Topic: the RISK of FPGA mining (Read 16759 times)

make me some software so i can use my de10 nano for cpu minable coins so i can rip them down be nice.

The problem is that we're trying to fit hardware to algorithms instead of the other way around. I think we'd be better off if we tried designing the algorithms around the hardware.

https://epsnews.com/2018/05/23/electronic-component-shortages/
https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/staying-ahead-electronics-component-shortage

It's not limited to this FPGA board. There is a worldwide component shortage. The components that are required are the same components that would be used in a bluetooth speaker for instance.

I think a lot of what you're saying is short-sighted. For instance, you've completely ignored tensority. You're making assumptions that FPGA are unable to compete with ASICs. These FPGA would have greater performance than most ASICs. This increases costs and prevents private ASICs as private asics would be less profitable than the FPGA (this was all covered a couple pages back).

SIA, That's the same group that released a big PR saying how wonderful ASICs would be for their coin -- and then -- wanted to fork once bitmain beat them to the punch on shipping? The same group that's been releasing PR about how PoW is doomed? Sorry if I don't put much stock in what they have to say. Ever since bitmain shipped before them they've had a very defeatist attitude in all publications.

If you think that buying a FPGA is a bad investment, that's fine... Just make sure not to completely distort or ignore the truth (like you did by saying "Fpga's face supply chain issues due to the fact that they are not a widespread tech in the hands of millions of people.").

Fpga's are delayed due to a key part shortage.  Not fud fact.

Fpga's face supply chain issues due to the fact that they are not a widespread tech in the hands of millions of people.

Gpu's  have 3 year warranties.

While  amd and nvidia both make gpu chips. they have many customers making gpu's

Gpu's are needed in many applications and millions of people own them.

The real issue is not gpus  vs fpgas vs asics

the issues is how many coins have good development teams.

Sia so smart they build an asic rather then have a 3 fork defense against asics

zcash we pledge to be asic rersistant
zcash allows asics with zero fight.

very few developers take the asic fpga issue for what it is a true treat to the game of mining.

for mining to work as POW:

  cpu, gpu,fpga,asics all need to have some strong coins.

So far everything you said is factually twisted and incorrect. Like I said, FUD.

I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to make more people aware of the risks and they're being tested.

If you think the boards will lose their value then don't buy them. I definitely remember you from discord. FUD.

if you control the software,you can use another way to protect your work.NO EFUSE ,NO battery RAM needed.
1.when board begin to run ,it gen a random number,and append your secretive key1,then SHA2(or others algo) it
2.software read the hash message,send to a server,(the miner is online,so it is easy to connect the server)
3.the server append the hash with your secretive key2,then SHA2(or others algo) it ,send back
4.the board check the result,if match ,run miner,otherwise ,do nothing.

so ,you just need two key,
every new developer or  new algo can have his own key,
also the boards will not lose their value.

So if you reviewed the documentation you would know that the chip can still load unencrypted bitstreams (assuming you use the correct options).

Once the key is loaded, yes, the key cannot be changed.

The ram key is wiped when the board loses power. The board doesn't have a battery.

no, i did not talk on discord, i review it. also i found the pdf,xapp1267,eFuse is OTP,it can lock the chip to a key.

CAUTION! If this bit is programmed to 1, the device cannot be
used unless the AES key is known. Return material
authorization (RMA) returns cannot be accepted and the
Vivado Indirect SPI/BPI flash programming flow cannot be
used if this bit is programmed. You must have external
configuration memories programmed BEFORE you blow this
fuse if you intend to use Vivado for this programming.

why not use the RAM to store the key?

The key doesn't prevent unencrypted designs from running. Keep in mind, if we didn't do this it would also open an attack vector where a developer could maliciously burn the efuse preventing any designs from operating but their own.

I'm pretty sure you were already told this on discord?

A new risk, if the chip is locked by KEY, then the board is worthless unless you know the key, it  have no second-hand value like GPU

but also look at it this way:

What happened after the Americas were 'discovered'........... up to now.

It's human nature.   A "natural cycle" sadly.

The only thing we can do is try to prevent the bad behavior.  Not teach it to people.

A seemingly impossible task;  but something people should strive for.... to fix the parts about human nature that are least desirable.


But I digress.   I do what I can and this is just another wave in the cycle;  thus my final sentiment about our future being behind us.

that's right. Too much greed is involved in crypto world and it is raising too high. It is shame.

