ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[wisard]

Any word on when the exchange will be up and running?

[poly]

That is... Disappointing. I guess there is a benefit for a major network hasher and highest share producer by an order of magnitude to not use pplns

I'm not sure this is disappointing at first glance. While bitcoin mining over time will tend to 100%, reality is that a large solo mining organization could go months running well under 100% PPS. Paying a 5% fee with as much hashing power as they have looks like a good short term strategy to make sure they are making the most btc possible. Also, if BTCGuild is one of the better pools as far a stability is concerned, this is one less thing for Friedcat to worry about during these few short weeks/months of extreme profits.

I agree with the second part a lot. If it works, let us do it. Who wants to be off-line every 30 mins trying to "save" 5%.

Why would solo mining increase the risk of the ASIC chips going offline? In fact, it increases it, because if either the miners or the mining pool fails, there's going to be no blocks solved. Hopefully there's a "Plan B" in case this mining pool goes down for some reason. And it can happen.

[DutchBrat]

I would assume there is a fail-over to another pool or even solo-mining once the main pool goes down... that's very standard in almost any mining software these days

[Gabit]

Why would solo mining increase the risk of the ASIC chips going offline?

Because DDOS.

[jamesg]

Why would solo mining increase the risk of the ASIC chips going offline? In fact, it increases it, because if either the miners or the mining pool fails, there's going to be no blocks solved. Hopefully there's a "Plan B" in case this mining pool goes down for some reason. And it can happen.

The cgminer GBT implementation does not work directly with bitcoind. Getwork is not an option. If you are running 6-12Th, your only options are to build your own pool using stratum/GBT or use an existing pool.

Building a pool is not easy and take a few weeks to a month to get right depending on your programming chops.

[memvola]

Building a pool is not easy and take a few weeks to a month to get right depending on your programming chops.

I have a hard time believing that it would take that long if you're only developing for in-house.

Let's agree that pool mining is very practical right now because of extreme time constraints and a few percent loss isn't enough to make it a priority.

[matauc12]

That is... Disappointing. I guess there is a benefit for a major network hasher and highest share producer by an order of magnitude to not use pplns

I'm not sure this is disappointing at first glance. While bitcoin mining over time will tend to 100%, reality is that a large solo mining organization could go months running well under 100% PPS. Paying a 5% fee with as much hashing power as they have looks like a good short term strategy to make sure they are making the most btc possible. Also, if BTCGuild is one of the better pools as far a stability is concerned, this is one less thing for Friedcat to worry about during these few short weeks/months of extreme profits.

Talking about PPLNS vs PPS here, which btcguild offers both. Not talking about btcguild or not.

[DiabloD3]

Anyways, let's not talk about a problem we are not even close to have yet. Once we reach 15TH/s bring it up a 5th time.

The fact it's possible necessitates a solid plan. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but I don't understand why others shouldn't be talking about it. Even if it never happens, at a future point I'd like to be able to say that we always had a plan. Also, it's an interesting problem. Most of the talk is about whether the talk about it makes sense, and it's unproductive.

Some large stock holders are just using irc and e-mail. It is being talked about. It just wont be talked about here I guess to reduce people complaining/trolling.

This.

[eleuthria]

That is... Disappointing. I guess there is a benefit for a major network hasher and highest share producer by an order of magnitude to not use pplns

I'm not sure this is disappointing at first glance. While bitcoin mining over time will tend to 100%, reality is that a large solo mining organization could go months running well under 100% PPS. Paying a 5% fee with as much hashing power as they have looks like a good short term strategy to make sure they are making the most btc possible. Also, if BTCGuild is one of the better pools as far a stability is concerned, this is one less thing for Friedcat to worry about during these few short weeks/months of extreme profits.

Talking about PPLNS vs PPS here, which btcguild offers both. Not talking about btcguild or not.

PPS is actually a smart choice for this stage in the ASIC timeline.  Variance is present even as a very big percentage of the network.  In the long run, luck will level out.  However, it is not not BTC-earned that levels out, it's your deviation from blocks found per difficulty vs blocks expected per difficulty that levels out.

If bad luck hits you early in a period where difficulty is constantly rising, you will lose out on significantly more income than if it hits you at a time where network difficulty is relatively stable.

[SebastianJu]

Again that talk when we have 10%?

Just look at ozcoin http://www.ozco.in/content/hall-fame-round-shares-bitcoin First four position

Friedcat already said that these arent asicminer. Avalon has around 400MH/s confirmed from users that received the asics so i dont know who that is at ozcoin.

Anyways, let's not talk about a problem we are not even close to have yet. Once we reach 15TH/s bring it up a 5th time.

The fact it's possible necessitates a solid plan. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but I don't understand why others shouldn't be talking about it. Even if it never happens, at a future point I'd like to be able to say that we always had a plan. Also, it's an interesting problem. Most of the talk is about whether the talk about it makes sense, and it's unproductive.

