Apollo III from FutureBit A New Era for Home Mining

Hey everyone! Can’t have a FutureBit launch without sharing it here, right? It’s wild to think about how much has shifted in this space over just 5 years. When we kicked off the Apollo BTC, I honestly never imagined our efforts would spark an entire ecosystem (though I kinda hoped it would). Now, bit by bit, what we’ve been working on is actually becoming a reality. FutureBit discovered the first modern sovereign block in 2024, and now we’ve got a whole range of node and solo mining products, with solo blocks being found every month. I’m excited to share that Apollo III is building on this momentum and pushing the boundaries of what we’ve brought to the mainstream. This version is packed with new features for FutureBit. For starters, we’re using a 3nm digital ASIC for the first time (we switched from the Analog ASICs that were in BTC/II). It was a tough learning curve, but totally worth it for the much bigger dynamic range we can now operate in. What’s even cooler is we’ve integrated the first AMERICAN ASIC into a miner made right here in the USA. So proud of our team for what we’ve pulled off in the last 5 years, bringing almost our whole supply chain back home. Finally, we’ll have enough ASICs to really take Apollo III to the next level (we were always held back by ASIC shortages with Apollo II and never got to see its full potential). Another exciting development is that we’ve taken control over another major component with our upgraded high-performance controller. This same controller made its debut in the Solo Node a few months back, and I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished with it.

I'm glad to finally see some specifications! Does the Apollo III Full Node and the Solo Node share the same SBC? Is it true that you used a Radxa ROCK 5B+ for both, and if not, which SBC is it? Can you tell us which SBC you used for the Apollo III Standard? Based on the port layout, I believe it is the Orange Pi Zero3. Do you plan to offer an Apollo III controllerless option? Will there be any additional memory configuration options for either the Full Node or Standard?

Well done to the team on the release of the new Apollo III!  I am looking forward to it. I would be very interested in a controller-less option. Could you confirm whether that will be available? I currently run my own temperature control scripts on an Apollo II using an external controller, so I do not need an additional one. My plan is to redeploy the updated apollo-miner executables and connect the controller via USB to the new Apollo III unit. Will this setup work? Please also confirm that the apollo-miner executable will be included in the Apollo 2.1 OS together with apollo-helper. Would it be possible to make these files available in a GitHub repository for easier access and download?

Yep solo node/apollo III full node is the same controller, the controller is based on a platform we used that Radxa and other SBC companies use, but we redesigned large parts of it and is custom.  Standard version is a pi zero variant. We just needed something with enough power to run the firmware/apollo app and wifi. It’s pretty overkill. These hashboards are a big architectural change for us, they are fully controlled by the SBCs with no on board stm32 so USB/controllers operation is not possible. This also means almost any GPIO based SBC can control the board though. Firmware will be more open and this might be the first board we open up for others to build stuff with. Might have some exciting stuff around this after we start shipping and scale up production later this year!

Congratulations on the release! Can you expand on the digital ASIC vs analog ASIC?

Most ASIC designs are digital (ie normal CPU gates/discrete boolean clocking). Apollo BTC/II used analog circuit designs for the hash cores. Since compute is based on discrete voltage domains and capacitive steering you could get much lower voltage and power out of the same node, in theory that is. Since SHA256 mining is not error critical you could get away with this more "fuzzy logic". It was fun times and definitely a whole new way of doing things, but ultimately proved unable to keep up with latest digital IP blocks. It's also why the Apollo II could never really be "down clocked" under 200 watts, there is a voltage threshold with analog designs where the asic simply wont work at all. With digital you can down clock as much as you want, ie with the Apollo III ASICs we can finally go under 200 watts and get crazy efficiency. Hoping this will open up more continuous use for Apollos going forward since you can run an Apollo III at 50 watts during the summer and still get nearly 5TH out of it, and then go full tilt in the winter!

Will check out pre orders. I  have owned most if not all your gear at one time or another.

Yep I'll be buying day one! Is there going to be a deal for previous owners like you've done before? Always appreciated that and it's a nice little perk if you do

Yeah I got 10 percent last time. Would be nice to get 10 percent or so off. A nice simple 10-14th miner for my desktop.

Yeah from memory that's what it was, I think we got early access too but can't remember. Either way, day one, I'll be there

Yep all customers will get a $150 coupon email this week as well as early access date/time...stay tuned!

You bloody legend! See you on the 27th!

got my email looking forward to a purchase.

Yep also received mine. Luckily I woke up in the middle of the night thirsty and checked my emails by chance, now I've set my alarm to wake up early to purchase EDIT: Ordered and paid for guys! Appreciate the discount code and then the further 5% off if paying with BTC (that covered my shipping!) Look forward to receiving it now

So My older unit and node do not exist . gave them away as a gift. If I order the deluxe for 1099- discounts where do I download the os and node to my 2tb nvme.2 ssd. SO I got it the deluxe model with no ssd. I will need a way to load my NVME.2 2tb ssd

I've not received the coupon. Just like the last time.

Did you open the email that matches the purchase email? maybe it went to spam. although one of the purchases I did in the past .   I did not get the coupon and had to request it.

I'm in a similar situation - will need to get an ssd and download the OS, etc. Can anyone confirm the required hardware? Is an NVME.2 definitely the format? Thanks in advance!

Is there a discount code for first-time buyers?

Nope, just repeat customers