ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[LazyOtto]

eh?

Last I looked shares were going for about 0.11btc each on the market.

If you want to buy mine for 1 BTC per share, please send a PM.

[1713566580]

1713566580

[1713566580]

1713566580

[1713566580]

1713566580

[imsaguy]

eh?

Last I looked shares were going for about 0.11btc each on the market.

If you want to buy mine for 1 BTC per share, please send a PM.

lulz

[Jutarul]

Is it still possible to buy shares for 1BTC from the securityowner? Maybe with the stated plus of 5%? And how long before the start of hashing, so start of paying dividends, buying of shares for 1BTC will be possible? I know there are offers at the market but they are all higher.

The IPO is officially closed. However, if you seriously consider becoming a board member by going through the bulk purchase option, please contact friedcat. There is still a pile of shares which didn't get sold. However, using those may require the approval of the existing board members, since it effectively dilutes the existing shares. (currently a share is worth more than 1/200,000, because not all shares were sold).

ADDENDUM: the current traded quantity can be observed through: https://glbse.com/api/quantity_trading/ASICMINER
(which is 154262 at the time of writing)

[midnightmagic]

Problem: private hoarding of 12TH initially and keeping the technology to yourself creates an opportunity to screw with the bitcoin blockchain. How do you intend to deal with the consequences of hashrate concentration in terms of public trust, and why do you think this is a good idea except in terms of pure profit? Why do you say this is good for Bitcoin, when you are coming dangerously close to achieving 51% truly concentrated hashrate? (Or potentially far more than that?)

Everyone mining with GPU, or FPGA right now can change the way they mine: what happens if you suddenly started mining with 44% of the entire network, and the rest of the network decided to shut you out? Say you overwhelm the potential majority vote against you with an additional reserve of hashrate: well, either way, where's the public trust? And what happens if your ASIC suddenly become useless? You are taking an enormous gamble with a lot of peoples' money by essentially hoping you're going to slip under the radar: you took the greedy route. What happens when someone gets greedy? Everybody else claws them back if they can.

As Tycho began approaching the halfway mark, there was concern: however, that was mitigated by the fact that all his miners could simply shut off or go somewhere else if it became clear that he was being naughty. In your case, this is not so. Two or three colluding people, or maybe just one, are sitting on a claimed 12TH and can easily decide to do all kinds of interesting things. Sure, it'd be obvious you're doing it, but the entire point is that people value Bitcoin for the trust in its distributed nature. Many people envisioned an inevitable distant future of participatory datacentres. You are forcing this centralization early but only by becoming it. Why do you think the results won't be a clusterf*ck for your investors?

What you're doing is asking us to trust you as people: but the nature of bitcoin is that trust is disincentivized! And better, trust is not necessary.

NOTE: I ask this as a potential investor looking into GLBSE offerings that I haven't yet. I didn't really know you guys existed.

[DutchBrat]

Problem: private hoarding of 12TH initially and keeping the technology to yourself creates an opportunity to screw with the bitcoin blockchain. How do you intend to deal with the consequences of hashrate concentration in terms of public trust, and why do you think this is a good idea except in terms of pure profit? Why do you say this is good for Bitcoin, when you are coming dangerously close to achieving 51% truly concentrated hashrate? (Or potentially far more than that?)

Everyone mining with GPU, or FPGA right now can change the way they mine: what happens if you suddenly started mining with 44% of the entire network, and the rest of the network decided to shut you out? Say you overwhelm the potential majority vote against you with an additional reserve of hashrate: well, either way, where's the public trust? And what happens if your ASIC suddenly become useless? You are taking an enormous gamble with a lot of peoples' money by essentially hoping you're going to slip under the radar: you took the greedy route. What happens when someone gets greedy? Everybody else claws them back if they can.

As Tycho began approaching the halfway mark, there was concern: however, that was mitigated by the fact that all his miners could simply shut off or go somewhere else if it became clear that he was being naughty. In your case, this is not so. Two or three colluding people, or maybe just one, are sitting on a claimed 12TH and can easily decide to do all kinds of interesting things. Sure, it'd be obvious you're doing it, but the entire point is that people value Bitcoin for the trust in its distributed nature. Many people envisioned an inevitable distant future of participatory datacentres. You are forcing this centralization early but only by becoming it. Why do you think the results won't be a clusterf*ck for your investors?