The thing is that was discussed often here. It doesnt matter that it could be possible because it simply wouldnt make sense to attack. The possible gain compared to the gain when the hashingpower is used only for normal mining makes it clear that such thin wont happen. Only someone who isnt interested in money and only wants to hurt bitcoin would try such thing. I highly doubt friedcat is such a person. So the fear about 51%-attack from asicminer is a hypotetical one only.

[memvola]

it simply wouldnt make sense to attack

That's not the point at all.

[SebastianJu]

it simply wouldnt make sense to attack

That's not the point at all.

Whats your point? And who should be the one to attack in your opinion?

[memvola]

it simply wouldnt make sense to attack

That's not the point at all.

Whats your point? And who should be the one to attack in your opinion?

Sorry, I didn't want to expand because this has been discussed ad nauseam already; you can dig up the forum for other threads discussing it.

First off, I'm as sure as you are that ASICMiner won't break the network, in any plausible scenario.

Most of the concern boils down to trust in the proof-of-work concept. In other words, any singular entity (even if altruistic) holding majority hashing power nullifies the justification to use proof-of-work.

You need to only imagine what you will see in the press when this happens to get that it's bad for Bitcoin. Would you really want to be in the position where you have to convince the whole user base that everything is fine?

Besides, you only covered the possibility of a malicious owner. How about a cyber attack? How about a physical attack? There is no reason to try to imagine all scenarios and debunk them one by one. It really doesn't matter. In the end, we prefer to use precise algorithms to be immune from our own fallacy of imagination.

With this perspective, I think we can stop discussing whether we should discuss it. It's very straightforward and relatively easy to produce a solution.

[mrb]

Why would solo mining increase the risk of the ASIC chips going offline? In fact, it increases it, because if either the miners or the mining pool fails, there's going to be no blocks solved. Hopefully there's a "Plan B" in case this mining pool goes down for some reason. And it can happen.

The cgminer GBT implementation does not work directly with bitcoind. Getwork is not an option. If you are running 6-12Th, your only options are to build your own pool using stratum/GBT or use an existing pool.

Building a pool is not easy and take a few weeks to a month to get right depending on your programming chops.

Actually getwork + rollntime + high static diff (120 or higher) would easily support ~10 Thash/s or more. For example this can be done using eloipool, which I use myself, and recommended to jgarzik, who confirmed this was pretty much the only stable solution for him to mine solo with his Avalon.

12 Thash/s translates to merely 23 getwork/s (with 120 diff and rollntime window of 120 sec).

As a solo miner myself, I strongly believe that mining solo with fallback on a pool is a more robust solution overall, as it shields you from all the pool issues (DDoS which sometimes affect multiple pools at once, etc). It is very logical: the software stack of a pool is a lot more complex than a local bitcoind+eloipool, therefore the sheer elimination of this complexity makes solo mining more robust. Also, a pool infrastructure is public, but your own infra is private and nearby, reducing network issues and exposure.

[Deprived]

it simply wouldnt make sense to attack

That's not the point at all.

Whats your point? And who should be the one to attack in your opinion?

Sorry, I didn't want to expand because this has been discussed ad nauseam already; you can dig up the forum for other threads discussing it.

First off, I'm as sure as you are that ASICMiner won't break the network, in any plausible scenario.

Most of the concern boils down to trust in the proof-of-work concept. In other words, any singular entity (even if altruistic) holding majority hashing power nullifies the justification to use proof-of-work.

You need to only imagine what you will see in the press when this happens to get that it's bad for Bitcoin. Would you really want to be in the position where you have to convince the whole user base that everything is fine?

Besides, you only covered the possibility of a malicious owner. How about a cyber attack? How about a physical attack? There is no reason to try to imagine all scenarios and debunk them one by one. It really doesn't matter. In the end, we prefer to use precise algorithms to be immune from our own fallacy of imagination.

With this perspective, I think we can stop discussing whether we should discuss it. It's very straightforward and relatively easy to produce a solution.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

If one party controls over 50% of the network then it makes no difference whether they:

Mine solo
Mine on one pool
Mine split across various pools

They STILL have the capability to mount a 51% attack any time they choose to.  Whether, when choosing not to, they mine solo or mine on one or more pools is totally irrelevant - as the capability to 51% attack still exists.  Pretending that the issue is addressed by sharing mining across various pools is just that - pretence.  The issue is unchanged and not addressed.  If there IS a solution to the problem then it is absolutely NOT addressed by debating how someone with 51%+ should spread their mining - that's solving an entirely different issue (how to pretend that a centralised system is decentralised by giving temporary control to other people and fantasising that noone notices the transfer of control is revocable).

