7 ms·

Butterfly Labs Announces Next Generation ASIC Lineup

50 points by mrb 14y ago

mkup 14y ago
Bitcoin mining coffee warmer is a great idea. But why we don't have bitcoin mining water heater for entire house? :)
- stcredzero 14y ago
  Hot water preheat wouldn't be too hard to do, and would save serious money in colder climates. Maybe someone could work a deal with an apartment complex? (Hot water preheat for rent?)
- Strom 14y ago
  That has been done already http://bitfury.org/bitfury110.html http://bitfury.org/bitfury110.html using mining equipment to produce hot water and house heating
  - nivertech 14y ago
    Those who bought old one, now f$%&^d up. New line of mining HW is order of magnitude cheaper.
- elux 14y ago
  Here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3707.msg53879#msg53879 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3707.msg53879#msg538... "The best thing about my water cooling and floor heating is that my wife keeps nagging me to buy a second 5970 to make the floor warmer. Beat this with a air cooled system."
scrod 14y ago
The NSA would find these handy, too.
DanBlake 14y ago
I looked into bitcoin mining before as a possible hackish investment, but there seemed to be anniversary where they made mining twice as hard. As it stood when I checked it out (few months ago) you would only make a buck or two a day with a top of the line graphics card, counting in cheap electricity but NOT the price of the hardware. I cant imagine what happens if they continue doing that (making it more difficult)
- dekz 14y ago
  You're meant to move to making money from processing transactions than mining for new coins, but that's still far from now.
  - rmc 14y ago
    That assumes BitCoin takes off and becomes popular. Which has not been the case yet.
    - narcissus 14y ago
      How do we determine 'popular', though? According to http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/ http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/ there were 3.5M Bitcoins sent in the last 24 hours. MtGox has them at $6.50 each at the moment. I wouldn't consider $22M worth of transactions in the last 24 hours 'unpopular'...
      - ErikHuisman 14y ago
        So, if i move my funds between bank accounts a few times a day i can create a popular multi million euro economy? I don't think 3,5m * $6,50 is the correct measurement of popularity.
        narcissus 14y ago
        I guess if you think that people are just moving Bitcoins around to bump up those numbers, then maybe it's not really measuring anything... I honestly don't know the best way to measure popularity, but I'd love to hear a good way to do so. Until then, well, for me at least, that seems to be the best way to try and work it out. How else do you judge popularity of a currency other than by how much it's being used?
shaggyfrog 14y ago
How many other companies are out there selling Bitcoin mining picks and shovels?
- mrb 14y ago
  At least 3 companies: Enterpoint: http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/cairnsmore/cairnsmore1.html http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/cairnsmore/cairnsmore1.html Ztex: http://www.ztex.de http://www.ztex.de BTCFPGA: http://btcfpga.com/ http://btcfpga.com/ Plus a few independent FPGA board developers on the Bitcoin forums: ICARUS: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51371.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51371.0 X6500: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40058.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40058.0
Devilboy 14y ago
Interesting that this press release carefully avoids mentioning 'bitcoin' at all... The other thing that caught my eye is that $30k will supposedly get you 1 Terahash/s. Well, the entire bitcoin network hashrate is currently only 12 Terahash/s which means someone only needs to purchase about 12 of these devices to gain a majority share. That's less than half a million dollars' investment.
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  So if you bought one of these for $30k and used it for mining you'd get 1/13th of the bitcoins generated? iirc, 50 bitcoins are released every ten minutes? So you'd get mine an average of 550 bitcoins a day. Which are currently worth about $5 each. So it would take about 10 days to recuperate the cost of the server. [edit] Of course this assumes that nobody else buys one of these servers for bitcoin mining and that using it doesn't cause the value of a bitcoin to drop.
  - rmc 14y ago
    The main problem is that if you own the majority of the hashing power, you can rewrite history. You can make all the bitcoin ever mined owned by you.
    - mike-cardwell 14y ago
      There's really no value in doing that though as the bitcoins you steal will suddenly have no value as everybody exits the network and stops accepting them. unless your goal is to destroy the network of course.
    - 0x0 14y ago
      Assuming the manufacturer has produced 12 of these beasts already, they already possess the power to rewrite bitcoin history. Instead of selling the machines for $30k a piece, could they not just use the machines themselves to transfer all bitcoins in the world to their own wallet? The total amount of bitcoins mined to this date should value much more than 12*$30k? Does that mean that the entire bitcoin network should as of today be considered compromised, game over, pack up and go home?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ippisl 14y ago
I think they're using easic.com, which lets you build an ASIC(or something reasonably close to an ASIC in price and performance), with small minimum orders, and low cost design tools. They start at minimum of 45 chips for 45K$ including the tools, and the price gown down from there. With the minimum quantities needed in order to justify manufacturing an high end ASIC rising dramatically, this seems like something that would disrupt the ASIC and some of the FPGA business.
jamesu 14y ago
I looked at bitcoin a while back when the hype was at its peak. Sadly though by then mining using normal equipment was impractical, so i just ignored it. Do people actually use bitcoins nowadays, or is it more of a speculative market?
- dscrd 14y ago
  >Do people actually use bitcoins nowadays, or is it more of a speculative market? For things that you cannot as safely use normal currency, like drugs. Also, Wikileaks recently announced that they will accept donations in bitcoins.
- wcoenen 14y ago
  > *Do people actually use bitcoins nowadays, or is it more of a speculative market? Yes it is used, see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade
- SkyMarshal 14y ago
  See for yourself: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade
Atropos 14y ago
Interesting company / "press release". So their CTO is named "Nasser G", their contact is named "Nick W". They have venture capital funding by an unnamed "private equity group". According to their website, they are based in Kansas City, Missouri but if you search the states business register there is no "Butterfly inc." The trademarks “Butterfly Labs” and “BitForce SC” do not exist in the USPTO database either... Doesn't this seem a bit unusual for a company promising to deliver a $29,899 product?
- mrkmcknz 14y ago
  http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=141 http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=141 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53530.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53530.0 Doesn't look like the Bitcoin community ever received their first gen of products.
  - mrb 14y ago
    Butterfly Labs is shipping real products. I personally own multiple units of their first gen product, the "Single". Many in the Bitcoin community own them as well: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=70611.msg813386#msg813386 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=70611.msg813386#msg8... That said, when Butterfly Labs pre-announced their Singles, it is true that many thought it was a scam... until they delivered.
    - mrkmcknz 14y ago
      Did the performance and power consumption live up to the expectations?
      - mrb 14y ago
        They claim 832 Mhash/s at 80W for the Singles. And, yes, my units match these characteristics. It is worth pointing out that before they had a Single prototype, 6 months ago, they had pre-announced 1000 Mhash/s at 20W... which turned out to be off by 5x in terms of Mhash/Joule. I think there is a fair chance that this ASIC pre-announcement will also fail to reflect the actual numbers. By how much? Who knows.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
tokenadult 14y ago
Perhaps the greatest contribution the Bitcoin experiment will make to humankind is to teach you and me and our neighbors more about the realities of economics. Many of the ideas about how to mine Bitcoins, store Bitcoins, and trade with Bitcoins as a medium of exchange illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of any other medium of exchange in a world full of human beings. Seeing the discussion of Bitcoins here on Hacker News reminds me of the last time that the price of gold (in United States dollars) crashed, and the arguments beforehand that such an occurrence was impossible, for instance. "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" is still an important principle of investment.
gwern 14y ago
> 1) BitForce SC Jalapeno: a USB powered coffee warmer providing 3.5 GH/s, priced at under $149 /not sure if serious

