This could be an interesting avenue to fix the ASIC centralization questions. I see you got some attention on the github already. Be watching this one to see where it goes.
Are you making this offer to better the Z-Cash ecosystem for free? With all due respect I believe your company is also trying to make a profit. I think saying miners have âno interest other than profitsâ is wrong, and you should really consider revising that part of your pitch. Many of us want to be part of this revolution and enjoy working on and contributing to new technology, and donât want to just make money.
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Of course we want to make a profit, just like you likely want the value of z-cash to increase. There is a very big difference between extracting value from the z-cash community and adding value (and sharing in the value created) by working with the community. Everyone who wants to add infrastructure to the Z-Cash ecosystem with hardware pays something to someone for it. None of the current suppliers have demonstrated any interest in working in collaboration with Z-Cash. We are interested in collaboration, what hardware design would best serve the goals of the community and enable the software best is the primary question. The next question would be how is that development funded and then finally how do we distribute the end product. If it is not profitable all around it wonât happen. Why would anyone do that for free?
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@Howardscottj I read your submission to the Grant program, it occurs to me that since you are seeking seed funding for your for-profit enterprise have you considered getting funding from Venture Capitalists?
Not that I want to discourage your participation in the Foundations Grant Program but it seems odd that a Corporation who is interested in making a profit from selling hardware is seeking funding from a 501(c) non-profit Organization.
(Note: I am a Zcash forum Mod and donât represent the opinions of Zcash Company or Zcash Foundation)
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Iâm agree with your point, but problem is bitmainâs overpower at cryptocurrency ASIC echo system, how you compete if you want produce an open source product and what is your Advantage?
If i understand it you are ok to make a profit but not with taking any risks, correct?
The foundation has control over forking at will making any investment into hardware risky hence ePIC would only supply the hardware to the foundation and not sell to the consumer.
Seriously and totally unbiased, i doubt that such projects have any chance with a decentralized project. It would eventually work with a pure centralized partner.
IF you only provided the hardware to the foundation or whomever responsible for it, you would force them to generate again some kind of protectionsim against other hardware to the investement would pay back, not? What do i miss?
We are seeking grant funding to co-create with the Z-Cash community, a hardware solution to provide the compute the network needs to thrive. One of the outcomes of the research would be to determine what the commercial or not-for-profit next step would be. ePIC is a for-profit company, so we are not working for free. Just like any other participant with distinct added value to deliver to the community we want to share in the value creation (in ZEC). If it was just a VC play weâd build an ASIC just like Bitmain and sell it. Not-for-profits pay for value-added services like any other organization, I ran a grant based open source platform in my past by the way. Also to be clear, outside the appreciation potential of ZEC from the grant the proposed project would not be profitable, it covers at cost, at best, and assuming ZEC doesnât depreciate. Have faith that Bitmain is making plenty of money without any need to work with the community, the same was/is/will be true of Nvidia and AMD.
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We are taking plenty of risk, weâd be compensated in ZEC number one, so we are aligned with everyone else to make it a more valuable commodity. The grant on a USD basis covers our cost to participate in a meaningful enough way to get to a plan that is interesting to the community. If itâs not interesting to the community it goes nowhere and we have lost lots of time we can apply to other products. We are not developing products for communities that are not interested/engaged in having one. Part of the research would be to determine the best distribution model and governance model around decentralizing whatever the product outcome is. It could centralize to the foundation, but that is a governance decision of the community and foundation, we are just one opinion in the community. ePIC ultimately intends to profit, we have not entered into this conversation deterministic as to how, that is another risk we are willing to take, along with the fact we can very easily get the end of the grant with no next steps and therefore have made no material money (to our company). Somewhere along the line, everything software goes to silicon, every semiconductor, data center, or network company I know of on this planet is for profit and is not going to give Z-Cash or anyone else computing infrastructure for no profit (on purpose;). GPUs are centralizing as well, buying GPUs from Nvidia and AMD is an economy of scale game too, Bitmainâs extra advantage is that they sell the rigs as well as operate the largest mining operation. Our goal is to get compensated for designing the best chip to execute the processing the Z-Cash community wants. We donât make rigs or mine. To us partnering, first and foremost, with the community/foundation, then hardware manufacturers (we have supply chain partners), and finally the entities that will operate the compute network (miners, data centers, community members, etc) is the home run for us. That by the way is a decentralized value chain, no one party has too much control of the system.
