
Bitcoin ASIC Miner from BFL, finally - enmaku
http://codinginmysleep.com/bfl-jalapeno-unboxing-and-demo/
======
Homunculiheaded
The more people get excited about faster ways to hoard bitcoins and eventually
make a nice profit (presumably in USD in the end) the dramatically more
cynical I become about its future. When the bitcoin discussion was mainly
around its use as a currency for things like silkroad, VPNs etc I actually
thought it seemed to have a promising future. I really hope I'm wrong, but I
have a feeling in 2023 the bitcoin discussion will be relegated to nostalgic
jokes about how crazy we used to be.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _The more people get excited about faster ways to hoard bitcoins_

People seem to be oblivious to the fact that a currency must be available in
order to be useful. There is a reason that Gresham's Law has achieved "Law"
status.

Oddly, the right thing to do for currency acceptance would be to shutdown all
of the ASICs.

~~~
pseudonym
I think people are more oblivious to the fact that a "deflationary currency"
is inherently flawed because it by definition results in hoarding, which is
not what you want people to do with your currency. Why would you bother
loaning or investing it if you can make more money just sitting on it?

~~~
fleitz
If USD was limited to currency in circulation then it would not be nearly as
inflationary as it is.

Once an established lending system based on bitcoins is established it will
have the same problems as our current currencies. It wasn't printing money
that caused the real estate bubble, it was the way to banking system has the
power to expand credit and the systemic risk that expansion of credit causes.

Once there are fractional reserve bitcoin banks it will no longer be a
deflationary currency.

~~~
wintersFright
Will people want to borrow in defalationary biased currency though? Better to
borrow in Bernanke Bucks where there is an unstoppable torrent being emitted
monthly.

IMHO the Real estate bubble was from the Fed bailing the prior tech bubble by
suppressing interest rates - which encourages borrowing. When loans are paid
back, the currency created by taking the loan is extinguished but they have
been juicing the system by continually suppressing rates via QE/bond purchases
and not letting the real market decide the risk (ie: price of bonds). Now that
interest rates have hit the floor - the next bubble to pop is the USD itself.

~~~
fleitz
If the USD pops then BTC may be less deflationary. The bubble did not pop
because mortgages were paid back.

Loans are generally repaid in currency, paying back a loan creates even more
currency as the additional currency created by the interest becomes an asset
against which loans can be issued.

~~~
XorNot
The idea the USD is going to collapse is farcical. It would be a global
catastrophe of a scale not yet seen, but also not threatened.

Meanwhile, BTC gains and loses 50 - 80% of its value in a single day. _I
wonder which is more stable_.

~~~
dualogy
> It would be a global catastrophe of a scale not yet seen, but also not
> threatened

It would have been in the 70s -- which is why USD support has remained despite
the Nixon shock for a few more decades. By now, most central banks and
governments are increasingly, dare I say "prepared" or slowly preparing for
the possibility without it impacting their economies or trade too badly.
Nobody wants to see the USD fail or die --- but day-to-day economic / monetary
policies on US soil should become less and less of a rest-of-the-world
economic worry, concern or impact compared to previously.

Now, the last remaining problem is savings of millions tied up in USD promises
worldwide. Still a big problem, and rest assured the USD will continue to get
"support" to the proportion that these savings haven't "migrated" over to
"something else" yet.

Anyway, one day all these notes the US has been "exporting" globally for many
years will come home one way or the other. Hope the new cash supplies won't,
ahem, "overwhelm" a struggling domestic economy at that time, shall we?

~~~
XorNot
"One day". It will be a gradual process - it has to be - because anyone stupid
enough to try and cash-out mass USD in bulk will not get there money's worth
back in it.

But more importantly, is there any real sign that that time is soon? Global
financial crisis...and the world's investors are literally paying the US to
take their money with the current returns on US treasuries.

But it's hardly the USD "collapsing" - it's a gradual process over time, which
crucially doesn't effect the buying power of individuals over meaningful
timespans to them (decades, not days - unlike BTC).

And, probably more importantly, whatever replacement reserve currency comes to
the fore (and what would it be, exactly?), it won't be something like BTC.

------
sjtgraham
I doubted that these ASIC rigs would ship any time soon. Wouldn't it be more
profitable for the vendors to simply to delay/cancel orders and run the rigs
24/7 themselves?

~~~
gesman
Totally agree.

Why would anyone wants to sell the goose who lays golden eggs while gold cost
more than the goose?

They'll pile up cash from "preorders", mine bitcoins and when time is right -
will dump outdated devices to customers.

~~~
sachingulaya
The profitability of ASICs is going to decrease at a rapid rate once they
start shipping to consumers. Additionally, in a few months the market is going
to be flooded with cheap ASICs.

From BFL's perspective if they don't release first they're dead in the water.
They don't know where their competitors are compared to them but they
recognize it's a winner take all situation. The natural thing to do would be
to take pre-orders to fund the manufacturing and start realizing profits now.
Also, if your competitors are offering pre-orders you should be too.

