ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[Digigami]

A rudimentary script to help you guys cheer on ASICMINER:

Thanks for this, although having an issue with it (and no, I don't know what I'm doing)

made file asic.rb and copy/pasted your script..

installed ruby (sudo apt-get install ruby)

chmod +x asic.rb

then ./asic.rb ; it's clearly running and using ~25% of my cpu, but just sits there with a blinking cursor.. what am I doing wrong if you don't mind helping out a newb

Hmm, not too sure.  I think it might be throwing an error every time before the "sleep 10" hits, so it just goes into an infinite loop.  In that case, it's most likely a problem with the network connection to btcguild... I'd have to know a few more details to help more.

edit: perhaps replace the rescue part?


    rescue Exception => e
        puts e.message
        puts "Backtrace:"
        puts e.backtrace.inspect
        next
    end

Thank you, that helped me get things figured out. I know very little programming, and knew absolutely nothing of ruby.

If you or anyone else is interested/having issues here's what I did

Replaced rescue with above code, which returned

Code:

Backtrace:
["asic.rb:24", "asic.rb:20:in `loop'", "asic.rb:20"]
undefined method `use_ssl=' for #<Net::HTTP www.btcguild.com:443 open=false>

Google helped me learn that I could fix that by adding amongst the other requires

Code:

require 'net/https'

Then I started seeing these

Code:

warning: peer certificate won't be verified in this SSL session

Google again led me to this solution, although it probably isn't the best, it does work. Added this after the requires

Code:

# hack to eliminate the SSL certificate verification notification
class Net::HTTP
  alias_method :old_initialize, :initialize
  def initialize(*args)
    old_initialize(*args)
    @ssl_context = OpenSSL::SSL::SSLContext.new
    @ssl_context.verify_mode = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE
  end
end

Now the script works as I believe it was intended. The only remaining issue is I can't gracefully stop it, CTL-C just causes it to have errors, but continues reporting the hashrate. I have to close the terminal to stop it. Otherwise, great stuff and thanks again! (and apologies to everyone for the longish/maybe OT post)

[keystroke]

Anyone notice https://www.btcguild.com/ is down? DOS attack?

[SebastianJu]

I hope friedcat is using a software where he established a secondary pool to target the hashingpower to. At the moment btcguild isnt available to me (timeout) so i hope the hashingpower isnt lost. I believe cgminer had such a feature. When a pool isnt answering then another pool is used.

[Jutarul]

Anyone notice https://www.btcguild.com/ is down? DOS attack?

[mc_lovin]

Wow that's news.  Hopefully they are using something like cgminer but a device so unique is probably not supported by cgminer--yet!

[LazyOtto]

Anyone notice https://www.btcguild.com/ is down? DOS attack?

Zero problems over the last couple hours from where I'm sitting / connecting.

-- edit --
via Stratum 

[eleuthria]

The BTC Guild website was being migrated off of the server.  The default page (www.btcguild.com) had a Migration in process notice, though other links would have been broken.  The only part offline other than the website was one of the getwork nodes [now also migrated].  Luckily, ASICMINER is using Stratum which kept chugging along just fine.

[DutchBrat]

Are there any ASICminer sightings on pool other than BTCGuild?

Zefir mentioned 0.5TH on OzCoin but I dont see them in the Hall of Fame page...

[LazyOtto]

Are there any ASICminer sightings on pool other than BTCGuild?

Zefir mentioned 0.5TH on OzCoin but I dont see them in the Hall of Fame page...

67117 is now over 3th on BTCGuild.

So it looks like the continuing initial deployment is still going there.

Which I have no problems with.

Other than the 3% 'lossage'. 

[zefir]

Are there any ASICminer sightings on pool other than BTCGuild?

Zefir mentioned 0.5TH on OzCoin but I dont see them in the Hall of Fame page...

Just speculating   I am tracking the top-20 at ozcoin since I got recently kicked out from by the new big players. Over the past days I noticed some 0.4-0.7TH miner popping there up now and then that was not one of the 'usual suspects'.