There's only greed now in crypto prices for fpga's will never go down only up once a greedy bastard like shitmain starts getting evolved just swapping one devil for the other 

My only FPGA risk assessment:


Creating a FPGA based mining schism just entices another shitmain to come to fruition.

The future is seen through these eyes.  I see the future behind us.

fpga might be a trend for 2019. So far they are quite expensive and I hope that will change.

FPGA might have its disadvantage but it combines what I love the most in GPUs and ASICs. FPGA is that exact hardware and it is the new favorite in the mining community. In terms of  no limitation and flexibility (which coin to mine). And theres the thing about less power consumption. I dont own one right now, but I have been researching on it and plan to get it.

Lol. You do know we aren't in 2017 bull fomo trend. You will most likely have to sell at a slight loss. Everyone is pestamistic now and nobody will touch any miner with a 10 feet pole these days.  It's not the time to think about being greedy in this bear market.

Hi,

On June 19th, I purchased the XILINX 1525 with mods and DIMMs from the 1st bulk order on the Zetheron thread.
I have the receipt to prove it and I'm sure FPGA.land/Squirrels Research will back me up. It will arrive sometime
in August and then I can ship it out. I really wanted to run this card, as projections are $20-$50 per day.
Unfortunately, I need to sell it to pay off some debt. I'm asking $6,000 to cover taxes, shipping, fees, etc.
I know that may seem high but as far as I have researched, Batch 2 is not even close to ready, and people
could be waiting until next year sometime. I will accept ZEN, BTC, ETH and possibly PayPal.

PM me if interested. I'm open to reasonable offers. Highest offer gets it.

Thanks!

Thanks, I can be a "little" dramatic trying to make a point sometimes. There's a lot of FUD circling around and these FPGA can be a source of good for the community and tech as a whole. I think once the coin developers start to realize what is possible on their coins by specifically targeting these devices things will change. I'm not speaking of proof of work (hashrates / performance), but actual useful work that can be accomplished.

Even if we did swap 10 million gpus over to 10 million fpgas reducing total power consumption by 1.5GW and yes, we've lowered the gap between ASICs and average miners; But, we're still spending 1.5GW doing useless/meaningless work. It's power enough for a small city and it's being used to prove it's being used.

Most of you guys tend to forget one think in comparison between CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and ASICs


While CPUs and GPUs are generally available in all countries around the world and anyone can buy them from the shop, without the need to get in touch with customs etc.


FPGAs and ASICs are not available everywhere.

Thank you vapourminer.   

I agree with you and believe that FPGAs are a good step towards reducing the total energy consumed by crypto mining, as well as being a viable alternative to ASIC monopoly. The only problem I have with FPGAs is that they are more or less CENTRALIZED.

Why? Because getting an FPGA to mine crypto is technical. Not everyone, most especially your non-techy people, will be able to configure and run an FPGA. Although in the future, devs may release an extremely user friendly software for FPGAs, that is a long time further and besides, the cost of a single FPGA is also restrictive. Point is, FPGAs could be harmful to crypto blockchains because of the centralization of hardware to companies/individuals with deep pockets and who know how to use them.

https://discord.gg/jdw8jZB

Dude, there is not a unlimited storage or production of FPGA's. There are only a few FPGA's currently on the market and look how much GPU's are floating around the globe. Im not sure about the amount of FPGA's, but Im sure that if we have just for example 10 Million GPU's there will be only like 50k FPGA's.
So just calculate that again, if the FPGA's only take 150W and one GPU 100-300W depend on the model!

Why should consumption be lower? People will just add more asics or FPGA because right now electricity is the limiting factor. So there's no way global consumption will reduce.

@Sensless, im a big fan of your guys work. This will really change the future and we will have a really low power consumption for people around the world. Im a hobby miner and im paying 0.3$ per kW and this is really sad, im not making much profits but i love it.
The price of a FPGA is a lot currently so i cant afford it. But im sure it will change in the future.

Please dont get mad of this comments here on bitcointalk. There are a lot of douchebags that even dont know how hardware works.
Just keep the good work!

This invite has expired.  Do you happen to know of another?  Thank you...

FGPA were never a threat to the markets ever, even during the Bitcoin days.

The reason why is because there is a very low supply of FGPA manufacteurs out there. Exponentially smaller than GPU manufacteurs and even smaller than the ASICs that are produced.

