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Sitrep from one of my field agents... Photos of alpha technologies in Manchester, UK

http://imgur.com/a/Cd0Gb

https://i.imgur.com/2qOwHl6.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/gzWLfla.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/VOitrt2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/xX4Avn2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/05GWdHi.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/D0i8s60.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/RaRbJVb.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/w5ypNaM.jpg

Analysis: The window panes have condensation i.e. non double glazed glass ..

Looks legit...

You are a 007 ! Good work  8)

Thanks for the photos. The interior doesn't exaxtly instill any confidence for me to put down anything in their company. I would expect some office people or something that resembled an office instead of a construction zone.

+ 1

Good spying.  :D

Haha, it just shows you how bad build quality is in the UK.

I've got single glazed glass in London - and trust me the rent is steep enough to buy a 5MH/s device each month.

Photos of the 'office' of the first apple computer co:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ES4JylQpqis/TCOjR9NecUI/AAAAAAAAASM/Lo3HU0roKo4/s1600/Apple_Garage.jpg

Just sayin' :)

Only the windows to the left aren't double glazed. ;)

Door and flat above clearly is.

That said that has nothing to do with Alpha T as they probably rent the place for a Landlord that doesn't care to upgrade the windows. Go have a look at places around Camden and then be surprised at the rent you'll be charged, although this is not London it's Manchester in a low footfall area and the rent would be significantly less.

Why prey tell did you check it out unannounced and not at least try and make an appointment so you could meet and greet and fire some unrehearsed Q's?

You can have condesation with double glazed glass as well. Most of the time the sealing frame to casement is the weak point.

And would you of invested in this garage operation in 1983?????  Just Sayin.

Probably not. All I am saying is don't judge the book by the cover.

For what it is worth. I have not pre-ordered any of the alleged products on offer by these guys. At this stage it is still vaporware. ;)

You think .....I am pretty sure that we are looking at the next APPLE inc company lolz

So far

1 sign 500 usd
1-3 months rent on one of the worst looking offices I have ever seen  500-1500
1 website ... 4 weeks work

SO all in 2k usd & some personal time (does not really pass the smell test  :o )

I dont really see the aprox 1 mill in ASIC investment required ..what happened to koolio and his mates or is this the new re-invention of them ???

That house looks 500% better than the alpha-t office setup  8)

I agree with you. I was just playing the devils advocate. ;)

It's sad, but if miners weren't such easy targets then scammers would have to try harder. I'm not saying these guys are a scam, but the proportion of scammers to honest businesses is like 10:1.

Didn't Apple have a working prototype to show to investors before they asked for money?

finally a spokes person comes forward

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=2859.msg97062#msg97062

You can clearly see the windows ARE double glazed as well.

Because it wasnt me who took the pics..

one things for sure, if these guys are legit we can wave goodbye to the old gpu farms.

Hardware worth thousand of dollars protected by a wall of glass! must be ninja!

Nah.. not us GPU farmers with free power anyways!  The prices of these things is really high, and BFL shipped on time right?!?!

I mean seriously are you ppl blind?? it's just an empty office space with a banner ad. and it looks like someone been growing cannabis upstairs and police raided the place and fuck everything up lol
I am not saying this is a scam but it certainly has all the familiar symptoms so far. I will believe when I see a miner but for now I stay optimistic.

Would you prefer multi addresses scattered around the Bay area sans photos? Such an animal exist.

I declare.......


The photo in the OP are highly out-dated, assuming they're not shopped. Any fuckin' idiot can do a Google Street Map search of 66 dickenson road, Manchester, and see that that entire corner building has been recently updated.

Google street view pictures are from October 2012 at that location.

Unless you want to believe the owner of the building opted for the antique look, of which is all the rage.

2 years ago:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7445/11931306226_c9ae0e71e2.jpg

Today

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5531/11930830283_6e9bf97094.jpg

You're looking at the wrong building :)
It's the next block down the road

I blame this mistake on Google. Apologies.

What the fuck are you talking about?

