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

dvhardware.net

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

#41

Post by elorant »

MatekCopatek wrote: post #26
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…

They probably think Bitcoin has a long way to go. I've talked to people who think it could reach 100k one day.

I hope this whole shenanigan ends sooner than later because now not only we have to pay higher prices for RAM due to smartphones but we also can't find a decent video card below $200. Fuck that shit.

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

#42

Post by guiomie »

wmf wrote: post #28

Note that Bitmain is mostly a hardware vendor, although they do mine using their own equipment. Most of these chips will be sold to other miners, not used by Bitmain themselves.

I was wondering about this, why do they sell them instead of mining them? They could sell the older model once the new chips they designed are ready no?

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

#43

Post by Animats »

On top of that, Etherium mining is eating the graphics board market. The price of NVidia's higher end boards has doubled in the last six months.[1] Etherium was supposed to require a general purpose CPU to mine, but now it's done on GPUs with large RAM.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/cryptocurrency-b...

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

#44

Post by jcomis »

guiomie wrote: post #42
wmf wrote: post #28

Note that Bitmain is mostly a hardware vendor, although they do mine using their own equipment. Most of these chips will be sold to other miners, not used by Bitmain themselves.

I was wondering about this, why do they sell them instead of mining them? They could sell the older model once the new chips they designed are ready no?

Rumor is they do exactly that...

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

#45

Post by wmf »

guiomie wrote: post #42
wmf wrote: post #28

Note that Bitmain is mostly a hardware vendor, although they do mine using their own equipment. Most of these chips will be sold to other miners, not used by Bitmain themselves.

I was wondering about this, why do they sell them instead of mining them? They could sell the older model once the new chips they designed are ready no?

The cynical answer is that customers are willing to pay more than the hardware will ever mine over its lifetime.

The non-cynical answer is that setting up gigawatts of data centers is not trivial and not Bitmain's core competency. Also, selling the hardware upfront locks in the profit even if the price of Bitcoin later crashes.

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

#46

Post by semi-extrinsic »

Animats wrote: post #43

On top of that, Etherium mining is eating the graphics board market. The price of NVidia's higher end boards has doubled in the last six months.[1] Etherium was supposed to require a general purpose CPU to mine, but now it's done on GPUs with large RAM. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/cryptocurrency-b...

I bought an RX 570 three weeks ago; local prices have increased 30% since. In three weeks.

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

#47

Post by Someone1234 »

searine wrote: post #32

Who makes money in a gold rush? It's the guy selling shovels.

That was my thinking too.

There are a lot of replies in this thread talking about Bitmain like they're the miner, when in reality they're the mining supply store selling miners the shovels, hard hats, and so on.

Mining itself may be profitable, or it may not. But no matter what, the supplier should come out with a fairly healthy profit if they play their cards right.

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

#48

Post by HN15718653 »

As a cryptocurrency-confused individual, I read articles like this and wonder how I'm supposed to assign any meaning to the "value" being created here, and by blockchain PoW in general.

So this company is buying a bunch of wafers... He's converting the value of the wafers into value on blockchain, I guess?

Because I can't help but interpret these things as "some people are wasting a lot of electricity, and you should pay them for it!" But, I'm open to a better explanation.

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

#49

Post by maxerickson »

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?

The more efficient your hardware is the more profit you make per block (because you buy less electricity per block reward).

If all hardware was equivalent and an unlimited amount were available efficiency wouldn't matter, but neither of those things are true.

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

#50

Post by Cyph0n »

monocasa wrote: post #31
mehrdada wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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).

That's totally fair. Google's parts that I know about are security coprocessors (like a TPM) that wouldn't really need the newest process. They probably have NICs too that might make sense at that node though.

Their NICs probably use off the shelf ICs from Broadcom or similar. In other words, Google would only handle PCB layout and up.

Besides, modern analog ICs are usually fabbed using custom processes and in-house lower node fabs.

Designing high-speed RF ICs is a huge effort, and as far as I know, Google does not have such capability​.

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