Right now this big one got split into 0.2 + 2 * 0.12 TH. So either someone is testing different mining configurations or I'm seeing something that is not here.

[repentance]

I'm really curious about what friedcat is going to do after the next 5 blocks are found and difficulty jumps - will we suddenly see another couple of TH brought online?

[Transisto]

I'm really curious about what friedcat is going to do after the next 5 blocks are found and difficulty jumps - will we suddenly see another couple of TH brought online?

Do you think he'd care to wait after difficulty jump to power up new miner ?  Maybe if he had 15 ths or more...

[Deprived]

I'm really curious about what friedcat is going to do after the next 5 blocks are found and difficulty jumps - will we suddenly see another couple of TH brought online?

Do you think he'd care to wait after difficulty jump to power up new miner ?  Maybe if he had 15 ths or more...

Well we don't know how he's doing it.  For all we know he's testing machines one by one, then taking them back offline - with the plan to put them all back online when difficulty rises.  I haven't (and can't be bothered to) done  the math to figure out if that actually makes sense (giving up earnings now for lower difficulty later) but would assume he has if it's relevant.

[repentance]

I'm really curious about what friedcat is going to do after the next 5 blocks are found and difficulty jumps - will we suddenly see another couple of TH brought online?

Do you think he'd care to wait after difficulty jump to power up new miner ?  Maybe if he had 15 ths or more...

Well we don't know how he's doing it.  For all we know he's testing machines one by one, then taking them back offline - with the plan to put them all back online when difficulty rises.  I haven't (and can't be bothered to) done  the math to figure out if that actually makes sense (giving up earnings now for lower difficulty later) but would assume he has if it's relevant.

Difficulty just jumped to 3651011.63069.  Around the time of the next jump, BFL machines should be coming online and that will affect the following difficulty jump regardless of what friedcat does. This current difficulty period seems like the ideal time for friedcat to put his 12 TH online.

[matauc12]

I'm really curious about what friedcat is going to do after the next 5 blocks are found and difficulty jumps - will we suddenly see another couple of TH brought online?

Do you think he'd care to wait after difficulty jump to power up new miner ?  Maybe if he had 15 ths or more...

Well we don't know how he's doing it.  For all we know he's testing machines one by one, then taking them back offline - with the plan to put them all back online when difficulty rises.  I haven't (and can't be bothered to) done  the math to figure out if that actually makes sense (giving up earnings now for lower difficulty later) but would assume he has if it's relevant.

Difficulty just jumped to 3651011.63069.  Around the time of the next jump, BFL machines should be coming online and that will affect the following difficulty jump regardless of what friedcat does. This current difficulty period seems like the ideal time for friedcat to put his 12 TH online.

There is no doubt this week would most likely be the most profitable one, but it all depends on others shipment because no matter the difficulty, if you are the sole reason for the  bump, the only thing you do is make it less profitable for others while maintaining the same profitability. I also assume the entry time during a certain difficulty is irrelevant because it would only shorten the difficulty bump delay, thus generating at the same faster rate, and getting an earlier and steeper jump so biting the bullet the next week to compensate.

All in all, pretty much everything is irrelevant except "sooner the better" and how soon the competition gets here.

Everyday is worth multiple thousand right now, so it should definitely priority, which I can't comment on because I have no idea what's up (that part was never clarified or explained). But when your days are worth temporarily worth thousands of dollars, you buy more blow and sleep less.

[Deprived]

I'm really curious about what friedcat is going to do after the next 5 blocks are found and difficulty jumps - will we suddenly see another couple of TH brought online?

Do you think he'd care to wait after difficulty jump to power up new miner ?  Maybe if he had 15 ths or more...

Well we don't know how he's doing it.  For all we know he's testing machines one by one, then taking them back offline - with the plan to put them all back online when difficulty rises.  I haven't (and can't be bothered to) done  the math to figure out if that actually makes sense (giving up earnings now for lower difficulty later) but would assume he has if it's relevant.