~~~
ihsw
This waxing and waning of mining devices is certainly going to become the
norm.

* Buy up $10K worth of devices

* Make your money while flooding the market with fast and easy BTC

* Sell off all your hardware after the profit margins have cratered

* Wait for new hardware and rinse and repeat

Personally I will be extremely glad when the first wave hits as the hoarders
will start feeling the pinch of inflation.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
bitcoin does not work that way. Inflation decreases at a set rate.

~~~
jquery
Difficulty adjusts week-to-week. Being the only guy with an ASIC is like a
license to print money. Being the 10,000th person with an ASIC will be like
trying to mine with a netbook today.

------
nly
I work this out to be about 180 Mhash/J, which is 80-100x more energy
efficient than any GPU mining.

Also, for anyone wondering: At current difficulty and rate of exchange this
will cost you <$0.10 a day to run and generate $40 of Bitcoin.

~~~
fiatpandas
$40 per day?

~~~
DougWebb
I estimate it'd produce around 0.25 BTC/day, mining in a pool. That's about
$30/day USD at today's price.

As ASICs come online, the difficulty is going to go up, which will reduce the
daily generation rate for any given miner. I've been trying to decide whether
or not to order a device now based on my profitability prediction for months
from now when I might actually get it. I'm guessing by the time I get one I
might be able to produce at least 0.05 BTC/day. Assuming that's $6/day, the
$274 device will take about six weeks to pay for itself. Not too bad, but I
don't know if keeping tabs on it afterwards is worth it for $6/day. It'd only
be worth it if I think BTC are going to be worth a lot more in the future...
getting back to hoarding coins as an investment rather than using them as
currency.

~~~
vl
>getting back to hoarding coins as an investment rather than using them as
currency

But then, may be it's better just to hoard BTC directly right now by
reallocating thousands of dollars required for device? Can't decide for
myself.

------
lingben
selling shovels and pick-axes to miners was always much more lucrative than
being a prospector - plus ca change

~~~
sliverstorm
Well, there were surely a few prospectors who made out like bandits- but on
the whole, yes.

------
sliverstorm
The heat is of course a byproduct of the higher wattage, but I wonder what on
earth happened to make them miss the wattage target by 6-7x?

~~~
nbanks
They probably missed the clock-rate by a factor of 2x, or decided to use half
the number of chips and overclock them to save money. It may also have been
their backup plan because people are willing to pay 8x as much for power, but
they're less willing to get 1/2 the hashrate.

If you run a CPU at the same voltage, but at half the speed, it uses 1/2 the
power because CMOS circuits only really use power as the transistors change
state. However you're also able to run at about 1/2 the voltage without
getting errors. Because V=IR, 1/2 the voltage at the same resistance is 1/2
the amperage, and since P=IV, that's 1/4 the power for normal circuits. Of
course CMOS circuits already run at 1/2 the power. In the real world there's
also leakage and such, but in a perfect world doubling the clockrate takes 8
times the power.

Transmeta's Crusoe was the first processor to really take advantage of this,
by varying the voltage and running slower to save battery life. Before this
time (2000), laptops would use a duty cycle to save power. Soon all the major
chip manufacturers started copying them.

------
w-ll
I ordered the 60gh/s SC Single the night preorderes opened like a year ago. I
think there are maybe ~7 orders before me. I hope I get it soon. I paid 220
btc@5.45 usd for it, let's see if its worth it.

~~~
eof
I ordered a Jalepeno almost immediately. I chose to pay by wire, and the email
i received included "Your order position won't be penalized for any time it
takes to send you this payment information. Please send me an email with a
copy of the wire confirmation form. Once payment has been received, I'll
respond with final confirmation of your order."

I still haven't paid and am going to now. I wonder if they will honor it or
not.

~~~
ghshephard
"time it takes to send you this payment information. "

I don't see where it says you won't be penalized for the time it takes for you
to make a payment. With that said - I'm curious, did people pay in advance of
shipping?

~~~
eof
oh no! i read that wrong everytime. In my said it said "it takes you to send
this payment".

but yes, they have been taking pre-orders for like 9 months and people have
been paying.

------
yekko
Arrived just after the peak too.

~~~
Create
appreciate the thorough burn-in test

------
kevinpet
I'm sure with enough digging around I could find this out for myself, but
could someone familiar with things comment on how the performance of these
boxes compares to a standard ATI card miner?

~~~
loser777
High-end ATI cards will do < 1GH/s, with most midrange cards below 500MH/s.
This does 5GH/s, while using an essentially an order of magnitude less power
than a PC-based rig will use.

<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison>

------
ValentineC
More discussion on this article at Bitcoin Talk:
<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181849.0;all>

------
baddox
That is the current expected bitcoin per gigahash earning rate?

------
daniel-cussen
I thought they had been ripped off by their suppliers and they just never got
wise to it.

