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Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

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Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#31

Post by Groxx »

javert wrote: post #29
Groxx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Litecoin as well? I think the goal (forcefully allowing a wider base by reducing the ability of big players) seems like a good one. It prevents centralization, which is kinda the point of the whole thing.

People could still create humongous litecoin mining farms if it were profitable to do so, leading to the same centralization issue of having large mining pools/firms that are somewhat dominant. That said, the point of Bitcoin is not to avoid that; it is to avoid forced centralization by governments (among other things), which we have for fiat money, and it is succeeding at that. Bitcoin is not supposed to be a democr…

They absolutely could build huge farms, but their advantage in doing so would be significantly less than an average person with a general purpose computer, compared to now. They would effectively have less power over the network as a whole, because it's easier to become profitable (or at least less lossy) and compete, so more people would (theoretically).

Yes, bitcoin is not a democratic currency. But it is designed (and desired) to prevent all power from landing in the hands of very few / one, since then the entire foundation it's built on is worthless. Bitcoin is fundamentally stronger with more players, and Litecoin is easier for more players to join.

Absolutely, it came out a distant second, and that very well could be it's death. But why is there no real point in having more than one? With more than one, "money" is more resilient against new crypto attacks.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#33

Post by mrb »

jgeerts wrote: post #4

Why don't they plug them into their outlets themselves?

None of the 8 persons who replied to you have the correct facts. They are planning to mine with the chips.

The complete story is that the chips are developped in a 50/50 partnership between Leszek Rychlewski (aka "tytus"), and "bitfury" (a group of investors and engineers mostly from eastern europe):

- Tytus set up a company to launch a project known as 100TH-Mine that will deploy a farm running 100 Thash/s of these chips in Wenatchee, WA: https://picostocks.com/businessplan/19

- Bitfury is very discrete and was, as far as we know, merely planning to mine for themselves.

But over time, both entities realized they would be able to generate a lot more predictible revenues if they sold chips and/or fully assembled devices. So Tytus partnered with Megabigpower.com and BFSB as distributors is US and Europe. And the Bitfury group partenered with MetaBank to resell chips and devices in Russia.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#35

Post by mrb »

twentysix wrote: post #34

Just nitpicking, but isnt the unit supposed to be GHz? 400 Giga Cycles/s makes more sense, unless I am missing something.

Gh/s means gigahash/second. 1 billion "Bitcoin hash" per second. With 1 hash defined as SHA256(SHA256(80-byte block header))

I don't have my notes with me but these Bitfury chips run around 150-250 MHz individually. There are 256 of these chips in the 400 Ghash/sec device. Each spits out about 10 hashes per clock cycle.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#36

Post by ultimoo »

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community?

I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or maximizing agriculture throughput in famine, or predicting when the next hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake is coming our way.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#37

Post by slg »

ultimoo wrote: post #36

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community? I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or maximizing agriculture throughput in famine, or predicting when the next hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake is…

The obvious answer is incentives. Bitcoin mining has real financial rewards. It is hard to make a profit off of ending famine. That is the point of things like XPRIZE. It attaches a capitalistic incentive behind technological advancements that benefit society.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#38

Post by sliverstorm »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #17
jgeerts wrote: post #4

Why don't they plug them into their outlets themselves?

They probably will. This needs to be repeated every time btc ASICs are discussed: ASIC economics don't work like most physical products, and instead work more like software. For high-performance asics, the costs of design and masks completely overshadow the costs of actually making chips unless your volume is in the millions. To make the first chip costs many millions, to make the next chip costs $15. The most valuab…

Oh shit, so what you are saying is once the R&D is paid for, they can just stop selling them and manufacture as many $15 400GHash units as they please. At that point they would have virtually zero worry about "breaking even", it's pretty much pure profit as soon as they plug in the device.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#39

Post by icelancer »

ultimoo wrote: post #36

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community? I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or maximizing agriculture throughput in famine, or predicting when the next hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake is…

Put up a few million dollars as the prize to solve said problems and I bet you get a fair share of applicants. What are you waiting for?

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#40

Post by tinco »

simonsarris wrote: post #3

I've got to commend Bitfury, the Levi's of bitcoin. Just as in every gold rush, it is a much more blessed position to be the one selling the blue jeans and shovels than to be the one attempting to sift and mine. I wonder if Bitfury accepts bitcoin as payment. I suspect they do not. EDIT: You can totally pay with bitcoin - http://www.bitfurystrikesback.com/checkout/

You think Levi's wouldn't accept payment in gold?
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