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Bitcoin Mining and other number crunching activities — Parallax Forums

Bitcoin Mining and other number crunching activities

GenetixGenetix Posts: 1,754
edited 2014-07-24 23:28 in Propeller 1
Even though the Propeller lacks an MPU (Mathematics Processing Unit) can it be used for Bitcoin Mining or any other activity that involves number crunching such as Seti?

Comments

  • Mark_TMark_T Posts: 1,981
    edited 2014-07-18 16:46
    There's a world of difference between kiloflops and gigaflops! So I think the answer is "not practically". Bitcoin
    is more likely to ask for fast multiply/divide, but even so...
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-18 18:22
    Genetix,

    Yes it can be used for number crunching duties. Why not, it's a computer.

    No, don't even think about it.

    For example to even start to make a few cents worth of bit coin you now need dedicated chips to do it that are crunching those numbers some millions of times faster that a top of the line PC.
  • NWCCTVNWCCTV Posts: 3,629
    edited 2014-07-18 18:46
    to make a few cents worth of bit coin you now need dedicated chips
    How is this done? If bit coins are digital, what exactly are you making?
  • mklrobomklrobo Posts: 420
    edited 2014-07-18 18:49
    clue me in, too! If it is profitable, I'm in! :)
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-18 19:19
    nwcctv,
    If bit coins are digital, what exactly are you making
    Why numbers of course!

    The mathematics of bitcoin are such that 99.9% of human beings are never going to understand how it works. Myself included.

    However, if you want to get a little idea of how it works plus one guys practical experience and demonstrations watch these two nice videos by Martin Lorton
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb5QxUsiqF4
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae97jo4wtis
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2014-07-18 19:30
    Some people are using arrays of FPGAs.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-18 19:38
    Leon,

    That was a year ago already, FPGA's are now too slow to be economically viable. Today you need ASICs. Watch the videos and see why.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2014-07-18 19:58
    It was some time ago that I saw it.

    I suppose that quantum computation would be the ideal method, if anyone can get it to work properly.
  • NWCCTVNWCCTV Posts: 3,629
    edited 2014-07-18 21:10
    Videos are too long for my attention span. Will have to watch when really bored!!
  • GenetixGenetix Posts: 1,754
    edited 2014-07-19 00:20
    Heater, I know that to really make money harvesting bitcoins requires considerable computing power but I was curious as to what a group of Propellers was capable of.

    NWCCTV, bitcoin mining is similar to code breaking except the codes gets harder to crack everytime one is released. Bitcoin codes are released periodically and then whomever unlocks it first gets it. Years ago a single PC had a chance of unlocking a bitcoin but now it takes groups of computers or special hardware and the computing needed to unlock each new release only grows.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-19 02:40
    genetix,
    I was curious as to what a group of Propellers was capable of.
    Well, let's do some hand waving and see.

    A Prop executes at 20 million instructions per second, an old PC might be clocked at 2GHz, The Prop is a 100 times slower.

    For programs bigger than what fits in COG you need to LMM. At least 4 times slower again gives 400 times slower.

    That's only for very small 32KB programs for bigger you need external memory. Another slow down by a factor ten. 4000 times slower.

    For scientific number crunching you will want floating point. This is done in software on the Prop so say another 100 times slow down. 400000 times slower.

    Of course I have not taken into account that code on the PC's processor that does not fit in cache will slow down by 10 or a 100 or more. But hey what's a couple of zeros when you have such big numbers?

    As you see you would almost be better off using a calculator than trying to do serious number crunching on a Propeller.

    People have made real performance measurements of the Propeller, for example here:
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/135497-Cache-volatile-memory-options

    Where we read "EEPROM XMMC is a little slow at about 0.18 DMIPS. For comparison LMM runs at 4 DMIPS. 2x QuadSPI is at 0.71 DMIPS with the slow version of the driver."

    As compared to actual PC results of 10's of thousands of DMIPS. See here: http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/dhrystone results.htm
  • GenetixGenetix Posts: 1,754
    edited 2014-07-23 17:04
    Heater, I knew the Propeller was no match for a PC but since it's cheaper and uses a lot less power I thought it might be useful for something.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-23 17:43
    The problem is that if you build a machine with thousands of those cheap, low power, Propellers that matches the performance of a modern PC, it will be a lot more expensive and consume a lot more power than the PC. Not to mention being huge!

    Also things like Bitcoin mining were done with GPU's. It's probably not physically possible to build a Propeller system to match that kind of performance.

    Use the Propeller for what it is intended, real-time, real world interfacing, control and monitoring. The PC cannot touch it there!
  • GenetixGenetix Posts: 1,754
    edited 2014-07-24 23:28
    I watched a video on SMT soldering and then a video on BitCoin followed it. I didn't realize how complicated it is and that the number of blocks released is changed to maintain a 10 minutes per block unlock rate. Did you know that when you become part of the network that first your computer downloads every transaction and then verifies that they all add up.

    Math is just the beginning.
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