Topic: Program a FPGA for bitcoin mining (Read 180 times)

As for discussion about "ASICS RESISTANT", none of that belongs on this part of the forum, take it to the scamcoin area.

Of course, sorry if I didn't make myself extra clear on that: the FFPG are used to mine coins that are "ASICS RESISTANT" as they have intrinsically some characteristics that cannot be managed by an Asics. Nevertheless ALPS keeps pushing for this technology to create an efficient miner also in small offices, houses, etc...

The main advantage of FPGAs is not really the lower power draw, but the versatility.

I think they were referring to pure electrical consumption. I heard in a video the CFO of the company, referring to that: even if FFPGA are way less efficient compared to ASICS as per H/s/KW, FPGA have the advantage of consuming way less energy, thus allowing the installation outside the traditional, industrial settings (like offices for example).

This is misleading. A 250W FPGA will never outperform a 250W ASIC, let alone a 3kW ASIC.

That's the one big drawback of FPGAs. They will always lose against ASIC, while having the upside of being reprogrammable.
Otherwise every Bitcoin miner would use FPGAs

But yeah, there are coins that like change algorithm all the time to prevent ASIC mining and stuff like that, there FPGAs really come in handy.

they must be programmed through specific software called bitstreams. They can be developed for most Proof-of-Work-based digital currencies, so FPGA boards are very versatile.

the advantage of FPGA-based solutions is given by the lower consumption: if an ASICS consumes 3kW, an FPGA board consumes 250W

In parallel, ALPS Blockchain is pursuing the development of mining farms based on FPGA technology, an acronym for Field Programmable Gate Array: it is a programmable chip, designed to be configured through software after production. Contains programmable logic blocks and memory elements. It has the characteristic of being flexible, reprogrammable, and usable for other purposes, including artificial intelligence, data processing, data mining, or for the mining of digital currencies whose algorithms are not already supported by ASIC. FPGA cards are cards that, despite a lower energy efficiency, are not linked to a specific mining algorithm, and can therefore be addressed to the mining of different coins depending on the market trend. It is a niche technology: to use FPGAs for mining, they must be programmed through specific software called bitstreams. They can be developed for most Proof-of-Work-based digital currencies, so FPGA boards are very versatile. the advantage of FPGA-based solutions is given by the lower consumption: if an ASICS consumes 3kW, an FPGA board consumes 250W, thus adapting to solutions that are not purely industrial.
This type of solution requires a strong propensity for research and development, an area in which Alps Blockchain dedicates a lot of energy. In the R&D field, efforts are directed both in the field of software, dealing personally with the development of customized firmware for both FPGA and ASICS boards, to make them more and more performing, but also from the hardware point of view, designing more and more efficient liquid cooling systems specific for each ASICS technology, FPGA or GPU. Finally, ALPS Blockchain has developed a series of software for the management of mining farms: monitoring systems based on IoT, auto-switching algorithms, reporting systems, and everything necessary for the management of operations.

Anyone in here who have knowledge about programming a FPGA to be effective at bitcoin mining?

3. Mining BITCOIN is done exclusively with dedicated BITCOIN mining hardware based on ASICs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit . You CAN NOT meaningfully mine bitcoin today with CPU, GPU or even FPGAs. Bitcoin difficulty adapts to match the amount of mining done on the network and has reached levels trillions of times too high to mine meaningfully with PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, webpages, javascript, GPUs, and even generalised SHA hardware.