41showtime Episode 9: Big miner test is coming soon, how to seize the business opportunities of IPFS and Filecoin

OKEx Business Director Tina

Calvin, Commercial Director of Star Continent

Moderator: We know that in the early morning of June 9, 2020, the official released the details of the Filecoin test network big miner reward plan, and invited miners from all over the world to compete for global and regional rewards totaling 4 million Filecoin tokens. What factors are related to the big miner test rewards? How can each manufacturer get higher profits in the big miner test?

(On-site welcome)

Calvin: Let me first talk about the timing of the big miner test. The official big miner test was announced on July 20th. Last week, Filecoin's chief development engineer why replied to everyone in slack that many people gave the official feedback that the preparation time was not sufficient, so the time of the big miner test may be postponed for 1-2 weeks. This is also a good thing for us. On the one hand, each mining machine company can be more fully prepared, and on the other hand, the official code will be more complete to fix some hidden BUGs. At present, the supply chain departments of various manufacturers are in a state of full preparation, because the main network launch time of filecoin is getting closer and closer, the price and supply of hardware are also rising with demand. In terms of hardware, our Star Continent is relatively well prepared. As early as April 2019, we communicated with the official about the algorithm problem. At that time, we got the news from the official that Filecoin mining would use high-performance GPUs, so we started looking for high-quality hardware resources in the market very early.

This big miner test has a flavor of "killing monsters and upgrading". It is divided into six continents (excluding Antarctica) and the corresponding storage capacity must be reached to unlock the corresponding reward coins. The top miners will share the corresponding rewards. The specific rules are as follows: the total amount in Asia is 1 million, and you can share it if you reach 10PB. The global reward of 1 million coins requires more than 1PB in each continent to unlock it. It may be difficult in Africa and South America. Our nodes are also deployed in overseas computer rooms in North America and Europe, but the real unlocking of all 4 million reward coins still requires the joint efforts of various manufacturers in the industry and global miners. We also hope that everyone can abandon competition and jointly develop the filecoin ecosystem.

Let's talk about the rewards that everyone is concerned about. Let's talk about the distribution of global rewards first: this time the big miner test rewards are only distributed to the top 100 miners in the world, and the miners after the 100th will not get any rewards. The proportion of rewards distributed to a single miner is: miner storage capacity/cumulative storage capacity of the top 100 miners. For example, if a miner's computing power is 5P, and the cumulative storage capacity of the top 100 miners in the world is 100P, then this miner's share of the reward is 5%, unlocking a reward of 100PB, and the official will release 1 million rewards, then this miner will receive a reward of 100*1%=20,000 fil. The prerequisite for the distribution of global rewards must be that the storage capacity of each state in the six continents reaches 1PB. After calculation, the hardware cost of 5PB plus the electricity, network, IDC site and other costs during the test will add up to more than 10 million RMB. This cost can be said to be a considerable expense, which is something that small miners cannot afford in a short period of time, and they are likely to have to give up participating in the big miner test.

In addition to global rewards, there are also continental rewards. Miners on the entire network can get global rewards and continental rewards in their continents if they meet certain conditions. The upper limit of each state reward is 500,000 Fil, and the total reward for 6 states is 3 million Filecoin. The rules are the same as global rewards. Unlock the corresponding capacity to get the corresponding reward. The top 50 miners in each continent can get the corresponding reward of the continent. The reward ratio for each miner is: the network storage capacity of a single miner/the network storage capacity of the top 50 miners combined.

Moreover, the rewards will be released linearly after the test network is launched. Therefore, the purpose of this test is mainly to find bugs, test the replication proof algorithm, and do stress testing through the miners' ability before the main network is launched, so as to pave the way for the real main network launch. Therefore, we also hope that all investors will have a positive attitude. After all, the main network has not been truly launched yet, and there is still a long way to go.

Host: The Filecoin mining hardware market is not very transparent. Can you tell us what is the best price-performance ratio for mining equipment?

Calvin: At present, the hardware configurations of cluster solutions of various manufacturers are developing in the direction of less and less differentiation. After the official announcement of the SDR algorithm of replication proof, the difference in hardware configuration is getting smaller and smaller. At present, the mainstream solutions all adopt cluster architecture. Under the replication proof algorithm, the sealing speed of the P1 stage using AMD CPU is much faster than that of Intel. The main reason for AMD's huge advantage is AMD's advantage under the SHA instruction set. AMD's mainstream models are divided into 3 series and 7 series. The price of the 7 series is relatively higher, and the memory is relatively larger and more stable. In addition to the CPU, memory bars, graphics cards, SSDs, switches, 10G network ports and other accessories are also indispensable in the mining process, so the more expensive the hardware is, the better it is. The ultimate pursuit of mining is the input-output ratio. The more costs paid, the longer the payback period will be. Therefore, it is necessary to find a balance between hardware configuration and price to achieve a quick payback.

In fact, the competition for hardware is mainly reflected in the purchasing capabilities of various supply chains, and the core of each manufacturer is not the hardware configuration but the software and operation and maintenance layer. Therefore, simply pursuing hardware configuration is actually a bit like seeing the whole picture through a tube. The specific plan must be comprehensively viewed based on the software development and later operation and maintenance capabilities of each manufacturer.

Host: The three most important parts of Filecoin mining are hardware, software, and operation and maintenance. Now everyone is talking about hardware and software. Can you tell us what points should be paid attention to in operation and maintenance in Filecoin? How should we identify the operation and maintenance capabilities of mining machine manufacturers?