I don't Xilinx and all the other FGPA manufacteurs will step up production just so a few people can mine XMR at an excellent rate.

Each hardware has his own space in the cryptomining ecosystem...... FPGA is not suitable (profitable) for ETHASH algo.... but with TRIBUS, you could get 2100 MH/s (Keyco),  that means 30$/ per day  or  ROI in 6,5 -7  months (with low electricty cost ) , with ONLY 1 card... and with less wattage usage than a full GPU Rig.... so you will save in OPEX cost, .... the PROS  for FPGA its absolutely  programmable,  the CONTRAS,  you need know enough low -level  programming skills in order to develop  the bitstream for each algo you want to  use.

This honestly is going to be the next gen GPU mining. I dont know about getting them cheaper than regular GPUs, but if you can do what you say more power to ya!

I do believe this because on doing my own research Ive found that most corporate clients should be using FPGAs rather than GPUs because of the differing variability and lower power usage but they simply cant get the devs for it. This is going to be the next gen, IMHO

I really keep my attention close to this new approach; how the FPGA mining technology will turns out.
It's interesting yet so risky considering that all people and big company doing this arm race.
Personally I really want that the FPGA mining able to close the gap with current situation with ASIC miner.
But let's see is it really sensible anyhow.

FPGA's are different from ASIC, because once you stamp out an ASIC, it's done... You ship it as is... Something changes, or you want to mine another algorithm? Tough... It was printed that way.

FPGA... the FP means FIELD PROGRAMMABLE. Means you dont need special tools to rewrite the function of the gates in the FPGA. The GA means GATE ARRAY.
5 years ahead of GPUs in AI. Actually used to design the GPUs you think are so friggin powerful.

Now we have SINGLE FPGAs that do the work that used to take dozens and even hundreds of CPLDs or FPGAs...

And these simpletons want to live in denial... Oh they can never replace my GPU... They could never do what a CPU can...  Bwahahaha...

Stop your self bullshitting.

Also, as to the argument that poorer countries cannot get them?  Poorer people cannot get them?
I submit to you, that 3 and 4 generation old FPGAs can be clustered. They can be bussed together, adding SRAM or SyncDRAM to them, (CHEAP, and FAST at those lower clockrates), and a cluster of moderately powered FPGAs could be tasked to do what these 10th generation PLDs can do, just at a slower rate per chip, and with less logic per chip. The bitstream can come from any JEDEC compatible flash device, or even from an MCU running a JEDEC emulation of a flash chip...


Something nearly twice as powerful could be made for 1/3 the cost of the new 10th gen FPGAs, just requiring a little more engineering.

Stop guessing about what you don't understand.

30 devs working on FPGAs would definitely be a sight to see.

I'd just like to change things up a bit and say THANK YOU, senseless and GPUHoarder, your work on bringing these FPGAs to the masses is phenomenal and will surely healthy for crypto in the long run. People have placed their trust on you for a reason and I wish nothing but success for your endeavors. Good luck!

there is a rule.

The more hashrate you put on a coin, the faster you end it. A coin cannot be mined for ever right?? Crypto market is not the market where you can crash a coin by hard-mining it, and when it goes PoS then change to another coin that will be as valuable as that one and continue thinking you´ll have the same profit.

This example ilustrates it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4tjn3VVPis

This is what you guys are doing. By centralizing the hashrate in big machines, leaving not wealthy asside because they cannot pay that hardware, you destroy the possibility for others to live. For example, in Venezuela, and other countries, this cryptomarket is helping people to pay bills. This is possible because the hashrate has not gone up with ASIC mining and others making mining unprofitable for gpu miners.  

Capitalism SHOULD NOT BE A WAY OF DESTROYING POOR PEOPLE BY CENTRALIZING THE MARKET. This market was not meant to be done by rich. And if this has become like this, i wish it dies as soon as possible.

Decentralization, the most claimed award for this market is , according to you, DEAD, since by pulling this machines online, you´ll make unprofitable mining for everybody except you.

But even considering you did not care about it, the more hashrate , and faster (because this machines mine much more), the increase in difficulty can also take you down by the greed of others.

GPU's let people enter this world, because the hashrate is not bound to increase a lot in a short period. ASICS and whatever shit you like, can increase hahrate to some extent that in a short period your machine will not give you any profit.

