<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>It would be interesting to see if this ends up delivering us a commodity processor dedicated to Double Precision math... that would be a game changer in HPC no doubt... bitcoin seems to require that level of precision... I wonder if you can implement it with the mixed precision method... hmm...</div><div><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/PHP_developer_intro#Precision">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/PHP_developer_intro#Precision</a></div><br><div><div>On Apr 16, 2013, at 10:09 PM, Tom Metro wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Bitcoin has been all over the news this past week. I think the main<br>trigger was some significant price swings on the exchange rate. Then<br>there were follow-on stories talking about how mining activities are<br>using $150,000 in electricity every day.<br><br>Even if you don't care about alternative currencies, you may find the<br>hardware used to enable "mining" for coins to be of interest. Here's a<br>story talking about said hardware:<br><br><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5994446/digital-drills-the-monster-machines-that-mine-bitcoin">http://gizmodo.com/5994446/digital-drills-the-monster-machines-that-mine-bitcoin</a><br><br>The basic idea with Bitcoin is that you have a computer do some<br>intensive computational work, specifically compute hashes:<br><br>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Bitcoin_mining<br><br> The mining process or proof-of-work process involves scanning for a<br> value that when hashed with SHA-256, the hash begins with a number of<br> zero bits. The average work required is exponential in the number of<br> zero bits required, but can always be verified by executing a single<br> hash.<br><br>And your reward for doing the work is you get a coin, which can be<br>exchanged for goods and services, or for US dollars on an exchange.<br><br>A clever part of the design is that it self-adjusts for the ever<br>increasing capabilities of the available hardware:<br><br> To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in<br> running nodes over time, the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by<br> a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour. If<br> they're generated too fast, the difficulty increases.<br><br>And this has led to:<br><br> Today, bitcoin mining is a competitive field. An arms race has been<br> observed through the various hashing technologies that are used to<br> mine bitcoins and confirm transactions: High-end GPUs (Graphical<br> Processing Units) common in many gaming computers, FPGAs (Field<br> Programmable Gate Arrays) and ASICs (Application-specific integrated<br> circuits) all have been used. The newest addition, ASICS, are built<br> into specialized servers that can cost nearly $3000 USD a unit.<br><br>Also listen to:<br>http://www.grc.com/sn/past/2011.htm#287<br><br>for Steve Gibson's explanation of how the algorithm works.<br><br>In any case, the competition and the cost of power is driving miners to<br>FPGAs and ASICs. Pretty amazing that this made up currency scheme has<br>been profitable enough to justify the development of ASICs.<br><br>I have to assume that with this degree of profit motive, there must be<br>criminal organizations using zombie bot networks to do mining. When the<br>cost of the hardware and electricity is free, you clearly have an advantage.<br><br>The Gizmodo article has some interesting pictures showing racks of<br>open-frame computers, from CPU-era to GPU-era to FPGAs and finally<br>ASICs. They describe on ASIC solution (quoting Gizmodo):<br><br> Meet the Avalon ASIC. ... Inside its unassuming grey case is an army<br> of specialty chips that promise 65 gigahashes per second. This is<br> $6,800 equipment...that, properly utilized, stands to be worth much<br> more.<br> [...]<br> And while Avalon started the revolution, others are not far behind.<br> Companies like ASICMiner, Butterfly Labs, and bASIC all offer similar<br> systems--some that boast even more power--but none of those have<br> managed to ship.<br> [...]<br> The Butterfly Labs BitForce Mini Rig SC, a 1,500 GHz/s machine. It's<br> about 30 times more powerful than then current Avalon ASICs, or would<br> be if it ever exists...<br> [...]<br> Bitcoin has always favored early adopters, bold ones especially.<br> Because mining difficulty increases to compensate for increased power,<br> all advantages are temporary. But it doesn't increase dynamically.<br> Instead it hops up once every 14 days, so advantages can be leveraged.<br> The first Avalon ASIC to be put to use paid for itself in a mere nine<br> days, but every additional unit follows will have more and more ground<br> to make up.<br><br>The treatment of the tech in this article is a bit superficial. It would<br>have been nice if they described in more detail what was depicted in<br>each photo. But probably a decent overview of the hardware, if you only<br>have a casual interest in Bitcoins.<br><br>A concluding thought:<br><br> Ultimately, ASIC devices are the last great innovation in Bitcoin<br> mining; once you've specialized down to the chipset, there's nowhere<br> left to turn for a 100-fold computing power increase. And in that way,<br> we're seeing the beginning of the end of the gold rush, just as<br> Bitcoin fever reaches a fever-pitch.<br><br>That's kind of a defeatists view, and doesn't seem to acknowledge Moores<br>law. Over time the ASICs will shrink and you'll see more hashing engines<br>per chip.<br><br>How about Quantium computing?<br><br>More likely, the next innovation will come not from hardware but from<br>mathematics - finding an algorithmically more efficient way of arriving<br>at the same result.<br><br> -Tom<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Hardwarehacking mailing list<br>Hardwarehacking@blu.org<br>http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking<br></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>