is very cheap and they get to the market quickly, the are about to become meaningless.

At least IMO anyway

[binaryFate]

I totally share Strange Vlad's feeling:
Many of you seem to believe that thiner chips instantly make the previous ones obsolete. But from a miner point of view, the equation is simple: see what you can get for which price, see how much it will consume of electricity, and see how much it will earn you in bitcoins. Looking at products with this in mind, 130nm will remain a relevant choice for many more months. I am sure AM pricing policy will constantly remind that to everybody.
When FC says "gen2 will come in time", you are wrong to think it is a way to admit they are late. It simply means "at the most appropriate time". You should really wonder why AM does not agree with you as to what is the most appropriate time...

I also share Franktank's positive view of two aspects:
1) The cooling system. Nobody saw that coming! It may sound a bit of a detail, but for me it's not: if you manage a farm of 100TH/s, that can make a huge difference in terms of electricity/maintenance. Plus, this is going slightly further bitcoin mining alone. Isn't that what many had advise AM to do?
2) The HK data center. AM is moving toward more decentralization (for the farm it manages itself). They spoke about moving partially to HK, now it becomes reality and this is very good news also for resilience to legislation matters.

[freedomno1]

Custom Cooling Systems
We have been finalizing on our HK datacenter with our professional partner on immersion cooling. This product will be of interest both miners, and other industries that require cooling of similar hardware. Our cooling system partner built it as an exhibition house where everything is clean and shiny for investors/buyers to visit and for ASICMINER to make videos as a demonstration.

This is the most interesting part of the news. Their first datacenter is in Shenzen, curious about the capacity of this second data center. The immersion cooling news means they are expanding beyond just Bitcoin mining and hardware sales.

I have a hunch on what system they are using but it is interesting news

[tarmi]

so most if not all blades are going to be sold and franchised.

We are in ASIC bubble (which isnt sustainable) and people today are much more aware of the risks and implications of buying ASIC miners.  

I think that time of hysterical buys of overpriced hardware is over. why would anyone spend and risk their bitcoins to buy asic miner?

That's a problem mostly for sellers/retailers and for particular miners.

Most of the new players have not amortised their original investment yet. Be it time or money. They will have to face higher pressure than those who already have their infrastructure in place and have been long running on profit.

new players (bitfury) are already hashing for months with their gear, they are deploying 8 x ASICminer hashrate, and are selling chips for premium prices.

I would say its quite the opposite: ASICminer is facing higher pressure now then 6 months ago.

  

[bbxx]

Custom Cooling Systems
We have been finalizing on our HK datacenter with our professional partner on immersion cooling. This product will be of interest both miners, and other industries that require cooling of similar hardware. Our cooling system partner built it as an exhibition house where everything is clean and shiny for investors/buyers to visit and for ASICMINER to make videos as a demonstration.

This is the most interesting part of the news. Their first datacenter is in Shenzen, curious about the capacity of this second data center. The immersion cooling news means they are expanding beyond just Bitcoin mining and hardware sales.

I have a hunch on what system they are using but it is interesting news

I hope that friedcat will do and sell this extremly overpriced Novec 7000 cheap
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255613.0;all

[Vycid]

I totally share Strange Vlad's feeling:
Many of you seem to believe that thiner chips instantly make the previous ones obsolete. But from a miner point of view, the equation is simple: see what you can get for which price, see how much it will consume of electricity, and see how much it will earn you in bitcoins. Looking at products with this in mind, 130nm will remain a relevant choice for many more months. I am sure AM pricing policy will constantly remind that to everybody.
When FC says "gen2 will come in time", you are wrong to think it is a way to admit they are late. It simply means "at the most appropriate time". You should really wonder why AM does not agree with you as to what is the most appropriate time...

First - the process size (130nm, 55/45nm, 28nm, etc) has nothing to do with the chip thickness.  That is determined by the thickness of the wafer, which is 400-800 microns thick (it's actually usually more for smaller process nodes, since 300mm wafers are used and those have to be thicker to keep the wafer from flexing/shattering).

The process size instead refers to the standard half-pitch of a memory cell. That doesn't really apply to a SHA256 ASIC, but it is a measure of how small the process can reliably make things. A die shrink (logic's 32nm -> 22nm for example) typically doubles the amount of standard cells that can fit on a die of fixed size. For SHA256 applications, this means precisely double the speed (and probably less power use per GH). Since the assembly is a major part of the costs,  and you can get twice as much out of one chip, you've basically halved your costs per GH, AND made it easier to deploy a large amount of hashpower.

So that's 32->22, one 2x shrink. For 130-> 28 we expect approximately 21.5x performance (feel free to check my math). Probably more, since professionals will be doing the 28 designs and FC's 130 design was basically a hobby project.

