Bitcoin Forum

Havelock Investments is proud to announce that after working with the AlcheMiner company through their design stages we are excited to announce that the AlcheMiner company is ready for the manufacturing stage of their High Performance Scrypt ASIC mining chips. We are pleased that we are able to offer you the opportunity to participate in this offering:


Company name: AlcheMiner
Company website: AlcheMiner.com
Ticker symbol: ALC
Units offered: 80,000  (40% Stake)
Price per unit: 0.14 BTC
Bitcoin exchange: HavelockInvestments.com

Chairman & President: Sophia C. Chou
CEO: Tom Soong
IPO date: April 11, 2014, 9:00 AM EST

Investor Protections
•Escrowed IPO Funds
–IPO funds will be held in escrow by Havelock Investments and will be released to AlcheMiner for actual expenditures.
•Investor Repayment Priority
–Net company profit will be first distributed to shares sold to investors at IPO and held by Angel Investors until their original initial investment of 0.14 BTC is fully recuperated before any dividend is paid to the Founders’ shares
•Founders’ Shares Lock-Up Period
–Trading of the Founders’ shares will be restricted. These shares will not be able to be traded until both IPO investors and Angel Investors have fully recuperated their initial investment
•Monthly Dividends, Quarterly Financial Reports

Please take the time to read our full prospectus before investing at the following link:
https://www.havelockinvestments.com/reports.php (https://www.havelockinvestments.com/reports.php)

AlcheMiner is a Taiwan-based company focused on designing Scrypt ASIC Intellectual Property and sales of Scrypt ASIC mining hardware

The company, led by a first-class team with years of experience in Integrated Circuit design, will forge a true powerhouse industry out of the current cottage industry that is Scrypt ASIC mining.

By Combining the innovative spirit of Silicon Valley and the high efficiency of Taiwan, AlcheMiner will craft world’s leading-edge miners for crypto currency creators.

Our seasoned engineering team has decades of advanced system know-how and cutting-edge IC design expertise in the following areas:

Successful track record in advanced ASIC miners
Successful track record in ultra-low power designs for mobile applications
Successful track record in ultra-high performance IC designs for super computers and networking equipment
Successful track record in most advanced process nodes (e.g. 28 nm)
Successful track record in developing advanced ASICs all the way from architecture design, RTL design, physical design, IC fabrication, assembly, PCB layout, and system design.

The AlcheMiner team leverages its in-depot experience to introduce Alchemist, our leading-edge Scrypt ASIC miner, which offers ultra-high performance at ultra-low power consumption (10W per Mh/s) and at great price to miners across the globe.

We invite you to shape tomorrow’s landscape of digital currency together with us.


Engineering Progress

Tapeout to world’s leading foundry in April 2014
Chips expected to be delivered in June 2014
Shipping of final products will begin July 2014

Future Product Plan for Q3/Q4

Higher hash-rate:
–Alchemist 250 Mh/s
–Alchemist 500 Mh/s

A More advanced Scrypt mining ICs: 20nm
Miners for cryptocurrencies that utilize other algorithms than Scrypt

The Core Team

Our engineering team comes from Mediatek and Realtek and boasts decades of system-level and IC design experience. AlcheMiner’s core team graduated from U. C. Berkeley, National Taiwan University, and National Tsing Hua University.

Chairman & President: Sophia C. Chou
-Successful entrepreneurial track record as a marketing and business development expert in Silicon Valley and Asia, including Altius Solutions (merged with Simplex), Simplex Solutions, which had an IPO on NASDAQ and was later acquired by Cadence Design Systems Ticker Symbol (NASDAQ:CDNS) and Alchip Technologies (listed on the emerging market board in Taiwan).
-MBA degree from U. C. Berkeley; Bachelor’s degree in Finance from National Taiwan University.
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=44153902 (http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=44153902)

CEO: Tom Soong
-Accumulated abundant RTL development experience in Digital TV and Digital Media Player chips when he served at Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
-Successfully facilitated advanced Bitcoin miner IC development project at Alchip Technologies.
-Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at National Tsing Hua University.
https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=252905095 (https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=252905095)

English FPGA Model Demo: http://youtu.be/edS8I02a8UI (http://youtu.be/edS8I02a8UI)
Chinese Demo: http://youtu.be/HUvSZStKg4s (http://youtu.be/HUvSZStKg4s)
For Chinese Viewers: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjkyMzYwODk2.html (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjkyMzYwODk2.html)

All beneficial owners of the AlcheMiner corporation have passed Due Diligence by a team of Licensed Compliance Officers

"AlcheMinerIR" will be the official username for AlcheMiner Investor Relations

Observing post will need to read the prospectus and other information later but this is neat who knows may be the next AM for Scrypt

reserve

Replacement for NEOBEE[Q] and COG?

I just checked out the website and it looks interesting. I take it the miners being offered are not for mining BTC. What Alt currencies can be mined with these?

If I purchased the ALCHEMIST 128Mh/s miner for $9995 and received it in July could I have any chance of making my money back (or dare I say make a profit) by mining Alt coins? Those familiar with mining Alt coins please comment if this is viable and what I can expect to generate on a daily basis with this machine.

 :(

Interesting.


Wouldn't we all like to know?

If there is a chance then it will be with the most efficient miners.

It depends.

Only a few select altcoins are profitable.  I got very lucky with Doge & Aur.

There's a ton, but it seems like most altcoins are moving to a new algo (x11)..there was even talk about hardforking ltc to a new algo as well...


edit: X11 right now is asic resistant.  When script asics come out I am anticipating most alt coins to not be script (asic resistant)


edit again: also you need to considar the knc titan...250MH for around the same price.. delivery is unknown but probabably shortly after this

I'll have to read up on this a bit more, but it's piqued my interest at least.

