mining Raycoin (RAY) First Ray Tracing Proof-of-Work - Mine with RTX 2080/70 GPUs

[Alice_PoW]

I found this and I have to ask you guys if this is legit and worthwhile :

 

 

 

Raycoin (RAY) First Ray Tracing Proof-of-Work - Mine with RTX 2080/70 GPUs

 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5066017.0;all

 

Quote

 

Motivation:
The original idea of Bitcoin is that it's decentralized because the hashing could be done at home on consumer-available hardware, then ASICs came along making the home computer useless and threatening to centralize hashing power with privately held chip designs. Ray tracing is a rendering method that is going to become more dominant as the game industry shifts over to it from "rasterization", the current method. If the hash for your cryptocurrency is based off ray tracing hardware (RTX) then that goes a way towards ensuring the best hashing chips will always be in the hands of gamers / consumers, instead of companies like Bitmain who just accumulate wealth and have direct and private access to the top silicon foundries like TSMC.

There have been attempts to circumvent this issue like the "Dagger" proof-of-work used in Ethereum, but now even for Ethereum there are ASICs on the market and future designs that are claimed to be nearly 10x faster/cheaper than consumer available GPUs. This is because Dagger, a simplistic hash focused on memory usage, does not properly stress the GPU's logic/cache/memory layout and capabilities.

Description of the Ray Tracing Proof-of-Work:

- rays are cast out into a randomized field (seeded from the block) of faceted spheres which reflect the rays chaotically (like a disco ball)
- each sphere has a random label (4 bytes), when a ray hits a sphere its label is concatenated to the ray's string
- 32 such labels in each ray's string are hashed together using blake2s on the GPU
- if the hash is less than the target then a block is found, and the XY screen coordinate of the successful ray is stored in the high 20 bits of the nonce for verification
- there is one additional constraint: the ray must travel a certain depth into the field, after which the motion is deemed chaotic enough (over 99% of rays pass this test)
- rays that exit the field wrap around to the origin with a small perturbation to their orientation

In a full mining frame (1024x1024 RTs) Ray Tracing consumes 94% of the frame time (~40ms) with hashing just 4%, so this Proof-of-Work is dominated by Ray Tracing and thus ASIC-resistant. You can verify this yourself in the viewer by disabling hashing and enabling the profiler in the Engine Tuning menu.

Verification of a block hash requires only a single Ray Trace (1 RT) and takes about 1ms on my 2080 Ti, with the vast majority of that time spent in the GPU randomizing the field of spheres (not ray tracing). So verifying a blockchain as large as Bitcoin's would take only ~10 minutes.

ASIC Resistance:
One question that remains then is how difficult would it be to create a Ray Tracing ASIC?

1. For 100% accuracy, the biggest hurdle that the ASIC designers face is that they must reverse engineer RTX and use the exact same hierarchical building / traversal and ray-triangle intersection algorithm, capturing the ordering and the myriad of edge cases. If the ASIC design differs by even a single logic gate then some hashes will not be reproducible. As an example of the complexity of this, Microsoft's Fallback Layer for non-RT GPUs is about 10000 lines of code vs. a hash which is typically only 100 lines -- a ray tracer is significantly more complex than a hasher.

2. A likely strategy however would be to design a 99% accurate ray tracer that does not capture the ordering and edge cases and then rely on a low-end RTX chip for hash verification – after 32 hits, such a tracer would still be correct 70% of the time. To combat this, Raycoin will be "memory hardened" by using a random generator to perturb the millions of vertices so that the optimal ray tracing strategy is to store them as the ray can strike anywhere, consuming multiple GB of expensive memory and ensuring a 10x upper limit on cost/performance efficiency (this will be finalized once the low-end RTX chips memory limits are known). Furthermore, it may prove difficult to achieve that 10x efficiency over consumer RTX which is purpose-built for ray tracing, especially going forward as it becomes the dominant rendering method and we get more than 1 RT core per SM (streaming multiprocessor).

3. Which of the few high-end foundries would agree to manufacture such a chip that steps all over Nvidia's Ray Tracing IP and patents?

 

 

 

Some pics of traced rays which are used for the alternate type of proof-of-work:

 

 

 

 

 

Please tell me this could be the next best thing in mining, as it supposedly consumes less electricity and makes use of those quite useless RTX Cards...

 

 

Thank you for any reply 

 

 

 

 

 

[LukeSavenije]

The idea sounds possible... just hope it isn't the next revolution, I WANT MY FREAKIN GRAPHICS CARDS OKAY

[Froody129]

That's actually an interesting method of encryption. A bit of a long way around to do the same thing though imo. Besides looking cool I think this is just a gimmick 

[Alice_PoW]

4 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

The idea sounds possible... just hope it isn't the next revolution, I WANT MY FREAKIN GRAPHICS CARDS OKAY

It seems to be it's mined right now. I think there would'nt arise any problem regarding this anytime soon, as the 2080s are costly and don't provide any legitimate ROI timeframe, yet.

