Bitcoin Forum

I purchased the 25mh/s viper from Alpha Technology on the 10th of Jan. Order #95xx

I'd like to be one of the first ASIC scrypt hashers out there, but here are the risks:
- Alpha has no track record.
- They could deliver late (BFL all over again).
- They could potentially be a scam.

Positive points:
- I am protected for at least 60 days, since I used paypal. Protection expires on March 10th.
- Alpha technology have been active, regularly posting updates. Check: https://alpha-t.net/news/
- Just today, they've posted photos of their offices, and their community manager, Fiaz is active on Litecointalk: https://litecointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=24384

If Alpha comes through on time, the upside is huge. But I don't want to risk this alone. So I'm selling 25 shares, and I'm keeping 25. I paid 30% to reserve the viper, so as of now, only 15 shares are available. When Alpha request the remaining 70%, 10 more shares will be available.
 
- 500kh/s for 12 months
- Cost: $250 per share (equivalent in BTC or LTC)
- Payout on the 1st and 15th of every month. $5 payout charge per share.

PM if you want to ask questions about the mining setup, the order, or to get to know me. Thanks.

Current Availability: 0/15
SOLD OUT updated March 17th, 2014

I am sure the Litecoin devs will change the Algorithm to combat this.  

And how did you come to the conclusion that the upside is huge? For $250 i can buy a 500+ kH/s GPU and start mining straight away.

Not to mention you are charging $5 every two weeks for payout. Mining LTC with 500kH/s for two weeks doesnt even clear $55 and you want to reduce it to $50?

Dream on buddy

Could you give an example of the possible returns the people can get with Each share? How long does it take to break even on the 250 dollars?


I might be interested, as I currently dont have the money for such device myself.

You are right. There is no way to really know if the upside will be huge. But I did what I can to predict the difficulty in July. I've plotted a trend line over the history of litecoin, and the growth is approx 1.12% a day. The upside would be huge if the difficulty continues to rise at this pace. PM and I can send you the forcasts.

So will you be mining only Litecoins?

Honestly, I can't give you any possible returns or promise you a break-even point. I have no idea what the difficulty will be in July, nor the price of LTC. We will be mining on multipool.us, so which ever scrypt is more profitable. My numbers show 1.12% daily growth in difficulty.  

If the $5 every payout is not feasible, I'll drop it. I put it there to compensate me for the accounting headache of payouts every two weeks.

You will pay 5450£ for 25mhs, at today's rate it means 180$/500khs and you ask for 250$ so 39% more; only to get 12months of mining and no ownership of the miner.
Are you charging 5$ per payout? Meaning you charge 5$ every two weeks?? That seems like a lot. Can you confirm you don't charge any maintenance cost?

No, the plan is to mine on multipool.us, so whichever coin is most profitable.

And you will pay out in USD, BTC or just the mined coins?

Yes, you are about right. But please consider the time put into this. Paypal to secure the order. The time to get all the shares sold. Electricity and maintenance costs. And two payouts a month. It's a cost.

If you guys prefer one payout per month, we can do that too. I guess we'll vote on that once the shares are sold.

The payout is in minded coins. There is a google docs file accessible to all shareholders, to view total mined coins. That number is then divisible by the number of shares owned. The payout could be in alt-coins, or just litecoin. It all depends on multicoin.us on that payout period.

You are right, I pre-ordered, not purchased. Why accuse of spam though?

+1 Alpha tech is the most obvious scam around.

+ 1 Alpha Tech is so a scam. Why wait so long when you can be mining now.....

I guess everyone who pre-ordered an ASIC scrypt is assuming that the hashing output will outperform GPU for the price. If you want to start mining now, you'll have to buy a CPU, motherboard, memory, PC case, multiple graphic cards (each over $500), power supplies and a hard disk. Then if you don't know how to piece it together, you'll have to pay a mechanic. Not to mention many of these supplies are currently sold out. Why do all that, if you can group buy, and have someone do all that and hash for you.

But can you please justify the 5x the price statement? How is that true?

They could be, which is why I paid with Paypal. I am under the fraud protection program. https://cms.paypal.com/cgi-bin/us/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=security/buyer_protection

Also they Alpha said the so called device is only for LTC for some reason and they say their plan is to make it more open to other altcoins.

Has something to do with mining on a server they own or something, I could be 1/2 wrong as I just skimmed over all the Alpha Tech stuff as saw the reality very fast.

Wat?!?!!?! Is their any statement that hint this?

I am speculating with that comment but I have seen it posted other places. I thought that (Scrypt)Litecoin was created to bypass the ASIC mining market? was it not?

It's ASIC-resistant but nothing is impossible, in theory. If anyone is going to produce a worthy ASIC for scrypt then it will be AMD, in my opinion.