I'm just glad that IF someone is going to end with over 51% (and I doubt it's going to happen at all) it's ASICMINER not the scammers at BFL (yeah - only one of them has ever actually been convicted), the liars at Avalon ('shipped' has a different meaning to them than to the rest of the world - to them it just means 'are about to start assembling if we raise enough cash') or the drunkard/liar/scammer at BASIC.

[kano]

Why would solo mining increase the risk of the ASIC chips going offline? In fact, it increases it, because if either the miners or the mining pool fails, there's going to be no blocks solved. Hopefully there's a "Plan B" in case this mining pool goes down for some reason. And it can happen.

The cgminer GBT implementation does not work directly with bitcoind. Getwork is not an option. If you are running 6-12Th, your only options are to build your own pool using stratum/GBT or use an existing pool.

Building a pool is not easy and take a few weeks to a month to get right depending on your programming chops.

Actually getwork + rollntime + high static diff (120 or higher) would easily support ~10 Thash/s or more. For example this can be done using eloipool, which I use myself, and recommended to jgarzik, who confirmed this was pretty much the only stable solution for him to mine solo with his Avalon.

12 Thash/s translates to merely 23 getwork/s (with 120 diff and rollntime window of 120 sec).

As a solo miner myself, I strongly believe that mining solo with fallback on a pool is a more robust solution overall, as it shields you from all the pool issues (DDoS which sometimes affect multiple pools at once, etc). It is very logical: the software stack of a pool is a lot more complex than a local bitcoind+eloipool, therefore the sheer elimination of this complexity makes solo mining more robust. Also, a pool infrastructure is public, but your own infra is private and nearby, reducing network issues and exposure.

The problem with this is that it shows up a problem with bitcoin ... pushing the block ntime into the future with too many blocks in a row can cause valid blocks with the correct time to be rejected ... (and it continues to pollute the blockchain with blocks that have ridiculously incorrect ntime stamps)

[matauc12]

it simply wouldnt make sense to attack

That's not the point at all.

Whats your point? And who should be the one to attack in your opinion?

Sorry, I didn't want to expand because this has been discussed ad nauseam already; you can dig up the forum for other threads discussing it.

First off, I'm as sure as you are that ASICMiner won't break the network, in any plausible scenario.

Most of the concern boils down to trust in the proof-of-work concept. In other words, any singular entity (even if altruistic) holding majority hashing power nullifies the justification to use proof-of-work.

You need to only imagine what you will see in the press when this happens to get that it's bad for Bitcoin. Would you really want to be in the position where you have to convince the whole user base that everything is fine?

Besides, you only covered the possibility of a malicious owner. How about a cyber attack? How about a physical attack? There is no reason to try to imagine all scenarios and debunk them one by one. It really doesn't matter. In the end, we prefer to use precise algorithms to be immune from our own fallacy of imagination.

With this perspective, I think we can stop discussing whether we should discuss it. It's very straightforward and relatively easy to produce a solution.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

If one party controls over 50% of the network then it makes no difference whether they:

Mine solo
Mine on one pool
Mine split across various pools

They STILL have the capability to mount a 51% attack any time they choose to.  Whether, when choosing not to, they mine solo or mine on one or more pools is totally irrelevant - as the capability to 51% attack still exists.  Pretending that the issue is addressed by sharing mining across various pools is just that - pretence.  The issue is unchanged and not addressed.  If there IS a solution to the problem then it is absolutely NOT addressed by debating how someone with 51%+ should spread their mining - that's solving an entirely different issue (how to pretend that a centralised system is decentralised by giving temporary control to other people and fantasising that noone notices the transfer of control is revocable).

I'm just glad that IF someone is going to end with over 51% (and I doubt it's going to happen at all) it's ASICMINER not the scammers at BFL (yeah - only one of them has ever actually been convicted), the liars at Avalon ('shipped' has a different meaning to them than to the rest of the world - to them it just means 'are about to start assembling if we raise enough cash') or the drunkard/liar/scammer at BASIC.

My reading comprehension might be off, but I don't believe he implied anywhere splitting the hash power meant no 51% attack.

[memvola]

If there IS a solution to the problem then it is absolutely NOT addressed by debating how someone with 51%+ should spread their mining - that's solving an entirely different issue (how to pretend that a centralised system is decentralised by giving temporary control to other people and fantasising that noone notices the transfer of control is revocable).

Exactly. That's why we've been talking about [a plan to] physically (location) and logically (authority) split power [to be put in place if it comes to that].

I don't know how you got the opposite impression but I've been saying exactly what you're saying and more for months.

[keystroke]

friedcat, do we know when the share trading platform will come online? (Of course getting up boards is the priority.) Does anyone know the fair market price? I saw some trade at .38 recently. Thanks!

[creativex]

friedcat, do we know when the share trading platform will come online? (Of course getting up boards is the priority.) Does anyone know the fair market price? I saw some trade at .38 recently. Thanks!

They've traded @ up to .52 recently.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144676.20