Endeed, someone said that at a price of 6000$ for BTC would not be profitable for ASIC miners, as the costs and difficulty would leave no profit.

I understand you are pushing your own agenda. And also your own money. Greed has achieved this: BTC , mined only by ASIC is the MOST CENTRALIZED MARKET TODAY. 70% of all the hashrate is in China and controlled by chinesse people.

some people are claiming that this people are selling cheaper their coins (not passing through exchanges) because that money would be "black money" without taxes and controls. Also, if those people are selling coins asside from the market, the market would see NO DEMAND, when in fact there is.

I will never support you guys. I will never support greed.

I don't know the big miners and bitmain will always be ahead of regular miners they have alot of money to burn and some of the best people working for them, hopefully someone will come up with a way to beat both and make a algo that can only be mined cpu/gpu the only way for pow to be decentralized is to be mineable by hardware that's accessible to everyone anywhere at a reasonable cost

FPGA for home miner will be used for established coin on established algo.
Developpers who work for themselves can produce the bitstream and mine without publishing their work and can adapt to new algorithm faster.

Crypto space is too dynamic. Timing is everything. I was mining Bytom with GPU from the very beginning of mainnet. Now difficulty is higher and I'm holding long term what I mined. Did You do the same with FPGA?
As I like to be diversified (CPU, GPU, ASIC, trading), I would enter FPGA mining if I see realized plans of having number of developers interested, publishing algos fast enough and competing with fees over miners.

You mean 5-10x performance for the same power consumption as a GPU is a joke ?
Well you have some particular sense of humor

FPGA is a joke , not real benefit!

Granted there is risk in FPGA
But this takes some power back from asic manufacturers who are most likely running equipment like this or better.
once these can be scaled down nicely, they will replace gpu's entirely. and this was always going to happen. Gpu miners have already cut back on spending and will likely be deciding whether to get more invested into it, or less. The days of getting into mining at home with your 1 or 2 gpu's is not over, smaller cap coins with their own algos will get away from FPGA until they get big, just like ASICS.

Ultimately we will just have a middle ground between gpu's(hobbyist) and ASICS(large scale). and this first batch of miners will make a very small dent overall compared to asics for the next 6-12 months, So there is still time for gpu miners to all get their ROI.
But I would rather side with FPGA to slow down companies who use asics in house before releasing to market for massive gains

Thank you I appreciate you taking the time to explain things I'm against asic because they are centralized with bitmain running the show with them having kill switches and backed by the Chinese government things can only go one way theirs, my biggest issue with fpgas is the pricing and hopefully things will work out there needs to be hardware specifically for mining that can mine different algos but are available for anyone

an ASIC can only do one thing, what it was designed to do. A FPGA is like a GPU, it can do whatever you program it to do. It's even possible to program it in the same language used to program the GPU (OpenCL).

There will be competition in the space, we're providing a platform that will force developers to compete on performance and fee to stay relevant.

Yes, cost is still high. This is my focus right now. Dropping the cost of these devices. Our current offerings are just the first step in this process; considering that we've achieved 1/2 the retail price that others are selling them for, I think we did very well. But again, this is just the start.

edit: removed the bit about claymore because it was rumor and probably not true to start with. But, even if it's not, the general idea stands.

I'm just asking how are fpga any different than asic they are expensive which excludes people from poorer countries getting them plus how is it going to save on power at first maybe but as the hashrate goes up so does difficulty so you need to add more miners also how are you going to get a company selling a 3000-4000 dollar piece of hardware to 700-800 and that's a high priced gpu.
Listen I'm not trying to bust balls here I'm all for power reduction it's the cost and we all know there's going to be greedy devs hiding in 10 or 15% Dev fees it was going on with zec, you look at things different because you have access to fpgas at a cost lower than most and know what your doing with them

Do you have anything to substantiate that claim?

I can show you a chat room with 30 fpga devs in it right now feverishly working away to provide bitstreams for the community. What can you show me?

https://discord.gg/M6CyRh

I WILL get these FPGA to GPU pricing; or Xilinx (and Intel) is going to need to get a restraining order against me. I don't know how to give up, ask paypal.

Did you even read what I said, I don`t believe in open source for FPGA expecialy with xx big farms that will pay any developer out there, and we know there are just few ppl that will work on fpga, my personal opinion that just crumbs will be let out, profitable bitsream will be bought and only released when some over the developer head say he can.......

I also would like to be wrong and I hope... time will tell

Why is it, I have to substantiate my claims but no one else does?


it's ridiculous...

WHERES THE CODE?!!?
here...
WHERES THE PROOF?!?!
here...
WHERES THE MORE PROOF?!?!?
here...
WHERES THE EXTRA PROOF!?!!?
here..
I STILL DONT BELIEVE IT, GIVE ME MORE PROOF?!!?
here..
THIS IS ILLOGICAL, EXPLAIN IT TO ME?!?!
here...

then.....

"Uh ya, I don't have any proof this is a scam but I'm going to say it's a scam anyway because I'm a troll and I want to bring my FUD parade to town"..

There are too many independent individuals working on this and with intimate knowledge of it for it to be a scam. And, as we've publicly stated MANY MANY times. There will only be 5000 of these things to hit the markets. We'd like as many as possible to be in the hands of independent miners. But if the independent / small miners don't want them -- there's no doubt that the farms will.

I'm not going to make any claims as to profitability. I'm not a master of the mystic arts or even a financial advisor. What I will say is, we've provided very conservative numbers and we expect everyone to be very happy. However, we cannot control other players in the market, at least, not as much as we'd like to be able to.

Hopefully I won't get trolled for quoting Donald Rumsfeld... But..... "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

This is all pure FUD and nice talk....... we know as soon as HW stock is sold best profit algos will be done just for big farms....... ppl will start to curse and be mad...

I hope I am wrong but that is how its done

the released bitstream will get you ROI of +2 years or so , while the big one milk the coins and play stupid, and GPU miners cry someone is harvest their shit and no one has FPGA for it

PS: I still hope I be wrong, but I would not bet on that

My goal in this venture is to reduce the RETAIL cost of FPGA to under $1000, to utilize 50% of the power of a gpu, and provide 10x the performance of a gpu ... ON ANY ALGORITHM..... That's pointed directly at you ethash+progpow.

The current pricing we've achieved is a big step in the right direction. But there's still a lot of work to be done.

I want GPUs OUT of this market. They DO NOT belong here.

Maths is hard...

Let's say a network has 1000 gpu miners each with 1Mh/s. Each GPU is like 300 watts. A total of 1000Mh/s and 300kW.
Now let's say we have a network of fpga using the same algo. 100 FPGA with 10Mh/s. Each FPGA is around 150 watts. A total of 1000Mh/s and 15kW.

So, by switching this network over to FPGA and replacing the hashrate hash for hash we have decreased the total electrical power consumption by 285kW (95% reduction in power consumption).

..

But, what we really want is ASIC resistance, right?

Ok...


Let's say we have a network of 1000 gpu miners each with 1Mh/s. Each GPU is like 300 watts. A total of 1000Mh/s and 300kW.

Someone goes and spends 2 months and $300,000 developing a 90nm asic that gets a 4x performance improvement over GPU plus significant cost reduction at scale. Now we have a device that will have 4Mh/s and consume let's say 100 watts... This is bad right? We have a secret miner on the network who paid very little cost to rapidly have an ASIC developed and they could quickly launch a 51% attack with as little as 250 devices!

Let's make the assumption that I've achieved significant cost reduction and FPGA can be bought for the price of a gpu and are available in the same quantities......

We've now replaced our 1000 gpu miners board for board with FPGA. So, we have 1000 fpga each with 10Mh/s. Each FPGA is around 150 watts. A total of 150kW (still significant power reduction over gpus...) and 10,000Mh/s.

Someone goes and spends 2 months and $300,000 developing a 90nm asic that gets a 4x performance improvement over a GPU plus significant cost reduction at scale. Now we have a device that will have 4Mh/s and consume let's say 100 watts... This is bad right? NOPE! This device would not be as profitable as the FPGA and is zero threat to the coin. The device would more than likely operate AT A LOSS depending on the cost of electricity for those running it. The total number of devices required to launch a 51% attack (and costs associated with it) would be increased by 10x.

By replacing these GPU board for board we've made high level cheap asics unprofitable, we've reduced the power consumption for the entire network by 50%, and significantly increased the security of the network.


...


So tell me, which is the better general purpose solution? GPU or FPGA?

Search for "aws-keccak.zip" on discord

https://discord.gg/M6CyRh

There's like 30+ developers on discord who are going to be releasing software and bitstream support. I can't believe it's still possible for anyone to question the legitimacy of the hardware or that it exists.

