Obelisk DCR1, the First Decred (DCR) ASIC Miner Announced

3 Nov
2017

Some of you might remember that back in June Sia has announced their plans to develop a dedicated SiaCoin (SC) ASIC miner called the Obelisk SC1 capable of 300+ GH/S at 500W or less power consumption according to the latest information. Well, it seems that Sia has figured out that since Decred (DCR) uses a very similar algorithm to what SiaCoin (SC) uses (both being variations of Blake) they can also develop the first ASIC miner for Decred as well. The Obelisk DCR1 should be capable of at least 475 GH/s with less than 500W of power usage and both ASIC miners should be available at pretty much the same time.

So now the pre-sale of the first batch of 4000 Obelisk DCR1 ASIC miners for Decred (DCR) is up for pre-sale on the Obelist’s website along the Obelist SC1 ASIC miner pre-sale for SiaCoin (SC). Both pre-sales will run up until November 24th and they are expected to ship on or before June 30th, 2018. Both Obelisk ASIC miners are available for pre-order at a price of $2499 USD and come with a 6 week exclusive mining period and a $250 per-unit coupon for future Obelisk purchases as a bonus. Now, since this is a pre-order for a product that is currently in development we advice you to be extra careful as we’ve seen a fair share of fails in that area and a lot of empty promises. We are not saying anything for the Obelisk, it seems to have a solid team working on the project according to the information available, we are just warning you to be careful as it is a pre-order for a product that is not yet developed and the final device (if/when available) may as well be different in terms of specifications as we’ve seen that happening as well.

If by the second half of next year Sia manages to deliver on their promise with the Obelisk ASIC miners for SiaCoin (SC) and Decred (DCR) they will significantly change the landscape for these two crypto coins. Now it is yet unclear how this will affect things regarding the use of the Sia file hosting services since it is more than just a crypto coin while Decred is more of a traditional crypto coin. The promise of securing the network better with ASICs is not new, the more important question here however is what if a limited number of people hold most of the ASIC’s power in a network… and then it becomes pointless to mine if you do not have access to an ASIC miner and/or cannot afford one.

– For more details about the upcoming Obelisk DCR1 and Obelisk SC1 ASIC miners…






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5 Responses to Obelisk DCR1, the First Decred (DCR) ASIC Miner Announced

Reg

November 6th, 2017 at 20:52

It doesn’t mention anywhere on their site if these people have the skills to carry out the tasks. They are raising large amounts of capital 4000 * $2500 = 10 million. There are strict controls over this type of activity if they were doing this in a conventional way. I’m guessing they are subject to these controls but they are avoiding them by not following orthodox methods.

They have to pay a company to create the Asci. They have to pay developers and managers.10 million doesn’t seem to be enough.

The guy heading this is 24 years old. That alone is something to worry about. It seems he has worked professionally for less than a year. In my mind there are so many alarm bells ringing it is deafening.

There is no mentiin(and probably no thought given to) of failure to complete the work or failure to actually meet hash rate. I mean, what criteria are they using to determine hash rate? There is no mention on their site. I am a software developer/ team lead with nearly 20 years experience in investment banking. I’ve been involved in and led multiple projects from Greenfield to completion and this Obelisk thing really smells fishy.

Anybody else find this whole thing odd?

xeridea

November 7th, 2017 at 01:29

I was also thinking the same thing about costs. $10M to pay chip engineers (not cheap) to design a custom chip. Also need to work with a fab, and pay for production. If it were only $10M to make an ASIC, BTC ASICs would have arrived sooner. Nvidia used a ghetto FPGA for their GSync technology because they didn’t want to pay for a custom ASIC, and Nvidia works with billions of dollars, not millions.

I also find their reasoning for the ASIC “Securing the network”, so if SIA goes to the gutter, we will force them poor suckers who bought our ASIC to mine SIA because that’s all they can do. With only (up to, currently half) 4000 units, it would be trivial for someone with reasonable money to just buy enough to attack network. ASICs lead heavily to centralization, which is terrible for security.

Seems very plausible it is a quick cash grab. Maybe another Butterfly Labs?

Jim Bob

November 7th, 2017 at 22:49

I see flags as well, but allegedly, Obelisk is a subsidiary of Nebulous, Inc., the same team who created Sia. As it’s literally the same team creating the asic for their own coin, that seems lower risk than a 3rd party startup offering the same. I’ve checked in with the other companies Obelisk claims to be contracting with to check if such partnerships are indeed in place. Will post back if I get answers.

Tim Olson

November 20th, 2017 at 21:54

ASIC’s are a big endeavor and if you want an experienced team, consider our competing effort at dcrasic.org. I’ve been building tech businesses for 20 years and our lead engineer has been designing ASIC’s for over 30 years.

We are currently designing a 16nm chip which should be significantly faster than the old-technology Obelisk at 28nm.

Clad Tom

January 21st, 2018 at 16:42

I see that obelisk is 2000 euro at https://www.eminershop.com/en/products/21-obelisk-dcr1-decred-miner.html
how much profit can you make?
this will destroy dual mining with rx580 ?

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