@ngzhang
Do you plan on using test-net or main-net for testing ASIC units?
BFL has just announced that they will be using main-net for "QC" activities of their batch production. This could equate to 600GH+ per day of mining by BFL directly during the ASIC ramp up.
I would imagine that anyone testing ASIC or any new hardware would use
testnet in a box, to avoid artificially raising the difficulty of either testnet or mainnet. And BFL have not 'just announced' this - they've never said they are using mainnet for testing - link...?
Will
Will, I hope you are as disappointed in BFL as I am. BFL has indeed lacked transparency and given the mining community the distinct impression that they would not be mining with produced equipment.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110290.msg1204935#msg1204935All of our equipment is burn tested after final assembly/testing for ~24 hours on a live pool (In this case, EMC). After the burn-in, it's taken off the rack, packed and shipped the same day. We do this for both the singles and the mini rig and the singles PSU's (we've had a few of those go bad, so now we burn those in as well).
We are not mining with any ASIC equipment at the present time. You can be sure there would be a big announcement if we had turned up the ASICs on a live pool.
If we tested on testnet, it would make testnet useless, since it would spike the difficulty to unmanagable levels.
Regardless, we aren't testing any ASIC equipment on the live network either now or in the past, so it's pretty immaterial. We already have a plan, which I explained to several people at the Bitcoin conference on how we are going to handle the live testing when that time comes.
Consider BFL is running this as a batch production and bulk shipment. Depending on the exact volume of orders, unknown, this could result in a conservative estimate of 80,000 USD extracted from the mining community for that first month of "QC."
Looking at it a different way if BFL mines their products prior to customer delivery the price point per SC product has gone up. Capitalism ftw.