Bitcoin Forum

I've searched the forums, and the ASICMINER thread, at 137 pages long, is rather opaque.  Forum searches turn up lots of noise, as with google searches.

So, as someone who is considering buying in to ASICMINER, I have a few questions, such as
- does ASICMINER have a website
- what's the current (and future) hashing capacity
- how many shares on issue (now and future)
- how are dividends calculated, what is the maintenance costs, what's the dividend payment schedule
- if I "buy" shares from the auction forum, how do I know the person offering the shares actually has shares to sell?
- How are share transfers handled
- would I be better off buying on btct.co than the auction forum, or maybe on some other venue I'm unaware of

Thanks in advance

ASICMINER does not have a website.

They currently have around 6 TH, and the next batch will be 50 TH (deployed in April)

400,000 total shares, a little under half are floated.


Let them sign a message from an address having the shares? (Check the div payments)

Share transfers are via PM or email.

Buy it from bitfunder.

If you go with the auction forum, definitely use escrow.

btct.co is easier and safer than forum auctions.

btct.co is also easier (no weexchange in the way) and cheaper (transaction fees) than BitFunder.

So what do you actually get with shares? Do you get a share of the Bitcoins they mine as a dividend? Or is it just a share in a company that's destined to die when the rest of the companies catch up with it.

If you buy the shares give a bitcoin address and recieve bitcoins as dividends then that sounds good and i'd like to buy some shares!

I think you should mention that you dont buy asicminer shares there but instead passthroughs. So the buyer has a contract with you and you have a contract with friedcat instead the buyer has a contract with friedcat directly. Or can the passthrough shares exchanged to real shares?

but this week it'll be lower, because of difficulty rise and new calculation of dividens (till now it was divided by 200k of shares, from now on it will be divided by 400k of shares)

AND because a small divident already happened this week, be sure to add them together or do some math to estimate the next one accurately.

FYI, all costs are paid in RMB (not USD), so that exchange rate matters a bit, but it's not like we are earning in Yuan.

If you buy PT shares on btct.co, they can be exchanged to real shares at any time without any minimum limits.

Thanks everyone.

So if I understand correctly you cant buy directly from them? You must buy with bitcoin on btct.co?

Correct. Though sometimes there are private auctions on the forums. I recommend using the PTs as the liquidity is much higher.

For my money, if you want to buy and hold either buy from a PT and convert (PTs only pass through 95% dividends) or buy on the auction forum.  If you intend to trade them, stick to a PT.

I believe both pass throughs have waved their fees. At least for the time being.

Fees are waived for now.  Waiting to see what ASICMINER decides to do for an exchange.

Even if it goes long-term, the fee for https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT is 1% at 5,000 shares, and 0.5% at 10,000 shares.  So with about 4k more shares, you'd get 99.5% of your divs.  ;)  Definitely worth it I think if you think you'll ever need liquidity.  (Eg, something happens in your life and you need to dump 'em quick.)

Cheers.

Im confused as to when these divedens are payed and how long are they payed for?

Dividend day is Wednesday.  If you're a direct holder you get two transactions - one with one satoshi per share held, and another with the dividend.

If you are holding via a passthrough, it depends on the PT.

As for how long they are paid for - if you mean what I think you mean, the answer is "as long as ASICMINER continues to make profits".  Which hopefully is a very, very long time.

Is there a way to get direct shares other than waiting for an auction on forum?

Generally you can buy PT shares and then transfer them.  Some PTs charge for this, others don't.  The details should be in the information (prospectus?  :D) associated with the PT on the exchange.

Brilliant. Thanx Rody! I have registered on btct and I am SO going to go this route.

Since this is the dummy thread, I post a couple of questions regarding btct.co:
- If I buy PTs there, do I get dividends? Or are dividens only for real shares?
- How will dividends get transferred to me? Will they be sent to my btct.co account and I can then withdraw?
- How can I convert PTs?