Though unfortunately I can't say I trust a startup that states in their initial prospectus:

Why? 4 million usd is a lot for a startup but 28nm nre costs are pretty expensive afaik.

Edit: 4 million actually sounds too much even for 28nm. Asicminer only needed to raise $200,000 or 5% of what they are asking

$11.2 million?

their serious?

I suppose it was more 'tongue in cheek' than anything else. Consider it a prelude to the coming storm of "zomg so overvalued", and "their value iz waayy 2 high"  :D

Whether or not raising $4M is needed, I don't know. My first thought was, "OK, they need money for R&D that doesn't include preorders...cool...but then what the hell was the Angel Seed Funding used for, especially to warrant a 30% stake?"

I gave it a read as well according to their timeline and demo they have finished development and need the money for production of units.
Although it is a good question what the 30% angel seed funding was used for assuming R@D
That said I do think the cost is different between script and Asic production although I do not know the specifics.
The valuation is 11.2 Million with Angels and Founder Shares involved but at least it was stated in the prospectus.
When I did the math I got those numbers, although I definitely could read that as 1 BTC = 1000/USD  as well --> 11,200 BTC = 11.2 Mill

Math:
11,200 Divide by 0.14/share = 80,000 Shares the Public Share valuation
Another way to read it is
200,000 Shares * 0.14 BTC/Share = 28,000 BTC * 400/USD Share = 11.2 Million
The Bitcoin Based Value is 11,200 then the remainder should be capital or fiat.
Total IPO funding in BTC: 11,200 BTC
Total Fiat equivalents measured in BTC = 16,800 BTC
Company value if all in BTC at 400/USD a share = 28,000 BTC

Valuations aside it is nice they benchmark another company Silver Fish when trying to get that number rather than just something in:

Funding for IC fabrication and miner manufacturing:
 Approximately $3,600,000
– R&D Cost & other costs: USD$400,000

Funding needed specifically for large scale manufacturing of proven chips at least that is what I get from the demo and prospectus.

The two videos should be identical one in Chinese the other in English but it does not hurt to confirm.
Props for a two language demo though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUvSZStKg4s&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edS8I02a8UI&feature=youtu.be

In this IPO:

We have a human face to this company with a recent video showing it working
And a schedule to follow with the first production run and distribution within three to four months of the initial IPO

• IC front-end design has been proven via FPGA:
IC back-end design to be completed in next two weeks
• Tapeout to world’s leading foundry in April 2014
Chips expected to be delivered in June 2014
• Shipping of final products will begin July 2014

Only time will tell how it goes in the end.
Did about a dozen edits think this version looks ok  ;D

price after IPO will go slowly to real number about 0.0014 BTC for this. I will avoid this

Glad to see more players!
Chinese translation posted and weiboed.

http://bbs.btcman.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=17586
http://weibo.com/3552119670/AFclojbf7

I had initially missed this while skimming last night, but I had a chance to read it all this morning, and unfortunately I have a concern about the overall offer itself.

As far as I've read, Alcheminer is solely a manufacturer, focusing on R&D and equipment / IP sales. This is all well and good, but it means everything they do / earn will be based in fiat. Let's think about this from a USD point of view:
Initial offering per share is (roughly) equal to ~$56 (ignoring fluctuations at this point).
Overall company valuation is $11.2M:
-- IPO - $4.48M (40%)
-- Angel Funding - $3.36M (30%)
-- Founders - $3.36M (30%)

In this case, I'm assuming (it was never specified) that monthly net income is dispersed as a dividend. If their projections hold true, 2014 dividends (total) for Investors should amount to about $45 per share (40% of the projected $9M net income / 80,000 shares). 2015 dividends (total) would then amount to a nice $96 per share, again based on their projections.

As it stands right now, the projections seem fairly reasonable (2014 revenues only require selling a few thousand units).

The problem with all this is the BTC/USD volatility. The share price is 0.14BTC, and 2014 dividends would amount to 0.1125BTC (assuming a rate of $400 per coin). But what happens if we see a spike to $600, $800, $1000 again? Suddenly those dividends are only worth 0.075BTC, 0.056BTC, 0.045BTC.
What about in 2015? Anyone know what the price per BTC will be then?

What made ASICMiner a good investment wasn't just that they dealt in development and equipment sales, but that they were miners as well (and the first large ASIC farm). This meant that anything they earned could be distributed as a dividend without having to be converted first, leaving shareholders largely unaffected during the price spikes / drops between January - May 2013.

Even if Alcheminer went this route, they'd still have to contend with fluctuating altcoin exchange rates, which can be even more volatile than BTC/USD.

No chance, that they will sell this IPO in these times. Bad timing.

I am looking at this Ipo and thinking "I like it and I want in". But the numbers says otherwise, Market trends, valuation, expectations.........,

•Investor Repayment Priority
–Net company profit will be first distributed to shares sold to investors at IPO and held by Angel Investors until their original initial investment of 0.14 BTC is fully recuperated before any dividend is paid to the Founders’ shares

Investors will receive 100% of the dividends first providing a 100% ROI in the first year on the $4M invested by the IPO.

This is not an all or nothing IPO. There is VC funds in the sideline waiting to jump into this company. We worked with AlcheMiner to bring this Fund to Havelock to provide our customers with the opportunity to participate in the funding process.

Same. 20BTC worth have sold on Havelock already... Someone's willing to put some money down.
https://www.havelockinvestments.com/fund.php?symbol=ALC

The AlcheMiner IPO is officially underway on HavelockInvestments.com!

In order to let the ALC team focus their efforts on the business, they and Havelock have asked me to manage Investor Relations here on the forum.

Feel free to pose any questions that you'd like answered by the team and I'll be happy to relay them!

