ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[Miner99er]

There always P2Pool or... if you like dealing with the devil... Eligius.

Currently I'm using Ozco tho, and I have the payout @ 1BTC... I ususally see that every 3 days. I'm trying to improve that tho.

And organofcorti, I would definitely buy hundreds of these if the price is right... there's so much savings when it comes to power usage as opposed to GPU's (I have 30) that for me it instantaneously $200 more profitable a month if I simply bought 30 and ditched the Radeons'. But, like many others they're going to move over to LTC soon... I'm still buying 79x0 cars to replace the 5k series that I own.

I just wish I knew when these will be available. I'm still being burned by my BFL preorder... and my Avalon isn't coming till May. :-/

[organofcorti]

[.....] And organofcorti, I would definitely buy hundreds of these if the price is right... there's so much savings when it comes to power usage as opposed to GPU's (I have 30) that for me it instantaneously $200 more profitable a month if I simply bought 30 and ditched the Radeons'. But, like many others they're going to move over to LTC soon... I'm still buying 79x0 cars to replace the 5k series that I own. [....]

That's the disadvantage I see. You'll need a good few of these to make any significant earnings and that brings us back to Kano's comment about messy USB hubs.

I think the USB sized device is not a good idea, but I think the technology behind it is fantastic. I'm just looking forward to something a little more .... excessive

[luffy]

well whatever can bypass customs without any fuzz is great!
that said, a much bigger ASIC like, lets say, an FPGA board size would be perfect
(we need the ideal device with best efficiency and customs passable size)

[Rodyland]

That's the disadvantage I see. You'll need a good few of these to make any significant earnings and that brings us back to Kano's comment about messy USB hubs.

I think the USB sized device is not a good idea, but I think the technology behind it is fantastic. I'm just looking forward to something a little more .... excessive

A device like this isn't about "making significant earnings".  If you want significant earnings, you spend signifcant bitcoin and buy an Avalon or a full-blown ASICMINER tens-of-gigahash miner, or a BFL rig (if they ever ship).

A device like this is for someone who believes in Bitcoin, and is happy to drop $30 and 2.5W on "keeping the network honest".  Just like all the people out there mining with low-end GPUs at 200MHash/sec on non-BTCGuild pools, because they believe it's good for the network.

Plus, you combine a device like this with a secure hardware wallet and you have an easy to carry full blown bitcoin solution.

A device like this to me seems a good next step towards the mass adoption we're all (?) hoping for.

[organofcorti]

A device like this isn't about "making significant earnings".  If you want significant earnings, you spend signifcant bitcoin and buy an Avalon or a full-blown ASICMINER tens-of-gigahash miner, or a BFL rig (if they ever ship).

A device like this is for someone who believes in Bitcoin, and is happy to drop $30 and 2.5W on "keeping the network honest".  Just like all the people out there mining with low-end GPUs at 200MHash/sec on non-BTCGuild pools, because they believe it's good for the network.

Plus, you combine a device like this with a secure hardware wallet and you have an easy to carry full blown bitcoin solution.

A device like this to me seems a good next step towards the mass adoption we're all (?) hoping for.

I agree:

Even at current difficulty, one of these things will earn about 0.006 btc 0.15 btc per week. It won't be long before it will take months before a 300MHps device earns enough to make a reasonably sized transaction. Otherwise there'll just be more SatoshiDice-like tx in the blockchain, and you'll have to pay larger fee when you want to spend the coins you mined with it.

So you'll need a bunch of them, and this means, as Kano suggested, messy USB hubs and this really works against the basic idea of a simple little plug in device.

I really do like the idea, but it needs to provide an order of magnitude greater hashrate to make it useful for mining - like the larger boards.  If you just want to use it to support the network with this 300Mhps model, fine. But if you want to earn btc with it, it's not quite there yet.

[arklan]

makes a great stepping stone though. buy one, wait till you can afford a second, rinse, repeat until you have a decent income, THEN buy the big boys. ...this is pretty much exactly what i'm gonna do since my income is unlikely to see me with several thousand to spend anytime soon.

but 50 or so here and there? i can swing THAT.

[Rodyland]

Even at current difficulty, one of these things will earn about 0.006 btc 0.15 btc per week. It won't be long before it will take months before a 300MHps device earns enough to make a reasonably sized transaction. Otherwise there'll just be more SatoshiDice-like tx in the blockchain, and you'll have to pay larger fee when you want to spend the coins you mined with it.

