Bitpush testnet public beta is in progress: Filecoin miners set off a wave of ranking manipulation -

Testnet public beta in progress: Filecoin miners set off a wave of ranking manipulationNew

Abstract: In 2020, when the industry lacks hot spots, Filecoin, the incentive layer of the IPFS network protocol, which was born nearly three years ago but has slow technological progress, has received continuous attention. According to incomplete statistics, in the past three years, the Chinese market has sold related mining machines worth 50 billion yuan, and there are 500 teams or companies selling mining machines. Today, the second phase of the public beta of the Filecoin test network was also launched on May 15th amid the expectations of miners. However, popular projects are always inseparable from speculation and hype. We have seen that in this round of Filecoin public beta, there are not only unscrupulous speculators, but also relatively leading mining machine manufacturers in the industry taking the opportunity to create marketing gimmicks, which once made the Filecoin public beta a place for mining machine manufacturers to "compete for beauty".

In 2020, when the industry lacks hot spots, Filecoin, the incentive layer of the IPFS network protocol, which was born nearly three years ago but has slow technological progress, has received continuous attention. According to incomplete statistics, in the past three years, the Chinese market has sold related mining machines worth 50 billion yuan, and there are 500 teams or companies selling mining machines. Today, the second phase of the public beta of the Filecoin test network was also launched on May 15th amid the expectations of miners. However, popular projects are always inseparable from speculation and hype. We have seen that in this round of Filecoin public beta, there are not only unscrupulous speculators, but also relatively leading mining machine manufacturers in the industry taking the opportunity to create marketing gimmicks, which once made the Filecoin public beta a place for mining machine manufacturers to "compete for beauty".

Author: Wang Dashu

01

Shell companies take up space and take advantage of the popularity

"It's useless to look at the brand and model. What matters most is the configuration, server and data center, and whether there is a license issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. For example, our company holds the national IDC/CDN dual licenses issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, and our machines are all Dell customized servers. The technology is derived from the IPFS of the Protocol Laboratory of Stanford University in the United States. Currently, this technology has attracted great attention around the world." This is a series of words used by a salesperson named Xiaoxi to introduce to the chain catcher how to choose a Filecoin mining machine.

However, when asked whether the mining machine would participate in the second phase of the public beta, the other party said firmly: "We have to wait until the main network vulnerability is fixed before we can participate in the test."

Afterwards, Xiaoxi began to introduce the advantages of his own mining machines, such as the company's strategic cooperation with the world's top server manufacturers, and it is a platinum director unit (DELL China), which can guarantee 5 years of after-sales service; DELL servers are hosted in the national IDC computer room, covering dozens of central cities across the country; the technical team is composed of people with professional backgrounds from Cisco, Oracle, Huawei, Dell and Xianhe and other Fortune 500 companies; the cooperation plans are diverse, and the tax and legal affairs are optimized by professional institutions to ensure rigor, standardization and perfection; the server participates in IPFS network testing; strategic planning is being rapidly promoted, and cooperation and services have begun in the catering, automobile, insurance and other industries, etc.

However, this statement is nonsense to Tian Shu, an old miner who has been paying attention to Filecoin mining machines for a long time. "Testing is to find bugs. Why can't their mining machines run? Either their technology is not good enough, or they are shell companies that don't produce machines themselves but want to take advantage of the popularity."

He analyzed that the advantages mentioned by the salesperson have little to do with the mining machine itself. What is hidden behind the so-called Dell customized server is that they buy DELL servers and add CPU, GPU and other components from other brands when assembling them, which is similar to transplanting flowers and trees. Even if there is a DELL logo on the mining machine, it cannot prove that the configuration inside is Dell's.

In addition, DELL's customized servers are generally only open to international giants such as Huawei, Google, and Amazon. Unknown small companies cannot get customized services at all, so it is very likely that the manufacturer is making a marketing gimmick to deceive consumers.

As for the aforementioned strategic plans such as the MIIT license, IDC computer room, professional legal team, and catering vehicles, they have nothing to do with the performance of mining machines. To some extent, they are a maze specifically targeting novice investors. It is very likely that the company itself does not understand what the IPFS network protocol and Filecoin incentive layer are. It is also possible that it is just a pyramid scheme company.

However, in Filecoin's public beta, there are quite a few companies like this, but the degree of false information varies.

According to insider Fu Yun, many intermediary sales companies that have neither machines nor technology will choose to rent IDC computer rooms or even supercomputing centers for testing. They will stop immediately after the rankings are released. The purpose is only to obtain a miner number that can prove that they have a mining machine and participated in the public beta to obtain a ranking, so that they can later publicize that their own machines have high performance, thereby achieving the purpose of acquiring customers.

02

Strong teams compete for rankings and spend money on PK

In fact, for shell companies, it is just a hype, but for technical miners who really participate in the test, they can not only obtain rewards of more than 1 million tokens prepared by the Protocol Lab (although the reward details have not yet been released), but also obtain additional subsidies from the official to large miners. The most important thing is that the test results are still the best advertisement for mining machine manufacturers.