What you're doing is asking us to trust you as people: but the nature of bitcoin is that trust is disincentivized! And better, trust is not necessary.

NOTE: I ask this as a potential investor looking into GLBSE offerings that I haven't yet. I didn't really know you guys existed.

I think you missed an important part while reading the IPO-OP !

ASICMINER will start mining with 12Th - 16TH (currently the network is over 18 TH and rising, so I doubt by the end of October ASICMINER will have even close to 40%),depending on how the ASICs turn out. Friedcat has already stated that they will probably split the hashing power over a number of pools ! Thereby ensuring that there will be no (perceived) threat to the network. Mining will ensure that investors get their money back (hopefully) and profits go towards phase 2 of the plan:

selling of ASICs, where additional  profits will come from (again:hopefully)

I think all in all it is a well thought out plan with a minimal threat to the network or Bitcoin.... nothing to worry about if it is executed as suggested 

[Jutarul]

Problem: private hoarding of 12TH initially and keeping the technology to yourself creates an opportunity to screw with the bitcoin blockchain.

define screw. The incentive structure for the blockchain hashing actually favors benevolent behavior.

How do you intend to deal with the consequences of hashrate concentration in terms of public trust, and why do you think this is a good idea except in terms of pure profit?

It's a good idea because with having a local mining operation you can study and optimize design parameters for the chips more efficiently. Also gives you an estimate on the overall quality of the chips (spread of hashing power, rate of dead chips, etc..)

Why do you say this is good for Bitcoin, when you are coming dangerously close to achieving 51% truly concentrated hashrate? (Or potentially far more than that?)

Please explain why ASICminer would want to have 51% in the first place. The business model of the company is selling of hardware, not mining. Initial mining for profit is just a bootstrap strategy - and a sound one.

What you're doing is asking us to trust you as people: but the nature of bitcoin is that trust is disincentivized! And better, trust is not necessary.

The bitcoin network is based on competition to remove the necessity for trust. If you feel that we need a few more players in the market for ASIC mining chip production to make sure that ASICminer doesn't become too powerful, please initiate the necessary steps. All you need is a bit of funding, a few brilliant minds and the right infrastructure.

[Luke-Jr]

Friedcat has already stated that they will probably split the hashing power over a number of pools ! Thereby ensuring that there will be no (perceived) threat to the network.

Centralized pooled mining is incompatible with ASICs, and decentralized pooled mining ultimately moves control of blocks back to the miner - that is, ASICMINING alone controls the full 12-16 TH/s. Spreading it over decentralized pools (of which there are only 3-4 right now) doesn't change that.

Mining will ensure that investors get their money back (hopefully) and profits go towards phase 2 of the plan:

Mining will yield ZERO income if the Bitcoin community decides ASICMINING is a threat and changes the hashing algorithm so our ASICs don't mine valid blocks.

As a shareholder in ASICMINING, this risk concerns me. I also don't think the mining income from hoarding the first batch would offset the potential income from selling them immediately to the highest bidders (especially since they will no doubt require software development and burn-in testing, which would obviously be mining Bitcoins).

I'd like to hear Friedcat's thoughts on all this.

[Jutarul]

Friedcat has already stated that they will probably split the hashing power over a number of pools ! Thereby ensuring that there will be no (perceived) threat to the network.

Centralized pooled mining is incompatible with ASICs, and decentralized pooled mining ultimately moves control of blocks back to the miner - that is, ASICMINING alone controls the full 12-16 TH/s. Spreading it over decentralized pools (of which there are only 3-4 right now) doesn't change that.

Sorry - you lost me there - completely. Why should ASIC be incompatible with pooled mining?

[midnightmagic]

Problem: private hoarding of 12TH initially and keeping the technology to yourself creates an opportunity to screw with the bitcoin blockchain.

define screw. The incentive structure for the blockchain hashing actually favors benevolent behavior.

