Contributing Author: Calvin

If the growth rate of the effective computing power of a mining machine manufacturer is lower than the average value of the entire network, then the FIL income of the mining machine manufacturer will continue to decrease, and most of the long-tailed mining machine manufacturers will gradually lose their competitiveness and be eliminated.

Under the popularity of Filecoin, mining machine manufacturers piled up machines overnight to compete for the "computing power list". Today, this company is on the throne and publicizes its company's technology; tomorrow, another mining machine manufacturer will announce its entry into the top ten rankings Started to brag wildly about his "cloud computing power subscription open". The Filecoin browser, which was originally launched for large-scale evaluation and testing before the mainnet went live, suddenly became a marketing tool for major mining machine manufacturers.

The number of manufacturers selling cloud computing power in the market has surged, and many manufacturers are using one-sided information and data to deceive investors and conduct false propaganda.

However, the biggest shortcoming of cloud computing power is its opacity. There have been many scams under the banner of "cloud computing power" before. Because of this, identifying the reliability of cloud computing power providers has become an important part of surviving in the cloud computing power market. "Required Skills".

In the face of opacity and poor information, cloud computing investors will inevitably fall into various doubts:

• Is it reliable to choose cloud computing power based on single indicators such as "price per T" and "effective computing power"?

• Are the miners on the testnet computing power list reliable?

• Is the rate of return and payback period promised by the merchant credible?

Today, let us clear the fog of the industry, break the casserole, and talk about what we are investigating when we investigate a cloud computing power provider, and what parameters should we compare when evaluating cloud computing power providers?

Use the pool model to explain Filecoin mining clearly

On Saturday, I was lying in bed swiping my phone, and saw a discussion about purchasing IPFS mining machines/cloud computing power in the circle communication group.

In fact, I have seen various communities discussing Filecoin mining for a long time. Indeed, due to the relatively complicated mechanism of Filecoin mining, the community is also full of misunderstandings about the project. In the final analysis, it is caused by people who do not have a deep understanding of Filecoin. There is an urgent need for someone to come out to justify cloud computing power, so this article is here.

So, at the beginning of today, first use a pool model to briefly simulate the process of Filecoin storage mining. If we compare Filecoin mining to filling a pool with water:

• The reservoir corresponds to the storage part (hard disk) behind each Filecoin mining machine;

• The water injection pipeline corresponds to the computing part of each mining machine (CPU/GPU/AMD motherboard);

• The amount of water that has been injected is the effective storage of the mining machine;

• The speed of water injection corresponds to the effective packaging speed (GB/H/W);

Note: Carefully pay attention to the relationship between water injection speed and water injection volume. These two parameters are easily confused. The effective computing power of the mining machine.

What really determines the mining machine's income is not the size of the effective computing power, but the proportion of the effective computing power of the mining machine to the effective computing power of the entire network. The proportion of computing power.

Another question is why you need to buy cloud computing power, because the practice of the test network has already explained the problem. The cluster mining method is much more efficient than single mining machine mining. At present, cloud computing power mostly adopts the cluster mining method , which is much more efficient than a single mining machine. Many machines are used to form a node to separate the mining process. Generally speaking, a master node is set up, which is the miner, and there are N remote workers, which are workers. The master node is generally responsible for depositing tasks, and receiving the sectors returned by workers after processing, and then submitting them to the chain to be verified and become effective storage, as well as running time-space proofs and election proofs, responsible for the most important task of bursting blocks. Worker is responsible for encrypting and encapsulating the initial sector sent by the master node, and then sending the processed sector back to the master node.

Cloud computing power mining generally has the advantages of building large-scale mining machine clusters, coordinating management of power supply, professional bandwidth, and mining machine operation and maintenance.

The same is 1T, why the price is different?

We investigated the cloud computing power products available on the market and made a comparison and statistics on the prices.

The price of cloud computing power products on the market is still unaffected. The highest effective computing power price per T is nearly 3,000 yuan; the lowest 1106 can buy 1T effective computing power, and the difference in the middle is nearly doubled.

Why is there such a big price difference between merchants?

Here we need to mention the pricing model of IPFS cloud computing power. Buying cloud computing power is different from buying vegetables. It is an investment behavior. Don’t just look at the price, but ultimately look at the return on investment, because after all, we invest To buy a mining machine is ultimately for the sake of currency, output, and return, so the final evaluation is not the price, but the ratio of input to output.