Although the original intention is good, it ignores human nature. This public beta not only attracted the participation of the above-mentioned shell companies, but also indirectly provided a stage for mining machine manufacturers to take the opportunity to show off their muscles. Even the relatively leading companies in the industry are not immune. After all, in addition to official rewards, they can also obtain data on the list that will make novice investors more convinced.

Fu Yun told Chain Catcher that the number of mining machines participating in the second phase of the public beta test is more than 12,000, with 233 test nodes, including 156 in China (including Hong Kong) and 67 overseas, which is very active. However, what is surprising is that in the second test, the miners only took 5 days to complete the journey that took 5 months in the first test. The speed is amazing, which is also the result of competition among manufacturers.

Miner hashrate trend chart, data from Filscan—Filecoin block browser

In addition, it can be seen from the test network list in the above figure that during the test period, the overall computing power of a certain node increased sharply, which to a certain extent indicates that some miners are increasing the number of machines participating in the test in order to have a higher ranking.

Fu Yun revealed that some manufacturers would even pile up 100-200 or even 1,000-3,000 machines, keep them turned on all the time, and dominate the rankings. Once they are surpassed, they will continue to spend money to add machines to ensure their ranking.

However, although it is fun to brush the list, it requires real money to support it. At present, when the official promised rewards have not yet been revealed, companies with insufficient funds cannot afford to play this game at all, which has also increased the cost threshold for participating in the test to a certain extent. The following is the effective storage growth and test cost of the node that was first launched on May 15. Among them, the total cost of the miner numbered t1102 was nearly 20 million yuan.

Note: 1. Calculation method: Number of machines = Number of messages - Number of PreCommit Sectors (this method is only valid under certain conditions);

2. According to the cost of AMD 3900X, which is about 20,000 yuan, the cost of 200 machines is 4 million yuan;

3. Assuming that the test machine runs for 45 days from the second test to the main network launch, the single-machine hosting operation and maintenance cost is calculated at 1,000 yuan.

Although the manufacturers participating in the test have proven their technical strength by being on the list and ensuring a steady growth in computing power, investors need to recognize that this is the result of the combined effect of a large number of machines and does not represent the performance of a single machine.

According to Tian Shu, most manufacturers now use single high-quality data such as first in effective storage, first in number of blocks, and first in single T efficiency as a gimmick to sell mining machines, and will not clearly inform users of the computing power of a single machine under comprehensive performance.

In response to this, Chain Catcher contacted the sales of 1475 mining machines and consulted them. The other party immediately informed Chain Catcher of the results of their own mining machines in the second phase of public beta testing: "Our mining machines are ranked first in terms of the number of blocks they have exploded and the effective computing power in the public beta testing. Now everyone is scrambling to be the first to mine. The earlier you plan, the earlier you will benefit." The contract was then sent to Chain Catcher in the hope of further understanding.

Contract screenshot

However, there are some suspicious aspects in the contract. For example, in the product name and model column, investors cannot determine how the corresponding configuration is specifically combined, nor can they confirm the age of the hardware; for example, in the free hosting and operation and maintenance column, it should be noted that customers cannot take away the physical machine and need to wait until the end of the one-year hosting period before they can take it back, which is equivalent to buying computing power in disguise. Even if investors can take back the physical mining machine later, they still cannot confirm whether the core customized chip has been replaced.

In this regard, Tian Shu believes that 1475 is still reliable in the industry, and only those companies that promise consumers a payback period, accurately predict prices, or recruit people to become distribution agents may be real scams.

However, he still suggested that novice miners should learn more about this circle. "You can learn how institutional investors conduct due diligence on projects, which mainly includes on-site communication with technical personnel, checking technical skills, understanding the resume of the founding team, etc. Don't be bothered by it. After all, buying a mining machine is essentially an investment behavior."

Although the purpose of manipulating the rankings is to reward and advertise, and to a certain extent makes consumers feel at a loss, manufacturers also face great risks.

Some manufacturers blindly purchase hardware based on the current algorithm (there is no certainty whether the official will change the existing algorithm) to maintain their rankings, but once the official changes or optimizes the algorithm, they will face a series of troubles.

“The current SDR algorithm is very friendly to AMD’s CPU, but once the algorithm changes in the future, it is likely to be more friendly to Intel’s CPU. Therefore, spending money to buy hardware to brush the rankings now is largely a gamble. Once the existing mining machine configuration is incompatible with the configuration required for actual operation, all mining machines will become scrap metal.” Fu Yun sighed. Although the gains do not outweigh the losses, the competition in the early stages of any market is so bloody that it is simply unavoidable.

This is indeed the case. Throughout history, the birth of new technologies always stems from a good vision and will inevitably bring new opportunities. However, almost every technological innovation will also face a lot of resistance, just like the Filecoin public beta, the purpose of which was to mobilize the community to test together, find bugs, and improve bugs, so that the public chain main network can run more safely and quickly after it is officially launched. However, it was used by many mining machine manufacturers to show off, competing for the so-called first place on the list at all costs, although these crazy behaviors may have to pay a heavy price later.

Note: Xiaoxi, Tian Shu, and Fu Yun are all pseudonyms

Source: Chain Catcher