Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc. Recent announced the Proto RigThe modular redesign of Bitcoin mining equipment has not been seen since Bitmain launched the S1 ASIC rig in 2013It was over 12 years before. Block partnered with Core Scientific to develop, test and design the Proto mining hardware. Dorsey was personally present at the event. He attended with other industry leaders.
Proto Rig is poised to challenge Bitmain’s effective monopoly in mining hardware manufacture, where it currently holds approximately 80%, and has done so for much of Bitcoin’s history. But the main innovation does not come from more powerful or energy-efficient chips — not yet anyway — rather from making everything else around the chip drastically better, designed to lower repair frequency and maintenance costs. The modular design allows for seamless upgrades, and parts can be replaced in seconds.
Perry Hothi said in an interview to The Mining Pod that the device is more competitive than the Bitmain mining rigs. “When people hear competitive, they automatically think efficient, right? I always say it’s profitable… If it’s not running, efficiency doesn’t matter.” This shifts the discussion in the mining industry from ASIC chip specs to the design of amateur mining rigs, as they haven’t yet caught up to the best practices that the datacenter industry has developed over its decades of expertise. “When you look at the data center world, they’ve been doing it for 10 times as long [as Bitcoin miners]. There’s a lot of innovations they made that work for us,” Hothi implied that the Proto Rig is designed to take lessons from the data centers.
Erik Cativo: Bitcoin Product Developer and HRF Grantee echoed this sentiment on X What is the best way to say it? “Proto Rig looks clean. Reminds me of beautifully designed Swedish telecom hardware.”
Hothi, in an interview with the New York Times, also spoke about the vision of and the complexities involved in manufacturing the Proto Rig here in the United States. He also expressed the advantages of producing pieces in-house, as it can enhance the reliability and security of supply chains, and now is strongly encouraged by President Trump’s new tariff system. Hothi stated that: “there are certain components that can be built faster in China and brought over, others are better built in America now… Like there’s a not too distant future where every component in [the Proto Rig] will be built right here [in the United States].” The addition of today was made by the speaker. “the [ASIC] chips are going to be in Taiwan, but even those eventually, we’re looking to make those here.”
Regarding the ASIC chip of the Proto Rig, Max Guise Product & ASIC Lead at Proto told Bitcoin Magazine “Our system is vertically integrated end-to-end, including our own chip. At a system level, we can offer different configurations that bring different efficiency depending on the mining operator needs, and our configurations go as low as 14.1 joules per hash efficiency rating.” Keep the details of the Proto Rig close to your chest, and emphasize its customizability.
Modularity
To provide a more reliable hashrate for miners, Proto Rig was designed as modular parts. Starting with the chassis which is 39cm wide by 29cm high by 50cm long, it contains nine boards worth of chip, six fans, three modular power units. While the Proto Rig is liquid-cooled, the modular fan design suggests that it can also be extended or modified to suit different uses and applications, including enterprise miners, or even the rapidly growing crypto industry. home mining industry. The Proto Rig has a high degree of customization, allowing users to pick exactly how many CPUs they want to run. Hardware and software errors are also clearly indicated in case the fan stops working or power supplies overheat.
Proto Rig is able to fit the equivalent of 3 mining units into two standard models, while still being competitive against industrial miners that run at 14 joules per Terahash like the Bitmain AntminerS21XP and MicroBT WhatsminerM66S. Proto Rig is able to deliver 810 TH/unit in the same area as competitors.
Proto Right may not be just built for large miners. Multiple hints were made during the Proto Hardware event as well as in subsequent commentary, suggesting that home miners would be given some attention by the team. Jack Dorsey, himself, tweeted about “A commitment to ALL the players in the mining industry, not just the big guys.” He tweeted a photo of a bitcoiner at the event.
Although the tweet was not followed by any further details, there have been rumours spreading that there could be some. BitaxeA collaboration of this type with Proto would serve to the mining industry in your home.
