Topic: ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It - page 789. (Read 3917468 times)

I never said it can't be done just that datacenter space is expensive, probably more than you think.  A datacenter has so much power, cooling capacity, and rack space.  They want to sell all three "commodities" in equal amounts so they don't run out of one before the other.  If they give you a higher electrical load per sq/ft that means either they need to sell underpowered racks to someone else OR they run out of power or cooling before they run out of space.  No datacenter operator (who just spent tens of millions building the thing) is going to do that.  It traps them into an underutilized capacity scenario which upsets all the bean counters. The fact that miners are energy dense doesn't really help.  They are going to want you to rent an equivalent amount of space for the power/cooling you need and then distribute your power/heat load across it.  That likely means a lot of expensive empty space.

The rate the datacenter pays for power isn't the whole story.  That class I building cost a fortune to build you are buying power, cooling, floor space, security, connectivity, redundancy, fire suppression, natural disaster resistance, etc.  It doesn't come cheap.  It is some of the most expensive real estate in the world (any data center).  I doubt it is going to be cheaper than space in China.  Maybe it is but I remain unconvinced it is so massively cheaper that giant PH/s operations will be operating at a tiny fraction of the operating cost.  


I didn't think Freidcat was renting space in a datacenter, I always thought (maybe incorrectly) it was just industrial/warehouse space.  Also I don't think ASICMiner is using as much power as the 900KW in the scenario we are responding to.

1 is possible, but I doubt it is probable.  We would have heard some sort of news/info from chip manufacturers/VCs or other partners by now.  But, what we are both saying is that the BTC funded IPOs that currently exist probably don't have a chance in hell.

2. There is a great possibility that dividends increase over the next months, especially if AM continues to hold its lead in the market and delivers more hardware.  Every single day that AM makes profits fills their war chest to battle future competitors and adapt to changing market conditions. Why do you assume that they won't continue to expand and profit?

well, based on the cost of a few of those datacenters, renting space may be the most significant cost, not electricity.  Unless, of course, you have $35M to build a datacenter from scratch in WA or Siberia. 

I don't know the exact cost of FC's power, as I am not familiar with bulk electricity costs in China.  Here in Mexico, however, published prices are what citizens pay, but companies/bulk purchasers typically enjoy prices 1/2 to 1/3 of retail rates.

This is all absolutely true. However:

1) It's entirely possible there are privately-funded projects that have been working on all of this for several months already, meaning they may be coming online shortly. In fact, I think it is more likely than unlikely that this is the case.

2) Even if new projects do not come online until early next year (almost certainly making use of new Gen 2 chips like KnC/Bitfury/Cointerra rather than the old, inefficient BFL/Avalon chips), the AM stock price assumes that Friedcat will manage to maintain current dividends for many years. We're talking about months until those dividends might take a serious beating.

And regardless of how it happens, mining costs are going to become closely tied to the cost of electricity in the near future. That means Friedcat is in trouble, as his electricity is not particularly cheap (being several times more expensive than Siberia and Washington).

I would suggest that you send another message to burnside, they probably overlooked your message.  I don't know for sure, but he may be on one of the IRC channels at certain times.  I have always just PMed him from this forum, but he typically responded in a day or 2.

As far as I know, the rules are the same as always, just message them both, and FC does the transfer manually.  Maybe contact TAT, he might know if something has changed.

possibly, but I think this illustrates the point that it is neither cheap nor as easy as first expected to launch something of the size and power consumption that we are talking about.

None of the IPOs I have seen are taking this into serious consideration, or at least, they are not voicing how they are going to meet these obstacles.  Everyone seems to be focused on getting chips/hardware, which is a major obstacle in and of itself, but meanwhile, they are ignoring the real feat of housing/powering that hardware for a reasonable cost. 