50 points by mrb 14y ago

mkup 14y ago

Bitcoin mining coffee warmer is a great idea. But why we don't have bitcoin mining water heater for entire house? :)

stcredzero 14y ago
Hot water preheat wouldn't be too hard to do, and would save serious money in colder climates. Maybe someone could work a deal with an apartment complex? (Hot water preheat for rent?)
Strom 14y ago
That has been done already http://bitfury.org/bitfury110.html http://bitfury.org/bitfury110.html using mining equipment to produce hot water and house heating
- nivertech 14y ago
  Those who bought old one, now f$%&^d up. New line of mining HW is order of magnitude cheaper.
elux 14y ago
Here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3707.msg53879#msg53879 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3707.msg53879#msg538... "The best thing about my water cooling and floor heating is that my wife keeps nagging me to buy a second 5970 to make the floor warmer. Beat this with a air cooled system."

scrod 14y ago

The NSA would find these handy, too.

DanBlake 14y ago

I looked into bitcoin mining before as a possible hackish investment, but there seemed to be anniversary where they made mining twice as hard. As it stood when I checked it out (few months ago) you would only make a buck or two a day with a top of the line graphics card, counting in cheap electricity but NOT the price of the hardware. I cant imagine what happens if they continue doing that (making it more difficult)

dekz 14y ago
You're meant to move to making money from processing transactions than mining for new coins, but that's still far from now.
- rmc 14y ago
  That assumes BitCoin takes off and becomes popular. Which has not been the case yet.
  - narcissus 14y ago
    How do we determine 'popular', though? According to http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/ http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/ there were 3.5M Bitcoins sent in the last 24 hours. MtGox has them at $6.50 each at the moment. I wouldn't consider $22M worth of transactions in the last 24 hours 'unpopular'...
    - ErikHuisman 14y ago
      So, if i move my funds between bank accounts a few times a day i can create a popular multi million euro economy? I don't think 3,5m * $6,50 is the correct measurement of popularity.
      - narcissus 14y ago
        I guess if you think that people are just moving Bitcoins around to bump up those numbers, then maybe it's not really measuring anything... I honestly don't know the best way to measure popularity, but I'd love to hear a good way to do so. Until then, well, for me at least, that seems to be the best way to try and work it out. How else do you judge popularity of a currency other than by how much it's being used?

shaggyfrog 14y ago

How many other companies are out there selling Bitcoin mining picks and shovels?