It favours it except when it doesn't. Large hashrate means you can with greater chance of success attempt double-spends; deny fair block generation; exert disproportionate power over tx fee rates and tx inclusion; look all this stuff is academic. These are known attacks, known issues with centralized hashrate. They've been hashed and rehashed for > 2 years and more now.

How do you intend to deal with the consequences of hashrate concentration in terms of public trust, and why do you think this is a good idea except in terms of pure profit?

It's a good idea because with having a local mining operation you can study and optimize design parameters for the chips more efficiently. Also gives you an estimate on the overall quality of the chips (spread of hashing power, rate of dead chips, etc..)

What difference does it make whether this is done on a smaller scale or a 12TH scale? It buys "us" nothing to promote local mining. In fact, it hurts the bottom line, since now the chipmaker (who has a significant advantage due to control of supply) is mining in direct "competition" with its own future customers!! How does that help the bottom line? Who's going to buy from a chipmaker who is going to use the profits to fab more chips, more cheaply, and reduce customer share of the hashrate overall?

Why do you say this is good for Bitcoin, when you are coming dangerously close to achieving 51% truly concentrated hashrate? (Or potentially far more than that?)

Please explain why ASICminer would want to have 51% in the first place. The business model of the company is selling of hardware, not mining. Initial mining for profit is just a bootstrap strategy - and a sound one.

The nature of self-mining is cannibalizing its own market. I hate to say it, but BFL's self-mining stance is correct. You sell the shovels: you don't stake out the best plots and then sell shovels at an enormous profit margin to people who mine the dregs around you.

So, as I explained above, no, it's not a sound one, because you're competing with your own customers. All else being equal, why would I (as a potential future miner customer) buy from you guys when I know my dollars are going to be put towards your own internal mining pool? Answer: I wouldn't. The incentive is thus for "you" to maximize internal profit through further centralization. It's an incentivized feedback loop!

What you're doing is asking us to trust you as people: but the nature of bitcoin is that trust is disincentivized! And better, trust is not necessary.

The bitcoin network is based on competition to remove the necessity for trust. If you feel that we need a few more players in the market for ASIC mining chip production to make sure that ASICminer doesn't become too powerful, please initiate the necessary steps. All you need is a bit of funding, a few brilliant minds and the right infrastructure.

No, not more players. More distributed mining, in the hands of normal people. Not only is it potentially much, much more efficient (as individuals who are mining for themselves don't have to be paid) but it's much, much safer to have to convince a thousand people to move in a nefarious direction than it is just 4-5 (you guys and then one or two other people.)

Everything is an excellent plan except the hoarded hashrate. It just doesn't make any sense: it's self-destructive and short-term.

[Luke-Jr]

Friedcat has already stated that they will probably split the hashing power over a number of pools ! Thereby ensuring that there will be no (perceived) threat to the network.

Centralized pooled mining is incompatible with ASICs, and decentralized pooled mining ultimately moves control of blocks back to the miner - that is, ASICMINING alone controls the full 12-16 TH/s. Spreading it over decentralized pools (of which there are only 3-4 right now) doesn't change that.

Sorry - you lost me there - completely. Why should ASIC be incompatible with pooled mining?

Not pooled mining in general, just centralized pooled mining where the pool is providing you with blind work. A standard getwork request can only sustain 4 GH. With rollntime, that becomes 4 GH/s. ASICs can easily do huge speeds of TH/s, and keeping getworks going fast enough to sustain them can be very troublesome.

Decentralized mining allows miners to cooperate in a pool while still making their own blocks. Once a minute or two (and on new network blocks aka longpolls), the miner will get a new set of rules for valid shares, and then make as many blocks as they need/want for shares. Eligius supports this with the BIP 22 and BIP 23 standards; P2Pool and BitPenny use their own proprietary protocols. I expect we'll see more pools upgrade as we get closer to ASICs becoming a consumer reality (of the open source poolserver software, Eloipool only just finished basic BIP 22/23 support yesterday, and ecoinpool has it planned).

[midnightmagic]

Friedcat has already stated that they will probably split the hashing power over a number of pools ! Thereby ensuring that there will be no (perceived) threat to the network.