So you'll need a bunch of them, and this means, as Kano suggested, messy USB hubs and this really works against the basic idea of a simple little plug in device.

I really do like the idea, but it needs to provide an order of magnitude greater hashrate to make it useful for mining - like the larger boards.  If you just want to use it to support the network with this 300Mhps model, fine. But if you want to earn btc with it, it's not quite there yet.

Seems we're on the same page. 

I hope ASICMINER sells both.  I'd buy some of the minis just to have something to cart around and show people.  And I'd buy a monster (if I could afford it - or a share in a monster otherwise) because I'm not just a believer, I'm a true believer.

In terms of making money for shareholders, I think the minis would be more potentially profitable - the novelty value of a pocket-sized asic bitcoin miner is hard to guess at, but I put it at a good size.

And as for the "dust", yes, if you mine with a pool and set to 1mBTC payouts then (assuming your pool will even do that) then you'll have to hang on to those transactions for a _long_ time before you can afford to spend them without getting screwed in transaction fees.  Personally I have a 1BTC payout limit on my pool.  But again, you aren't mining with a mini to earn coins - you're mining with a mini because you believe in Bitcoin and want to keep the hashing power distributed.

[arklan]

 
That's...

Jerking off to this right now, can you blow it up for me with some higher reso!

Yeah, I just wanted to say that this is pretty much a wet dream come true.

I just found this thread and haven't had a chance to read through the WHOLE thing. I don't have a lot of technical expertise, but I have been thinking a lot lately about an ASIC solution that would repurpose a GPU rig by swapping out the GPUs for ASICs of the similar size and form of GPUs using the same slots and power connections - all in the interest of keeping the network decentralized. Is something like this in the works here or elsewhere? Is it even possible or feasible?

I am also potentially interested in obtaining some shares here. I suspect they have all been bought up long ago, however.

possible, sure. efficient, i don't know. there's a thread in custom hardware about a DIY avalon approach, since avalon has said they want to sell chips. that may be your best place to ask.

as to shares: the IPO was finished ages ago, yes. but there are plenty of people selling them still, either directly, or through passthroughs on a couple exchanges. going price is about .7 btc a share. there's more info on that subject here, if you go back to about tuesday or so of this week in this thread.

[mmortal03]

A device like this isn't about "making significant earnings".  If you want significant earnings, you spend signifcant bitcoin and buy an Avalon or a full-blown ASICMINER tens-of-gigahash miner, or a BFL rig (if they ever ship).

A device like this is for someone who believes in Bitcoin, and is happy to drop $30 and 2.5W on "keeping the network honest".  Just like all the people out there mining with low-end GPUs at 200MHash/sec on non-BTCGuild pools, because they believe it's good for the network.

Plus, you combine a device like this with a secure hardware wallet and you have an easy to carry full blown bitcoin solution.

A device like this to me seems a good next step towards the mass adoption we're all (?) hoping for.

You could pair it with one of these, which I think run ~10W. The trick would be to have LTCMiner detect it, and you'd be good to go.
http://www.geekbuying.com/item/MK808-Dual-Core-Android-4-1-Jelly-Bean-TV-BOX-Rockchip-RK3066-Cortex-A9-Mini-PC-stick-307415.html

[Rodyland]

Once Bitcoin gets more mainstream and asic miners become more mainstream itseems plausible to me that miners could be built into all sorts of internet connected devices .    TV's, BluRay players, internet <whatever>s.  Interesting question is who gets the coins. ;-)   

[Ente]

cool looking device, I will buy one for my raspberry pi if it's somehow reasonably priced just because.
Someone with a lawyerly mind make a bet on bitbet or betsofbitco that this will ship before the first jalapenlo (a single luke unit should not counted)

Why, I just did exactly that:
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1525





But of course we need some more BFL fanboys to pay our lunch! :-)

Ente

[Hawkix]

Friedcat, I dream about PCIe card with size similar to GPU, taking about the same 300W, using similar cooling and using 100 of your chips.

Any chance to get this into reality? The market would be fantastic for this.

[Akka]

Just on thought.

Does Asicminer plan to accept $, € or other fiat currencies for the devices or are you going to accept Bitcoin only?