I object to my thread being  called dummy! ;-)

- yes you get dividends. Your shares  are effectively held in trust.
- paid to your btct acct.
- email/pm the owner of the pt and friedcat
       

What do you guys think the dividend will be when the new ASIC machines are hooked up and after BFL starts shipping?

Sorry for being a share's newbie.

From my understanding.

Friedcat is the actual owner / creator of ASICMINER.

Burnside bought up a heap of ASICMINER shares in the beginning, making him a majority share owner?

He is now offering these shares on btct.co as pass through. My newbiness comes in knowing what pass through essentially means.

From my understanding:
- You get the same dividends as you would being an actual share holder, it's just passed through Burnside who takes a small cut.
- You're allowed to convert the PT share into a 'real' share whenever you like.

In that case, why would anyone ever hold a PT? Why wouldn't you ever just buy and instantly convert? What is the value burnside is adding*?

Also, is there anyway you can calculate in advance what the returns / dividends would be? What percentage of the profits are paid in dividends? I'm trying to figure out where I could get information from to calculate my projected ROI, timeframes, etc.

 
* I'm definitively not implying burnside isn't doing anything valuable, in any way is ripping people off or anything silly like that, I'm simply saying I don't understand enough about it currently and I'm trying to learn.

Liquidity. Off exchange shares are difficult to buy and sell.


I ran APY numbers on ASICMiner yesterday. I believe I came up with 38%ish based on the current ask on btct.co at that moment. Their last couple dividends have been lower than normal because they've been re-investing.

No problem, I can help clarify.

First I am not majority shareholder by a long shot.  I think I had 100 shares out of 400,000 total or something.  I hold more now, ~350 I think.

I started the passthru because people were trading in the forum threads, which meant:
  - having to use escrow for the trades
  - trading is slow  (typically takes friedcat 2-3 days to process a trade)
  - trades were very risky  (can you trust the other guy?  can you trust the escrow guy?)
  - it was hard to value a trade

With the passthru, you get safe easy trades, lots of volume if you need to buy or sell quickly, and potentially some extra dividends if Friedcat gives the passthru a sample mining rig.  (since the passthru in theory is over 5,000 shares and thus has board membership.)

There is currently no downside.  The passthru is currently zero-fee.  I'm not making anything directly from running the passthru.  (disclosure, I am making some by trading my personal shares)  There's not much reason to withdraw, and lots of reasons to stay.

Hope that helps make sense of things.

Cheers.

Thanks mate, it does clarify a lot. I'll ask one more question though. Sorry for my confusion over saying you're a majority share holder, it ties in with this question though.

If I purchase a passthrough share, who's share am I actually purchasing? (or essentially, which "real" share is the dividend coming from?)

One one hand I thought it would be purchasing from burnside - he is running the exchange, and I imagined he couldn't "sell" anything he doesn't have the authority to "own", hence I figured he had a large portion and we were essentially trading out of his pool. This would mean on btct.co we're dividing up the 350 shares burnside owns personally? If 50 share owners converted to "real" shares does this mean the pool is ever shrinking and we would only now be dividing up 300 shares?

On the other hand a few advantages mentioned was being traded in large volumes easily, so it makes me think it can't be this pool of burnsides shares. Hence how does an exchange have the authority to trade in them, and how do they receive the divided to pass through? Does the exchange have it own separate pool of shares? Again how is the pool 'replenished' from conversions if the public (exchange included here?) can't buy shares from ASICMINER?

Again, sorry for the basic questions. I'm sure it's a similar set up in most share markets but I've never really been exposed much to it and I'm really interested in how it's working.

Thanks :)

That's a good question.  It works like this:

I hold (but do not own) ~5800 shares of ASICMINER with Friedcat.  All of these shares trade on the exchange.  When Friedcat issues divs, my wallet gets divs for all 5800 shares.

On the exchange, I hold (and own) ~350 shares of ASICMINER-PT.  Other people hold the rest.  When I pay divs that have come in from Friedcat, they are distributed to everyone's btct.co accounts based on how many ASICMINER-PT shares they have.

And the important part: Every ASICMINER-PT share is backed by exactly one ASICMINER share.  So the number available on the market is exactly the number I am holding directly with Friedcat.