[Enderman]

10 minutes ago, Alice_PoW said:

Please tell me this could be the next best thing in mining, as it supposedly consumes less electricity and makes use of those quite useless RTX Cards...

It's still mining.

So it's still wasting energy and hardware to do literally nothing useful.

[Alice_PoW]

4 minutes ago, Froody129 said:

That's actually an interesting method of encryption. A bit of a long way around to do the same thing though imo. Besides looking cool I think this is just a gimmick 

It's not using this for encryption per se, but rather for doing something different as the proof of work, to maintain asic resistance long term without forking, as I understand it. The solution of a traced ray is used to hash it with blake2b. Why do you think this is just a gimmick?

[Alice_PoW]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

It's still mining.

So it's still wasting energy and hardware to do literally nothing useful.

It is, but it's enegry efficient, as least thats what the guys on discord say.

And at the moment I still think it is useful to mine cryptocurrencies, as that's how a network is secured and wealth is generated. Mining for rare metals is also useful, isn't it? Even if we just put those around our necks, or is it?

[MierenMans]

its a cool way of mining and using the rt cores but i hope it does, i dont want inflated gpu prices all over again and people buying rtx 2070 and higher

[Jurrunio]

14 minutes ago, Alice_PoW said:

It is, but it's enegry efficient, as least thats what the guys on discord say.

And at the moment I still think it is useful to mine cryptocurrencies, as that's how a network is secured and wealth is generated. Mining for rare metals is also useful, isn't it? Even if we just put those around our necks, or is it?

efficiently wasting energy, reminds me of the eco idiots.

[Enderman]

15 minutes ago, Alice_PoW said:

It is, but it's enegry efficient, as least thats what the guys on discord say.

And at the moment I still think it is useful to mine cryptocurrencies, as that's how a network is secured and wealth is generated. Mining for rare metals is also useful, isn't it? Even if we just put those around our necks, or is it?

How is it energy efficient if literally 100% of it goes to waste...

Rare metals are actually used for things.

 

Mining does not produce anything useful.

It is NOT like folding or boinc where the computing power actually has a purpose.

[samcool55]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

How is it energy efficient if literally 100% of it goes to waste...

Rare metals are actually used for things.

 

Mining does not produce anything useful.

It is NOT like folding or boinc where the computing power actually has a purpose.

Well, it produces heat, which can be nice... Especially when your current heating system sucks.

[Daniel644]

I honestly wouldn't be to worried about this guys, no miner in there right mind is buying hardware right now, especially not hardware as over priced as RTX cards, plus no exchanges puts it into speculative mining and worse still the dev says it's a carbon copy of bitcoin (aside from the ray tracing stuff) which means it will get screwed up with wild difficulty swings if it starts to take off.

 

this feels like a coin developed solely to be able to be the guy that came up with a Ray Trace based PoW. it adds nothing of value to the market and promotes centralization (because so few have RTX cards), everything the modern miners are avoiding nowadays. just another worthless "shitcoin" (as miners call them) with pretty images to watch on the screen.

[Enderman]

3 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Well, it produces heat, which can be nice... Especially when your current heating system sucks.

Well, the benefit for people who use it for heating is offset by the people who have to use more energy to air condition their home to get rid of all the waste heat from mining.

[Daniel644]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

How is it energy efficient if literally 100% of it goes to waste...

Rare metals are actually used for things.

 

Mining does not produce anything useful.

It is NOT like folding or boinc where the computing power actually has a purpose.

can we please not blindly hate on crypto mining, we are after all in the crypto mining section of the forum. also by your logic Art is worthless, Music is Worthless, Movies are useless, all just massive wastes of energy that do nothing. just because you don't see a value in crypto doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

[Enderman]

Just now, Daniel644 said:

can we please not blindly hate on crypto mining, we are after all in the crypto mining section of the forum. also by your logic Art is worthless, Music is Worthless, Movies are useless, all just massive wastes of energy that do nothing. just because you don't see a value in crypto doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

Art is definitely not worthless, as it is an expressive means of communication and entertainment.

 

Mining is literally worthless, because the computations are specifically designed to do nothing useful.

It is basically like you typing "1+1" into a calculator to get "2" when there was no need to ask the question 'what is 1+1' in the first place.

Or like digging a hole to fill it up with dirt again, then dig it again.

 

It is a task designed exactly to produce work for no beneficial purpose, simply for there to be work.

This is not a subjective opinion, it is literally what mining is.

[Daniel644]

Just now, Enderman said:

Art is definitely not worthless, as it is an expressive means of communication and entertainment.

 

Mining is literally worthless, because the computations are specifically designed to do nothing useful.

It is basically like you typing "1+1" into a calculator to get "2" when there was no need to ask the question 'what is 1+1' in the first place.

Or like digging a hole to fill it up with dirt again, then dig it again.

 

It is a task designed exactly to produce work for no beneficial purpose, simply for there to be work.