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FPGA is 10x more efficient before true optimization than a GPU. FPGAâs run from $50 all they way to $100âs. Likely most optimal for Equihash minining will be sub $800.
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Thx for the answer, but i still struggle to find some answers.
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Is what you design/produce an Asic or FPGA? Sometimes i read FPGA, next time Asics, so i what are we talking about in first place, FPGAs or Asics or both?
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Just in case Zcash agrees to some kind of partnership where you design and produce the Asics/FPGAs(?), after you do not sell them but only provide them who is going to sell them?
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And i still do not understand the following. Letâs say zcash finance that âoperationsâ, and letâs say they are for sale later (whomever is selling them), but happens if again anothe Asics comes, x times better and x times more efficient than your Asic? Or is the whole thing planned on pure cooperation making it not able for other Asics/FPGAs to enter the playground? Seriously, i so far do not get the concept behind it, maybe itâs my lack of English knowledge.
And by the way, iâam not attacking you, just asking straight IF questions.
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Hasnât this research already been paid for by your existing work and partnership with Aion network?
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If design is an open source, who and how will prevent let say the same infamous Bitmain to copy and implement into their ASICs everything that is an advancement in the tech? It seems like an R&D costs saving program for all the bad players.
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Hi,
I think you are misunderstanding what is being offered.
What the offer on the table, as outline in the grant proposal is:
The foundation pays the company to undertake the fpga work. (You would like two independent companies to do the same work so you can gain confidence in the work. but that is another post)
The companies do the out lined work and submit the Bitstreams and FPGA board designs to the foundation. - because the foundation is paying these companies it would own all the information.
The foundation then open sources the reference board designs/layouts and bitstreams.
It is key the foundation open sources these designs. I donât think this would be a contentious point, but it would have to be confirmed.
- Then, I (or anyone at all) could down load the designs.
- Order all the parts from digikey
- Send the board designs I get from the foundation with the parts I get from digikey to a company like PCBTrain.
- PCBTrain assemble it all and ship the unit back to me
- I then download the reference, open source bitstream from the foundation, I load it onto the fpga.
- Attach cooling, etc and start the mining software and now I am mining with a 10x power saving.
Digikey and PCBtrain are just two of many companies that offer these services or products. FPGAâs are very much commodity hardware, rather than bespoke hardware.
(I am planning on answering your other post.)
Hope this helps.
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Thx, much appreciated, but i still struggle to be honest. While i perfectly understand your explaination it is not what i got out from the ePIC statements that are as followed:
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The opensource bitcoin designs you mentioned (I looked quickly) are board/software designs which are missing one key component, the ASIC itself.
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This would be used as a reference for the real work which would be researching our ideas on how to decentralize ZCash ASICs and creating a hardware solution, from an ASIC design perspective that would allow no single party control over processing power while maintaining privacy & security.
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we believe if the foundation could embrace ASICs and create a model where they can be made available to all
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That being said, the purpose of the ZCash Grant would encompass an Equihash (200,9) design and for research into how we can incorporate ASICs into the ecosystem while maintaining decentralization without compromise of privacy.
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We strongly believe ASICs offer performance and efficiency over GPUs but also understand the risk of centralization.
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ASICs will be apart of the long term vision which drives up performance while being the most power efficient.
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We have decades of experience in ASIC development and digital design
Maybe you know understand why i struggle with finding out what the proposal is about at all. An Asic or an FPGA, or both or hybrid or whatever âŚ
But in case itâs like you said and explained it rises of course again some questions:
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How much funding would be needed for such project or grant?