Centralized pooled mining is incompatible with ASICs, and decentralized pooled mining ultimately moves control of blocks back to the miner - that is, ASICMINING alone controls the full 12-16 TH/s. Spreading it over decentralized pools (of which there are only 3-4 right now) doesn't change that.

Sorry - you lost me there - completely. Why should ASIC be incompatible with pooled mining?

That's precisely the self-destructiveness I'm talking about: the "perceived" threat? You are already aware of the destructiveness and bad reputational damage that a single source of 12TH of mining would be, otherwise you wouldn't feel the need to hide your hashrate amongst multiple pools.

Or, say you just misinterpreted what he's doing. Say he really does think splitting up mining hashrate will alleviate the dangers of centralization. In that case, two (or one) people sit down, think a moment, and could one day decide to attempt a double-spend, or a DoS via tx block flooding, or or or. And all you do is redirect your miners to a hacked bitcoind. So that's one person. This will hurt Bitcoin value a lot, which I think is acknowledged in the prediction of a possible future where Bitcoins drop in value as a result of ASICMINER's activities.

[DiabloD3]

Not pooled mining in general, just centralized pooled mining where the pool is providing you with blind work. A standard getwork request can only sustain 4 GH. With rollntime, that becomes 4 GH/s. ASICs can easily do huge speeds of TH/s, and keeping getworks going fast enough to sustain them can be very troublesome.

Except thats bullshit. Miners like DiabloMiner use 3 works concurrently per GPU. There is no reason to think you cannot do the same per ASIC.

[Luke-Jr]

Not pooled mining in general, just centralized pooled mining where the pool is providing you with blind work. A standard getwork request can only sustain 4 GH. With rollntime, that becomes 4 GH/s. ASICs can easily do huge speeds of TH/s, and keeping getworks going fast enough to sustain them can be very troublesome.

Except thats bullshit. Miners like DiabloMiner use 3 works concurrently per GPU. There is no reason to think you cannot do the same per ASIC.

Even if DiabloMiner is so inefficient that it uses 12 GH/s worth of work per GPU, it's still a far cry from the hashrates ASICs really do perform.

[DutchBrat]

Friedcat has already stated that they will probably split the hashing power over a number of pools ! Thereby ensuring that there will be no (perceived) threat to the network.

Centralized pooled mining is incompatible with ASICs, and decentralized pooled mining ultimately moves control of blocks back to the miner - that is, ASICMINING alone controls the full 12-16 TH/s. Spreading it over decentralized pools (of which there are only 3-4 right now) doesn't change that.

Sorry - you lost me there - completely. Why should ASIC be incompatible with pooled mining?

That's precisely the self-destructiveness I'm talking about: the "perceived" threat? You are already aware of the destructiveness and bad reputational damage that a single source of 12TH of mining would be, otherwise you wouldn't feel the need to hide your hashrate amongst multiple pools.

Or, say you just misinterpreted what he's doing. Say he really does think splitting up mining hashrate will alleviate the dangers of centralization. In that case, two (or one) people sit down, think a moment, and could one day decide to attempt a double-spend, or a DoS via tx block flooding, or or or. And all you do is redirect your miners to a hacked bitcoind. So that's one person. This will hurt Bitcoin value a lot, which I think is acknowledged in the prediction of a possible future where Bitcoins drop in value as a result of ASICMINER's activities.

If 1 not before seen IP starts hashing away at 40% of the network speed people are going to worry... If however all pools still have the same proportional hashrate then what is there to worry about ? Or who will know this comes from 1 farm ?

But yes, If Graet (nothing personal   ) thinks up an elaborate scheme, hacks his bitcoind, DDOSes all other pools and ASICMINER points all its hashing power to OzCoin, then we have a problem... but what is keeping Graet from doing the same now ? (or do I misunderstand you?)

To alleviate your concerns about cannibalizing your own customers, here's a quote from Friedcat on expanding ASICMINERs mining operation

An additional question: Why does the company not want to or sees it feasible to expand beyond 50TH/s for their own mining farm ?

Is that an 'effort' / location constraint ?

