5 ms·

A Bitcoin mine went up in flames, affecting the entire network

67 points by wxs 12y ago

farmdve 12y ago
The article has a sensational title, nothing at all was disrupted, not even slightly.
- peterkelly 12y ago
  Well, someone's mining rig was disrupted
jtchang 12y ago
I'm just thinking someone lost a lot of money. I doubt there was any sort of insurance.
- fixedd 12y ago
  Sadly, I can't find the link now, but I was reading about this yesterday. According to someone who worked there, there was no insurance.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  Agreed. Taking out insurance on expensive facilities requires a degree of intelligence and forethought that one doesn't really expect in the kind of person who builds said facilities with flammable tiles and doesn't include a fire-suppression system.
adestefan 12y ago
Wow it did actually go up in flames. I thought that was just going to be hyperbole in the title, but I was incorrect.
- bfe 12y ago
  Me too. Add fires to energy consumption among the perverse results skeptics will harp on for the arbitrary constraints imposed by bitcoin.
  - mintplant 12y ago
    Are you saying that energy consumption isn't a problem? Why not?
    - mpyne 12y ago
      Because the blockchain is awesome and the government is bad. They'd use bubble sort, efficiency be damned, if they could find a way to keep the bankers out of it.
Maxious 12y ago
This is allegedly what a fire in a bitcoin mine looks like: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/11/grim-meathook-mining-disaster/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/11/grim-meathook-mining-disaste...
RustyRussell 12y ago
Err... No, the network didn't even notice. There's so much noise in the hash rate that any signal is lost. See https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate and try to find the "disruption".
- jchendy 12y ago
  Wow, rate of increase there is crazy. I don't know a ton about the whole bitcoin ecosystem, but it's pretty interesting that in the past year, the hashrate has grown 100X while the value of a bitcoin has fallen about 66%.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    The advent of ASICs designed for bitcoin mining made the difference. More hashrate for less electricity, and thus lower costs.
fsiefken 12y ago
I sure hope they had an offsite backup or address for their mined coins.
- meowface 12y ago
  I'm sure they do. Unless they had insurance though, the investment into the datacenter and servers will be lost forever.
userbinator 12y ago
I'm surprised at the severity of the fire; it doesn't look like bitcoin mining equipment would be comprised of much flammable material - it's mostly metal and silicon and PCBs. The former two are essentially nonflammable, while the latter usually being made of FR-4 is flame-retardant (UL94V0).
- ansible 12y ago
  There's always at least a bit of plastic. That's quite flammable, and produces toxic smoke as a bonus.
- Fjolsvith 12y ago
  Steel burns without oxygen at 4000 degrees.
perlgeek 12y ago
> But Gizmodo suggests it could have spread due to flammable acoustic foam and suggested that the facility probably lacked in a sprinkler system that most high-end data centers in the US would have as standard Are sprinkler systems in data centers really the standard? How well does standard server hardware operate after contact with water from the sprinkler system? I work at a company that runs a data center that has a nitrogen-based fire suppression system, so that the servers can continue to run uninterrupted. That sounds a lot more expensive, but also seems to make more sense to me.
- skuhn 12y ago
  Sprinklers are very common, mostly dry-pipe systems to avoid water leakage. There are some alternatives like HI-FOG, which uses less water and therefore may do less damage to the room's equipment. It is very undesirable for the equipment in the room to get wet. A sprinkler activation generally results in partial or total loss of the equipment in the room, and even if you can get stuff running again, it's going to take a while. However, it's even less desirable for people to die or the building to burn down. Fire suppression systems that operate by removing oxygen from the room (such as Halon) can kill people who are trapped inside. I haven't seen a facility with this type of system in a long time. Also, most datacenters have very strict rules about flammable material (like cardboard) on the datacenter floor. Most sites aren't super diligent about enforcing it, but just having the rules shifts the blame onto you. Imagine being on the hook financially for tens of thousands of servers because something caught on fire in your cage.