I have searched and I cannot find the download links, any help in locating them would be appreciated.

just a small time hobby miner here, 7 card rig. bought a single vcu1525 for 3.6k USD, i could easily of bought more but want to see how it pans out. dunno what percentage hash we hobby miners represent, any guesses?

as for "gaming only" rigs with one or two cards that mine part time whats that percentage of hash? i would think its pretty low. so i doubt they are eating into our profits.

fpga should help lessen the advantage 90, 45 nm asics that private organizations have in the wild now and are mining privately with. make the cost of asics much more expensive (like needing 14 nm instead of 130 nm to compete with current fpgas, or whatever the numbers are, (sorry not knowledgeable in node sizes of fpga vs old tech asics vs cutting edge asics, so consider these numbers guesses)

No I do understand.  I remain skeptical this is the correct prediction of future events.

I suppose time will tell won't it?  FWIW - I hope you're right.

Ya you think Bitmain isn't going to get involved they have some of the smartest people working for them and now that the fpga manufacturers realize how much more money they can make your 3500 card will cost 6000

Early on I expect FPGA to possibly end up being very profitable.  Some will sell their GPUs and re-equip with one or two FPGA at the same cost basis.  Some may quit entirely.  It'll be fine for a while.

The thing is people are greedy.  They are going to do the math and figure out how 10 more of them will vastly increase profits.  Which it will in the short term.  They will then take out a loan or whatever it takes thinking they have a gold mine on their hands.  And they will - for a while.

Once enough people do that, and once enough of the big players re-equip, then hello 10x difficulty increase.  It won't happen overnight.  Long term though - doesn't look real favorable to me.

Ya I don't think anyone relizes the can of worms this is going to open normal home miners can't afford 3500-5000 on one card as more are released the difficulty goes up so your still going to end up using the same amount of power as before because you need to run more to keep up and mining less because of difficulty, but than again the price tag is going to push people out of mining so everything will eventually end up centralized

Watch out, we got a professional miner here 

What you don't understand and your missing.

The cost of fpga is  expensive so people will hit a certain risk point and stop buying more. Buying 10 FPGA will cost $35k and consume 1000 watts,  whereas a gpu would consume much higher wattage 10x more for same hashrate

Also switching over to FPGA most importantly will filter out those millenials or 14 year old  gamers that gets "free" electric ,that are just wasting us real miners time and eating into our bottom line profits.  Some of us real miners treat this as a real business and we don't need gamers involved looking for to roi for a free gpu to game with.

i can think about centralization, because fpga is more expensive and casual miner can not afford it easily, but perssonally i don't have anything against it, after all it's like a gpu...

Disregarding the normal fluctuation in value of coins being mined.  I don't see how this conclusion is arrived at.

Nobody interested in these devices is planning on continuing along at the same hash rate they are now with a GPU rig or farm.  They will want and need more to keep up.  Nobody is going to buy one and go "OK, I got the same hash as my 15 1080ti at 10% of the electricity so now I'm good this is it."  Once they re-equip en masse then network hash skyrockets.  Just like it does with an ASIC machine.  They hit the network and difficulty goes through the roof.  People then are under pressure to buy more to keep up.  And so on.

Perhaps this is a better way to illustrate:
I have one gpu.  I hash 1000 h/s @ 1000w.
I buy one FPGA.  I hash 10000 h/s @ 100w.
Am I going to buy just one FPGA then?  No.  I'm going to buy 10 of the things so I can run 100x the hash at the same power.  Just like everyone else will.  While we are all hashing more for the same power.  We are all hashing more.  And difficulty goes sky high to compensate for this.

Would like to know what I'm not understanding here.

Any proof I'd provide would just be my own personal experience. Which you'd discount in the same way you just did.

You realize, I HAVE POSTED PICTURES OF FPGA WORKING IN MY OFFICE. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED THE BTC ADDRESSES SHOWING $100s of K MINED. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN MINE ON AMAZON F1 FPGA. Correct?

You realize, I HAVE POSTED FUNCTIONAL SOURCE CODE SO ANYONE CAN COMPILE ON THEIR VCU1525. Correct?

Going to guess a big NO on the questions above.

That's not true.

If you replace a network hash for hash you end up with the same hashrate and 1/10 the ENTIRE NETWORK POWER CONSUMPTION.

