Topic: [2013-11-21] Alpha Technologies Announces ASIC Miners for Litecoin are Coming - page 3. (Read 21075 times)

I just got bit info about them... not sure what are they capable to deliver but I asked some people in Manchester and there is a company with that name on the address they provided and it's there for years. So, at least, that part is legit.

As ussuall coindesk publishes another scam site. The site is now gone.

They just released the damn email today. The website is down... how can they already be sold out?

It doesn't matter, these units are not profitable at current prices anyway. You will make like 200 LTC after a year if you got your unit Today.

anything in crypto is v high risk. There is a chance its just a scam and there is a chance that they will deliver so late that it will be worthless by the time it is released.

i hear the first batch is already sold out? hmmmm didn't even know they started selling them.

https://alpha-t.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Scrypt_ASIC_Prototyping_Design_Document.pdf

here is their technology... anyone good at this have any comments?

I just want to know if they are an actual company or just another rip-off.

I tried searching google but it just shows the website and that's not enough for me. Hopefully someone can find this out.

I guess we must have different definitions of the word resistant.

Nope... it is just cost prohibitive... fast memory is expensive... and the amount needed to be 50X+ faster than a GPU is staggering.

Consider the following...

BFL 30 GH/s (@ early pre-order) and a MrTeal 30+ GH/s ASIC using the same BFL chips is ~$700, and mines ~50X faster on SHA256d than a single Radeon 7950 @ ~$350.

That is 3GB of GDDR5. For scrypt mining, that 3GB of GDDR5 @ 1800MHz communicates on a 384 bit lane with the GPU core clocked to 1200MHz (my OCs... everyone's are different), nets about 700kh/s. If you separate the core but increase the memory size and speed, you can increase the kh/s. But, that is not the same as going from a GPU core to an SHA256d ASIC core style of hashing... the GPU core doesn't make the scrypt hashrate that much faster... it's all in the memory bandwidth. That means to match the scale of an entry level ASIC for SHA256D compared to a GPU when building for scrypt... your focus is increasing memory size, speed, and and the size of the pipe communicating with the processor.

Now imagine what it costs to put that 3GB of GDDR5 on a GPU... multiply it by 50... and then add even more moving from 384 bit lanes to something like 512 bit... or higher. Add that in with a custom processor to be optimized for handling scrypt, and you have yourself one expensive piece of First Gen hardware.

I would LOVE to own one... odds are not in my favor until this is proofed and prices drop in Second Gen.

So the creators of litecoin, use the scrypt agorithm, that is memory intensive and would be difficult and cost prohibitive to create an asic for hashing, however that is not asic resistant???

There is no such coin as ASIC resistant. It's just marketing , like the gold silver stuff some people cling.

So the memory intensive nature of scrypt mining makes it difficult or increasingly expensive to make a litecoin asic?  Litecoin was designed to be memory intensive?  But it wasn't made asic resistant?

Litecoin just doesn't see the magnitude of benefit from ASICs, it isn't that it is resistant or "not supposed to be mined with ASICs" or whatever. Its the memory-intensive nature of scrypt mining that doesn't allow the advantages of ASIC use in Bitcoin. mining.

Maybe. But Litecoin let me profit from my GPU, not bitcoin anymore.

I think the bitcoin gold litecoin silver argument is pretty much a waste.  A silver to bitcoins gold is not necessary.  Bitcoin is divisible to .00000001.  Last I checked it would be difficult to purchase .00000001 ounces of gold.  Silver helps to fill the gold divisibility problem.  Bitcoin doesn't have that issue.


Litecoin was intended to be asic resistant, as has been mentioned before.  An asic for litecoin could be made, however it is unlikely because it would be a very intricate asic.  Also meaning very expensive.  The main advantage of the asic is efficiency and cost.  Amd can manufacture graphics cards and sell them at a reasonable price because they sell millions of them.  Imagine a company making something as intricate as a gpu processor, except they wont sell nearly as many units as amd does and has to rely on preorder for most of there financing.  Low quantity means higher cost.  Higher design cost, higher manufacturing cost and higher cost to the customer.  The only advantage the asic has left is efficiency.  Would you pay 3-4 times as much for the same hashing power if the unit used less electricity?  I cant see it being a successful venture.

LTC has been designed to be asic resistant.

If a competitive ASIC shows up, it would mean LTC has failed its purpose, and personnally I would just leave that train.

If  litecoin asic are  gonna be expensive is it not wise to start forming a group buy & having the
Funds in a reputable escrow service until the technology is  completed??

Knowing when asic came aboard for bitcoin many people knew it was going to
Start making bitcoin solo mining some what obsolete for the little guy 

Imagine when asic come aboard for scrypt mining you came almost sense
Its gonna be the same pattern...

Solo mining could potentially be obsolete for the little guy as well..

Asic scrypt mining will mine many times faster than what your currently mining with.

So you can either chose to make-it-happen or be the one whos-wondering-whats -happening

Which one you wanna be its your choice

EDIT: link format


I'm the newb here, so I appreciate the education. having read coblee's annoucement of the project here(0), and his direct response to questions about ASIC's here(1), I'm a bit confused. I thought litecoin was sold as an improvement over btc for a few reasons, one of which is that scrypt is an improvement over sha-256 for resilience against specified hardware attack. I'm happy to hear about it if I'm wrong.

Granted, that reddit comment above has been edited, and it's only a month old. Still, I haven't seen anything from early writing about ltc's motivation to use scrypt as a proof-of-work that says they ever claimed it to be resistant to GPUs.


Isn't it? I see it in Bitcointalk > Other > Alternate cryptocurrencies

(0) - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-litecoin-a-lite-version-of-bitcoin-launched-47417
(1) - http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1o3fdz/we_are_the_litecoin_dev_team_ama/ccr1b86

2 Things will happen.

1.Scryptbased Coins will gain or loose value against BTC
2. GPU Prices on ebay will drop like a hot potatoe!

I am still trying to figure out if these guys are a scam or not. I think there are at least 2 legit Scrypt FGPA companies, but I haven't found a legit Scrypt ASIC company. I'm reserving my judgement on these guys until they provide more proof.