Hope that helps!

Is there a place where Asicminer's financial statements can be found?

Not that I'm aware of.  There's a lot that can be extrapolated from Friedcat's weekly posts in the official ASICMINER thread though.

Cheers.

Awesome, thanks for clarifying.

Burnside, will you be putting up a PT on LTCGlobal for ASICMINER too? I'd love to get some shares there too.

.b

I don't think I will, but maybe someone else can?  I'd definitely like to see one on the LTC side as well.

Cheers.

Shares are also available at https://bitfunder.com/asset/G.ASICMINER-PT.

Bitfunder G.ASICMINER-PT 24h volume: 245
BTC-TC ASICMINER-PT 24h volume: 195.5

...the Weexchange passthrough for BTC at Bitfunder isn't too big a deal, and you may benefit from increased liquidity at Bitfunder.

Shoot... It would be a nice way to hedge against price fluctuations. I'd definintely pick up on IPO.

Well, I'm not experienced enough to do anything myself, so I'll have to wait for someone else to pick up the ball.

What would convince you to do it?

.b

7d volume:

Bitfunder G.ASICMINER-PT 7d: 1158.8
BTC-TC ASICMINER-PT 7d: 969.5

They're fairly close.  It's been the reverse some weeks.

Edit / add, case in point: apr 12, btct.co 7d: 1239.8 btc

This is a great thread some good info on the ASICMINER project.

Okay I read the thread and now have 1 share in your asicminer pt cost was .84 bit coins. 

today is the 15th of april  when do I get a dividend and where is it deposited does it go to my btct account?
  I would like to buy  a share a week or a share every 10 days. please get back to my question thanks in advance.  phil

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148827.msg1802908#msg1802908

Go here:

https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

Press the tab that says "history" and you will see what dividends have been paid and what day and time they've been paid. Yes they go directly to your account.

Wow, are these dividends going to be any higher, 0.007 is pretty low, it's 13-14 months of current share prices

When they deploy the next batch.

The dividends are pretty good by the way.

Could you save me some time and post when is that coming?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1819469#msg1819469

and

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1767379#msg1767379

OKAY  at .007 a week in 10 weeks that is .07 and in 50 weeks that is .35 bitcoin am i correct> or is the .007  a fraction of a unit different then a bitcoin.

It's a bitcoin.

You do realize that @ .007 paid weekly with a share price of .84 that equates to a .8333% weekly dividend, a .1190% daily dividend and a 43.4522% APY right? That's pretty respectable in the BTC universe and there's nothing I'm aware of in the fiat world paying anything near that.

We're clearly spoiled here in cryptoland when a 43% return is seen as low. :)

Tell that to the people who invested with Pirate?

That's OK for people that holds coins from earlier time, not really for us later adopters, it's pretty risky to invest at current prices for something that would need 2+ years to make roi.

I'd probably enter if it is 0.02 per share, unfortunately not at 0.007 as much as I would like. That USB stuff looks promising but shares went up after it's announced so it canceled lot of it's potential.

Are you silly? What kind of P/E ratios are you expecting?

Rising share price , Promising outlook with a future in selling hardware and mining btc  ? Did you ever buy a Stock ? Apple does not even pay dividends. Many companies in the real world pay only up to 4 % per year If you think it is too expensive you clearly cannot afford it, and therefore should not buy.

In a market as volatile as btc is I'd expect to make roi in a year at most.

As I said, if I'm early adopter and have few hundreds or few thousands coins, than it would be easy thing to do. Unfortunately, I'm not so I'm not ready to do it for roi expected in 2+ years, lot of things can happen in that time.



We're talking about some different things, BTC is still highly risk market, it's far away from regular business. I don't care about rising share price, my main aim would be toearn more coins from dividends. I don't own lot of coins and would need to buy them to purchase shares. I can afford what I can afford, it's not millions but it's few bucks :) but I'm not ready to risk even what I can afford in such volatile market and at current btc prices for such long term. I'd rather trade coins on exchanges.

