Topic: Bitfury: "16nm... sales to public start shortly" - page 25. (Read 108494 times)

I made money on both my batch 1 and batch 2.

But they still owe me compensation for the Batch 1 which they will never pay.

my accounting on the batch 1 is this.

 I purchased the coins from coinbase  so the cash basis was is what matters for those two purchases

1723 + 50 = 1773 for the batch 1

1485 + 50 = 1535 for the batch 2

I sold the batch 1 for 1400  loss of 373  but it mined during the up tick in coin price and earned 1.5 coins at 480 = 640 (I sold them at 480) 

so the batch 1 I complain about netted 200 plus usd.

The batch 2 has been mining since October at free power  it has earned 4.5 coins which are worth 1900 or so

But it was how I handled the purchase of them.  I purchased the coins from coinbase.

now some would say if I buy and hold I would be better off.

I say.. I bet a horse named s-7 miner  and have more money now then before the bet.

It is true if I bet the horse named buy n hold the payoff was better.

But my choice did put me ahead. As my fiat is higher then if it just stayed in the bank.


To the guy that did all it all mining his btc  is lower.  He lost out.

The 1385 was actually a really good chip. The problem was the machine price. They were selling units at about $2k when cost was probably under $1k (including chip dev costs; easily under $400 in material costs). They could get away with it because they were the only ones selling at the time, so anyone buying had to buy from them. Same thing they did with the S4+ - it was a garbage machine with a price and efficiency about 6 months out of date, made with year-old chips they probably still had in boxes in the basement somewhere, but they sold out in a couple weeks because it was the only thing you could get if you wanted something. And then with the S7, when they realized they owned the market once again, we started seeing the models which were empirically worse than the original - fewer chips and higher clock, overall higher power consumption, lower reliability, higher operating cost and at about the same price as the original.

Blaming the BM1385 ASIC for the S7 sucking is inaccurate. Blaming Bitmain for building a miner that is unreliable (both in hardware and software; I gotta friggin' manually reboot half a dozen hosted S7 every time internet goes down for more than 30 seconds), and only capable of being run at the very top end of ASIC performance (therefore the worst efficiency, about 0.26J/GH on a chip capable of seeing 0.18J/GH if allowed), and then charging what everyone understood from the beginning was higher than breakeven cost for anyone paying more than a nickel for power, is what caused the S7 to suck. The BM1385 chip itself probably didn't cost any more to produce than the BM1382 (also a 28nm node), on the order of $1-2 per unit.

So basically, building a world-class chip with very braggable specs, then instead of utilizing those specs cheaping out on the hardware design as much as possible to ensure maximum profit for the manufacturer - both because the machine is as simple as possible to still operate and therefore cheaper to manufacture, and because with no core adjustability (and with the later batches, a stock overclock) the machine has a planned-obsolesence short finite viable lifetime.

True, the S3 was a bandwagon miner (people heard about the success of the S1)and it was possibly one of their bestsellers. S5 not as much, because the bandwagon died when people heard about the S3's fail. S7 seems to be another bandwagon miner as the roi is crap, but people are buying it up pretty fast. Overall the popularity of Bitmain miners has remained stable as people are leaving and hopping on the bandwagon at a equal speed.

Then as a result, their success with this chip has come at the expense of their customers' losses (read: anyone who bought Batch 1-7).  Class acts indeed...

You're saying that from a miner's perspective, not Bitmain's perspective though. Your finances and success are not their finances and success.

I still agree with QuintLeo, the BM1385 chip has been possibly the worst chip Bitmain has ever developed besides the BM1382 for ROI + profit. S3s (BM1382) hardly profited with the difficulty rises even though the hop from BM1380 with more hashpower and efficiency was enormous. I knew this day was coming for bitmain, because there had to be a new chip coming out, and it just so happened to be before the halving. The only thing stopping Bitmain from using old S4 rackmounts and placing BM1385s on them and slapping on a "Antminer S8" sticker on  is the fact that most people know:
1. the halving is coming
2. this gear is gonna be crap in 2 months.
BM1385s were a great improvement and it had to have happened eventually, so hopefully we can move past this and get BM1385s over with after the halving.

Methinks he relishes in that time between single-sentence answers and annoyed condescending explanations to feel better than us peasants.