These kinds of obstacles are not fixed overnight.  Even if you have the data center lined up, have your hardware in hand, everything ready to go, getting 100 TH/s online is going to take weeks, at best.

yeah, that's a nice datacenter, but what does it cost?  As we saw above, the power cost is miniscule, renting the actual datacenter is several orders of magnitude more expensive.  I think you might be underestimating what top of the line datacenters like this lease for.  I do agree that there are cheaper datacenters out there.

In any case, the rent is going to be a much larger cost than power, and may even make it cost prohibitive to rent a datacenter like that.

Of course, all of this assumes no additional cost for govt permits, licensing, bribing, etc in the US.  I imagine administrative costs like that are going to be a lot more than in countries like China.

that MAY be true, but it doesn't look like it will happen in 2013.  

The reality is that to get something of this magnitude up and running is going to take months (at best).  We are going to see a lot of attempts fail to accomplish this goal, that's the nature of the beast.

planning on doing that as well. Any pointers guys?

I see what you're saying. I think you're right, and I didn't read that PDF correctly. That would make this particular data center a poor prospect, since the ASICs are very heavy on power consumption. It's possible you could negotiate the price down, though, since you'd be using less floor space than they'd expect per square foot.

Still, the Integrate.Quincy datacenter is another example of what I'm talking about. That's a 52MW facility, easily big enough to accommodate a project like this, and they're leasing now. Power is $0.0225/kW-h.

The particular datacenter isn't the point here - just that this can be done, and done cheaper than AM has managed. Believe it or not, China (particularly Guangdong) is the wrong location. Big business mining will end up in Washington.

If I had the money, I would seriously consider doing this project myself. Shit, these IPOs have been so easy to pull off, maybe I can...

What makes you say that?  The line says "all-in except power consumption".  I would assume that to be a rental cost. Electricity cost is typically depicted in $/kWh

Hi all, I've been trying to transfer my shares to ASICMINER-PT on btct.co and have sent a request to friedcat and burnside several times over the last 2 weeks and have received no reply.

Have I missed a message about some new process for transferring shares?

Any help much appreciated.

Oh, right - that's electricity cost, not rent. Understand that Friedcat is on the hook for that too.

That's the biggest issue with that datacenter. It's in Washington, but the electricity isn't steeply discounted. If you want to see why Friedcat is (in my opinion) in serious trouble, look at the link in this post: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2954417

Like I've said before, I'm not spending the time to find the best datacenter. I'm sure there are even better deals.

Edit: Here's the PDF from the North Central Washington datacenter. http://datacenters.sabey.com/docs/properties/profiles/intergate_quincy_profile.pdf

your pdf said $125/kW per month:

Based on the math I quoted from, 10% of the network would require 900 kW, so $1,125,000 per month.  Of course, that's not renting the whole space, and than only gets you 10% for a limited time (a week?).  If you want to keep that 10% rate for the whole month, you'll likely need double that, so $2M a month.

maybe I'm quoting the wrong thing, or the pdf had a mistake, but I assumed it was right.

You're mad. A few million per month? Where did you get that number? The WHOLE datacenter I linked (and you could probably sublease quite a lot of it) cost $35M to construct. If we assume a typical 10-year payback period for leasing, then that comes out to 120 months, or $3500000/120 ~ $300k/mo.

Not to mention that the state fucked up big time with this project and is willing to lease below market.

http://www.zdnet.com/washington-states-datacenter-fiasco-its-time-to-pay-the-bill-7000011382/


Yes, indeed. BUT it is trading at a price that assumes AM will continue to dominate the market for years.

This is why I am so bearish, and why I have been actively buying puts.


For the existing Avalon chips, about 30 GH/s per square foot.

yeah, I don't disagree that on a longer time scale, it MIGHT make financial sense, but I think a lot of the "competition" to AM are ignoring some of these issues.  It's not as easy as just getting your chips, folks, and truth be told, getting your Avalon chips is probably the easiest part of the whole deal.

In the meantime, for those 2-3 months, AM already has a datacenter up and running, AM is producing and releasing more hardware, and AM is making money.

it's still going to cost a few million $$$ per month just for the datacenter, plus power use.  You can make the rules all you want, but they make the bill.

