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One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

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Re: One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

#21

Post by mozumder »

0x0 wrote: post #14
PKop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apply that to energy efficiency research as well. The monetary incentives are too strong for it not to happen.

I don't think it's possible to be energy efficient in a proof-of-work blockchain? Whatever energy saving you come up with will be negated by having to match competing miners' increasing throughput. If you are not running on 100% you are losing out?

And the point of blockchain is to set a minimum difficulty level of work, which translates to a minimum energy use.

Re: One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

#22

Post by sevensor »

I mean, yes 20k is a big order, but to put that in perspective, it's at most the output of one small production line for one month, and more likely they're balancing it with other orders (and doing a ramp to verify the process before going full bore). It's still a tiny fraction of the foundry industry overall.

Re: One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

#24

Post by microtherion »

PKop wrote: post #7
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A competitor to Bitmain just finished their prototype 12nm Bitcoin mining chip and is moving forward to their target 7nm mining chip Huh, maybe the dark fibre of Bitcoin will be cheap silicon and subsidized fab research.

Apply that to energy efficiency research as well. The monetary incentives are too strong for it not to happen.

There would definitely be a first mover advantage. On the other hand, for most other VLSI applications, improved energy usage is a PERMANENT advantage: If e.g. Apple improves energy efficiency of Annn chips, it enables them to build better devices, even if the rest of the industry catches up.

For Bitcoin, my understanding is that this is not the case, because any cost improvement in the industry will attract more miners until difficulty adjusts to the previous equilibrium where (cost of mining a bitcoin) = (value of a bitcoin)-(some risk premium)

Re: One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

#25

Post by mehrdada »

monocasa wrote: post #20
karambahh wrote: post #15

Has it ever happened before that a consumer of chips is among the largest customers of what appears to be the biggest foundry in the world? (defining "consumer" as "we actually use & run that chip, we don't embed it or sell it"?)

I've heard that Google has a decent amount of custom silicon too.

[I don't know about Google but] lots of people do relatively specialized silicon. However, rarely that happens at the most advanced processes (i.e. low nm).

Re: One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

#26

Post by MatekCopatek »

resiros wrote: post #6

It seems these large players will do everything in their power to make sure this bubble does not pop. I do not know the size of such investment, but it seems to me that these players have the ability to keep the price from crashing and keep the bubble from popping.

See, I had a different thought here. If anything, mining new bitcoins reduces the value of current ones. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what's keeping the bubble from bursting is more dollars coming in - big miners aren't doing that, they don't buy their BTC.

Unlike a clueless average Joe at home, they're running huge businesses, as this article suggests, so they're probably smarter. Does anyone know what the math here is? I'm assuming a) they aren't cashing out too much/too regularly because they're huge and this would drop the price too much and b) they aren't stupid to make huge investments like this, just hoping all would be well.

Where am I wrong? Is the number of fresh "investors" still big enough for all of them to have a steady cashflow? Do they believe they can get out before everyone else? Are they just like all other believers, but with deeper pockets?

Re: One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

#27

Post by jdblair »

karambahh wrote: post #15

Has it ever happened before that a consumer of chips is among the largest customers of what appears to be the biggest foundry in the world? (defining "consumer" as "we actually use & run that chip, we don't embed it or sell it"?)

Yes. In the 60s the United States Department of Defense bought most of the output of all semiconductor manufacture. I found a reference [1] that claims the DoD purchased 70% of the industry output in 1965.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=7o0rAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA6&ots=Z...

[edited to clarify that this is the United States DoD]

Re: One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC per month

#29

Post by asudghionbio »

yitchelle wrote: post #3

Just a thought, if we use even 1% of all computing power that is currently being used for mining cryptocurrency, what can it be used to accomplished?

Nothing. This is all specialized silicon which is totally worthless for anything except mining Bitcoin. It's all going in the dumpster when the price crashes.

It has no social value and never will.

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