Difficulty just jumped to 3651011.63069.  Around the time of the next jump, BFL machines should be coming online and that will affect the following difficulty jump regardless of what friedcat does. This current difficulty period seems like the ideal time for friedcat to put his 12 TH online.

Yeah.  And presumably at some point Avalon's claims of having shipped will become a reality (it's becoming increasingly obvious that their original shipment was just a few prototypes to let them raise funds from batch 2 preorders to finish off batch 1).  Remember also that if the whole 12 TH/s comes online the next difficulty will arrive a bit quicker.

I'm not convinced BFL's current timeline is reasonable - unless they're intending to ship out units that are totally untested and just hope they work (and continue to work for a significant period of time).

[repentance]

I'm not convinced BFL's current timeline is reasonable - unless they're intending to ship out units that are totally untested and just hope they work (and continue to work for a significant period of time).

It's highly unlikely BFL can deliver by 22 February, but they may be able to ship around the time of the next difficulty jump.  Sooner or later Avalon units and BFL units are going to enter the wild in large numbers.  ASICMiner has a fairly unique opportunity for a very short period of time here.  Yes, they'll bring the next difficulty jump closer if they throw everything they have at the network and they'll have to mine at the higher difficulty themselves - but it also means that their competitors' units will be starting out at that higher difficulty. 

If ASICMiner doesn't exploit the advantages available to them, they'll lose them - it's not like Avalon or BFL customers are going to hold off mining with the machines they've waited months for just because it's going to affect difficulty.

[MrTeal]

I'm not convinced BFL's current timeline is reasonable - unless they're intending to ship out units that are totally untested and just hope they work (and continue to work for a significant period of time).

It's highly unlikely BFL can deliver by 22 February, but they may be able to ship around the time of the next difficulty jump.  Sooner or later Avalon units and BFL units are going to enter the wild in large numbers.  ASICMiner has a fairly unique opportunity for a very short period of time here.  Yes, they'll bring the next difficulty jump closer if they throw everything they have at the network and they'll have to mine at the higher difficulty themselves - but it also means that their competitors' units will be starting out at that higher difficulty. 

If ASICMiner doesn't exploit the advantages available to them, they'll lose them - it's not like Avalon or BFL customers are going to hold off mining with the machines they've waited months for just because it's going to affect difficulty.

We will see whether even the next difficult jump is realistic for BFL. Like all of BFL's previous deadlines, or bASIC's end of November "I want to ship before BFL so bad and we're so close I can taste it", or Avalon "shipping" at the end of January, the only thing that really matters is seeing the hashpower hit the network.

As much as I'm looking forward to taking Micon's money, I'd be pleasantly surprised if BFL shipped by the end of February.

[pwrgeek]

There is a simple way ASICminer could gain a 51% position, but demonstrate to the network that they are not attacking.  All the have to do is spread their hash power out over several of the larger pools.  If they did this then they would need the cooperation of a majority of the pool proprietors to attack the network (already a possibility and not perceived to be a realistic issue).  If it were me I and I had 51% of the network then I would put 1/3rd of that power each on deepbit, slush, and btcguild.  This way none of those operators would go over 50 (they would each be closer to 33%), and I would not actually be over 50 in practice because I would only be computing the hashes they gave me.

[mrb]

There is a simple way ASICminer could gain a 51% position, but demonstrate to the network that they are not attacking.  All the have to do is spread their hash power out over several of the larger pools.  If they did this then they would need the cooperation of a majority of the pool proprietors to attack the network (already a possibility and not perceived to be a realistic issue).  If it were me I and I had 51% of the network then I would put 1/3rd of that power each on deepbit, slush, and btcguild.  This way none of those operators would go over 50 (they would each be closer to 33%), and I would not actually be over 50 in practice because I would only be computing the hashes they gave me.

You would be over 50% in practice, even if you compute the hashes they give you.

Anyway, an even simpler way to demonstrate a non-malicious majority mining position is to mine solo, and to operate normally, ie. (1) do not cause excessive chain reorgs (monitored by the bitcoin client and by, for example, http://blockexplorer.com/q/reorglog) and (2) do not mess around with transactions (not dropping them, etc).