If you replace a network board for board you end up with the same power consumption and 10x the hashrate which provides increased ASIC resistance. This makes any ASIC above 45-32nm not profitable and not worth the effort in making. No more private / secret high level 90, 110, 130, etc nm asics!

Saying something is one thing but backing it up with real facts is another. If you are absolutely 100% certain then some facts would probably be a helpful and constructive discussion to have.

The thing is, nobody can really even prove that you have an FPGA working. My thinking is just that if you mined FPGA in a "big way" then why would you go about sharing that and decreasing your profit? The only logical reason is that you aren't really earning much from it and selling hardware would be more profitable. It's good that you've sold out your stock and everything but i really do hope you follow through and deliver on your promised products.

Once everyone sells their GPUs and moves to FPGA your electricity savings are wiped out as is any advantage in hashing power you had.  Difficulty skyrockets once everyone re-equips.  It'll be good early on in the transition phase assuming this actually happens on a large scale.  Past that not so much.  Balance returns and you've come full circle.

Why is it a problem to buy a FPGA as a GPU Miner?

it's not like you can do anything here, there is no way to stop fpga from mining, changing algo don't work like against asic, so we are doomed to adapt, the good thing is that the new nvidia gpu are strong enough to make a competition against fpga

This guy sounds like he would run a profitable venture lol.

As someone who secretly mined on FPGA for over a year and in a big way. I can say with absolute 100% certainty you're wrong.

What Claymore earns is probably ant food compared to what huge companies would pay to keep the best source code private. Why? Because it could be more costly for them not do so. If they have centralization of software they could be earning twice than what everyone else is. Thats a lot more than some 1 or 2% dev fee.

This is probably happening now and we just don't know it. #Claymore has a private version that mines 2x the speed.

naah, rejected. gpu has many advantages over fpga.
let exist coins for cpu, gpu, fpga and asics. and noone do not cross the line of others.

With limited number of devices in the market devs are incentivized to release their code. By having multiple devs in the same space it creates competition. Go look at some of claymore's ethereum addresses and tell me that it's not worth it for those who are able


I'm looking forward to ProgPOW+FPGA They make a better combination than you'd think.

Since there will be a variety of code for each different coin, I can see an FPGA market for software getting pretty nasty. the best code will be kept in house and it will hurt competition more than you would think

On average it takes me about 1 day to make a hashcore for a new algorithm on the FPGA.

ALL the rest of the time is the "shell", and I'm not referring to senseless' shell but the code and drivers on the PC side, the FPGA/Logic interface and deserialization of command and control data, high bandwidth state passing or low bandwidth block+nonce passing, dynamic clock management, power and thermals, etc.

New algorithm - ~1 day to be up and running, heavily optimized over a few weeks just like GPU or CPU.

And this is me working solo. We will have a team of FPGA developers working on this. This is not the first move - making the VCU1525 available, this is part of an entire effort.

 

Just the same we were able to mine bitcoin with CPU, then GPU, then ASIC.... Aaaaaaaaand it's gone
The only defense against ASIC and evil bitmain/Halong is dev trying hard to develop ProgPOW

opencl for FPGA is just a dessert and may not be really useful. For example, it hasn't seen the true effect of lyra2z for many days, but it can be compiled in a few minutes on the GPU.

This is like saying its a really bad idea to use GPU miners because there are only a few mining programs that exist for it.
Think about it - if we are really concerned Claymore and a few of the devs who push CCminer could easily just lock it down and make it so we have to pay to play. This would actually be worthwhile IMO (and is what Claymore already does by using the dev-fee).

The fact is that tons of corporate entities actually use GPUs when they should be using FGPAs. This is simply a fact. It will quickly become a world in which we will all joke about the days in which we were mining with GPUs. Its just a fact of life. Tech goes forward and so do industries within the Tech sector.

You realize you can compile opencl code for fpga on sdaccel right?

The key to earn big money in altcoin mining is "mine at the beginning,at low network difficulty",only GPU or CPU farm can rush in at beginning.mine for few days and wait the rocket,you will earn more than mining a whole year.Get the most advanced GPU and CPU is primary task.FPGA may be suitable for long run,but the revenue  is too low  compared to GPU using my method.

Indeed, if FPGA become mainstream at "normal costs" it will recenter graphic cards to what it's supposed to do and reduce costs for graphic cards (i'm a gamer as well)
And it will be better for the planet overall which much lower power consumption

I like that argument.

