Manufacturers often collaborate on projects. Intel and AMD have worked and continue to work together, automotive manufacturers, ect. Knowledge is truly power. Glad to see the MyRig partnership was announced!

Keep us in the loop as you can Scott

It is exciting, and mortifying at the same time. I compare the feeling to the early avalon batches along with the first KNC Miner batches. I was not this excited about BFL or the initial Bitmain orders. Honestly, if Scott had not lived close to me so I could test these prototypes out and meet him in person, I would not order this until it was confirmed. As such, I suggest everyone to do their due diligence. I've done mine, and have made up my mind. If you are on the fence, visit him and check out the miner in person! Otherwise, just let others take the risk and confirm if it actually pulls through or not. I hope it certainly does, as the market could use some healthy competition. Competition always makes manufacturers be leaner on all aspects, which is better for the consumer.

Hi everyone,

As promised, I did visit Scott today at his home. I want to thank Scott for inviting me to his home, he has a great family and he was pleasant in person. I spent about right under two hours discussing with Scott his history and connection to Halong Mining. From a personal perspective, I did a fair amount of vetting on Scott, and he definitely checks out as a local with a substantial backhistory. I personally am a very private individual, and I would not share the amount of information Scott shared about himself to the general public. I commend Scott for putting his neck out to this level, this is certainly not something everyone can do.

I was able to witness the machine in person. The form factor is similar to the S9, but there were some distinct differences in the machine, such as indicators. Scott also removed the control board for me and I inspected the control board, which it did not appear to be a S9 board, although it appeared similar in form factor as well. Scott did not allow me to disassemble the unit to view the interior, but it was a 3-chain ASIC from visual inspection. The power consumption was checked with consumption monitor units Scott had on hand, which did reflect accordingly when Scott turned the units on and off.

Scott requested I do not take photographs of the unit or certain parts of the mining interface, which I respected. I reviewed the settings on one of the units, and it did indeed match up with the assigned IP address we were accessing the miner.

Scott indicated there were big announcements due later this month, some of which he shared with me. I will respect Scott & Halong and let him discuss that in this thread if he wishes to do so.

I pulled up my post on the forums and took a screenshot of my laptop next to Scott's:


While I did not fulfill my objective of disassembling the miner and fully documenting the interior parts, I visually was able to confirm that miner was there, existed, and was accurate to the specifications sheet advertised.

Some things I cannot completely verify. For instance, I do not know the exact communication in writing Scott had with Drak aside from what he verbally told me. I do not know what is inside the miner exactly, with reference to the ASIC chains. I understand how competitive this market is, and I also could understand certain subversive elements to control the market, which I can respect the discrete nature of not allowing such details to be publicly available.

What am I personally doing? I am readying my cold wallet to withdraw funds to make a bulk purchase from Halong. I personally feel comfortable making a large purchase with what I have seen. I'll likely make a separate post about my journey with this pre-order and document the fulfillment experience. If I lose it, it's a small portion of my net worth in cryptos, and I'm able to share my experience. I feel with btcDrak's history, the significant other individuals that have commented on this hardware, that it is a legitimate source of future mining hardware. My suggestion to everyone is DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE IN RESEARCHING THE COMPANY! Visit Scott and check out the hardware yourself. There is no guarantee to anything in life, aside from taxes and death. Every time I've placed big orders with Bitmain, I always think of a scenario where bitcoin miners are banned, or something happens to my miners that I've already paid for. This will be no different with my order with Halong. I'm normally a big purchaser of Bitmain products, but that will be on hold for this year as I take this plunge with Halong.

I'm both excited for the prospect -- this reminds me of my first Avalon purchase, and the same level of excitement I had from KNC when the Jupiters rolled around. I am at the same time mortified that there always exists a chance of my investment turning into nothing. I'm very glad that I'm close to Scott in proximity, he's literally 25 minutes away from me.

I understand this may not ease a lot of minds about Halong, but I invite you all to follow me in my journey as I place a large bulk order with Halong soon.

I wouldn't have known about Scott and his proximity to me if it wasn't for the community here and his responses, I'll certainly try to get as many details as I can to provide.

Personal choice. I've been pretty busy. The only reason why I'm interested in this is how close Scott lives to me, and I'm also pretty interested in mining developments. I've also been a victim in the Alpha Technologies scam, so I can understand the apprehensive nature of a new company that takes orders in a similar fashion.

I also understand that it looks unusual for an old account to suddenly come out of hibernation, so I went ahead and I signed one of my old addresses which I posted in a giveaway back in the day found here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255437.msg3558892#msg3558892.


Again, I've got no skin in Halong whatsoever. I've been pretty devout with Bitmain in the last few years. I look forward to seeing Scott and Halong's prototype in person, and I'll report back here once that is done with my summary of my findings.

