Topic: Using mining gear for other financial purposes? (Read 6131 times)

I just dont think anyone realizes how much power the Bitcoin economy has. If people really knew, we would be a processing gold mine by now. I think a fine project would be a portal portraying the resources and maybe even private pledges by miners that would like to offer resources.

Reaching out to "whomever" could be interested is the hardest part though.

Easynews offers a way to earn bonus gigs of download by donating unused CPU hashing for medical research or something....World Community Grid.  There is interest in using GPU, but currently they have no project using GPU grid computing. and Easynews gives you 1GB of extra download per 7 days of CPU donated....fug that.

Guys, I don't mean to sound like I am a shill for CoinLab, but did anyone actually read posts #21 and #23? I've joined them recently and it sounds like exactly what this thread is asking about. Admittedly all they've got is promises at the moment... but then, so do all the purported ASIC manufacturers who have caused us to ponder questions like this in the first place!

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BUMP!

With ASIC coming online we need alternatives more than ever. Otherwise we are going back to idle mode for thousands of GPU's/FPGA's. Anyone has ANY idea on how data mining can be archived beside BTC ?

Renting it out to buddies for $2/hour or whatever is the closest you'll get

HF-trading with Open CL support: http://code.google.com/p/ga-bitbot/wiki/QuickStartGuideInDev

Rendering is one thing I can use it for in my studio. If it is really going to help rendering, then I should start planning immediately.

What we need is a pool that handles the "problems" for the people with hardware. A pool that caters to other types of processing needs than just Bitcoin.

I'm using my Bitcoin hardware for the same thing I used it for before I even knew Bitcoin existed - gaming.  Still waiting for the day that Skyrim becomes a "financial purpose," though.

You could use Charity Engine - http://www.charityengine.com/ - uses your CPU but there's probably a way to make it use your GPU. Every share of work gets you an entry into their drawing. Previously they've been $10,000 pots but the last one was a $2,000 rig of some sort.

il ponint miners at something different. i have 1700 mhash and a BFL single if thats any help xP

Bump!

Nobody interested in working out something ?

Another member on this forum posted this link: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9230272/Kaspersky_pleads_for_crypto_help_to_probe_Gauss_malware

I wanted to repost it here, due to the fact that (despite they say brute-force wont help), our community is a bit more than the usual "brute force".

If Kaspersky Labs only wanted to give a prize out for this and enable us to log onto a pool we could hash, job would be done in.....10 min?

At least we could show some muscles.

Original post: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/kaspersky-needs-help-decrypting-an-encryption-mechanism-in-gauss-100697

Hmm thats an idea....
Titanic did the same thing... a ton of linux machines clustered together to render the CGI (was that redundant?)
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2494

So perhaps a distributed graphics rendering engine for rent?

On top of my head I can imagine rendering services could use processing power. Was it not Pixar that bought a farm of servers to render their Ice Age movies? And something like it took months to render each hour if I am not mistaken.

I bet that hardware did not earn itself in, but was a justified cost in order to launch the movie.

Now if they only had a farm they could rent to render their stuff........

JackH, that is exactly what Coinlab hopes to bring on with this new pool, the ability for GPU miners to continue profitably earning bitcoins in the future by using their GPUs for scientific compute jobs outside of the Bitcoin network. 

We are confident we will be able to find work for our pool that will pay more than bitcoin mining will in an ASIC dominated mining environment, which is why we are willing to provide a profit guarantee to those who join our pool.

In short we agree that GPUs should not "go to waste", and we are willing to provide a payment guarantee and take on the risk of trying to find someone who can use it!

Well what I asking for was an alternative "outside" of this industry. The worse thing is to keep working within the same industry, if that industry for some reason is about to fail or simply provides too little funds to make a good living out of it. Lets call it saturation for the sake of the argument.

Now I am not saying Bitcoin is gonna blow anytime soon, if ever. But what I am saying is that there will be a lot of GPU's sitting there doing nothing because they are too expensive to run compared to the myriad of FPGA cards coming out now, and one day ASIC.

So what should all that processing power do? Go to waste and never be used?

I remember I once stumbled upon articles stating how the Japan had denied Iran and North Korea access to PS2 boxes, as those could be utilized for their great processing power: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s119754.htm
However I am not sure our current technology would apply to this scenario and a PS3 or any other computer chip for that matter can handle all the processing need of warfare now at days?

So from this I extrapolate that there must be a need for processing power, even many years later than the PS2 ban. Not that I am all in for processing for Iran or North Korea here, but if one needs it, more must also need it.

What I lack to find is someone that would actually pay for it. That or we are simply to far ahead of the rest of the world thinking in terms like we do in the Bitcoin industry.

CoinLab's Pool! We don't have HPC jobs online yet, but expect they will be available through our pool within the next couple months. Check out our announcement thread.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-coinlab-protected-pool-99643

scrypt need fast access to memory, its not posible to do through usb ... needed direct access...

No. Unless your FPGAs can support scrypt too.

if cgminer now supports scrypt, does this mean my FPGA array can mine LTC?

Would OpenCL be any good for writing programs that emulate neural networks? I don't know how one would make money doing this, but it's something I would enjoy at least as a hobby.

At the beginning, I had way too many Nvidia GPU used for F@H,   So I though of a market were one could pay BTC for F@H credits sent under his name or team.  (ex. Chimp Challenge) http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=1027661

It would have been a way for ATI owner or BTC riches to participate in F@H.

BTC's ease of small payment and small fees would have been the enabling feature.

cgminer also supports scrypt now

I have been wondering on this topic since about a month after I opened the pool
whoever solves this could become very wealthy

We have a huge resource thats great for sha256, how can we use this resource for other applications. And more importantly how do we sell this to the market we identify
"Hi I have a bunch of home computers in a distributed computing network, can I sell you some hashpower" - sounds legit

Good point - ASICs and FPGAs made for bitcoin solving can't be used for Litecoin, so reaper gives GPU owners a chance to keep earning. I don't think it was what the OP was getting at though.

Litecoin

BOINC does have some sort of credit system. Shouldn't be too hard to change it to a different payment system - say, based on bitcoin for ease of payment.

While BOINC seems like a perfect thing, it lack payment plans. It is actually incredible Bitcoin is the first and one and only project that allows people to utilize processing power to earn money. This should by now be a common business model.

BOINC does something similar to that which you propose.

The problem for a pool operator is that they'd need to release a new client (or new module) for every new job that needs to be done. The work would have to be profitable to make this worth while. Soon though it might be the only way GPU owners can profit since ASIC and FPGA miners will arrive soon - but they can only calculate SHA256 hashes, whereas GPUs can perform any calculation available to OpenCL/CUDA.

Hmm I find it hard to believe all this processing power cannot be utilized more efficient. There are tons of universities, government agencies and what not out there that needs to solve complex problems. There must be a better way to utilize all this power beside mining Bitcoin.

password cracking, of course.

This thread?

 - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/what-to-do-with-my-gpus-when-asic-arrives-94192

what about generating vainty addresses?

You can look around russian hacking/cracking forums and see if anyone is in need of cracking hashed passwords.

i have been looking for the same, and didnt find anything which worth more then ele... costs but of course you can mine another currencies

I think I saw a thread somewhere on the forum that came up with solutions on where to utilize the computing power most people may have here. However not on the Bitcoin network, but for renting it out to other companies or agents that would be able to sell the computing power.

I am just thinking as a plan B if everything fails in regards to mining on the Bitcoin network.

Anyone has any suggestions for where someone can utilize high performance computing?