Again, welcome, welcome, and welcome! Glad you’re here! There’s so much to do around these parts that it’s really hard to know exactly where to start… … so, I’ve made a bit of a guide for you so that you can feel the most comfortable digging in, learning about bitcoin, blockchain, and the many different cryptocurrencies, and getting to know the folks!

Also, here are some helpful suggestions on what to share in your introduction:

Who are you?

Where are you located?

What was the first cryptocurrency that you invested in and why?

What are you “TO THE MOON” goals?

What are you the most excited about in terms of our growing community?


Build Your Own ASIC Miner
 
 I would like to compile a list of resources on how to build our own ASIC miners. I think that this is important for the decentralization of mining power with the current centralization of miners in China and uncertainty of legality in that jurisdiction. Also, with recent controversial discussions of Bitcoin Cash.

According to some of the links below, creating your own ASIC miner is impossible. This will be a real challenge, but I think that it is possible based on information in other forums. We have a lot of brain power here. Sourcing the ASIC chips will be a challenge. If we have any electrical engineers here, I would appreciate your insight. I am setting up my first D3 ASIC miners next week so I will be looking forward to studying the design more closely. If you have any ideas, additional resources, or know anybody who has successfully crafted their own ASIC miner please share your knowledge below. Thanks for your interest 


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1221233.0 8.2k
It is POSSIBLE

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926350.0 6.2k

List of places to possibly acquire the ASIC chips.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=555335.40 3.6k

Why ASICs instead of GPUs?

bitcoin.stackexchange.com 939


Can a competitive miner be crafted at home?

Challenges to overcome.

https://www.quora.com/Can-I-build-my-own-ASIC-from-parts-available-online 3.5k
task at “Level: ELITE”

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-use-an-ASIC-chip-to-create-your-own-bitcoin-miner 2.3k

Basic design, to be developed to the last detail.

https://www.quora.com/Can-I-build-my-own-ASIC-from-parts-available-online2332

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-use-an-ASIC-chip-to-create-your-own-bitcoin-miner

I think it is clear that we will not be able to manufacture our own silicon ASIC chips at home because that requires some million dollar equipment but I do hope to find a source of affordable ASIC’s to experiment with. I hope to learn along the way, without it being too costly. 

China: “Mining is illegal operation”

TL;DR 71% of mining is in China. Cheap electricity in China makes mining attractive. Chinese government may be locking down the miners as locals reported apparently(not confirmed yet).

” I know one of the principles at a company that IS designing their own Bitcoin ASIC – and the were talking MILLIONS to get it designed and into production.
THEN they get to add on the cost of the actual chips once they’re IN production.

I think the reason they went that route was the extreme shortage of “commercial” miners and “commercial” ASIC chips, even when you have enough money to wave under Innosilicon’s or Bitfury’s noses (Bitmain doesn’t sell chips at ALL afaik) to get the pre-existing chips – and for the quantity they wanted long-term it might actually cost them LESS to roll their own despite the up-front costs.”

I am definitely dreaming but the dream gives me steam, hehe.

“Good luck finding:

a.People very well-versed in laying out bleeding-edge IC design.

b.Said people also knowing how to route by-hand the SHA256 logic cores inside the chips. Foundry-supplied IP blocks will be useless aside from memory and coms.

c.Then convincing TSMC, GloFo or Samsung to sell you time to make some test wafers. IF they will even talk/work with you Foundry cost per test run will be several 100k$ up-front.

d. rinse and repeat ‘c’ several times until the chips works reasonably ‘close to specs’. Redesign costs/time for each test run – massive.

e. And this one is a doozy – gathering KNOWLEDGABLE investors willing to put up several 10’s of millions USD to do all of this. Given the horrific past history of companies ‘making’ ASIC-based miners using their own chips and then for various reasons – mostly pure and simple nefarious greed followed closely by them frankly totally blowing the chip and power design – all failing miserably, good luck with that…

f. Convincing your Foundry to allot production time for you to produce enough chips per-run to make all this worth while. That may be as hard as ‘e’…”

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=555335.60 173

All of this to say, I will do my best to incorporate my interest in cryptocurrencies and building ASIC miners into my studies, research projects, and interdisciplinary relationships at whichever university I am accepted and choose to attend. UC Riverside may be the most promising for ASICs research considering proximity to San Bernandino and materials research at UCR.

A run of chips is around 2.5 million to start. Selling them commercially in the US opens you up to a lot of liabilities too. Chinese companies don’t have to worry about someone getting hurt by one of their machines.

That said. I’d still like to do it. A silent $20-30 plug and play 1 TH/s machine is along the lines of what I’m thinking.Getting something simple like that in homes would make a huge difference.