My friend took these pics an hour or so before i posted them here. I have nothing to do with alpha technology or scrypt asic, I dont even own a GPU mining rig. Just thought that since he was already passing by the place it would be nice to take some pics and let the community think of what they think.

Google maps : https://maps.google.com/maps?q=66+dickenson+road,+Manchester&ll=53.452256,-2.219968&spn=0.00099,0.00284&hnear=66+Dickenson+Rd,+Manchester+M14+5HF,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=53.452256,-2.219968&panoid=LMPfryFnak8qKHBjQp7P_g&cbp=12,175.58,,0,-2.46

They don't have the sign up when Google drove thru. Are you implying i photoshopped in the sign also?

jeez so much hate..

Apologies accepted :).
Indeed google shows the 66 at that picture you've showed.

But it seems that in 2012 the space where alpha is supposed to be now was for rent.
Maybe legit... they went to the trouble of setting an office for a scam ? And for a scam that isn't bragging to much about best asics , golden nonce chips like .. you know who , :)

Well , life is a gamble after all.

Ignore previous rant.

Let's all be friends :).

People are so ready and willing to be cheated. Someone claiming to be from alpha makes a post on litecointalk and is immediately suckled up to by the idiots. Oh thank you sir for posting, that will shut up all the naysayers...


Their whole shipping and refund policy violates uk law. Anyone dumb enough to send them money deserves to lose it. They are running a multimillion dollar scam out of a cheap office, that's all. If they were real, they wouldn't have to steal from customers who want refunds if they don't ship in many months. If they were real, they would have developed a product without using customer funds, nobody wants to play kickstarter with something this big.

Where are the companies that launch a product by making it, then selling it! 

If you're talking about the samsungs and dells and sonys of the world that have the r&d budgets...they don't care to enter this game because its too risky in their viewpoints.  Furthermore, the only way that independent vendors can get off the ground is through preorders, I've seen a few vendors who didnt do pre-orders but they end up selling small batches and cannot keep steady supply going.  Even these bigger preorder vendors still need to keep stuff in batches as the demand for hardware is getting out of control - If it was really a terrible stupid idea to buy bitcoin hardware, then why are the vast majority of folks who bought hardware, still continuing to do so?

Did someone already asked for a refund ?
I realize that even getting a refund is no indication that it is a scam or not.
Their FAQ is not clear whether or not refund is possible.
Since we expect to be the first to ship, we are only taking 30% deposit instead of the usual 100% other companies take and at the same time allowing the opportunity to get a refund in deposit. (this refund policy is fair as we are not taking 100% upfront and have certain costs to the manufacturing process to be made).

One could read that they allow a refund, but you could also read that only 100% deposit companies allow refunds in their answer.

They only took 30% downpayment, and I paid via paypal. Suffice to say, my risk at this point is 0.0% and my upside of having a first gen 25mh/s scrypt ASIC is quite high.

Overall, yes the pics of the office dont inspire confidence. However, remember that this is just a small design team. Everything is manufactured in India, and their partner there is quite a large engineering firm.  

Sure I understand why people would be skeptical, but lets be frank - scrypt ASICs are coming, period. Im onboard that crucial first boat, because I understand risk/reward quite well.

I'm not sure you do. Unlike the SHA ASICs, these things are not delivering a hugely exponential increase in hashing power per dollar.
In fact you can buy a bunch of GPUs right now that will hash that much for similar money. How much coins will they mine before this vaporware ever ships? Even if it does, your main advantage is electricity usage. For electricity to be the deciding factor profitability has to be quite low already.

If you would get 100 MH for the price of 10 GPUs, then the potential reward would indeed be great. Right now, it really isn't. Not to mention, if scrypt asics come to dominate the large scrypt coins, the difficulty will skyrocket while tons of coins with a slightly different algorhitm are released. No matter how I look at this, tying up money in a scrypt asic preorder simply does not look profitable.

You don't get increased performance for your money, you get decreased power consumption. In essence you are rewarded with less of a powerbill or the ability to add more devices to your household circuit.

One may argue that graphics cards will retain their value and be easier to resell as well...