However, the main network is not yet online, and no one can verify the input and output. Therefore, manufacturers who sell computing power now are more like selling "commodities". Therefore, the current pricing model of each manufacturer is based on cost plus marketing expenses. Coupled with the expected profit constitutes the current selling price per T of cloud computing power.

However, in addition to the unreasonable price model of the current cloud computing power, there are two "pitfalls":

(1) The logic of FIL mining machine investment is to pursue the highest possible coin production efficiency under unit investment. Under this logic, the FIL output per T will be an important reference indicator for cloud computing power manufacturers, and the optimal solution of effective computing power is only a means, not a goal. If you only know the price of effective computing power per T, but do not know the FIL output per T of effective computing power, the price will appear pale and meaningless.

It is a normal situation in the Filecoin network that the effective computing power and currency production efficiency are not equal. Please keep this "pit" in mind.

For example: in the current testnet ranking, the effective computing power of Space-time Cloud & Xi'an Lingdong is 6.29PiB higher than that of the Xianhe system, but the block reward within 24 hours of the Xianhe system is more than that of Space-time Cloud & Xi'an Lingdong. The reason for this That is, there are differences in the number of FIL mined by miners per T computing power.

This also proves once again that a single effective computing power cannot reflect the final investment in coins. If you want to clearly judge the mining machine's block production strength, you must know the number of FIL dug out by a single T effective computing power. .

The current effective computing power ranking of the test network

Current testnet block reward ranking

(2) At present, all cloud computing power products require users to pay for the filling process of effective storage. If you buy 1T of cloud computing power, will you be given 1T of effective computing power on the first day? Or should I give you 1T on the last day? The difference in earnings here is huge.

Going back to the reservoir model mentioned in the first part, there is no water in the reservoir at the beginning, that is, when the 1T storage space purchased by the user is not filled into effective computing power, the user’s income is greatly reduced, and the mining machine is effective. Only when the storage reaches 1T, miners can enjoy a higher mining rate of return. The previous filling time is equivalent to doing a "cold start".

Therefore, if a cloud computing power manufacturer only tells you the price, but does not tell you the filling time or the effective packaging speed (you can calculate the filling time), then its price is likely to be tricky and opaque.

A concept is introduced here: effective packaging speed (GB/h)

Knowing the effective packaging speed of cloud computing power can not only calculate the time required to fill 1T of storage, but also calculate the daily income before filling.

Time required to fill up 1T storage: 1T full storage time = 1024GB/ effective package speed (h)

Daily income: daily effective storage = packaging speed (GB/h)\*24h

Mining theoretical daily income = cumulative effective storage / effective storage of the entire network\*(daily coin production-mortgage amount)\*coin price

After the mainnet is launched, because everyone can see his return, Filecoin cloud computing power is more like an investment product, and its pricing model will become the return on investment, which is calculated according to my expectation of annualized income The price of this product will only be comparable if it is relatively expensive or cheap at that time.

Therefore, we have listed the current cloud computing power parameter table on the market, and you can also compare and judge by yourself.

"Our mining machine is the strongest because we are on the list"

Everyone is familiar with this picture. It has been used by various mining machine manufacturers or cloud computing power providers. It will appear in various marketing copywriting and various soft articles. So why is it so important?

Ask if, then why.

So, is the effective computing power ranking of this test network very important?

The "Effective Computing Power Ranking" is meaningful for mining machine manufacturers. It can help companies find out the strength of themselves and their opponents, and facilitate adjustments to their technical solutions and market strategies. However, this single parameter is meaningless to ordinary users, because miners Users don't know how many machines manufacturers have used to obtain this effective computing power ranking. There is no way to compare the advantages and disadvantages of ranking first on the test network with one hundred machines and ranking tenth on the test network with ten machines.

The ranking of the list is high, maybe the node has a large number of mining machines, but if the block production rate is not high, and a lot of effective storage is used, it can also lead to the top ranking, and the absolute strength of the brand and the manufacturer cannot be equated Number.

Regarding the "Effective Computing Power Ranking List", there are a few more points I would like to remind users:

(1) Swiping the list on the testnet is a marketing activity that is far more meaningful than technical testing. The wool comes from the body of the sheep, and the testing cost will ultimately be borne by users. Now the Filecoin testnet cannot dig out "real coins". The FIL rewards dug out by various mining machine nodes currently seen on the testnet browser are just "data" for testing and experiments. In "digging the air".

(2) Before the launch of the "Space Race" on the test network, the test data on the test network should be mainly technical tests, and there is no need for large-scale deployment of machines and computing power. The main reason is that when the mainnet is launched, all the effective computing power already stored in the testnet is cleared, and everyone starts to compete for computing power at the same starting line. There is no need to deploy a large number of machines in the testnet stage, because once the electronic product machine is opened, the discount is 1/3. There will also be a performance penalty.