The process node matters. Intel's whole business model has relied for decades on staying a process node ahead of their competitors. Seems to be working.

“Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing”
― Warren Buffett

[kjj]

The process size instead refers to the standard half-pitch of a memory cell. That doesn't really apply to a SHA256 ASIC, but it is a measure of how small the process can reliably make things.

This is typically called the "minimum feature size".  It has a bunch of other names too, like "critical dimension", etc, but I feel that "feature size" gives the best immediate understanding.

[romerun]

mean while, cointerra have just got FPGA working, is it good or bad news

[Gomeler]

Interesting regarding the franchising. I hope more information comes out as I have ~60 kW of electrical capacity sitting idle due to increasing difficulty making any ASIC purchases a risky gamble. Winter is coming and while $0.076/kWhr might not be the most competitive, I'm sure it'll be competitive for a few months.

[ianp]

Interesting regarding the franchising. I hope more information comes out as I have ~60 kW of electrical capacity sitting idle due to increasing difficulty making any ASIC purchases a risky gamble. Winter is coming and while $0.076/kWhr might not be the most competitive, I'm sure it'll be competitive for a few months.

Any idea what rates are around the world?

I pay about 0.045/kWhr.

[Vycid]

Interesting regarding the franchising. I hope more information comes out as I have ~60 kW of electrical capacity sitting idle due to increasing difficulty making any ASIC purchases a risky gamble. Winter is coming and while $0.076/kWhr might not be the most competitive, I'm sure it'll be competitive for a few months.

Any idea what rates are around the world?

I pay about 0.045/kWhr.

~ $0.07/kWh in Guangdong (Shenzen - AM is here).

~ $0.01/kWh in parts of Central Washington (state) and Siberia.

~ $0.15/kWh in California (for businesses).

The electricity cost is going to be much a factor in the long haul as the chips are. We will definitely see a migration of old hardware to super-cheap electricity regions. If I was starting a company, it'd be to do just that - buy obsoleted hardware and move it to super-cheap locations.

[SebastianJu]

I checked europe when i still thought i would get a reasonable amount of profitable avalon asic chips and found that in europe bulgaria has the best rates with 9Euro Cents.

[ianp]

Interesting regarding the franchising. I hope more information comes out as I have ~60 kW of electrical capacity sitting idle due to increasing difficulty making any ASIC purchases a risky gamble. Winter is coming and while $0.076/kWhr might not be the most competitive, I'm sure it'll be competitive for a few months.

Any idea what rates are around the world?

I pay about 0.045/kWhr.

~ $0.07/kWh in Guangdong (Shenzen - AM is here).

~ $0.01/kWh in parts of Central Washington (state) and Siberia.

~ $0.15/kWh in California (for businesses).

The electricity cost is going to be much a factor in the long haul as the chips are. We will definitely see a migration of old hardware to super-cheap electricity regions. If I was starting a company, it'd be to do just that - buy obsoleted hardware and move it to super-cheap locations.

Wow -- I thought we had it cheap in Oklahoma at $0.045/kWhr during non-summer months.

Thanks for the info.

[Gomeler]

Interesting regarding the franchising. I hope more information comes out as I have ~60 kW of electrical capacity sitting idle due to increasing difficulty making any ASIC purchases a risky gamble. Winter is coming and while $0.076/kWhr might not be the most competitive, I'm sure it'll be competitive for a few months.

Any idea what rates are around the world?

I pay about 0.045/kWhr.

Vycid has it correct. This is an interesting link for a rough comparison -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing. In the US, I believe the average is around $0.09-0.11/kWhr with some exceptions(California, extremely high, Pacific Northwest, extremely low).

I'm on an industrial plan, if I can franchise I need to talk with Excel about the ability to drop my kWhr rate even further.

[romerun]

The future of asic mining is selling hardware, including cooling system, backplane, maybe a diesel generator, solar cell, phone miner, anything relating to mining. Ltc / xmp asic ,may come in a few years, we might even see a personal nuclear powerplant selling in btcguild. So the income is not limited to  btc left to be mined.

[Strange Vlad]

We pay here about $0.01/kWh, but that's for private homes.  Companies pay less, about $0.005/kWh, depending on their volume, voltage and location.  And the big loyal-to-government companies get it for $0.001/kWh in some cases, because government kinda "supports" them, LOL.  Stupid socialists.

It's not Siberia though, only 500 km to the east from Moscow.
But it also varies from region to region, I just happen to live 30 km from a hydroelectric plant.  I heard in other regions prices are significantly different.  For example, some southern regions (Dagestan, Chechnya) get some "special" government support, so people there get $0.003-0.005/kWh for private homes and even less for companies.

Hope it's useful.