![IMG_0978.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPopDgNVB4V1951pYRgoHX8EVy8LvJhr9GZDSrCn4xjib/IMG_0978.JPG)

Continuing my random posts about Bitcoin Mining and it’s associated hardware - todays post covers a quite random Desktop style bitcoin miner - the Butterfly Labs Jalapeno. This miner would not look out of place on an office desk, alongside your home computer screen or even on a coffee table as a comment point. Size wise it has the same footprint as a table cup coaster would have, but is quite tall - very nicely finished though. This tiny Bitcoin miner originally was pitched at 5 gh/s - but Butterfly Labs did offer an upgrade to 7 gh/s which this version is. Unlike some of the beefier Antminer hardware I have covered, this is a USB based ASIC so you need a computer to plug it into and suitable software on the computer to control it’s Bitcoin Mining. While it might be quite small in size, it’s still a noisy beast - using a 120mm 12v fan for cooling - it sucks in air from vents at the top of the back and blows it over the internal heat sink and then out of the vents bottom front.

![IMG_0980.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmf2cfUrqteCDWTzpRbqmfo5JLPCAuA95gh2oYV7jj8C9E/IMG_0980.JPG)

On top it has the Butterly Labs logo, the device itself does not get too hot while mining you can comfortably touch the outer case.

![IMG_0981.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmNZdZsENKLcxy5TovXBKash9txBFSnDihFm4cq72yW8A7/IMG_0981.JPG)

Side on a smooth dust magnet, I gave it a quick wipe down before taking the pictures but it did not help much.

![IMG_0982.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZSMqbY3JNZmvvKCZqXTJPhNGHUtMouyKosvYyRCDmu3m/IMG_0982.JPG)

At the back Micro USB in and also the power lead from the external Power Brick - giving a steady power supply to the device was one of the many issues Butterfly Labs had during development.

Butterfly labs had a turbulent time as a Bitcoin miner manufacturer - while some might say they initiated the movement to ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) mining they were eager to take money for pre-orders way too long before they actually had a working product to ship. While they took pre-orders in June 2012 to ship by fall in the same year - production issues and power problems meant some pre-orders were lucky to ship a whole year later in June 2013 - and the bulk was much longer after that. While Butterfly Labs struggled to ship a product many had already paid for, other manufacturers nailed ASIC use and shipped fully working products which increased the Bitcoin Mining Difficulty and made the ROI for early adopters of the Butterfly Labs products far less then expected - leading to quite obvious drama. Giving someone your money and waiting more then 12 months to get an actual product is bad, finding out when you do receive the product it’s making you far less then expected in return caused a rift in the Bitcoin community that Butterly Labs would never recover from. By September 2014 the Federal Trade Commission shut down Butterfly Labs after receiving a dossier of complaints Thicker than the big print version of the full works of Charles Dickens…products either failed to arrive at all that were paid for or arrived so late they were worthless compared to the original ROI. The final nail in the coffin of Butterfly Labs was announcing in early 2014 new products and even an cloud based service - while still holding the money of investors who had pre-ordered products they were incapable of shipping in a reasonable time.

So in 2017 I have a very pretty looking paper weight, it still works - chuggs away at a very solid 7.2gh/s when used with the Bitminter pool - the specific software Butterfly Labs shipped with the product has long since disappeared - you can kick it into life with some command line software but Bitminter offer an elegant Java miner that seems to work quite well.

![bitminter.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdiRjfBZcxzUmkSWTHqXH7gccwo8pjRJr8W7Aik6qRp8c/bitminter.png)

Fortunately this was one of my eBay bargains, compared to some of the bigger higher hash rate kit I have collected not great value - but it’s an interesting relic of the Bitcoin Gold Rush - and as ornaments go it looks quite nice and keeps you  warm as a bonus! 

![IMG_0983.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZbywf8ZCtgQq7wBp7p1N9grfQ47JZ7hAELNiUKVJ2W4c/IMG_0983.JPG)

With Bitcoin reaching such high value this year, interest in mining seems to have increased greatly - leading to holders of equipment looking to capitalise on their original investment by selling on the kit - and also of course random manufacturers looking to cash in on the interest by selling low hash rate devices for stupid prices. Ebay is awash with USB ASICS offering just 2gh/s that are going for £50/£60 - in comparison I paid the same amount for old Antminers S1’s capable of 200gh/s. Now on tap of that I needed to fit 2 new fans (£4 a piece off Amazon if you don’t mind noise) per unit and also obtain PSU’s to run them (around £50 for a Corsair 550w - don’t buy cheap no name PSU’s, they die within a few months - from my own experience!) but you are still looking at  £120 for a 200gh/s machine -compared to getting two USB Miners doing 4gh/s total! 

And then you can’t even get too excited, according to f2pool.com per 1 th/s (1000 gh/s) you will get 0.00018982 BTC that’s £1.17 as at 23rd November 2017 exchange rate - but the electricity cost in the UK right now will take half of that profit away. For 200gh/s you would get 0.234 pence per day - half of which lost in electricity cost. For a USB doing 2gh/s you get 2pence per day! OK, if you always leave your computer on anyway the electricity cost is not so much of an issue - but £50 on a 2gh/s USB would take 18 years to recover your cost of the product. 

To conclude the Bitcoin Mining Goldrush has long since passed, you can dabble for fun or just general interest but don’t expect to make a great deal of money out of it. I’m hashing at 4 th/s and split the rewards between earning actual Bitcoin (which I just find it nice to have a wallet with Bitcoin in) and some of my rewards I get sent straight to BlockTrades to convert to Steem - which I invest in my blog posts to get better reward value from them. 

![IMG_0986.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmYiyJcJQHd6QoLXChzZ539dVaiBBWfWZD4CMj6yeDggzM/IMG_0986.JPG)

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