This is not a subjective opinion, it is literally what mining is.

the "useless work" is what allows transactions to be processed on the blockchain, it's there to secure the chain so you can't just have 1 person adding a bunch of fake data to the network.

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

the "useless work" is what allows transactions to be processed on the blockchain, it's there to secure the chain so you can't just have 1 person adding a bunch of fake data to the network.

There wouldn't be a need to have a blockchain if there wasn't a price being put on useless computation.

Crypto mining is exchanging currency for an amount of work done, when that 'work' is not actually used for anything.

Very different from something like a movie or game where the work is producing entertainment.

[Daniel644]

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

There wouldn't be a need to have a blockchain if there wasn't a price being put on useless computation.

Crypto mining is exchanging currency for an amount of work done, when that 'work' is not actually used for anything.

Very different from something like a movie or game where the work is producing entertainment.

blockchain has a use https://hackernoon.com/why-use-the-blockchain-instead-of-a-database-what-gives-tokens-value-263449681153

[Enderman]

4 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

blockchain has a use https://hackernoon.com/why-use-the-blockchain-instead-of-a-database-what-gives-tokens-value-263449681153

I don't think you understand my point.

Try reading my previous posts again.

[Alice_PoW]

35 minutes ago, Enderman said:

I don't think you understand my point.

Try reading my previous posts again.

Isn't this the discussion about intrinsic value and why and how we as humanity prescribe value to certain things?

[Alice_PoW]

4 hours ago, Enderman said:

I don't think you understand my point.

Try reading my previous posts again.

After reading Daniel644's posted link, I have to ask the same from you: Please try reading Danie644's link. After that you surely will be able to understand the value of things which are transacted via a blockchain and why they are transacted via a blockchain.

 

 https://hackernoon.com/why-use-the-blockchain-instead-of-a-database-what-gives-tokens-value-263449681153

[Mad153]

Doubt it will takeoff.

Bitcoin, which has a major effect on all cryptocurrencies is not doing well.

Cryptocurrencies will stay in a bad state until bitcoin gets some financial support and performs well again.

It probably is not very powerful either.

[Minerino]

Nice to read the usual $h!tShow and hatred of those nocoiners.

Everybody mines at a loss at the start of any cryptocurrency - why? Because it has something special rooting for it, which this one here most definitely has, so..

Also it is really energy efficient with it's kind of Proof-of-Work via Proof-of-Ray-Tracing, it just reminds me of the early days of ethereum. Good times :)

 

here is a list of nodes to add to your raycoin-daemon (raycoind.exe), to make sure you're mining on the right chain

76.71.214.244
bullshit.servebeer.com
83.135.200.215
89.245.86.62

 

just start the raycoind.exe like 

raycoind.exe -gpu=0

and, from another cmd.exe do 

raycoin-cli addnode 76.71.214.244 add
raycoin-cli addnode bullshit.servebeer.com add
raycoin-cli addnode 83.135.200.215 add
raycoin-cli addnode 89.245.86.62 add

and you'll be synced in no time and can get hashing away already. Have fun mining now and profit later. Current Block height is 12650, so people indeed are mining this, so should you :P

[Minerino]

On 1/4/2019 at 9:47 PM, Froody129 said:

That's actually an interesting method of encryption. A bit of a long way around to do the same thing though imo. Besides looking cool I think this is just a gimmick 

it's not just a gimmick, it has a purpose:

 

Quote

ASIC Resistance:
One question that remains then is how difficult would it be to create a Ray Tracing ASIC?

1. For 100% accuracy, the biggest hurdle that the ASIC designers face is that they must reverse engineer RTX and use the exact same hierarchical building / traversal and ray-triangle intersection algorithm, capturing the ordering and the myriad of edge cases. If the ASIC design differs by even a single logic gate then some hashes will not be reproducible. As an example of the complexity of this, Microsoft's Fallback Layer for non-RT GPUs is about 10000 lines of code vs. a hash which is typically only 100 lines -- a ray tracer is significantly more complex than a hasher.

2. A likely strategy however would be to design a 99% accurate ray tracer that does not capture the ordering and edge cases and then rely on a low-end RTX chip for hash verification – after 32 hits, such a tracer would still be correct 70% of the time. To combat this, Raycoin will be "memory hardened" by using a random generator to perturb the millions of vertices so that the optimal ray tracing strategy is to store them as the ray can strike anywhere, consuming multiple GB of expensive memory and ensuring a 10x upper limit on cost/performance efficiency (this will be finalized once the low-end RTX chips memory limits are known). Furthermore, it may prove difficult to achieve that 10x efficiency over consumer RTX which is purpose-built for ray tracing, especially going forward as it becomes the dominant rendering method and we get more than 1 RT core per SM (streaming multiprocessor).

3. Which of the few high-end foundries would agree to manufacture such a chip that steps all over Nvidia's Ray Tracing IP and patents?

 

In my opinion this is a huge advantage in regards of the whole "centralized mining due to ASICs"-problem.