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Estiminated time line?
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How would it help in the very current situation?
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What would be the approax. final cost of such FGPA, in case itâs an FPGA, for the end user?
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What mechanism would prefent a given company, letâs say a big gpu mining farm like genesis, to buy off parts in 1000âs and leave the market without products for the end user, similar to the 1080tiâs right now?
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Are you sure the average joe can assemble that FPGA, many struggle allready with a 2 card mining rig.
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What prevents another big company, big enough to make huge investements to release due the open source or even own designs a better FPGA that is user ready, mass produced, more energy efficient with bigger hashrate, just on the FPGA basics? In other words a massproducer that outperforms in every aspect the âbuild-it-your-own-garage-projectâ? Would this company not immediatly get again a monopolist? Who would take the hazzles if you get a ready product that is more efficient and cheaper?
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Wasnât one of the main arguments in the asic disucssion that the Z9 power efficientness isnât more efficient and that in the end the power usage on the network would be the same? So where comes the deal here that it has 10x power savings? The Z9 uses as well 10x less energy but it was not accepted to be an argument, so whatâs different here?
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Wouldnât again some kind of AI Asic chip outperform immediatly or soon this FPGA?
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I guess that the FPGA again could jump from Algo to Algo and from coin to coin, wherever the most profit is. Where would that FPGA improve the very Zcash project only after it would be funded by zcash?
Just some questions that immediatly came into my mind. I have more but need first answers to these. So if you do not mind again, could you or someone that better understand this project explain it to the average joe like me 
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Hmm, a few months back in the ASIC thread I was asking if we could make a FPGA for zcash, but the answer then was probably not.
@Howardscottj - Saying âfreeâ was sarcasm, because you were implying the miners were only in it for a profit. It was your opportunity to apologize to miners, and understand that the majority of them are in it for the same reason someone is a computer enthusiast (building and collecting machines, playing with electronics), or someone that loves to collect , work, on cars. Kind of like a hobby. You completely missed the point.
Correct me if Iâm wrong, but having an FPGA design doesnât also mean that itâs easy to manufacture at scale. That would take time, agreements, capital and much more. Should the Zcash foundation really go in this direction? It seems like for-profit companies will go this route if it makes economic sense without additional help. Changing to the Aion parameters might be a good idea. It will be interesting to see what happens.
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Dear @Howardscottj: welcome! I really appreciate your comments about giving back to the community and l especially appreciate that youâre reaching out to us in advance instead of just dropping something on the community without warning like Bitmain did. I donât really understand the technical and economic issues around FPGAs and your proposal, but regardless of that I just want to say: Welcome to the community! 
P.S. I donât have any control over what the Zcash Foundation does, so in the short term at least, my lack of understanding of your proposal is not a problem. In the medium term Iâll try to understand it.
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I donât think you will be able to make more efficient ASICs than Bitmain, Innosilicon, Halong, and the companies that have been doing this for years.
Every rookie startup ASIC manufacturer has been a disaster. Iâd even call them all scams. Just look at the Sia and Decred ASICs â they were crowd-funded by contributors who submitted 1 BTC per ASIC. They still havenât been released while competitors have released more powerful ASICS for both algorithms. These still unreleased ASICs are effectively worth nothing now, even though the buyers effectively paid 8,000 for them.
If youâre suggesting a fork to invalidate Bitmainâs ASICs so that you can take over, then thatâs just absurd.
You are trying to become a monopoly just like Bitmain currently is. If Zcash is willing to fork to get rid of ASICs, why would we want one company to take to over mining, when we could go back to have a decentralized and fair network of GPU miners?
This whole proposal doesnât make sense.
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We made just some compare on the âLets talk aboout Asics âŚâ thread comparing 2 pairs of Bitmain vs Innosilicon. In both cases the Innosilicon is a lot superior in terms of efficiency over the bitmain counterpart âŚ