From your pdf:
what does that translate to in hashrate per square foot?

Those are co-location "deals". Here, you'd be leasing out the whole damn datacenter. You're making the rules at that point.

Edit: Here's an upcoming datacenter in North Central Washington. http://datacenters.sabey.com/intergate_quincy

Electricity is $0.025/kW-h, with a cap of 48MW. Friedcat (Shenzen, Guangdong province) pays $0.06-0.07 and cannot compete with that.

All of this is just from a cursory google search, by the way. Someone seriously considering a move like this will find the best deal.

I'm honestly a little surprised that people think this can't be done. Do you think Friedcat is a magician or something? I'm sure he had to rent space.

Well, a major player would not be interested in FC's franchising - why would they? They'd be hurting their own margin for no real reason, since there are cheaper options for hardware. Franchising makes more sense for a little guy trying to get in on the action.

No, datacenters don't spring up overnight, but you don't need them to. Options exist already. The one I linked is a very nice facility, so it would probably not be the one actually used by a serious investor - it's just an example. All that is really needed is a temporary location while the difficulty is low - they can move their hardware to a purpose-built facility later (and Washington State is perfect for that, what with the $0.01/kW-h electricity).

You're right about 2-3 months, but I don't see that as an issue either. VCs will invest in startups and often wait 5 years or more before they see their first return.

Not at any reasonable costs.  Make sure to look into amperage details in datacenter contract.  Most datacenters drop 20A @ 120V (20% derate) = ~2.4W per rack.  Now you usually can get 20A @ 208V single phase for not much more which gives you ~4KW.  Going to 30A @ 208V bumps you into an entire different cost range and still "only" gives you 6KW per rack.  Datacenters are carefully designed to avoid hotspots so they really aren't wired for higher heat loads then that. Nobody is going to let you dump 20KW into a rack just because it "fits".  It might fit physically but it doesn't fit from a power or thermal standpoint.  If your heat or power load compromises other clients the datacenter is going to suffer massive fines and it is simply not a risk worth taking.  Plus the datacenter only has so much space, cooling capacity, and power.  They want to get top dollar on all three.  Running out of cooling or power capacity and having half the datacenter empty isn't going to make any beancounter happy.

Try pricing out what 150 racks with 30A 208V single phase costs.   I am not saying it can't be done but I think most people have casually looked around and saw "deals" for $400 for 40U and are greatly underestimating what a datacenter will charge for higher density loads.

assuming it's cost effective to rent a datacenter like that for mining bitcoins

EDIT: looking at that pdf above to rent that datacenter, you are looking at $125/kW per month.  If you want 10% of the network in 45 days, like the example maths above, then that's 900kW, so $1,125,00 per month PLUS energy use (hopefully you can get the good rate of $0.01/kWh)

Of course, by the end of the month, you will probably have double the power consumption/rental cost if you try and maintain your percentage of the network.

So, the bigger question is, which IPOs are considering these issues in their estimates?

hence, FC's franchising plans.

they don't spring up overnight, though.  And although renting a datacenter might seem like an easy option, that basically means that you are adding significant overhead to your mining costs, because no one is going to rent you a datacenter for the cost of power/infrastructure alone.  You're gonna have to pay a premium to get that level of service, regardless of where you go.

and you're still looking at 2-3 months before you mine your first block, if everything goes right.

yes, they exist, but are not intended to consume +/- 1MW energy in such a concentrated way.
there are not many rack-devices sucking several kilowatts at once + on a continuous basis + in such quantities(ie devices self) + THE cooling of ~1MW...
all that is no joke man! so there is a truth somewhere...

a major player maybe will need in the fact build / energetically wire / cool such a datacentre, or actually PAY for an upgrade of rented one.

EDIT:
checked the pdf now. nice datacenter.
but this is WASHINGTON STATE datacenter, right?
we should ask them to permit us mine BTC on more than a half of it's area