Because if you plan to accept Fiat Currencies, that would be awesome. As you have to pay your shareholders in BTC that would mean that you would be the first real would Company that transfers earnings into BTC and that would mean a constant money flow from FIAT into BTC as long as you sell your Products.

Just a simple thought.

[237]

Just on thought.

Does Asicminer plan to accept $, € or other fiat currencies for the devices or are you going to accept Bitcoin only?

Because if you plan to accept Fiat Currencies, that would be awesome. As you have to pay your shareholders in BTC that would mean that you would be the first real would Company that transfers earnings into BTC and that would mean a constant money flow from FIAT into BTC as long as you sell your Products.

Just a simple thought.

I sure hope that those devices will be BTC only.

If customers want to pay with USD or EUR or whatever they can bring the influx of FIAT to BTC. ASICMINER would have no
advantage if they take the extra step (and fees + risk).
And the outcome is the same for the Network.

[Akka]

Just on thought.

Does Asicminer plan to accept $, € or other fiat currencies for the devices or are you going to accept Bitcoin only?

Because if you plan to accept Fiat Currencies, that would be awesome. As you have to pay your shareholders in BTC that would mean that you would be the first real would Company that transfers earnings into BTC and that would mean a constant money flow from FIAT into BTC as long as you sell your Products.

Just a simple thought.

I sure hope that those devices will be BTC only.

If customers want to pay with USD or EUR or whatever they can bring the influx of FIAT to BTC. ASICMINER would have no
advantage if they take the extra step (and fees + risk).
And the outcome is the same for the Network.

ASICMINER has to pay it's Suppliers and employees in FIAT. So there is an extra step involved anyway.

[DBG]

USB 2.0 allows max 500mA (USB 3, 900mA). That is 2.5 watts max, for the hashrate of a 150W 5830. I think you just invented your own money press; name your price.

Note, this is reasonable but near the limit based on first post info: 8J/GH = 2.4W per 300MH/s

Just keep in mind that those are the standards rates we are used to for unit loads on high powered devices but by no means a hard limit (although I've fried my share of USB cabling in the name of hobby experimentation).  Thanks to the advent of "charging ports", more power can be pumped into both 2.0 and 3.0 ports (although adoption didn't really take off until 3.0).  Besides standalone wallwarts (i.e. I have a USB 2.0 microUSB port on my Pi, however I am feeding it 5v@1A to give myself room for overlocking as well as to feed the built-in USB ports) and the commonly seen iPad charger (which I believe draws 2.1A which is equal to 10 watts), most modern motherboards will have 1 USB 3.0 port dedicated to power deliver (often marked as PD, or D+/D-) which actually has a limit of 100w at 20v (blame Kano for getting me more into USB power management and communication).

I think we can all agree that a farm of these units wouldn't be the best idea (although it'd be great to be able to have a few to hash away on work/library/friend's computer, esp. if a no-fuss setup could be created) and personally I think these units could be sold for ~$20 USD (non-wholesale) and be profitable for everyone involved (this is a very rough estimate, but given the current difficulty rate, cost of bitcoin, average cost of electricity - which is the major advantage here - assuming the unit is sold at 20$ + 5$ s/h, you could make your money back within a couple a weeks but even heavily padding that, lets say a month).  Of course the focus is more likely on getting the second unit online than pumping out these little guys, but it seems likely that we'll see an option for user-end/consumer products being offered before the year is out... which is great because the ASIC market really needs more serious players.

Friedcat, I dream about PCIe card with size similar to GPU, taking about the same 300W, using similar cooling and using 100 of your chips.

Any chance to get this into reality? The market would be fantastic for this.

I think heat displacement might become an issue, although I don't have all of the technical details.  It would be great to have a 30GH/sec card that you could just slide into a PCI-e 1x slot (lol you could build your own Avalon with 2 cards and still have a working PC to boot =p). 100x130nm chips would take up very little real estate, but if the USB example picture show only has one chip yet needs such a large heatsink, it makes you wonder.

Just on thought.

Does Asicminer plan to accept $, € or other fiat currencies for the devices or are you going to accept Bitcoin only?

Because if you plan to accept Fiat Currencies, that would be awesome. As you have to pay your shareholders in BTC that would mean that you would be the first real would Company that transfers earnings into BTC and that would mean a constant money flow from FIAT into BTC as long as you sell your Products.