If anyone has any suggestions of what they'd like to see from my visit, I'm all ears. I had a few things in mind that I feel would be helpful to the community

I've been in touch with Scott and have made plans to visit him early this upcoming week - he's actually way closer to me than I originally thought.

I look forward to meeting Scott and checking out what he and Halong are all about!

As a disclaimer, I don't have any skin in this with Halong - I don't have any preorders with them nor have I been promised/offered anything at all. I've not known of Scott prior to this thread. I'm visiting Scott because of how close he is to me and my interest in the mining field. I've been mostly exclusive with Bitmain in my mining needs in the last few years.

Scott - I've reached out to you via text from my local number. I'm about 25 minutes from you and would love to meet up with you.

I've preordered tons of miners in the past -- from the first Avalon batch, theKNC Jupiters, to the most recent batches of S9s. Would love to see what Halong has in store!

Are the new units fire resistant? I'd still want them hashing under those circumstances. Maybe add an automated underclock option.

How much longer will the black Friday "Sale" last?

Will the current pricing be the new norm?

Pretty disappointed with my RMA experience with Bitmain. It's been over a month since a RMA/Label was promised for my defective S3 hardware (1 chain, 2 control boards, out of 16 total S3s) and there's no response. Time to write another email, hopefully they can expedite the process.

Mmm.

Thanks for the tips, but still getting 25% HW errors and underperformance.

Following has been attempted:

Different PSU, cables. Flashed the firmware, still nothing. I inspected the unit, cross referencing it to one that works fine, and there were no discrepancies.

Going to contact Bitmain about a replacement, hopefully they'll make it right.

First time BM purchaser! Got my 8 S3s today, 7 run like champs around 441ish, although I have one that has a massive 25% HW errors, hashing at about 60-65% of what it should be doing. Any ideas?

http://s15.postimg.org/rfrh5roc9/S3limp.jpg

Rest of my CA orders switched to in progress.

One of my early orders are listed in progress now. 

It'll require 5 PCI-E cables for those wondering. Should see news either tomorrow or Wednesday.

In response to KnC's announcement on the LTC miner, alpha-t.net released their own statement, upping each one of their machines from 25MH to 90MH (9k/piece)

There's also other information in the statement.

https://alpha-t.net/news/big-announcement/

It's too bad KnC doesn't make similar updates on the Neptunes.

I disagree that it completely wiped out the Neptune. I'm glad there is more competition out there to make the market more competitive, it ultimately drives companies to deliver more.

Here's a calculator I utilized to cross reference 3 Bitmain miners to the Neptune batches.

This assumes the following variables:
625 USD/BTC
15% increased difficulty per jump, decreasing by 3% every jump
1% BTC/USD increase per jump.
Advertised hash rates.
32 jump calculations.
On the Neptune batches, an additional 500$ is added to reflect PSUs.
Bitmain S2 (Second Batch) begins hashing 4/12
KnC CA batch delivers hashpower/miner 4/12, and every additional batch 3 jumps later.
Public Batch hashing 5/18
Second Public Patch Hashing 6/23

Bitmain S2 3x
Neptune CA
Neptune Public Batch 1
Neptune Public Batch 2

Conclusion on the above:

The CA batch will outperform the Bitmains due to power consumption.
Neptune Public batches fall short on expectations. It would be more better off to buy and hold BTC or go with Bitmain (which is sold out already)

Additional Consideration:

The warranty period on the Neptunes is a full year. This beats Bitmain's 90 days on the S2 *(I can't see warranty information for either the S2 or Neptune, I am assuming they will match their previous products)
In the long run, at today's prices, the Neptunes will be unprofitable at around 123B difficulty. The Bitmains will be unprofitable around 93B.

The unknown:

We're not exactly sure when KnC will deliver their hashpower. 11% power reduction has been announced, but nothing set in stone about how much it would push out. I personally think it will be at least a 4 TH unit, with consumption around 2500 watts, in which case the first Public batch would be better than Bitmain, but the third batch will still be lagging behind.
Obviously, the market can crash, to earth or the moon.

Final thoughts:

The CA batch should be a great investment. I'm holding my orders. My advice to the consumers of public batches is to hold on and wait for more information on the Neptune along with paying close attention to the market. Do your due diligence.

This next month will be a damn fun ride, that's for sure. Happy mining everyone!

A competitor for Litecoin rigs, Alpha-t.net, has 25Mh at <=300 watts. I'd say if the Titan was a 20nm rig it would be around 800-900. Each 25Mh unit was priced at 8900ish, with a June/July shipping date.

I also don't think they're trying to get rid of Neptune preorders. If they did, they wouldn't reoffer them on their website (as of this writing, 4 were in stock)

The announcement definitely got the other companies riled up. I'm sure similar announcements from Bitmain and other manufacturers get KnC worked up too.


https://twitter.com/UkAlpha/statuses/446281608702988288

Are they allowing shipment of hosted miners? I think those contracts are expiring. If not, they should soon. Shipping @ 100-270ish