Bitcoin mining with FPGAs

July 19, 20111 minute

Recently, what looks to be the first open source FPGA bitcoin miner was released on GitHub. The code is based on the Terasic DE2-115 development board featuring the Altera Cyclone IV, however the author says the design should be applicable to any other FPGA. Maybe we should make it work on a Xilinx FPGA? Here is what they say about its performance:

Project is fully functional and allows mining of Bitcoins both in a Pool and Solo. It also supports Namecoins.

Current Performance: 109 MHash/s On a Terasic DE2-115 Development Board

Note: The included default configuration file, and source files, are built for 50 MHash/s performance (downclocked). This is meant to prevent damage to your valuable chip if you don’t provide an appropriate cooling solution.

For more information about bitcoins: http://bitcoin.org/

I wonder what performance we could get on the ML505/XUPV5? If anyone has done it, let us know. More importantly, I wonder if anyone is making money with this…