Just a simple thought.

While I have great faith in Bitcoin as a very real long-standing currency, the market is wildly in flux at the moment.  I think most people want to avoid the issue that was presented by paying for BFL ASIC hardware in Bitcoins (while BFL didn't make out like bandits since all bitcoins received were immediately exchanged into USD, anyone who attempts to obtain a refund at this point no doubt feels unlucky to say the least).  Of course if the Asicminer team doesn't take pre-orders, but actually has stock which they can immediately fulfill (or say "Currently Out of Stock") then the issue is moot.

Sent from my Incredible 4G LTE using Tapatalk 2

[ursa]

Are the bare ASICS or the USBMINERS going out in the wild or not?

[SmiGueL]

Seems like the news is pumping up share price. Will the new device affect dividends somehow?

if we sell them, yes...

But the monthly dividents from the 67 TH/s will be lower because all those sticks will increase the difficulty

Maybe the best thing would be selling those sticks with an integrated miner mining 50% for the customer, and 50% for ASICMINER.
This way te price of the stick can be lower AND ASICMINER will profit double from it

[SebastianJu]

Friedcat,
Do you sell bare ASICS and provide the necessary files for DIY? ( for a large order....>$100K)

I asked friedcat already and he said Asicminer wont do this because it wouldnt make sense. Asicminer can create full miners very cheap, thats their advantage. So selling the chips alone wont happen.

The only company that will chips in quantities >10000 is avalon and they now create documentary for the Asics.

You await that you can buy a miner with 36BTC? What hashrate do you await for this? Or do you want to take part in a groupbuy? I think the miners wont be small so that most users wont have the money and have to go group buy route.

The large scale boards that friedcat has has something like 24 or 36 chips on them, and Bitcoin is already going to cross $100 again.

Yes, i know. But a big miner with 36 chips on it would have 10.8GH/s and use 90Watt. A price of 36BTC (1BTC=$100) would mean that the miner paid for itself in 54 days. I dont think that will happen when such miner is auctioned. Check the avalon-auctions on ebay... the prices are high for money machines if auctioned. And Asicminer will send out the machine in days. Its not preselling.
Thats the reason i believe that 36BTC will only be a fraction of the endprice of a auction.

The small miners... if one would pay 3BTC for it he could get the investment back in 174 days. I think its not far fetched to get such or even higher prices.

Wow, I lol'd. With 5 bucks and a trip to RadioShack I can produce you an exact replica of whatever the heck this is. Give us picture of your supposedly "real" facility where all the supposedly "real" equipment resides. This will "surely" convince us you are for real!

Asicminer doesnt have to proof that its real because they already proofed that. They have running asics. When you check at BTC Guild then its the biggest miner there. They paid out many bitcoins since. I dont see how it could be a scam.

The amazing thing about small products is that you can charge a lot more hashrate wise. People want a cute USB ASIC miner, and even if it's four times the price per MH as other ASIC offerings or what there will still be a lot of people who buy it.

I believe your right. The prices for such small device will be high. Because way more people can afford the smaller price because its only 300MH/s and because its simply a sweat nice thing to have. Maybe some day it gets value in its own because only some units exist... *lol* With that ill say that someone will pay more than it will be worth, only to have it.
For creating a high performance miner it wont be so good of course.

Maybe it would be best to auction some of these and some bigger miners. Im not sure if its less cost/work to put one chip into such small device or if its more effective to put 36 chips into one device. The last option has the disadvantage that the price per miner will be so high that less can afford it and bid on it. But at 10.8GH/s (36 chips) that problem is rather small.

Seems like the news is pumping up share price. Will the new device affect dividends somehow?

if we sell them, yes...

But the monthly dividents from the 67 TH/s will be lower because all those sticks will increase the difficulty

Maybe the best thing would be selling those sticks with an integrated miner mining 50% for the customer, and 50% for ASICMINER.
This way te price of the stick can be lower AND ASICMINER will profit double from it

Its not such a big problem because miners sold by asicminer will be auctioned. That means they will get a maximum price. So its not that bad if you get the income from mining for maybe 9 months in one auction. Its not such a bad thing then anymore.

[vortex1878]

I believe those one chip USB devices are limited to 300 MH/s due to standard USB-port power limitations (maybe).

As per page one of this thread a board with 36 chips would hash approx. 14.112 GH/s.