Replacement for NEOBEE[Q] and COG?
I agree.

For the record. Havelock Investments never offered NEOBEE or COG.
NEOBEE was a pass-through Fund.
COG was listed elsewhere and their shareholders requested to be listed on our exchange.
We no longer offer pass-thorough Funds unless the direct shares are managed directly by us as we do with the ASICMiner Fund.

Cheers!

Hi Korbman, we wanted to address this question specifically. The Angel's Seed funding has gotten the company to this point - a working, low-power, Scrypt mining chip. It takes significant time and R&D funds to get to this point.

The $3.6 Million will be used to manufacture the chips and manufacture/source the remainder of the Alchemist's necessary components. The $400,000 remaining (listed as R&D on the prospectus) will be used for rent, staff costs, accommodations for business partners, and any other incidental R&D costs or costs otherwise. Basically, operating funds needed to get everything prepared for shipping in July.

That's sort of what I figured (and freedomno1 pointed out my oversight before), but there wasn't any detail surrounding it in the prospectus. In any case, thank you for the clarification.
Quick question: How did you guys arrive at the $3.6M figure for mass manufacturing, and what happens if you only end up raising, say, 10% of the total $4M?

Congrats on the chip by the way!

Are you guys not worried about side-chains killing off the alt-chains?

Mabsy, I'm shocked at this, but I've been thinking this exact same thing since reading up on side-chains.

Cheers!

Thanks very much! Sophia and Tom are Taiwan-based, so they're asleep at the moment. I'll check back in with as much information as I can get regarding a more detailed breakdown of manufacturing and sourcing costs from the $3.6M. I'm US-based in order to have a schedule that more closely matches the forums' North America / Europe population (the Securities subforum is most frequented during these continents' waking hours). I've been brought on to the team to help out with with investor communications so I won't always have the information on-hand, but I do have direct contact with the Taiwan-based team and Havelock as well.


At the moment, altcoins like Litecoin and Dogecoin are proven and side-chains are still mostly 'waiting in the wings', so to speak. In addition, there's no reason that altcoins and side-chains couldn't co-exist, much like Colored Coins / Decentralized Exchanges existing side-by-side with centralized exchanges.

So, while side-chains may become more prevalent in the future, Scrypt-based altcoins are here and in-demand and we plan to satisfy that demand.

1. Can you be more specific about the VC funding received so far? How much money has been invested by VC's?
My fear/impression is that the VC's got their shares much cheaper than IPO investors. To my understanding, developing a chip up to the mask is not that expensive and surely does not cost $4 Mio (that would be >20-40 man years in salary!!!). There are many ASIC companies that develop a working prototype up to the mask using only 30% of the pre-order money (e.g. Alpha-tech).

2. What salary was/is paid to the founders and head of development? Surely they should be working for a low salary given their high profit share (30%)?
I see the risk that AlcheMiner ends up not profitable, not only because of market risk and extreme competition, but also because certain key figures earn a very high fixed salary. Who would control/prevent this?

3. How do you expect to compete time-wise? When did you start with the ASIC verification etc.? KnC passed the RTL stage, Fibonacci is also starting tape out later this quarter.

Sounds good, thanks for the update.


Just wanted to touch on this part specifically. In just about all cases, yes, Angel investors receive their shares vastly cheaper than IPO investors. I'll speculate that in this case the Angels put in less than $1M to help get the company off the ground. Since VC and Angel investing can be quite risky, it's normal to see a smaller investment be worth 20-30% of a company prior to IPO.

we all feel pity for the NEOBEE or COG.

Any plans on reviewing your Ipo, people here would love to invest and believe in you, just fix your numbers and ask for something realistic of us investors!

Some questions for ALC,
1. Why focus on Scrypt miner not SHA256 miner. What's the strategy behind that?

2. So far KNC's Titan scrypt miner is 2 times efficient than ALC's miner. And both the price are the same. And we all know KNC is a promising company so those data are very likely to be true. Do you think 3 months ship date ahead KNC's Titan is worthy the high price?

3. Do you mind a investor or customer visit in your Taipei 101 office? 

If the total amount of funding is not raised, the IPO will not be successful and all investors will receive their funds back. The funds are held in escrow by Havelock at the moment.

Regarding the $3.6M for manufacturing, the cost is around $1.5 - $2M for 40nm mask and tooling and about $1.5M - $2M for wafers, packaging, and equipment assembly. I'm working to get more detailed numbers if possible.


Korbman is correct on this point; funding that gets the company going is nearly always valued higher than the funding of the retail/IPO investor - the reason is that that funding has gotten the IPO to this point; a lot of time and money has already been spent to get here.

In addition, neither Tom nor Sophia has taken a salary yet. IC design isn't cheap - you have to spend the money to get the good engineering talent required for a project like this. In addition,  a 40nm backend design project can cost upwards of $400,0000.


Ken, thanks for the questions - I'll let you know when I have responses from the founders for you. For the first point, the SHA-256 ASIC is extremely competitive and has many well-funded, entrenched companies already in the space. Scrypt ASIC is just now coming to market, allowing lower competition to AlcheMiner and more potential profit than SHA-256.


Thanks for the questions - I'll see if the company can disclose how much as been invested by Angels/VCs so far. Regarding salary, Sophia and Tom have not taken any salary yet - I would hope that investors see both that and the promise to pay profits to investors first as a sign of faith in the company and its business model.

I'll be back in touch with responses from the founders regarding the stages of development; July is the delivery date which should precede KNC's shipping and match Alpha's shipping time (with better power consumption and $/MH).


Finally, a great announcement from the engineering team regarding power consumption! This was taken from the press release, so please excuse the PR-speak  :D

04/12/14

The Most Power Efficient Scrypt Mining Chip Announced to Date: AlcheMiner Has Achieved Significant Technology Breakthrough in Power Consumption with Less than 3W per Mh/s.

Mr. Tom Soong, CEO of AlcheMiner, is pleased to announce that our engineering team has achieved technology breakthrough in power consumption. Specifically, AlcheMiner’s newly developed Scrypt mining chip is expected to attain less than 3W per Mh/s based on assessment by backend IC design tools.

Mr. Tom Soong said, “To our best knowledge, this is the most power efficient Scrypt mining chip announced to date. We are glad that our engineering team is able to deliver such brilliant results. This technology breakthrough will significantly reduce AlcheMiner’s customers’ electricity cost.”

There were questions posed both here and on Litecointalk - I wanted to post the answers in both places to ensure that everyone has access to the most updated information!

Cost Information: Regarding the $3.6M for manufacturing, the cost is around $1.5 - $2M for 40nm mask and tooling and about $1.5M - $2M for wafers, packaging, and equipment assembly. The team is only able to provide these top-level numbers to investors for two reasons. The first is that the exact numbers are protected under NDA with the manufacturers. Second, the company wants to keep the exact margins under wraps to ensure that they can provide both a good cost to customers and still provide a reasonable profit to investors without favoring one more heavily than the other.

Angel Investment Amount: On this point, the company can't disclose exact numbers. However, as it was previously mentioned by Korbman, seed funding is given some preference in terms of equity since that was the funding that got the company to this point. IPO investors are able to take advantage of the development already set in motion by the seed funding.

ASIC Verification / Manufacturing Process: The company will have finished the backend design and tape out to the foundry before the end of April.

Scrypt vs. SHA-256: As I mentioned earlier, and confirmed by the founders, the SHA-256 ASIC mining industry is full of entrenched players with deep pockets. The Scrypt Mining industry is just now beginning to develop, which offers the company much more room for growth and at a significantly reduced cost compared to trying to break into the SHA-256 (BTC) mining industry. Plus, Scrypt mining is still dominated by GPU miners, not ASIC miners/manufacturers. The playing field is wide open, so to speak.

The AlcheMiner Office: AlcheMiner welcomes investors to visit the company's office at Taipei 101 as the company's schedule permits. Please contact me if you plan to visit the office and I'll be happy to forward along the request to Sophia.

KNC's Titan: We've been asked a good deal about how the 128MH/s Alchemist can be offered at the same price point as the Titan, which will start shipping "Q2/Q3". As shown by Bitcoin's fast-increasing difficulty which is now mirrored the rapid decrease in Scrypt mining profitability as of late, the eternal business motto rings true: Time is Money. In other words, he who mines first mines most!

KNC has merely given an estimated started shipping date of "Q2/Q3" without any schedule guarantee; their design is not even FPGA proven at this time. It's very likely that they won't even begin shipping until the end of September. If they ship one Titan before the end of Sep, they've technically met their schedule as well! In addition, their pre-order has now exceeded 1,000 miners. So, even if a customers decides to order a Titan now, they've got over a thousand people in line ahead of them.

To contrast, AlcheMiner is offering the July Shipping Guarantee AND is backing it up with increased hashrate or money-back. In the case that there is a delay and the miners ship in August, AlcheMiner will provide an additional 15% hashrate increase to compensate. September - 30%. If October or later, the company will issue a 100% refund!

So, it's not a simple as looking at it from a $/MH perspective. While it may look like the Titan is a better deal at face value, AlcheMiner's advanced shipping date is much more significant. Our customers have told us that they can't wait for KNC - they would rather order from us and get their miner as soon as possible than roll the dice with KNC.

In addition, other players in the Scrypt ASIC space, like Alpha Tech, have opted to move up their shipping date instead of trying to match KNC's $/MH rate. Alpha's Viper is shipping in July as well, albeit at a higher cost compared to the Alchemist. Experienced miners know that time really does equate to money in this industry.

Finally, AlcheMiner's development schedule is on-track - we are going to tape out to the found later this month. Reps from the foundry visited very recently and the company has secured a certain amount of wafers for July shipment.

Liquidation of the Company: If the company is liquidated, then Angels and IPO investors are still placed ahead of the Founders' shares (assuming that the Angels and IPO Investors had not yet recouped their initial investment). Angels and IPO Investors would receive the liquidation funds back on a proportional basis. If there are additional funds left after that point, it would be distributed among all shareholders proportionally (Founders' shares included). Basically, the liquidation of the company doesn't relieve the company's promise to pay back investors first.

Dividend Payments: Dividends will be paid in BTC via Havelock. The vast majority of preorders are paid in USD, so the profits after shipping the miners will need to be converted to BTC for payment. The company's accounting rules require that the miners are delivered to customers before realizing profits and paying dividends to investors.

Tom's Previous Employment at Realtek: The CEO, Tom Soong, has previously worked at Realtek and Alchip. Because he is no longer employed by either company, he does not retain those corporate email accounts. I will work with Tom and Sophia to see what we can do to further verify his previous employment. Please note that Havelock has already worked on verifying his previous employment experience and it has completely checked out.

The IPO shares sales are starting to pick up - thanks to everyone who has invested so far!

Just a remark, having participated in Scrypt FPGA / ASIC project, Scrypt mining device is much harder, and requires significant resources (including financial) to properly implement, thus I'm not sure this Scrypt - SHA256 comparison is entirely correct. As per Scrypt market being dominated by GPU miners, this probably going to change within next 3 - 4 months.

Obviously this is rhetoric we've heard before, so my question now comes down to "How?"
Starting with the hashrate increase compensation, how will that work? Would they overclock the chips? Send additional hardware?

thanks for the info

Thanks for the input - what I really meant to impart was that the company sees a much bigger opportunity in the Scrypt ASIC space vs. SHA-256 due to the lesser amount of competition in the Scrypt ASIC space. We definitely also believe that the Scyrpt mining market will move from GPU to ASIC very rapidly over the next few months - we're going to be a part of that  :)



Other companies that have made similar promises have done so by either providing additional hardware or increasing the number of chips/boards/'blades' within a single unit. I'll be happy to get more information about the contingency plan, however.



You're welcome!

Tom's Employment at Realtek and Alchip

I know that some have asked for additional verification of Tom's former employment at Realtek and Alchip. Tom has provided his business cards and employee badges for both companies here: http://imgur.com/aAnBkS1 (http://imgur.com/aAnBkS1)

We will also see if we can have some former coworkers write recommendations for him on his LinkedIn account-

Korbman, I have confirmed that, in the case of late August/September shipping, more chips will be added per unit to provide the increased hashrate. In addition, pre-order funds will be kept separate from manufacturing funds in order to provide full refunds if the Alchemists are too far delayed (October or later).

Thanks to all of our investors so far!

The AlcheMiner Team wanted me to thank all of our investors so far - to date we have raised over 370 BTC on HavelockInvestments.com!

I also wanted to provide some reference for the power consumption announcement made earlier this week. Tom announced that the Alchemist only consumes 3W per MH/s (3 Watts per Megahash).

For those of you that may not have mined Scrypt coins before, a GPU Scrypt Miner normally consumes 300W - 500W per MH. Even the Gridseed ASICs that are currently on the market consume 7W per 350KH/s Unit, or 20W per MH - nearly 7 times more than an Alchemist unit!

An Alchemist 128MH/s unit will therefore consume approximately 384W or less - less than the power consumption of two standard Radeon R9 GPUs   :)

We welcome all questions, so please feel free to ask away!

Hi Guys,
I'm currently running an open Q&A thread (http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinStocks/comments/23dcn0/rbitcoinstocks_alcheminer_alc_question_answer/) on Reddit in /r/bitcoinstocks if any lurkers here have any questions about the IPO or the company.

Also, we should have some very positive news coming today or this weekend; stay tuned!

Order Update

To date, the IPO has raised over 2,300 BTC - a big thanks to all of our investors so far! The good news promised last weekend has been a bit delayed, but should be coming this week.

In the meantime, AlcheMiner is finalizing nearly $1,000,000 of pre-orders! Specifically, a customer from China has ordered $600,000 of AlcheMiner chips and a US-based customer has ordered $200,000 of finished Alchemist Scrypt miners! Both orders will have 100% deposits and are simply pending signed agreements.

In addition, another customer would like AlcheMiner to produce Scrypt ASIC miners on an OEM basis for them. In essence, the Alchemist miners will be-rebranded under the customer's brand and will be re-sold in that customer's geographical area. The customer's company is currently raising capital through through private investors and bank financing. Both AlcheMiner and the prospective customer have agreed on terms; the potential revenue from this order will be $2.5 Million - $5 Million! If/when the customer's financing is secured, the order will also have a 100% deposit.

Tom and Sophia are working tirelessly to finalize additional orders in the pipeline as well.

Development Update

Once AlcheMiner's capital has been raised, the tape-out will begin to TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). While capital is being finalized over the next week or two, the engineering team will be doing the final double-check on the IC design and double-checking that the chip's performance on a system level (software and PCB) before the tape-out. The team is taking advantage of this additional time to ensure that ALC customers will receive the most efficient product possible.

Thanks again to all of our investors!

Hi Jaymax - not sure if this was a question or just a quote for posterity, but this is still accurate. If the requisite capital isn't raised, then IPO investors will receive their funds back. It is possible that the company will raise additional funds outside of Havelock (to complete the funding) if necessary.

Hi AlcheMiner,

I understand your fund raising stage has been completed, are we able to get a tape out time frame (Estimated schedule of dates) and an up to date progress report?

Thanking you,
Red

Hi Red,
Last week the company closed a large deal, so Sophia and Tom are just finishing up the final details for that. The tapeout should begin soon and hopefully we'll be able to provide a more exact timeline in the coming days.

Thank you

Warning IPO is suspect to fraud

Private website
IPO posted by Havelock

The head of the company's own website does not work
http://www.chou-co.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi


http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Sophia-Chou/378088701

Employment History
Director of Marketing and Business Development
Alchip Technologies Inc       <-----------Why do you need the funding? http://www.zoominfo.com/c/Alchip-Technologies-Inc/1557113

Co-founder and Board Director and Vice President of Business Development
iLuminate Technology, Inc.
Co-Founder, Board Director, Vice President of BD
iLuminate Technology, Inc.

"Large Deal"
"begin soon"
"coming days"

Sounds legit.

mehehehe.. in comparaison, AM successfully taped out by the end of march.. it took them 3 months for testing and launching mass production of their chips.. now they sold part of it, but mining rigs wont come before another 2 months or so i'd say... so i'd guess you got 6 more months to go ;D

What is this "Large Deal" you speak off? Is it for pre-orders or is it a privet investor? (since required funds were not raised during IPO)

Do you at least have an ETA of when the tapeout should be complete (not begin)?

When you say "Coming days", do you mean within "Two Weeks^TM"

Thanks.

Hi hdbuck. I don't keep track of ASICMiner on a play-by-play basis as many do on the AM thread. However, I've been informed the given timeline is still realistic.


Kushedout,

Apologies for missing your PM from June 6th - the large deal is one that would raise the remaining funds not raised by the public offering.

I'm working with Sophia and Tom to see what additional information that I can release to investors. Be sure that as soon as I have information that I can disseminate, I'll be here with it.

While BFL's 'Two Weeks' comparisons are fashionable these days, do note that ALC hasn't missed any deadlines or hard dates set by the company. It is still early to mid June and the scheduled shipping date is July.

The team appreciates everyone's patience and understanding.

waiting for more info here. :)

^I can contribute:
If you were unfortunate enough to invest during the IPO, your shares are now worth ~1/2 of what they cost you.

~Happy investing

Hi culexevilman, thanks for your patience. I'm awaiting the go-ahead from the team to release additional information.  :)

Just in case anybody is wondering if they are "real", I have recently met Tom and Sophia at their office in Taipei.

And yes, they are considering immersion.

Are these dates still valid?

I bought too less shares, or I would like to visit them in person at 101 office too. ;D

Hi Guys, Just wondering if you have an update yet? or any news really,

Thanks
Red

Hi All,
Thanks again for your patience. AlcheMiner is happy to provide the following update!

• The multimillion dollar order that was referenced earlier has been closed and paid
• This pre-order payment made up for the lack of funds that would have been raised by the IPO and used for the payment to the foundry
• Chips have been taped out to TSMC
• Chips are expected to be delivered late July or early August
• Assembly will take three days, so shipping is expected in early August
• Luckily, the chips are expected to outperform initial specifications, so keeping the promised hashrate increase for August shipping should not affect the company's bottom line

'

Additional updates will be forthcoming!

three days assembling? for how many miners? reference PCB already done? tests?
its one thing to have chips taping out but its another to actually build miners out of them.
or am i missing something?

The reference PCB will be completed this month. With PCB ready, chips can be mounted on the PCB boards in three days.

im eager to see what august holds for alcheminer.. for a short while you held a higher share price than asicminer.

i noticed that one of your bullets says this
"This pre-order payment made up for the lack of funds that would have been raised by the IPO and used for the payment to the foundry"

was this a large pre order of machines to get funded, or was it a straight bitcoin investment towards the company( as in .14 btc per share )? i see that outstanding shares on havelock are at 83755 while the IPO only sold 22155 shares.

Since it is August 1, AlcheMiner wants to provide the following update for investors:

Currently, TSMC's capacity is very full. Therefore, we won't be able to get chips based on original schedule. However, we are targeting to do demo and start shipping before mid-August. Our vendors, including foundry and packaging houses, are working hard towards this goal. More details will be announced as they are available.


This was a large pre-order; the additional shares on Havelock were additional shares sold at the IPO price.

August is done. Is there anything coming or should we sell and get this over with?

Hi lophie,
I've been in touch with Sophia over the last few weeks; there is an announcement coming soon, sorry that I can't say more at the moment!  :)

Thanks to everyone for their patience! Here is the official announcement regarding shipping:

[AlcheMiner] Alchemist attains less than 10W per Mhs, shipping immediately!

Special promotion for the first 100 units – Don’t miss your chance!


09/08/2014  The Debut of Alchemist, a low-power green miner!

1.      The Debut of Alchemist: An ultra-low power Scrypt miner
Thank you for your patience! AlcheMiner is pleased to announce that Alchemist, our ultra-high performance, ultra-low power Scrypt miner, is now ready for shipment. We have two models available: (1) Alchemist 96Mhs; (2) Alchemist 256 Mhs. You can find more details from our website: www.alcheminer.com. You can also see our demo in the following links:
 
English demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q7KHmSiAbQ&feature=youtu.be

Chinese demo: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzc2NDcyMTUy.html
 
 
2.      The Age of Green Mining: Why go with a green miner?
We would like to promote the concept of green mining – mine with low-power miners to save not only electricity but also the earth! Our Alchemist offers such opportunity. There are at least three benefits to select a green miner like Alchemist:
 
(1)   Save electricity on daily basis!
(2)   Achieve longer product life: When other power consuming miners phase out, your Alchemist still lasts!
(3)   Save the earth!
 
Let’s embrace the age of green mining with the debut of Alchemist!
 
 
3.      Special Promotion for the First 100 Units!
To appreciate your patience, we are pleased to offer very special promotion for the first 100 Alchemists!
 
(1)   Alchemist 96Mhs: Only US $2,500 only! (50% off from original price)
(2)   Alchemist 256Mhs: Only US $6,500 only! (50% off from original price)
 
To be the first to take advantage of these special offers, please order from our website: www.alcheminer.com. Shipment is based on the order of your payment.
 
 
4.      The Offer of Scrypt-1 Chips: Let’s make green mining a reality!
To further grow the cryptocurrency industry, it will take collaboration among different parties across this sector. Therefore, AlcheMiner is glad to partner with other mining companies to make green mining a reality. If you manufacture Scrypt miners and would like to purchase chips from us, please contact us. We also have special promotion for limited quantity on our website: www.alcheminer.com.

even at 50% off these are way more expensive per MH then competition
or am i doing some math wrong?

Hi Stompysteve,
We actually find that the Alchemists are priced competitively for the market - these are in hand and ready for delivery; they are not pre-orders and they are very power efficient.

Many of the competition's miners are very power-inefficient compared to the Alchemists and we believe that this will be an increasing advantage as competition in the space increases. In addition, the Alchemists have exceptional build quality and reliability.

Thanks for your interest!

I just compared them to the fastest products listed on the GAW website.

