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Intel Files Patent For Energy-Efficient Bitcoin Mining Hardware (crn.com)
Intel is exploring the creation of specialty hardware for mining the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, according to a U.S. patent application released Thursday. From a report: The patent, filed on Sept. 23, 2016, describes a Bitcoin mining hardware accelerator that may include a processor core with a hardware accelerator coupled with it. Bitcoin mining is the process of using powerful computer processors to record Bitcoin transactions on a public ledger, which is done by attempting to solve cryptographic puzzles. If the miner becomes the first to solve the puzzle and record the next transaction, it is rewarded with newly released Bitcoin. The high energy and equipment costs associated with mining have brought into question whether the activity can be profitable, especially as the price of Bitcoin has nose-dived in the past few months, as noted by Forbes. But that hasn't stopped people from hoarding equipment -- one report from Coherent Market Insights pegged the cryptocurrency mining market at $610 million in 2016 and expects it to grow to $38 billion by 2025. The current issues faced by miners also has propelled companies and individuals to find new technologies and methods for making mining more efficient.
Patent claims an SOC with a hash engine that includes a message scheduler, which is what anyone skilled in the art would come up with when asked to design a mining SOC.
appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=20180089642.PGNR.&OS=dn/20180089642&RS=DN/20180089642
The miners are competing. If you make the hardware cheaper and more energy efficient, they'll just buy more of it.
Good businnes for Intel; does nothing to lower energy or other resource usage.
Mining cryptocurrency isn't like mining gold, double the number of gold miners in the world and you double* the amount of gold, but if you double the number of crypto miners the amount of cryptocurrency is exactly the same.
If you make bitcoin mining twice as energy efficient, people will buy twice as many** mining rigs, and the total energy usage will be about the same.
* Not really double, but you get the point.
** Again not quite, equipment cost factors into it.
I stole this Sig
Then you increase the diffuculty. And so on and so forth.
But: The "puzzle" for mining Bitcoin involves choosing a value so that a SHA256 has has at least a given number of leading zeros, so a Bitcoin miner must calculate SHA256 as quickly and efficiently as possible. I don't see how a patent on dedicated SHA256 hardware should be allowed. The algorithm is designed to be implemented efficiently in hardware.
The best definition of a bubble is when a large group of a population engages in profit-seeking behavior that has no net economic benefit. Tulip craze, flooz, housing bubble, and now cryptocurrency.
Owning BTC allows you to instruct a decentralized, global network of computers to record certain logistical information.
Money is a logistical technology, and Bitcoin is fast becoming the most advanced form of money (if not yet the most useful).
Also, the housing bubble occurred because Fed policy and Congressional imposition tricked builders and investors into thinking that the world needed more houses; they were tricked by the government into thinking that they were engaged in economically beneficial activity.
In contrast, Bitcoin is completely voluntary.
that the price of a BC starts approaching its true value, namely, zero.
...to bring GPU prices back down... YESH!
but this is an awful lot of effort and electricity being put into what is essentially a vehicle for money laundering. I don't even see this helping blockchaining, since isn't mining separate from blockchain tech?
Yeah, I know that's not popular to say, I can't see crypto currencies replacing credit cards much less cash. They're too slow, and by design get slower. There are ways to fix that but their difficult and expensive. As soon as you start implementing them you have to the same problem CCs have (high fees). And that's before we get into how CCs can be used to pay off larger purchases over time (or, sadly, but borrow money when you can't make ends meet).
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In every gold rush, the ones who are guaranteed to make any money are those who sell the picks and shovels. Looks like that's Intel's strategy.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
and then sell it to some country that wants to buy it. That country could give you a digital certificate in return, and you'd roughly have something like Bitcoin. Except of course that the electricity would probably be used for something useful that, too, aids in the creation of wealth. Precisely what does cryptocurrency do with the electricity? It just burns it on solving meaningless cryptopuzzles.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Because computers love playing Numberwang!
nod, I know for a fact she is a dumb bitch..