Yes it was. However, units that produce at 5MH/sec or even 25MH/sec will not make a ding in this picture and I highly doubt, that we're going to see units of 1TH/sec for scrypt any time soon.

how can you place an order when nothing is available?   =S

I pre-ordered on January 10th, when they were still available.

Not true. Read up on their twitter feed. People asked the same question:

Alpha Technology ‏@UkAlpha  Jan 6 All Scrypt-based coins can be mined by our ASIC devices. But not Scrypt-Jane, that's a different algorithm.

I've thought about this deal, and I'm not really sure where the risk of this deal really is;

The question if Alpha-T will ever deliver their products is important, but who says that you are not going to run off with your device after you paid dividend once or twice (or even never)?

Site is pretty high up on the scammy meter. good luck with that.

Isn't that the risk of any group buy?

My plan is to be transparent, regularly posting updates and photos of the setup. They'll be a google docs file for every shareholder to access and view the day's mining results. I'll have a whatsapp group so you can send me messages direct. I don't know what else I can do to retain trust. Suggestions?

 

True. I guess Alpha T is aware of that which is why they've been regularly posting updates.

Latest news update from Alpha T: https://alpha-t.net/news/host-board-block-diagram/

Ok, I think I will pass with these exact conditions but it's not saying it is a very bad deal, I find that the 5$ per payout fee&no ownership of the miner are a bit of a turn off, you are actually selling a mining contract

I am selling a service that I promise to commit to for 12 months. Upkeep of the machines, accounting, and payouts twice a month. Any time more than that will probably result in losses for me. Also considering that 12 months after the release of this machine, there will most definitely be other manufacturers, offering more hashing power. And difficulty going through the roof.

News update from Alpha Technology (29/01/2014):

Engineering updates for this week:

Host board will be a two board solution ( SOM & Daughter board).
Wifi capability has been added to the host board.
Power measurement capability added to the host board.
Temperature measurement capability added to the mining board.
ASIC – Physical design is going on
Memory cells are chosen as array of 1024*128 bits.
Various options for memory floor planning is being tried upon like multiple memories being stacked on top of each other along with grouping them together for better die size.
RTL synthesis has been tried out with HVT , RVT and LVT cells. LVT offers good frequency, however power leakage is higher, RVT offers balance on timing and power.
Block level pin assignments in progress.
DFT Scan insertion in progress.
Place and route in progress.

LMFAO did a kid draw that diagram?  It shows nothing useful!  The fact that they are using a picture mix with some block diagram drawn from microsoft words is super sketchy.  If they're an engineering company, why are they not using CAD for their drawings?       

Did you follow KNC when they first started? This is a startup, not a fully fledged corporation.

I'm an engineer, it doesn't take a full fledged corporation to mock up some real designs that are supposed to be getting ready for production.  Since they are taking pre-orders, one would assume that they would already move past something that takes less than 20 minutes draw a grossly simplify mock up on how the components are going to be laid out. 

They actually put together a road map, and a mockup of the hardware components. You can find that on their website.

I'm looking at their roadmap:

https://alpha-t.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Timeline-Copy.png

It's pointing that they are at the very beginning stages of development.  From the road-map perspective, they really have nothing accomplished at all.  For them to be taking pre-orders on something that isn't even finalized or proven to work yet, throws a huge red flag right here.  They're basically collecting money to fund the engineering development.  Scariest part is that the project could fail and they can run away with your money.  With a Q2/Q3 shipping schedule, that's one aggressive timeline considering how much is left to accomplish ahead of them.

If you truly believe in them, I sure hope that I'm just outright wrong here.  Best of luck to you and just please be careful with these type of pre-orders.

Take Kickstarter projects for examples.  A lot of companies already have their product finalize and they are just trying to get funds for manufacturing on a large scale.  Even then a lot of projects would still take over 6+ months just to get the manufacturing portion part down.  I would take extra precaution with Alpha Technology.  The chances of them over promising and under deliver the actual product is very high.       

 

     

I do understand the model of:
1. build prototype
2. film and market prototype
3. raise money
4. manufacture and distribute.

Most kickstarted projects are on phase 2 of this cycle. But not all. You could film or 3d render a concept, then start taking pre-orders. This happens a lot in real estate. If you order now, you would be a pre-seed early adopter. Taking a risk of buying something that hasn't even been manufactured yet, and hoping for a huge upside. That's what this is all about.

Alpha Technology forum now live: http://forum.alpha-t.net/

Development update: https://alpha-t.net/news/development-update-12022014%E2%80%8F/

Don't tie up your money until they have something working and people are using it.

Yes, if you don't want to be one of the first people to own one, then sure. Wait, look at photos and read reviews. But this isn't about that. We are early adopters and accept the risks involved.

Risk is one thing but their "roadmap" is horrible. I have never had any experience with building ASICS but I can safely say I'm more likely to produce a product before Alpha :p

All sold out. Will update you once shipping dates are announced.