GAW
Efficiency: 33.333 J/Mh
Cost per Mh: 13.888 USD per Mh/s
Value: 462.932 action $ per Mh^2 (Yeah, I'm just making these units up)

Innosilicon
Efficiency: 8.837 J/Mh
Cost per Mh: 40.697 USD per Mh/s
Value: 359.649 action $ per Mh^2

Zeusminer
Efficiency: 22.5 J/Mh
Cost per Mh: 21.498 USD per Mh/s
Value: 483.694 action $ per Mh^2

AlcheMiner
Efficiency: 8.594 J/Mh
Cost per Mh: 25.391 USD per Mh/s
Value: 218.201 action $ per Mh^2

(action = joule * second)

As you can see from the above numbers, AlcheMiner have the most efficient ASICs out of the bunch with Innosilicon having a similar efficiency. AlcheMiner costs far less per Mh/s though. My multiplying the efficiency and cost per Mh/s together you get the "Value" of the ASIC and Alcheminer destroys the listed competition in that regard.

I don't follow the Scrypt mining scene so I'm not sure what ASICs are available now. What competition were you comparing them too?

FTFY.  Yours is good too, though.

https://i.imgur.com/evcB4cr.png

AlcheMiner (http://www.alcheminer.com) September Sale

Great news for all of our prospective customers! AlcheMiner is having a limited time sale for new customers - all miners are in hand and shipping immediately!

AlcheMiner's Alchemist miners feature industry-leading efficiency and an extremely competitive price per Megahash rating. In addition, the miners are produced in Taiwan with chips fabricated from the world-class TSMC foundry, so their quality is unmatched.

AlcheMiner Alchemist 96MH/s Scrypt Miner
Was $2,500 - Now $1,500!

Ultra Lower Power Consumption: ~900W

$15.625 $/MH
9.375 W/MH


AlcheMiner Alchemist 256MH/s Scrypt Miner
Was $6,500 - Now $3,900!

Ultra Lower Power Consumption: ~2200W

$15.234 $/MH
8.594 W/MH

Standalone chips are on sale as well; see the site for more details.

To see more information or to purchase an Alchemist, visit www.AlcheMiner.com (http://www.alcheminer.com)!

Finally, come visit the AlcheMiner team at the BitcoinExpo China (http://bitcoinexpo2014.com/) this weekend - see you there!

https://i.imgur.com/xDyCiBB.png

Hi all,
In case anyone here is interested in Scrypt mining, I've recently received my Alchemist 96MH/s and posted an unboxing/review of it on the appropriate board:

AlcheMiner 96MH/s Alchemist Scrypt Miner Unboxing / Review (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=825673.0)

I figure that this is an appropriate time to let everyone know that I'm the acting Investor Relations Manager for AlcheMiner (AlcheMinerIR). At least one user has already made the connection, but there has been no conflict of interest so far, as I (twentyseventy) have not posting anything significant before today about AlcheMiner. I'm not a fan of alternate accounts (alts) and I don't plan to have any other identities besides possibly other IR/PR positions that I may be contracted for in the future. My background is in sales, marketing, and advertising so I sometimes contract out these services.

I'm in relatively constant contact with Tom and Sophia and they really are doing a great job - the product is very solid, in my opinion.

Future ALC updates will come under AlcheMinerIR (to keep everything clean) - 90%+ of the funding received by ALC was from investors outside of Havelock, but I will provide updates as they come to me, as all investors in the company are important.

Tom and Sophia are constantly working on sales to customers, especially to larger customers, so that is why there is not a lot of information being constantly disseminated. Competition is fierce in this space, so they do need to keep certain information private or proprietary - I am happy to relay questions and comments, but I'm not going to hound them for updates and I hope everyone can understand why.

I highly value my reputation here on the forums, as my success as BDD's Fund Manager requires a high level of trust; I would not associate myself with a company unless I was optimistic about its success and impressed with its owners (the recent difficulties with ABI are frustrating, but they are being taken care of by him and I have gone out of my way to personally address that).

Tom and Sophia are doing a great job and I want to do my part to assist the company; I didn't feel that I could do this while maintaining the divide between myself and my position as Investor Relations Manager.

Cheers-

Edit: Words

Can AlcheMiner clarify the relationship with Mining-asic-technologies?

It's kind of awkward when both companies are claiming to have designed the chip/hardware themselves.

I thought mining-asic-technologies was a scam?

It is most likely a scam IMO but they are apparently shipping the same hardware that AlcheMiner claims to have designed/manufactured.

Hi jimmothy,
AlcheMiner definitely designed its chips in house; we did the chip design and taped out to TSMC through GUC (Global Unichip) (http://www.guc-asic.com/). If anyone here has contacts at either of these companies, they're welcome to verify that independently.

Regarding the case design, it's becoming somewhat of a 'generic' design, so that's the reason for the similarity.

Personally, I'm happy with the quality of the case design - and I think it looks a bit sharper than the boxy Titans  ;D

That doesn't really answer my question.

What is Alcheminers relationship with Mining-asic-technologies?

The cases are not "similar" they are exactly the same and so are the hashing boards. Is MAT a reseller?

Sidenote: that's an incredibly lazy/wasteful design for the 96 mh/s miner. I'm sure you guys could slim it down to the size of a Bitmain S3.

Any update?

No comments/updates? From either AlcheMiner or Havelock?

By the looks of it just dead silence
No updates on their newsfeed since September either
https://www.alcheminer.com/category/news-english/

Hi guys,
I'm in contact with Tom and Sophia, they're definitely still out there putting in the work. I've asked for a status update to provide but they haven't provided any information for me to provide to investors.

And by this information you provided no information.

Hey guys I would like to share with you that I have nothing to share

Hi guys, I was simply trying to let you know that it's not just 'dead silence'.

As you know, I'm the IR Manager for the company - I'm here to be the go-between for them and the forum members here. This does put me at the disadvantage of not having all first-hand knowledge of all of the company's workings, so I'm only able to communicate the information that I'm provided. Anyone is still welcome to email the team directly at info@alcheminer.com as well.