Calvin: The operation and maintenance of Filecoin's mining farm is related to many factors, because Filecoin mining must be hosted in a professional IDC computer room. The IDC computer room has several maintenance requirements, including computer room dust removal and environmental requirements, computer room air conditioning and fresh air maintenance, UPS and battery maintenance, fire equipment maintenance, ground maintenance including wiring, and maintenance personnel responding to these in a timely manner 24 hours a day. The operation and maintenance of the IDC computer room includes 5 parts: information statistics, host monitoring, hardware maintenance, system maintenance and network maintenance. In fact, hardware maintenance, system maintenance and network maintenance can be collectively referred to as fault handling. What is tested is the ability of our operation and maintenance engineering to respond to emergencies.

The focus of the mining farm is on the construction of the network structure. The I/O speed of each machine must be guaranteed. The speed of each gateway interface must be tested. The internal read test of each machine must be performed, and the real-time status of each hard disk must be monitored. If the mining machine has a problem with reading and writing sectors, it must be solved immediately to avoid affecting the subsequent mining.

Our Star Continent Mine Operation and Maintenance Department has specially developed software that can perform automatic inspections with on-site intelligent managers, which can greatly reduce labor, increase the detection rate of mining machine failures, and achieve early detection and timely processing. In addition, there are three major energy consumptions in the computer room: electricity, bandwidth, and labor. In order to reduce consumption, some internal data exchange and internal transportation may be performed to reduce bandwidth consumption and power consumption.

The main way of mining in the filecoin network is through cluster mining.

Because the Filecoin network is currently in its early stages, Filecoin needs stable and large-scale miners to ensure the overall security and stability of the network. Only when the Filecoin network storage reaches a certain scale can Filecoin be truly commercialized and all idle storage resources can be added. Therefore, the stability of the network in the early stages is extremely important.

Filecoin has a built-in mortgage and penalty mechanism. If the node server loses network or power, the penalty is very severe. Not only may the previous mining income be lost, but also the pledged coins must be compensated. In this case, where is the safest and most reliable place to put so many machines? Of course, the IDC room. The IDC has a backup battery that can continue to be used for 12 hours after a power outage. Of course, if the power is not restored after 12 hours, the IDC room also has a backup generator to maintain power supply.

Host: Now many people tend to invest in physical mining machines and cloud computing power. Can you tell us about the advantages and disadvantages of physical mining machines and cloud computing power?

Calvin: Physical mining machines have the advantages of low cost per TB, easy expansion, physical delivery, and long service life. If there is a disadvantage, it is that the investment threshold for physical machines is relatively high, usually starting at tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

The advantage of cloud computing is that it has a low threshold. You can buy 1 TB of storage space for around 1,000 or 2,000 yuan. The disadvantage is that the hardware configuration behind cloud computing is not transparent enough. No one tells you what kind of cluster configuration cloud computing is based on. Another point is that cloud computing generally has a one-year validity period. In fact, miners only rent the right to use it for one year. It is possible that the storage space you purchased for 10 months has just been filled up, and the validity period has expired.

In short, physical machines and cloud computing power each have their own advantages and disadvantages. If you have enough funds to participate, it is recommended to purchase a physical machine; if the funds are not sufficient or you want to experience it, you can experience cloud computing power.

(On-site welcome)

Host: In the Bitcoin era, exchanges and mining machine companies have no intersection. In the Filecoin ecosystem, many exchanges choose to cooperate with mining machine manufacturers. Why is this?

Tina: First of all, congratulations to Okex for being ranked seventh in the world in the Bitcoin mining pool computing power sector. I believe that in the future, OK will also be among the top three in the mining pool computing power sector. In fact, exchanges also have a natural advantage in the mining sector in terms of user volume. The cooperation between exchanges and mining machine manufacturers has both advantages and disadvantages for investors in the secondary market. The advantage is that more users who do not understand mining and speculate on coins will learn about filecoin mining, the market scale can be expanded, and more people can participate. However, there are also many users who do not understand mining at all who enter this market, and they will inevitably step on many pitfalls, so the task for exchanges is relatively heavy, and they need to help customers and investors to identify. For exchanges, filecoin mining services can help exchanges bring more users to the exchanges for trading, because currently most of the customers who purchase filecoin mining services are people outside the blockchain circle. So more and more exchanges are beginning to enter this track.

Moderator: OKEx’s welfare policy

Tina: As an exchange, OK is a relatively neutral existence, providing liquidity services and trading services for various high-quality digital assets. For exchanges, we will select some relatively high-quality assets and applications to join our trading network. There is cooperative support for the community ecology. For example, you can become some partners of OKEx, and then bring active ecological nodes and active users into our trading system, so that the community can get some rewards. OKEx has established an ecosystem of global partners. This ecosystem will cooperate with some teams in and outside the circle that are good at building communities, good at traffic, and good at users. In this system, everyone can connect to their own resources, and we will help everyone to realize them.

Host: Now exchanges and mining machine companies have no intersection in the Bitcoin era. In the Filecoin ecosystem, many exchanges choose to cooperate with mining machine manufacturers. Does OKEX have any plans in the Filecoin sector?

Tina: In the era of Bitcoin, exchanges in the mining circle mainly deal with mining pools. There are also many exchanges that build their own mines, such as OK. The rewards for this concept are all based on storage, so the hardware determines the income. However, for the most ordinary users, purchasing hardware on a large scale for development is not a particularly suitable method. Therefore, for a large number of retail investors, cloud computing products are actually more suitable for retail investors to invest, including some new users with low thresholds. So, from the user's perspective, the exchange chooses to cooperate with mining machine manufacturers to provide users with cloud computing cooperation, which is the best solution.

Finally, we would like to thank the following media for their support: