Bitcoin Utopia

Discussions of function optimised hardware in the form of ASIC and FPGA
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Janos (retired)
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#1 Bitcoin Utopia

Post by Janos (retired) »

I have zero issue with new hardware and optimised systems but I would urge caution with regards one project: Bitcoin Utopia. See my post in: http://www.dunadd.co.uk/seti/forum/view ... 239#p21266

In summary, by crunching Bitcoin Utopia: you are earning money for someone else in exchange for BOINC credits. The project does no science and the donations Bitcoin Utopia make are significantly less than if you donated directly to a project.

I personally can not endorse this project but I want to make it clear that I have no issue with using new hardware to crunch dramatic amounts of work for science.
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#2 Re: Bitcoin Utopia

Post by scole of TSBT »

I've read that simple ASICs can be developed (a template) for as little as several thousand dollars. What type of resources do various BOINC projects have to develop an ASIC and what is the lifetime of project apps? To be worth while, a project would have to have a long enough life to make it worth developing one. What do you suppose BOINC crunchers would be willing to spend on an ASIC to support their favorite project? A Bitcoin ASIC which is over 1,000 times more powerful than a high end GPU and uses less than 1% of the electricity as the GPU cost less than $30 US. Maybe some projects will consider it.
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#3 Re: Bitcoin Utopia

Post by Megacruncher »

Okay it looks like this is the place to debate the ethics of this project.

Personally I'm comfortable with it:
1. Suddenly the situation changes - asteroid strike anyone? - and you either adapt or settle for extinction. :)
2. Everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon. (okay our main rivals at least).
3. There are loads of precedents for peeps raising funds for good causes and raking off a percentage for themselves.
4. And this is the only ethical rather than pragmatic justification. It frees us up to do more science. To be honest, disproving the Collatz Conjecture by brute force exception calculation never seemed the best use of my GPUs but it was the only way of keeping myself and the team on top. Now the need to earn credits is taken up by cheap to buy & run add-on hardware which leaves the GPUs free to do Milkyway and GPUGrid or even Einstein.
5. If I all gets outlawed then at least I'll be able to do some bitcoin mining for myself which might just help pay for some of the kit & 'lecky!
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#4 Re: Bitcoin Utopia

Post by scole of TSBT »

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#5 Re: Bitcoin Utopia

Post by Megacruncher »

Uh oh!
And my Rockminer hasn't even been delivered yet! :(
But remember guys, the party isn't over until absolutely everyone has been arrested. Just hearing the sirens is merely notice that it is time to drink-up or mine harder.
We've probably got a few days of things as they are and I'm sure the final deal will not be as draconian as set out.
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#6 Re: Bitcoin Utopia

Post by Janos (retired) »

Megacruncher wrote: 1. Suddenly the situation changes - asteroid strike anyone? - and you either adapt or settle for extinction. :)
Is total credit that important? Are we being measured by the "sniper in the sky - See Alez's sig" and only allowed to enter Utopia if our TC is in the top 100? TC is flawed because we are trying to measure apples with oranges against cars and planets without an agreed and enforced standard.
Megacruncher wrote:2. Everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon. (okay our main rivals at least).
Lemmings come to mind. Just because one falls off a cliff does not mean we should all jump after it. Going back a few years, should we invest in the slave trade for huge profits or stand against something we know is wrong?
Megacruncher wrote:3. There are loads of precedents for peeps raising funds for good causes and raking off a percentage for themselves.
Very true. But I see BU as a business and nowhere close to a not for profit charity. A quick read of the forums shows their utter lack of financial acumen and business awareness. At a glance, they have just increased the goals of their campaigns after they had been met. Is this to delay payment? They should have started a new campaign and given badges (or similar fun token) to those who contributed to a successful campaign.

If they really want to get my support they should be giving ownership of the bitcoin pool to the people they are earning for; or holding funds in escrow; or they need to be sending cash on a regular basis, weekly or monthly. A huge amount more transparency is needed.

I read somewhere they only have a 32GB hard drive. Are they really that poor and under funded?

Lacking in credibility.
Megacruncher wrote: 4. And this is the only ethical rather than pragmatic justification. It frees us up to do more science. To be honest, disproving the Collatz Conjecture by brute force exception calculation never seemed the best use of my GPUs but it was the only way of keeping myself and the team on top. Now the need to earn credits is taken up by cheap to buy & run add-on hardware which leaves the GPUs free to do Milkyway and GPUGrid or even Einstein.
This is true only if you accept point 1.
Megacruncher wrote: 5. If I all gets outlawed then at least I'll be able to do some bitcoin mining for myself which might just help pay for some of the kit & 'lecky!
Even with your new kit, I am afraid you will spend almost as much on lecky as you will earn.

People have spend thousands on new kit and are spending thousands on lecky. Give that money directly to Milkyway and they will be funded in no time, without a 15% fee.
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#7 Re: Bitcoin Utopia

Post by Megacruncher »

So far - and I'm not planning to go much further - my outlay has been pretty modest, less than a fairly low end video card and the power draw of my few devices not noticeable.

Indeed the numbers only matter if you want them to. But a few folks do want them to, even just as a bit of pointless geek-boy fun. I'll have to keep a look out for this sniper bloke though, he sounds like trouble.

At least now I don't have to make a choice between credit-whoring and helping worthy but poorly paying scientific projects. The Bitcoin dongles do the former on an epic scale, while being no use for anything else, and the differences between credit yields from the various projects pale into insignificance.
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