As you probably know, a low BTC/USD price and a low LTC/BTC rate has made it hard to get a decent margin on the machines. In addition, the mask cost was high and that cost still needs to be recouped. Despite these issue, the company is still getting more customers and word of mouth is spreading. The company hopes distribute a dividend to shareholders in the future, but the initial outlay needs to be earned back first.

An update would be nice by now.

Chillax bro, read the first post in this thread.  Havelock is 100% behind this :)
You got nothing to worry about, this thing can't lose!
It's like money in a Panamanian shell the bank 8)

  ~Happy Investing!

This doesn't look healthy and now that the crotch-master(that is on the iggy list) has shown up, I'm almost certain that this has gone down hill. Are there divs still flyin into wallets or is this a bust as of now?

I spoke with Sophia just yesterday; basically the low BTC and LTC price has put the company in a holding pattern. Stock is waiting on hand for either of those rates to rise; luckily the LTC difficulty remains relatively stable for the moment.

^
OHAIthere friend.  What a small world!

Anniversary Sale, Part II: Buy 2 Get 1 Free!
 
Original promotion: US $1,499 for one Alchemist 256Mhs + $260 shipping fee
New promotion: Buy 2 Get 1 Free! (US $2,998 for three Alchemist 256 Mhs + $780 shipping fee)
 
To appreciate your kind support to our anniversary sale, we announce a new promotion plan: BUY TWO GET ONE FREE! In other words, you can choose to buy one Alchemist for US $1,499, or double the price and get three Alchemists! We strongly suggest that you take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before our limited quantity runs out! You can purchase from our website: www.alcheminer.com. 
 
If you have made purchase from our anniversary sale, don’t worry. This BUY TWO GET ONE FREE plan is applicable to your prior purchase too! For instance:
(1)               If you have acquired one Alchemist from our anniversary sale, you just need to pay for one more miner ($1,499) to get additional two miners (in addition to shipping fee for two miners, i.e. $520).
(2)               If you have purchased two Alchemists from our anniversary, you are eligible to get one more miner for free! You just need to pay for shipping fee $260 to get your third miner!
Please write to info@alcheminer.com to claim your right for this BUY TWO GET ONE FREE plan.
 
Thank you all! Happy mining!!!
More detail, please see our official website => https://www.alcheminer.com (https://www.alcheminer.com)

This thread is for the people that invested in your company, not customers wanting to buy your units. You haven't shown anything to the investors yet. How about the Anniversary Financials Parts 1 2 and 3
I sold my few shares for a small loss and am happy to be done with Alcheminer.

Curious what happened to the initial outlay, the February post said the company is still in a holding pattern
Can I assume the coins are still held and not being spent ?
(Oddly enough a better strategy considering the price kept dropping than buying equipment)

Yeah I am done with this as well, sold my shares for a small lose.  Matter of fact, I am done with Havelock.

Price seems too much for my liking considering what can pick scrypt asic miners up for now days. Might want to consider looking at other algos. If it was for some of the x algos or newer than I would consider myself but for scrypt mining only this is too much.

I actually bought into this during their IPO. I saw their Youtube videos, and I guess that itself was basically fraud.

I thought they already had physical miners and their designs, but I assume they didn't manage their money well.

I personally don't have the financial information, but it has been communicated to me that the IPO funds were used for the design and manufacturing costs. That was the point of the IPO overall; as a point of reference, nearly all of the funds (approximately 99.1%) were raised outside of Havelock.

With the demise of some Scrypt manufacturers and the consolidation towards cloud mining, AlcheMiner remains one of the few companies catering to the small and middle-size consumer. We're hoping that the sale, offering 768 MH/s for $3780 shipped will spur sales and provide a good cost basis for Scrypt miners.

Sounds so legit ::)

HERE IS HOW JAMES GRANT, OWNER AND OPERATOR OF HAVELOCK IS PART OF ASICMINER/AMHASH SCAM:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=989850.0

HAVELOCK robbeb me 170BTC BEWARE!

As you may have seen on Havelock, trade has been stopped. Below is an announcement from AlcheMiner - I've been proud to work with such a dedicated team and we wish everyone the best in the future.

I'll be instructing Havelock to perform the buyback; investors should expect to see that in the next 1-3 days.

To our investors:

Thank you for investing in AlcheMiner through Havelock Investments. We really appreciate your vote of confidence in our company and our technology. In the past year, our team has put in every effort to make this project a success. In this time, we completed our chip design and manufacturing and delivered our Scrypt miners as promised. The products proved to be very well made and generated very positive responses from our customers and the community.

However, as you know, the cryptocurrency market was hit hard over the past year due to low Bitcoin and Litecoin prices. In order to recoup investment costs, we had to sell our inventory at prices lower than originally planned. In early June, AlcheMiner sold its final unit and, given the current market conditions, we have decided to liquidate the company.

Since we deeply appreciate your investment, Havelock investors will be the first in line to receive their investment back. AlcheMiner will be paying back the full .14 BTC per unit.

While we wish that we could have provided a return on investment, it was very important to return the initial investment to you, our first investors. We are currently negotiating with our vendors and our angel investors regarding their liquidation payment.

Angel investors (outside of Havelock) will receive back an amount equal to or less than their original invested amount.

Due to the low LTC price, many miner manufacturers have gone bankrupt, leaving in their wake unhappy customers and investors. We are proud to have bucked this trend by both providing a great product to our customers and paying back our investors.

We here at AlcheMiner appreciate your understanding and we wish you the best in all your future cryptocurrency ventures.

- Sophia, Tom, and the rest of the AlcheMiner Team

Smart scam.

Assholes don't provide any updates, news or financial info what so ever, creating FUD in process, buying back shares along the way at fraction of the cost and once there is no more shares left, they announce a buy back so not to look like scum buckets.

GTFO