Yes but it was the "early adopters" that took on that risk. Board members basically spent 500 BTC ($6500 at the time) for 5k shares. They could easily cash out for $300k now. Whether you think it's expensive or not, is up to you. friedcat has followed through with his previous announcements and the upcoming ones will definitely raise share prices.

If you looked at my links, you'd realize that the 0.007/share is only temporary.

No thanks. They'd have ignored me anyway, just as they ignored the many people claiming it was an impossible to maintain ponzi.

I'm not bashing anyone here, it's clearly to see that asicminer is reliable company. Good luck to them and all of youthat are holding shares, I wish I wouldhave some too but unfortunately won't do it at the moment, I'd rather buy some of those usb babies :)

Then you could deposit coins in coinlenders and earn interest. The returns are not going to be 350%+ a year (seems like what you imply you're looking for), but I guarantee deposits so you're not going to lose them.

No, I'm muslim, I don't lend money/coins for profit. It's trading for me then.

Very well, all the information is in here and in the main thread. In my opinion, now is the time to buy AM shares if you don't want to pay over 1 BTC/share.

  funny that your interpretation is I said the return was low. I just wanted to understand the .35 for 50 weeks if it was based on a bit coin or the share price that I purchased it at.

A return of .35 bitcoin for a .84 bit coin purchase is good for a 1 year return.  I would take a .2 bitcoin return for a .84 bitcoin purchase.   each year.

I apologize. I attributed this post:


To you and that was an error.

    it is all good. no problem.

ASICMINER hardware sales have kicked off.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178275.0

Having an ASIC device clearly gives one the edge in the mining landscape but prices are getting crazy now...

yeah I grabbed one share at .84 now over 1.1 .

 And as i understand this I get a dividend on it this weds. the 17th! not too shabby.

So can I say "Called it!" or no...?

Thought I would ask first.

You are confusing the risk and volatility of ASICMiner with the risk and volatility of BitCoin.

The decision to make an investment in ASIC Miner can only be considered purely in Bitcoins ie does it offer enough return in relation to it's current and future prospects, both as a miner and hardware seller.

A separate decision is whether to invest in Bitcoin related assets (including ASICMiner) from another currency. If you do not desire BitCoin risk then short-sell an amount equal to your ASICMiner investment as a hedge.

This exactly.  If  you think in terms of bitcoin only, all that matters is an ROI in bitcoin on your bitcoin investment.  That it's volatile with respect to fiat is irrelevant. 

For me, buying asicminer shares was a no-brainer**, as I am convinced bitcoin has a future and I'm in for the long haul.  Having bitcoin sitting in my wallet doing nothing struck me as a waste, so i've invested it in asicminer shares, as well as a share of an avalon.

** No brainer that it was a fair risk to take, although I agonised over the size of the investment (and actually sold my investment size down by about 25% as I felt I'd over-committed -- a decision that now seems to be the wrong one, given that share price has doubled since I bought.  :D The benefits of hindsight).

The weexchange passthrough is painless, though their interface leaves a bit to be desired. Your BTC only need be there for a few minutes.

now is a good time to sell on bitfunder, prices are really good.

I've tried signing up on weexchange several times and always get a "Whoops, something went wrong" and no further explanation and no account created.

I'm sure there isn't anything fishy going on, but I generally stay away from stuff that looks half-way done and poorly maintaned. I'd love to be on bitfunder, but for now, I trade on BTCT.

.b

Agreed... The weexchange website is pretty lame, but my BTC just stay there for a few minutes, so I'd have to be really unlucky for something bad to happen...

Me too! The verification passowrd they sent me to confirm didn't work. Tried the process twice with two different accounts and got the same thing - crappy system.

I just purchased a couple of ASICMINER shares here on the forum (no PT but real shares). Friedcat already sent an email and told me that the shares were transfered, but is there any way to check this online? Is there any proof that I'm owning the shares?

Not currently, but if friedcat sent you a confirmation, then you can bank on it. His word has been gold every time I've dealt with him.

Alright, that's good to know. Thanks.