Thanks

It may be feasible, but there are some more facts to consider:

1. When we begin to sell products to customers, limitlessly expansion will harm the buyers' motivation, hence the revenue via selling.
2. If may be better to keep the revenue for R&D of the next-generation of products than expand too much with the original technology, especially that we want to stay in the mining ASIC industry and help securing the network in the long run.

Edit: I think it might be a good idea if Friedcat addressed these concerns, as someone said earlier in the thread

[midnightmagic]

If 1 not before seen IP starts hashing away at 40% of the network speed people are going to worry... If however all pools still have the same proportional hashrate then what is there to worry about ? Or who will know this comes from 1 farm ?

What strange world it would be where people can more easily see blocks broadcast from a single IP than read this thread, or listen to what I and now everyone else reading this who doesn't have a vested interest in seeing ASICMINER succeed are going to tell people. :-) Where does most of the core technical information get disseminated from? IRC, currently. And where do normal people get their information from? The technical people. Unless ASICMINER suddenly starts operating completely in secret, why and how would you hide your activities considering the GLBSE stock prices are directly tied to public information?

All this together means that spreading out your hashrate to other pools is basically pointless. Difficulty will increase, people will wonder why, and everyone who knows ASICMINER's schedules is going to tell them, "Oh, that extra 12TH is ASICMINER." There is no hiding in multiple pools. It's an illusion, and will be 99% transparent.

But yes, If Graet (nothing personal  ) thinks up an elaborate scheme, hacks his bitcoind, DDOSes all other pools and ASICMINER points all its hashing power to OzCoin, then we have a problem... but what is keeping Graet from doing the same now ? (or do I misunderstand you?)

DDoS not required. What's keeping graet from doing it now? Absolutely nothing, he already has the IPO money now, doesn't he?

To alleviate your concerns about cannibalizing your own customers, here's a quote from Friedcat on expanding ASICMINERs mining operation

An additional question: Why does the company not want to or sees it feasible to expand beyond 50TH/s for their own mining farm ?

Is that an 'effort' / location constraint ?

Thanks

It may be feasible, but there are some more facts to consider:

1. When we begin to sell products to customers, limitlessly expansion will harm the buyers' motivation, hence the revenue via selling.
2. If may be better to keep the revenue for R&D of the next-generation of products than expand too much with the original technology, especially that we want to stay in the mining ASIC industry and help securing the network in the long run.

This doesn't really alleviate my concern: this validates it. friedcat is already aware of this problem. What he's really saying here is, "We're only cannibalizing our customers a little bit."

So the money's already there: you're using the mining as a force-multiplier. It's, much as the order to sell the bitcoins, a gambling effort with an unknown payoff, and the gamble is with investors' money.

Perhaps someone thought that they couldn't get full NRE+R&D from just an IPO? In that case, why open it up to the public @ GLBSE at all? That's just greedy.

[Jutarul]

Not pooled mining in general, just centralized pooled mining where the pool is providing you with blind work. A standard getwork request can only sustain 4 GH. With rollntime, that becomes 4 GH/s. ASICs can easily do huge speeds of TH/s, and keeping getworks going fast enough to sustain them can be very troublesome.

Except thats bullshit. Miners like DiabloMiner use 3 works concurrently per GPU. There is no reason to think you cannot do the same per ASIC.

Even if DiabloMiner is so inefficient that it uses 12 GH/s worth of work per GPU, it's still a far cry from the hashrates ASICs really do perform.

If they haven't yet - the mining pools should introduce variable share difficulty. P2pool supports it. This way strong and weak miners can coexist peacefully.

[Jutarul]

Please explain why ASICminer would want to have 51% in the first place. The business model of the company is selling of hardware, not mining. Initial mining for profit is just a bootstrap strategy - and a sound one.

The nature of self-mining is cannibalizing its own market. I hate to say it, but BFL's self-mining stance is correct. You sell the shovels: you don't stake out the best plots and then sell shovels at an enormous profit margin to people who mine the dregs around you.