Beau,
your supposed to stop at the edge of the Earhole, otherwise you'll scramble her fucking brains like an egg..
quit playing with your DORK
I'm still holding out for the Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) model, with the integrated solar panel, charge controller, and a Stirling engine to turn some of that hash engine wasted heat back into even more inefficiently waste-able electricity. What fun is it if I can't even waste the same electricity more than once? With the Quantum Processor your electric bill can be in a superposition of both wasted and not wasted all at the same time. That's a 50% savings! Right?
In the mean time I'll get my latest QPU with NanoTech Enabled Maxwell's Daemon Quantum Spin ThermoElectric Generator patented , but that's taking a little longer to get it through the Patent Office than I had hoped. Before you know it QPU-NTE-MD-QS-TEG will be a standard household appliance, and everyone will talking about it. Take that Intel!
My job is done here. Now where did I part that flying car?
The more you try to fix it, the more broken it will be.
It's called our current monetary system. You get paid in electronic dollars, and you buy things in electronic dollars. Many companies keep track of the ledger. It even has governmental backing and security. And it just works.
All these new crypto currencies, everyone in the end truly wants cold hard American greenbacks. It's just some big greater fool game.
I'm not surprised by this.
Intel owns FPGA maker Altera. FPGAs are essentially reconfigurable ASICs.
Newer currencies like Monero are trying to stop ASIC mining by changing their algorithm every 6 months or so.
FPGAs can get around this, since you can just reprogram them, but reprogramming them isn't simple.
That's where the embedded CPU comes in. The embedded CPU can go online, look up the new algorithm, and reprogram the FPGA automatically.
Intel wants to corner that market.
The con artist will have some monolithic government agency poke its nose into private industry and demand they stop its energy efficient operations.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
for one who clearly knows so little? I don't understand the benefit to proof of mining. As far as I know it's just there to add artificial scarcity to the system in order to control the crypto-currency equivalent of inflation. Are these calculations being used to solve some other math problem (like Folding at Home does or the SETI stuff)?
You allude to Bitcoin Cash 0-conf solving my other problems. I think you mean transaction delays and fees. As far as I can tell it still means going through a processor, who is going to charge fees that are probably equivalent to a debit network. If I'm wrong can you explain it to me in layman's terms? What little I found on google seemed to be complex Proof of Concept stuff, not anything practical.
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How about that. Is there not a way to make this mining actually do somthing other than generate useless numbers. How about coordinates for potential habitable planets, used as a cryptocurrency. This would actually have some benefit with the resources that are used. I always hoped someone would put a large number of satellites up. and not only use them as an internet gateway but for netizens to be able to peer into the star with them and search for planets themselves. A number of internet satellites with a mini hubble telescope on each one. Now that would be sweet. :)
[($)]
be faster and more energy efficient and cheaper than video cards. so the pc gaming market can get back to normal.
Given that bitcoin mining is designed to get harder and harder, the only relevant question is: is it too late or not for this kind of device to be profitable?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really good innovation, why they attract so many criminals/criminal activity?
Could it really be because, all cryptocurrencies themselves are scams, and that is why they attract all kinds of criminals/criminal activity?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really currency, why no company/store can use Bitcoin as currency anymore?
Because the price of Bitcoin proved to be extremely unstable to use as a currency?
Would the result be different, if Bitcoin replaced by any other "cryptocurrency"?
Aren't all work the same way?
Or, they are not actually virtual currency but virtual investment?
But, if they are actually investment, why we need/want them?
What would happen to world economy, if people invested in virtual investments, instead of real investments?
Or, all so-called cryptocurrencies are actually just a modified Ponzi Schemes?
(Price of cryptocurrencies would keep increasing in the long term (by their design), so it is equivalent of paying variable interest to all long term investors.)
As more and more people invest in cryptocurrencies, it will become harder and harder to ban their trading everywhere!
All cryptocurrencies need to be banned globally before it is too late!
Weren't Intel supposed to release Xeons with embedded Altera FPGA's right around now?