Did the email you receive confirm the transfer from Diablo's auction?  If so, he has not notified everyone else of the transfer

I took part in two auctions and just got a general confirmation email, so I'm not sure which shares acutally got transferred – that's why I was asking if there was a way to look up my shares somehow.

When dividends get sent, you recieve a satoshi for each share you own prior to dividends being sent.  That is also a way to verify how many shares he has on record for you.

Same here. 

Posted our issue here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85829.msg1927722#msg1927722

Wonder if they are just going to lose all their biz to BTC-TC, or fix this?

Update:

Called the 800 # and was promptly helped.

A little unfortunate no email/forum PM help after days but the guy on the # was great.

Yeah, that's not exactly building confidence in a service where I'm supposed to put my investments.

Sorry, I'll remain with BTCT. Too bad, really, there were some securities on BF I would consider if trading wasn't such a PITA.

.b

uh... quick questions:

1. How much is 1 share? (don't care if it's direct or PT)
2. How much is the dividend for 1 share? (or how much was it last Wednesday?)

I'm mildly curious about this, but as you can tell, it's not easy to get. (both the coins, and the share.)

1. Who knows? It currently ranges from 1.2 (on PT) up to 1.7/1.8. Others have speculated its still undervalued with what friedcat and co have planned for ASICMiner.

2. Currently .005 - .007 but https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1767379#msg1767379

So, people are speculating that the value of each individual share is going up? Conversely, people are also speculating that the value of the respective dividends will also go up?

Right now, it doesn't make sense. It makes sense only in that, you can sell your share later for a bit higher than you got it. In the meantime, you're getting 0.005 per week.

Hmmm.. I need to get some bitcoins to buy some shares and see where this will take me.

technically, it's more like .007 per share per week, or at 1.2 btc per share, that's about 30% per year.  That's a decent return for your investment, plus the share value.

The dividends will be increasing with all the new hash power.  We were getting .007 btc per share at about 7.5-8 TH/s.  We're now close to 20 TH/s.

I think people are speculating that the share price will not decrease.  So, really, you are storing bitcoins in shares and earning 30% a year interest.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AkPdXsQFT-vIdHRVUjQ5Ql9BQWR6OENLMkhyUktUblE&oid=24&zx=u3j9s6wjoum2

What are current thoughts opinions, regarding:

• G.ASIMINER.PT at Bitfunder
• ASICMINER.PT at BTC-TC
• ASICMINER with friedcat

As my initial investment has doubled in value, I'm now holding more assets in a passthrough than I'd like. I appreciate the possibility of selling (liquidity) but at the same time, I plan to hold on for dividends for at least a year. I figure with the passthrough I'm really taking on triple the risk, as the exchange could fail/close, the pass-through operator could keel over, and/or friedcat could get hit by a meteor.

If I just held shares with friedcat, I'd lose liquidity but I figure I'd cut my risk of catastrophic loss by 66%.

I know this is mostly obvious, but as this is the dummies board, I thought I'd gauge what others are thinking.

Is friedcat/ASICminer opening up an exchange any time soon? Perhaps after current ASIC deployment?

There's a pretty good plan in place should I die in a firey inferno.  ;)  See this: https://btct.co/faq (What happens if your main developer gets hit by a bus?), also quoted in the OP here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=148350.msg1574481#msg1574481

Doesn't remove all of the risk.  But I think the risk to ASICMINER-PT holders is pretty low.

Oh, I also realize that you (burnside) run both the ASICMINER-PT at BTC-TC and BTC-TC itself, so by my rudimentary calculations (assuming that all the exchanges and PT have "fiery inferno" contingencies), owning PT at BTC-TC poses 16% less "fiery inferno" risk, as there are only two entities (burnside and friedcat) to worry about rather than three (DeadTerra, friedat, bitfunder).

How often do you practice that scenario to test whether the procedures work? :p

Seriously, although there is technically a risk that either PT operators would crash and die, records of transactions remain, and in such an event, seeing that both PT operators are well-known, I'm certain that a recreation of those transactions would be possible, even from backup. In addition, you get transaction details by email so it would be fairly simple to recreate your holdings from that, which of course would have to be verified and audited, but would still provide an extra level of assurance.

