We prepare to design a chip for mining Zcash. A novel architecture will be proposed to alleviate the memory-intensive problem in Equihash. The prototype using FPGA device is in progress. By using DDR3, we can achieve applicable performance, 8~10 nonce per second.
nice…can’t wait…Good Job…n GoodLuck
8 to 10 nonces per second (~17 Sol/s) is not a lot, so I guess you’re going to have a lot of these (tiny, fairly low-power?) chips per board? Each coupled to how many DDR3 chips? Roughly how many instances can you fit in 250W (to compare against a GPU)? For example, 50 (for 5W/instance, which feels realistic to me) will give ~850 Sol/s, so a ~3x improvement over GPU. Are you going to support Equihash parameters other than 200,9, in case Zcash changes the parameters later?
Reminder to everyone to beware of ASIC scams.
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“each coin is created equally”
one would have to wonder how competent ZCash is if ASICs come out already
CPU Only?
then
CPU and GPU Only?
then
ASICs take over
LOL
if you cant trust the devs when they say “the only way to mine it is”
how can we trust them with the “trusted set up”???
really leaves questions in my mind as to the future of ZCash…
that and obviously their funders - at least bo shen - is not very competent when it comes to security… and he did not even get any advice from those he was investing in? one would again have to ask the question in regards to the developers of these coins - why they dont protect their investors BEFORE something happens, not after…
and if they are so fast to protect the face and reputation of someone who made mistakes (did it to themselves really by keeping so much online)… how do we know they wont screw us all if one of these whales is not hacked in the future? how do we know they wont hardfork back to get the whale his funds back and therefore reverse all other transactions after the hack?
I dont think we can trust them to help us… we can trust them to help the whales and themselves, but the help probably stops there.
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ZCash ASICs are not out and probably won’t ever be. But there are plenty of “ZCash ASIC” scams just as there are “Ethereum ASIC” scams looking to take advantage of foolish people.
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I think for a proof of concept this might be a funny and tasking project.
The question is if you can get to ROI in a adequate period of time.
I would like to hear from zcash team regarding ASIC development,we have all invested a great deal of money on the promise of no ASIC and things are hard enough for small miners that keep zcash from been centralised and in the hands of the big boys, no point in further investing in GPU if there going to be redundant in 6 months
Yes that was my thought as well when I red this topic.
i wouldnt be surprised if ASIC of some kind hit the market soon enough
the developers took a month to get z-addr working properly
they were wrong about it being CPU only minable
they will probably be wrong about it only being GPu minable
total incompetence as I see it now
the developers and the funders…
what kind of retard keeps 500K worth of crypto online… give me a break
Hope you have a lot in R&D
Because that mining algorithm is going to change pretty fast after your release 
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Since it seems as though you have some sort of axe to grind with the Zcash developers you might want to get your facts straight.
First of all, they have never said that “Zcash would only be CPU minable” Why Equihash? - Electric Coin Company you can see in that blog post the entire goal of Equihash was to be resistant to “custom hardware” ie: ASIC’s.
Many on the forums (including me) interpreted the Equihash algo as leveling the playing field between CPU and GPU to a low factor of 2-4x which did not turn out to be the case because of advancements in GPU power that took place after the paper was written. But to be fair to the Equihash guys, a good CPU can still do about 30Sols/s vs 280(?) for a high end GPU (which is only a difference of about 9-10x) it is alot more lopsided with other algos (like 1000x for SHA-256) on different coins, and to this day is still ASIC resistant which was the entire goal in the first place.
As far as ASIC’s being developed by anyone I would strongly advise sombody thinking of investing in such a hardware implementation to think again. The Zcash team has said they will likely change the algorithm if specialized hardware becomes a threat to decentralization and already have a Github issue pertaining to such. Plan how to change the proof-of-work · Issue #1211 · zcash/zcash · GitHub
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ok thats nice
what would then stop a large chinse farm from producing asic’s and not telling anyone about them? how could you counter that? you couldnt and you wouldn’t even know - and they could quickly take over.
you wanna reply to my comment on what I should change in my boshen comment?
I dont think I was the one that insulted him
I think his own stupidity insulted him
it is not my fault that his incompetence and ignoance puts markets at risk for everyone else!
he is one of your funders, so if he is so careless in the future, it could really hurt those of us who mine and hold ZCash
and I think that should be addressed and talked about openly
it really shows how competent your investors are and I think that is a risk and worry for anyone involved in ZCash
where has he been for the last month and a half? i dont see him on here helping people
he just sits around and does nothing, he lets us do the hard work and takes his cut
and in the future he is nothing but a liability and risk for us all
im not to happy to be mining a fee to him considering he could end up screwing it up for everyone
you said “if i cant see” but i can clearly see what I said becuase I have screen shots of the entire conversation with you and zooko… and i clearly do not see where I "attacked’ bo shen, nor do I see where I said the attack was “ok”
can you please show me exactly what you are referring to?
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Going off topic, 2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Robbery is rampant; learn to protect yourself
Sounds like many of you haven’t read my analysis of Equihash, funded by Zcash Co: An analysis of Zcash's use of the Equihash proof-of-work scheme
ASICs are feasible, especially at the current Equihash parameters. The only unknown is whether there’s sufficient perceived incentive for any team to go for the effort. The potential for Equihash parameters change plays a role here.
This might be the case as well. Genuine possibility and even expectation of ASICs doesn’t rule out the possibility and likelihood of scams, nor vice versa.
3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Reward campaign “Hunt for block” pool.northernminers.com this weekend
Thanks @Shawn that’s put me at ease! Thanks for stepping in here and clearing up zcash positions on this subject