(3) There are some mining machine manufacturers running nodes together in a group. I know that several mining machine manufacturers merged to run a node number to improve the ranking, and use the network of larger cluster mining machines to improve each other's stability. This is very encouraging. First of all, forming a cluster mining machine together with other mining farms can greatly improve the mining efficiency of the mining machine and maximize the hardware performance. Parallel packaging of multiple pairs of computers can improve the effective packaging speed per unit time; secondly, heterogeneous cluster mining machines require multiple The combination of mining machines can provide more stable FIL output and reduce the impact of isolated blocks on the income of subscribers; thirdly, cluster mining machines formed by multiple manufacturers can hold together for warmth, increase the proportion of the entire network, and combine strong forces Improve FIL production.

As we have been emphasizing, the criterion for evaluating the mining efficiency of a Filecoin mining machine should not be the ranking of effective computing power, the growth rate of effective computing power, or the price, but the ratio of input to output. Mining machine manufacturers can configure hardware with excellent performance regardless of cost, can complete high-speed packaging at the cost of memory, and can expand mining machine clusters to improve the ranking of computing power, but these single factors cannot be used as evaluation criteria for the strength of mining machine manufacturers.

Effective computing power should be measured by integrating multiple factors such as clusters, hardware, and algorithms. The ranking of "Effective Computing Power" is more for the publicity needs of the market. If miners want to obtain high profits, they must combine the effective computing power of a single T of mining machine to increase the cost, block production rate, service time and algorithm technology.

After the mainnet goes online, most mining machine manufacturers will be gradually eliminated

This is the focus and climax of this article.

(1) Let’s make a point first: According to the official mining rules of Filecoin, if the growth rate of the effective computing power of a certain mining machine manufacturer is lower than the average growth rate of the effective computing power of the entire network, then the mining machine manufacturer’s FIL income It will continue to decrease, and coupled with the official requirement to mortgage FIL, most of the current long-tail mining machine manufacturers will gradually lose their competitiveness and even fail to mine FIL.

(2) Imagine a rapidly inflating balloon. This is the state when all the mines are running at full capacity after the mainnet goes online, and the "effective storage" of the entire network is rapidly increasing. The speed at which the balloon expands is the growth rate of the effective computing power of the entire network. If If you are lower than this average value, the proportion of your "effective computing power" in the entire network will continue to decline, and the FIL you get every day will also continue to decline.

(3) In order to clarify this problem, I established a mathematical model to simulate the difference in FIL revenue brought about by the difference in packaging speed after the mainnet goes online.

There are four mines, ABCD and ABCD. After the mainnet goes online, they will mine together. The initial effective computing power is 0. The data are as follows:

After running for 6 days (1d=24h), the distribution of the cumulative effective computing power of the entire network is shown in the figure:

Let's first exclude the influence of the periodic decline of official FIL release (even if it is considered, it can only make the conclusion more valid), and the situation of pledge loss, and simplify the calculation, the income change curve of the four mines of ABCD.

After the mainnet goes online, the investment attributes of mining machines will be highlighted, and the market will become more sensitive to the requirements for return on investment, and the return on investment means all-round requirements for products, technologies, etc., and all of these plus the mining logic of Filecoin The "Matthew Effect" will be amplified again, and a large part of mining machine manufacturers will quickly lose their market competitiveness.

Investment is the realization of cognition

The process of investing in Filecoin mining machines is essentially a process of continuously improving one’s own awareness and then choosing a reliable mining service provider. In the field of Filecoin mining investment, this is very different from Bitcoin and Ethereum mining. , whether it is a Bitcoin mining machine or an Ethereum mining machine, the measurement indicators are relatively simple and direct: the price per unit of computing power and the power consumption per unit of computing power. There is no such indicator for Filecoin mining, but there should be a clear direction and standard for judging through my article.

For Filecoin to form an ecology and a mature decentralized storage market, it requires the efforts of every participant. Everyone who participates in the wave of Filecoin mining needs to constantly improve their knowledge of the industry, independent thinking and decision-making.

When in contact with mining machine manufacturers, you need to distinguish and listen to their marketing content, grasp the essence of investment-risk control and return rate, don't be fooled by the false name, clear the fog of businessmen, let every transaction Investment is to maximize its value, not to be a leek at the mercy of others, and to help the industry continue to correct.