I'm considering the risk minor and thus I hold all my AM shares with burnside's PT. If you're not looking to sell at all, fine, you might as well hold them with friedcat, which reduces the risk of PT failure but in no way eliminates the risk of owning shares.

.b

Not really. You use BTC to buy shares, just like you use USD to buy shares of Apple. However, there is no guarantee that those share values will stay the same. They may rise, they may fall. So you may have bought 1 AM-PT share at 1.2 BTC, but in a year, that share may only be worth 0.6 BTC. It's all speculation, and with that comes risk.

Can I buy less than 1 share? I have less than 1.2 BTC right now.

You can on the new PT/100's.  Thick as thieves runs one and fukurunap(?) runs the other.

Also
All asks are > 1.29 on the passthroughs... Perhaps the last chance for AM shares under 1.25/share!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196273.new#new

No, I don't. TAT runs both (on BTCT and Bitfunder) and there's a third pending on BTCT from Rodyland.

I just had the initial idea, but have no interest in operating a PT :)

.b

I'm still trying to get mine off the ground.  In the meantime, you have TAT's offering on btct and bitfunder.

https://bitfunder.com/asset/TAT.ASICMINER

https://btct.co/security/TAT.ASICMINER

Yeah, I unexpectedly got some additional funds to invest in AM today but had to eat the wall to increase my holdings. I still think 1.3 is reasonable value but the buying isn't as good as it was over the weekend. Anyone who's seen that google doc graph would be drooling. I guess if there's a nice bump to the dividend or other good news from AM HQ it won't last long.

The wall on btct.co is being eaten...

I usually give short shrift to speculation but now I'm long on AM-PT I couldn't help notice that the resistance to higher prices that was there earlier today has almost broken.

Not that I'm looking to make a quick profit; I think the future's too promising for that and I was going to buy anyway. But I'd be kicking myself if I had to settle for less shares tomorrow.

Now that I've shot my mouth off I guess the dividends report won't be as sexy as hoped.  :P

dividend is about .011 btc per share this week

I bought one AM-PT share last week. Dividends come out today right? But when I check my BTC-TC account, I didn't see any dividends received?

PT dividends usually take an hour or two more, because the dividends from AM is paid to the PT operator who then pays out to everyone else.

.b

Passthru's take a little longer. Don't worry, burnside will payout dividends once he logs.

Some of the passthrus have not issued dividends yet. You'll get them sometime in the next 24 hours most likely.

new buyer here - where does the dividend report come from and what day of the week normally?


EDIT - and I take it the dividend gets paid to your BTC TC wallet, and the shares stay 'hosted' as it were on the trading site..?

Dividends are paid by ASICMINER on Wednesday evenings (China time I believe).  PTs normally send it within a day or two.  The dividend is sent to your wallet on the exchange the PT is listed on.  I know on btc-tc I get an email for dividend payments, and burnside puts the dividend amounts on the PT's info page.

Yes, Wednesday night China time.

I am also new to AM, BTW.

Something else to consider - when you get your dividend, if you're like me and only have a small holding but are planning to slowly add to your AM position, you could buy TAT.ASICMINER fractional (1/100) shares to reinvest the dividends. Beats having to wait several weeks or months to have enough dividends just to get 1 more share. When you have more than 100 TATs you can decide whether to sell them and buy one more AM-PT based on arbitrage between the two securities. Generally liquidity in TATs will be higher I guess as many people will be holding a few at any one time and would be more open to buying and selling them to adjust their position. But for volume AM-PTs are the way to go.

Just some food for thought.

great, thanks guys.

Is there a thread or a newsletter service of any kind from AM?

I found a thread earlier will have to rediscover it but just want to ask to make sure I'm in the right place


edit - this one??  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0

That's correct.

Additionally a shareholder has created this thread to boil the information down to it's essence.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=197545.0

It's at 2.7 now. Very nice 8)