mrb 14y ago
At least 3 companies: Enterpoint: http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/cairnsmore/cairnsmore1.html http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/cairnsmore/cairnsmore1.html Ztex: http://www.ztex.de http://www.ztex.de BTCFPGA: http://btcfpga.com/ http://btcfpga.com/ Plus a few independent FPGA board developers on the Bitcoin forums: ICARUS: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51371.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51371.0 X6500: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40058.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40058.0

Devilboy 14y ago

Interesting that this press release carefully avoids mentioning 'bitcoin' at all... The other thing that caught my eye is that $30k will supposedly get you 1 Terahash/s. Well, the entire bitcoin network hashrate is currently only 12 Terahash/s which means someone only needs to purchase about 12 of these devices to gain a majority share. That's less than half a million dollars' investment.

mike-cardwell 14y ago
So if you bought one of these for $30k and used it for mining you'd get 1/13th of the bitcoins generated? iirc, 50 bitcoins are released every ten minutes? So you'd get mine an average of 550 bitcoins a day. Which are currently worth about $5 each. So it would take about 10 days to recuperate the cost of the server. [edit] Of course this assumes that nobody else buys one of these servers for bitcoin mining and that using it doesn't cause the value of a bitcoin to drop.
- rmc 14y ago
  The main problem is that if you own the majority of the hashing power, you can rewrite history. You can make all the bitcoin ever mined owned by you.
  - mike-cardwell 14y ago
    There's really no value in doing that though as the bitcoins you steal will suddenly have no value as everybody exits the network and stops accepting them. unless your goal is to destroy the network of course.
  - 0x0 14y ago
    Assuming the manufacturer has produced 12 of these beasts already, they already possess the power to rewrite bitcoin history. Instead of selling the machines for $30k a piece, could they not just use the machines themselves to transfer all bitcoins in the world to their own wallet? The total amount of bitcoins mined to this date should value much more than 12*$30k? Does that mean that the entire bitcoin network should as of today be considered compromised, game over, pack up and go home?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

ippisl 14y ago

I think they're using easic.com, which lets you build an ASIC(or something reasonably close to an ASIC in price and performance), with small minimum orders, and low cost design tools. They start at minimum of 45 chips for 45K$ including the tools, and the price gown down from there. With the minimum quantities needed in order to justify manufacturing an high end ASIC rising dramatically, this seems like something that would disrupt the ASIC and some of the FPGA business.

jamesu 14y ago

I looked at bitcoin a while back when the hype was at its peak. Sadly though by then mining using normal equipment was impractical, so i just ignored it. Do people actually use bitcoins nowadays, or is it more of a speculative market?

dscrd 14y ago
>Do people actually use bitcoins nowadays, or is it more of a speculative market? For things that you cannot as safely use normal currency, like drugs. Also, Wikileaks recently announced that they will accept donations in bitcoins.
wcoenen 14y ago
> *Do people actually use bitcoins nowadays, or is it more of a speculative market? Yes it is used, see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade
SkyMarshal 14y ago
See for yourself: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

Atropos 14y ago

Interesting company / "press release". So their CTO is named "Nasser G", their contact is named "Nick W". They have venture capital funding by an unnamed "private equity group". According to their website, they are based in Kansas City, Missouri but if you search the states business register there is no "Butterfly inc." The trademarks “Butterfly Labs” and “BitForce SC” do not exist in the USPTO database either... Doesn't this seem a bit unusual for a company promising to deliver a $29,899 product?

mrkmcknz 14y ago
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=141 http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=141 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53530.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53530.0 Doesn't look like the Bitcoin community ever received their first gen of products.
- mrb 14y ago
  Butterfly Labs is shipping real products. I personally own multiple units of their first gen product, the "Single". Many in the Bitcoin community own them as well: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=70611.msg813386#msg813386 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=70611.msg813386#msg8... That said, when Butterfly Labs pre-announced their Singles, it is true that many thought it was a scam... until they delivered.
  - mrkmcknz 14y ago
    Did the performance and power consumption live up to the expectations?
    - mrb 14y ago
      They claim 832 Mhash/s at 80W for the Singles. And, yes, my units match these characteristics. It is worth pointing out that before they had a Single prototype, 6 months ago, they had pre-announced 1000 Mhash/s at 20W... which turned out to be off by 5x in terms of Mhash/Joule. I think there is a fair chance that this ASIC pre-announcement will also fail to reflect the actual numbers. By how much? Who knows.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

tokenadult 14y ago

Perhaps the greatest contribution the Bitcoin experiment will make to humankind is to teach you and me and our neighbors more about the realities of economics. Many of the ideas about how to mine Bitcoins, store Bitcoins, and trade with Bitcoins as a medium of exchange illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of any other medium of exchange in a world full of human beings. Seeing the discussion of Bitcoins here on Hacker News reminds me of the last time that the price of gold (in United States dollars) crashed, and the arguments beforehand that such an occurrence was impossible, for instance. "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" is still an important principle of investment.

gwern 14y ago

> 1) BitForce SC Jalapeno: a USB powered coffee warmer providing 3.5 GH/s, priced at under $149 /not sure if serious