Thats in no way a dig at AT, just a matter of fact statement w.r.t. scrypt mining ASICs. You're saving will likely be in power consumption

Quite, which is what I said at the end of the first paragraph there  :)

Exactly. Taking a risk on these is friggin stupid. When they are out and SHIPPING I'll buy a bunch of them and sell off all my gpu rigs. There is zero advantage to throwing your money away 6-9 months ahead of shipping with these.

Good luck buying one...You'll be paying a 2x premium...mining devices are hotter than time machines you can't really get one unless you a) wait in line, b) wait until after its been out for a while and still pay 2x a premium.  I like the idea of gpus - but right now to buy them in the same magnitude that they match alpha's cost, would mean I would need to buy them in bulk right now at once, that isn't possible - you're looking at 6-8 weeks out if you want to buy a bulk of cards upfront (do you believe these zoomhash (http://zoomhash.com) guys to be legit?  if so I'd buy them from here)

Still, even by Alpha's official timeline (odds of them delivering on time?) you would have been mining several months with GPUs before you could hope to receive this ASIC. That'll take quite a while to catch up in terms of electricity. And what are the odds of them actually delivering what they are promising to build? 50/50 ? I don't think they are better than that. It still makes no sense to tie up funds for something so far away, so uncertain, and with a marginal outright gain on existing tech which has a certain residual value.

Some more info about them.

http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/alpha-technology-(int) (http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/alpha-technology-(int))

http://ukdata.com/company/08483921/ALPHA-TECHNOLOGY-(INT)-LTD (http://ukdata.com/company/08483921/ALPHA-TECHNOLOGY-(INT)-LTD)

Very young company, it was regitred in apr 2013 by no a native British person

https://i.imgur.com/je0sr0J.jpg

LOL

I do not understund why people preorde it, they even not see working prototype, whih probobly never will be out.

this is usual for a Ltd. here in Germany we have "1€ corporation" too

That's funny, I've had no problem buying up dozens and dozens of gpus in the past few weeks, and with the asics, only the first wave is limited supply. Fake preorders and delays not included. Once KNC shipped the first batch, I ordered second batch units and received them on time. Not hard at all. People are too stupid with these preorders. Right now you can buy the antminers, bitmine, amt (less certain) and they are shipping at standard prices and reasonable times. The key is that you CAN'T mine bitcoin with gpus, so there is no competition. If you spent the same money on GPUs and computers and electricity as you are spending on a preorder, you will have made that back 5x before the asics ship.

Caveat Emptor.


BFL

HashFast

Avalon


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See Death & Taxes Post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262052.msg3936006#msg3936006


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Review that and then think long and very very very hard about sinking money into any projects that really ask you to foot the bill for prototyping.

at least they spent some money on the banner outside... dump

You can do this in almost any country of EU...

I is helpfull for new companies - you needed +- 5000$ before to create company in fe. Czech Republic...

Yep, seems about right. Sorry for those who lost their money to this.

this (https://alpha-t.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Scrypt_ASIC_Prototyping_Design_Document.pdf) is a well formed ASIC presentation document. It misses a couple pieces here and there, it looks great otherwise.

Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69P2RHG2pIA). Looks legit to me as I have similar toys.

This is not to inspiring, I wonder what fiaz will say about this?

Has anyone brought this thread to his attention?

i have a pre-order for a 5 mh unit...i too think they are likely legit...but to tell the truth it looks like me and my buddy scrambling to make this .....(i am clueless)

i sure would want to see some more video's then the 1 above and/or just these guys sitting down on video and giving a pep talk on there company and product

they (so far) are pretty amature hour imho

still on the fence likely to pull the plug on my preorder cash via paypal

Searing

more bluetooth headsets please.)

could just be the accountants office next door

when did you go there? why is the shop closed?

It wasn't me who went there, it was a friend.
The pics were taken about 10 - 30 minutes before January 10, 2014, 03:03:49 PM (op date)

In Europe, there is many countrys that have "1 Buck companys". It´s legal. Unfortunally It is NOT enough to say Scam, but is an important feature that Company Legally exist.