I know you like to make snappy retorts, but they're a lot more effective when you elaborate and actually explain the point.

Pretty much none of this fits with previous Bitmain action or logic.

People have finally wised up to the fact that the S7 is not going to achieve RoI unless you have VERY VERY cheap electric - and that has always been the case, and that fact just keeps getting worse and worse (unless the current lull in hashrate climb manages to last about 3 months LONGER than I currently expect).


 I suspect Bitmain is having their current fire sale in the hope of getting their money back out of the BM1385 chips they've already bought before they become almost worthless due to next-gen miners blowing them out of the water - and I have some doubt that Bitmain was expecting Bitfury to go public on THEIR next-gen chip much less start pushing it to anyone OTHER than huge farms.
 I get the strong impression Bitmain's answer to the new bitFury chip hasn't even taped out yet, or taped out recently enough they aren't going to have a new miner available before the halfing - leaving them rather behind the curve on what should prove to be THE most important ASIC generation in Bitcoin mining history (other than perhaps the original generation gear).


 There's also the BW.com/LKetc second-gen chip for them to worry about, the question of WHEN Innosilicon will release the A3 (which in theory could be literally ANY DAY NOW)....

I think Bitfury wanted to delay the hashrate cracy rising last months (nov-dec), and they achieved their goal (most of us are waiting for them). Bitmain did a counter-attack against Bitfury lowering their S7 to a very cheap levels (so we are waiting new stuff). Meanwhile, Bitfury can recover their investment in their last MW mining centers (opened a few months before) and now they are ultimate the design of their last chip: a 16nm. At this point, we are waiting for the latest news. I'm thinking seriously to wait until the halving to make my next movement...  

I still cannot understant why the hashrate is stable since last month or so...   Nobody is buying the S7?? People is switching off their old miners??

This is correct, plus they are price dumping S7 and sucking out all demand if bitfury was to introduce something now.

IMO Bitfury has completely missed the window on their opportunity to capitalize and take market share away from Avalon and Bitmain. These chips will now be insignificant by the time they are available to the public. By now, surely both competitors have had their hands on bitfury chips and have been able to perform r&d to come up with comparable chips. The spikes Antminer has seen in their pools signifies either an upcoming model ready for sale, or a massive test and flush of current inventory to make room for models about to hit live environment testing. I am fairly new to the bitcoin world, but have been in the IT space for 10 years and have seen this firsthand more times than I can count.

yes this is a good point.   I am in that position with the solar array with buysolar.

We have 12 -16kwatts of 'free' power    and we have 8 avalon 6's and 1 s-7  =   28th  at  8.3 kwatts

so I could buy 4 s-7s now and just add 18th      gets us to 46th at 14kwatts  .

Then just mine until we get a deal on the newer gear I think I may buy the 4 s-7's in the next day or so.

So we look for s9 because bitfury nada, nix, potato!?!?

this is also a reason why mass adoption of Bitcoin is delayed. a lot of Bitcoin companies are NOT REPUTABLE.

Maybe, although we said exactly the same thing for S5s and those who bought them early and just held them made a killing even on moderate power costs. There is also the tertiary market of people with negligible power costs to whom S7s are still valuable and may create an artificial floor in S7 prices.

That's what I'm thinking as well.  It's just too damn risky.  I can see if you already have cheap power costs at $0.06 or less with little or no rent at all to pay and you already have the PSU's, PDU's and PCI-e cords with breakout boards.  However, I would plan on selling them to people on eBay who are ignorant of a block halving approaching by the end of May or early June.

If you think about it, eBay will be inundated with S7's beginning in May.  That's going to drive the price of them down tremendously.  They may go as little as $300 each in May or June on eBay.  I honestly think you stand a better chance of making more money buying bitcoin at current price and sell it close to the right time on a potential pump and dump.  You can make 30 to 80 percent on your bitcoin purchase with less stress of paying for power, rent, peripherals, etc... that go along with purchasing more S7's.

That's my two cents...

EDIT:  If Bitmain had them up for sale at $380 each after coupon, I think they would have better luck.

may be your best best, but don't count BMT to not have a trick up their sleeve before or close to halving   (0.1 chips)

late march isnt happening is it?

so april then? but no price or specs or anything yet?

or should i just load up on cheap s7 and forget this?