Yes and no. As pointed out by friedcat, the fair hardware price (and thus the incentive to buy) is dependent on the network hashrate. A big mining operation cuts into the hardware selling price, and is thus self-defeating. However, you have a warped perception of the process. ASICminer doesn't pick spots - it just participates in the digging, with no competitive advantage (because every chip not sold is an opportunity cost).

Everything is an excellent plan except the hoarded hashrate. It just doesn't make any sense: it's self-destructive and short-term.

As a matter of fact from the view of an individual miner it doesn't really matter whether the 12 TH comes from ASICminer or from it's privileged group of first customers.

No, not more players. More distributed mining, in the hands of normal people. Not only is it potentially much, much more efficient (as individuals who are mining for themselves don't have to be paid) but it's much, much safer to have to convince a thousand people to move in a nefarious direction than it is just 4-5 (you guys and then one or two other people.)

At least we agree on something. More distributed mining - that's the core of the ASICminer business. Provide a huge supply of affordable chips. But I got the feeling that you don't really understand where the network is going. Once the chips are rolling out we're heading towards PetaHash. Thus, 12 TH will be a small mining operation. A single household will be able to do up to 1 TH.

[friedcat]

According to the problem of centralization, we are going to make our investors break even very fast, and we also want to stay in the ASIC mining business for long. Therefore, we have the incentive of causing neither the short-term nor the long-term panic.

In addition, we believe that Bitcoin could only be destroyed from outside, that is, people or organizations taking opposed position against Bitcoin. If honest miners or mining device manufacturers will make the network un-secure, the concept of Bitcoin as a great currency won't be a sound one, and we wouldn't start Bitfountain in the first place.

[Luke-Jr]

Not pooled mining in general, just centralized pooled mining where the pool is providing you with blind work. A standard getwork request can only sustain 4 GH. With rollntime, that becomes 4 GH/s. ASICs can easily do huge speeds of TH/s, and keeping getworks going fast enough to sustain them can be very troublesome.

Except thats bullshit. Miners like DiabloMiner use 3 works concurrently per GPU. There is no reason to think you cannot do the same per ASIC.

Even if DiabloMiner is so inefficient that it uses 12 GH/s worth of work per GPU, it's still a far cry from the hashrates ASICs really do perform.

If they haven't yet - the mining pools should introduce variable share difficulty. P2pool supports it. This way strong and weak miners can coexist peacefully.

That only solves the share/result side of the problem. You still need to getwork for every 4 GH/s.

[SebastianJu]

Is it still possible to buy shares for 1BTC from the securityowner? Maybe with the stated plus of 5%? And how long before the start of hashing, so start of paying dividends, buying of shares for 1BTC will be possible? I know there are offers at the market but they are all higher.

The IPO is officially closed. However, if you seriously consider becoming a board member by going through the bulk purchase option, please contact friedcat. There is still a pile of shares which didn't get sold. However, using those may require the approval of the existing board members, since it effectively dilutes the existing shares. (currently a share is worth more than 1/200,000, because not all shares were sold).

ADDENDUM: the current traded quantity can be observed through: https://glbse.com/api/quantity_trading/ASICMINER
(which is 154262 at the time of writing)

Ok. But i think you misunderstood something. You say that the shares currently are more worth than 1/400,000. But the company started in fact with 400,000 shares. Which means only because the company didnt sell all the shares yet the remaining shares are still hold by the company itself. Which means the dividend for these unsold shares are going to the company. So there cant be a higher value for the already sold shares. Every share has the same value even when now the rest of the publically available shares would be sold. Only when the initially opened shared would be raised higher than 400,000 the sharevalue would go down. At least it would be strange if it would work other way.

I think its better to buy shortly before the asics go live. Even when the shareprice is higher then one could earn at other projects in the meanwhile. So i think i will wait a bit.

On the other hand... in reality its really hard to find a project that would be good to invest to. I realized that a real mining share will pay 1/10 less dividend each month. And the price of the share can even drop to half the value. So investing in miningprojects can lead easily to have less money at the end than before. And you still have to sell your shares to get your money back. That means pressing the price down. I think its really hard to find a project that is really worth to invest. The only one with stable shareprice and good return is a hyip most probably which means even higher risk. Its really hard to find something worth to invest.