If everyone moves to FPGA, it'll come down to the same ratio as now. What I mean by that, is that you'll have FPG farms and small miners all on FPGA too, the revenues won't change for either of them.

Imagine one board is as fast as what, 4-5 miners. This is a no brainer to me, but still too expensive atm.

If you can do that senseless then hats down to you. I have nothing against FPGA (my main objection against ASICs are the companies that make them and their unethical pratices) but if you can lower the prices so that small time miners can enter the FPGA field, that would be really awesome.

GPUs were never ideal for mining. Yes, they are reconfigurable, so are FPGA. The nice thing about the FPGA is that the performance ratio is much higher. On a POW network secured by FPGA the cost of entry for an ASIC is much higher for small players. Everyone is so busy worrying about bitmain they're not thinking about the smaller players out there who are developing extremely low cost high level ASICs. For example, the cost of entry for a 130 to 110nm ASIC might be UNDER $100,000 and it would have performance / power ratios multiples higher than a GPU (depending on the algo). At these high levels you can very quickly create, verify and print the design. But, when you compare the performance of a 110nm ASIC to a 16nm FPGA, the FPGA would blow it out of the water. Performance comparisons between ASICs and 16nm FPGA would probably start around 45->32nm. This means, if someone wanted to create an ASIC to mine on these coins they'll have to do so at least those levels. This increases the cost, time to delivery, and risk of failure [for the same reward].

What we are working on now is further reducing costs and what I want to see is these devices enter into the realm of GPU pricing. Let's give the video cards back to the gamers and use devices that are more suited for what we need in the crypto community.


We're selling these devices now at the lowest cost anyone has ever publicly or privately advertised these boards for, ever. We were able to obtain an amazing deal and instead of profit taking on that, we're passing it along. Be the change you want to see and support the change you want to see.

the main draw for me is power usage. my electric costs are high and fpgas are an answer to that.

1. as for developers, it seems most bitstreams will have a devfee, that incentives development.

2. sure but tapeout still takes time (2-3 months?) in which the fpga will rule. then change algo again perhaps.

3. true, easy to burn it up. so, run vetted bitstreams, observe proper cooling, do monthly maintenance.

4. for algo changes, depending on what changes in the algo i believe ive heard a few days for the new bitstream to come out with most of that time being compiling (or whatever its called) the new bitstream

but hey you may be right. i just ordered one, we will see how it goes. and yes i am aware i may of wasted 3.6k USD. if so oh well at least ill have a cool toy to learn VHDL on.

There are no GPU maximalist atm, GPU mining is also abused by large GPU farms that do no good

FPGA might even be end of POW, as big farms will harvest 90% now, as I don`t trust on FPGA open sourcing! (might happen for some but they all will be low profit as rest big evil farms will be even worst then bitmain!)

Another GPU maxamlist fear of his profits going to trash.

Gpu were never intended to process block so thinking this would be acceptable future hardware to deal with money is a novelty but false idea

Adapt or die GPU miners

1. centralization of development, only a few people can publish miner for FPGA. In the face of much lower than expected hashrate and profit, you can only be forced to accept.if the chip is locked to a KEY,it will have no resale value.ref to xilinx https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/application_notes/xapp1267-encryp-efuse-program.pdf

2. risk of open source, if open source, is likely to be taken by the third party to make  MPW  ASIC, which does not require much money , but return is much higher than FPGA.

3. risk of warranty, FPGA is quite different from GPU, it can not real-time monitoring the running state and cannot quickly adjust the frequency, when  you notice the running state exceeds the limit, it is late. Maintenance may be a big trouble , the FPGA is very expensive, if the FPGA chip burned, that is equal to the board scrap.

4.algo risk, altcoin developers may change the algorithm, GPU can quickly adapt to the new algorithm, but FPGA developers cannot be so fast ,when he worked hard to develop a new miner,the algorithm may change again.

At present, FPGA miner is unrealistic and some is obviously scam.electricity fee is not the main factor for altcoin mining.
all what you do is mine at the beginning,at low network difficulty,only GPU or CPU farm can taste the first fat meat.
mine for few days and wait the rocket,you will earn more than mining a whole year.
ROI and electricity fee are not important, because GPU and CPU can bring dozens of times more revenue every year.

Keep your eyes open and don't fall into the trap.