67 points by wxs 12y ago

farmdve 12y ago

The article has a sensational title, nothing at all was disrupted, not even slightly.

peterkelly 12y ago
Well, someone's mining rig was disrupted

jtchang 12y ago

I'm just thinking someone lost a lot of money. I doubt there was any sort of insurance.

fixedd 12y ago
Sadly, I can't find the link now, but I was reading about this yesterday. According to someone who worked there, there was no insurance.
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
Agreed. Taking out insurance on expensive facilities requires a degree of intelligence and forethought that one doesn't really expect in the kind of person who builds said facilities with flammable tiles and doesn't include a fire-suppression system.

adestefan 12y ago

Wow it did actually go up in flames. I thought that was just going to be hyperbole in the title, but I was incorrect.

bfe 12y ago
Me too. Add fires to energy consumption among the perverse results skeptics will harp on for the arbitrary constraints imposed by bitcoin.
- mintplant 12y ago
  Are you saying that energy consumption isn't a problem? Why not?
  - mpyne 12y ago
    Because the blockchain is awesome and the government is bad. They'd use bubble sort, efficiency be damned, if they could find a way to keep the bankers out of it.

Maxious 12y ago

This is allegedly what a fire in a bitcoin mine looks like: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/11/grim-meathook-mining-disaster/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/11/grim-meathook-mining-disaste...

RustyRussell 12y ago

Err... No, the network didn't even notice. There's so much noise in the hash rate that any signal is lost. See https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate and try to find the "disruption".

jchendy 12y ago
Wow, rate of increase there is crazy. I don't know a ton about the whole bitcoin ecosystem, but it's pretty interesting that in the past year, the hashrate has grown 100X while the value of a bitcoin has fallen about 66%.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  The advent of ASICs designed for bitcoin mining made the difference. More hashrate for less electricity, and thus lower costs.

fsiefken 12y ago

I sure hope they had an offsite backup or address for their mined coins.

meowface 12y ago
I'm sure they do. Unless they had insurance though, the investment into the datacenter and servers will be lost forever.

userbinator 12y ago

I'm surprised at the severity of the fire; it doesn't look like bitcoin mining equipment would be comprised of much flammable material - it's mostly metal and silicon and PCBs. The former two are essentially nonflammable, while the latter usually being made of FR-4 is flame-retardant (UL94V0).

ansible 12y ago
There's always at least a bit of plastic. That's quite flammable, and produces toxic smoke as a bonus.
Fjolsvith 12y ago
Steel burns without oxygen at 4000 degrees.

perlgeek 12y ago

> But Gizmodo suggests it could have spread due to flammable acoustic foam and suggested that the facility probably lacked in a sprinkler system that most high-end data centers in the US would have as standard Are sprinkler systems in data centers really the standard? How well does standard server hardware operate after contact with water from the sprinkler system? I work at a company that runs a data center that has a nitrogen-based fire suppression system, so that the servers can continue to run uninterrupted. That sounds a lot more expensive, but also seems to make more sense to me.

skuhn 12y ago
Sprinklers are very common, mostly dry-pipe systems to avoid water leakage. There are some alternatives like HI-FOG, which uses less water and therefore may do less damage to the room's equipment. It is very undesirable for the equipment in the room to get wet. A sprinkler activation generally results in partial or total loss of the equipment in the room, and even if you can get stuff running again, it's going to take a while. However, it's even less desirable for people to die or the building to burn down. Fire suppression systems that operate by removing oxygen from the room (such as Halon) can kill people who are trapped inside. I haven't seen a facility with this type of system in a long time. Also, most datacenters have very strict rules about flammable material (like cardboard) on the datacenter floor. Most sites aren't super diligent about enforcing it, but just having the rules shifts the blame onto you. Imagine being on the hook financially for tens of thousands of servers because something caught on fire in your cage.