Max Guise responded to Bitcoin Magazine when asked about the home-mining issue. “Proto is designing products for mining operators of all sizes. Our first product, Rig, is a 12 kilowatt system, which is a higher power requirement than most home miners can handle, so it is best suited for operators who have more infrastructure involved in their operations. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of future products that could be more retail-friendly, but right now it’s not our focus.”
StratumV2 On By Default: Huge For Miner Decentralization
Brian StegallAt the launch, Proto’s head of design, Annette Henschel, revealed that they had chosen the newest color for the new Proto. “Proto Rigs will support Stratum V2 out of the box,” Add that to your list. “It’s a more efficient protocol that offers native hashrate auditing, which helps detect and reduce issues like miner misconfiguration, unwanted divergence and other fleet-wide issues.”
Stratumv2 This is a pool update for the popular Stratum V1 mining protocol. It has been adopted by many miners because it’s one of the first tools to gather hashrate from all over the world and allow them to work together as one to split rewards. Although well known by miners, the older protocol has serious disadvantages. The mining pool operator is responsible for building blocks, which can be a problem. copying block templates produced by Antpool. This trend could lead to the exposure of transactions in Bitcoin’s network.
StratumV2 was designed to put block template production in the hands of hashrate providers, pushing the process to the edges and thus increasing the diversity of blocks and transactions included, ultimately safeguarding Bitcoin’s censorship-resistance properties.
The software development has been a major obstacle to the adoption of this protocol by mining pools. As the Proto Rig is now integrated in the Block mining machines, the adoption of this protocol should be much faster. The Bitcoin community has worked toward this development for years.
Open Source The Software
Proto is not only reinventing its mining hardware but also releasing the mining management software as open source. Fleet.
Brian Stegall shared their research findings on the current state of Bitcoin mining software as part of the announcement. “We chatted with a ton of different people in varying sizes of operations, and we listened to all the complaints… We broke that down into three areas… One, that there’s too many tools. Two, making it simple is important. And automation and AI is the third one.”
Fleet unifies the tools miners use to start and track machines, identify software or hardware failures. Stegall, in a playful way of disbelief said: “We went to a lot of facilities and there’s a lot of places where they’ll scan the network with BTC.com tools, still. Yeah. Right. And then will flip it into a spreadsheet and upload it.” He described a complex process in big mining as an example to show how desperately a software suite was needed.
Stegall said that better software tools to control hardware will help you train your employees and allow them to focus more on important tasks rather than struggling through bad interfaces.
Stegall spoke about security in his remarks. “Proto Fleet comes out of the box with secure boot technology to guarantee that the firmware you’re running comes from Proto. This is an extra measure that prevents supply chain attacks, malware attacks, and theft of Bitcoin rewards.” I added, “It will also allow you to disable secure boot technology easily if you want to do something of your own.”
Finaly, AI was mentioned as a new approach to improving user experience. However, these hints were not very specific: “We wanted to make clean and clear dashboards… If fan3 is broken, we tell you fan3 is broken… We’re providing robust repair guides right in proto-fleet… We want to introduce a modern AI-powered interface… Automated alerts so that you don’t even have to ask the chat interface.”
The details of Fleet’s AI integration are scarce. However, Stegall did share a vision for high-tech and modern software to help increase Bitcoin miner efficiency.
Though no software has released yet, the open-source software is expected in the future.
Prices and delivery
Max Guise, Bitcoin Magazine’s editor, said that while the company has shared a lot of information about its plans, it is still unable to provide any details about Proto Rigs. “We want to hear from everyone interested in Proto Rig. There are many ways to configure the rig, and pricing and configuration options are handled directly by our Sales team.”
Max Guise of Bitcoin Magazine told Bitcoin Magazine the Rigs are now available, and not just for Core Scientific. Proto has an incredibly close relationship with Core Scientific. “Proto Rigs are shipping to customers now. As far as availability, we recommend customers to check with our Sales team on exact availability depending on configuration and volume”.
Overall, the Proto Rig’s reveal made a big impression on both the Bitcoin mining industry as well as the wider Bitcoin community. It showed a high level of expertise in industrial design while also demonstrating what Western talent is capable of bringing to an industry that has been dominated for much longer by East.
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Source: bitcoinmagazine.com
