Here is the e-coin.io thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=917350.0

Bottom of first post contains some company and operator info. 
Admittedly, it looks a bit dodgy at first glance, a bunch of russians who incorporated in the UK using a bank in Gibraltar, but the guys have pretty solid credentials, they are using "mychoice" as visa provider, which seems to be a legit operation.

Anyway, Ive been using their card for a while too, and so far Im quite pleased with it and their service. Im just not ready yet to trust them with large amounts, but I wouldnt trust any visa prepaid card with that after the mbank fiasco.

Ive been testing e-coin.io's VISA card for a while now, and I like it.  But right now its only available as a US$ card and not for all countries, so check first.

Thats gotta be the most convincing video Ive ever seen. Convincing in that it proves its a scam.
Its exactly the same as the photo, just panned in a way that no one moves their camera. Its 720P but you can clearly see the source material is lower res, as its blurry as hell. They didnt even bother to rerender the scene, they just took the same bitmap.
Nothing moves, the fans are static, no light shimmering or reflections in the metal fan grills changing anywhere.

I was on the fence on whether or not the photo was a fake, but now I have no more doubt.

For the record, this is what a real mining farm video looks like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95JfYFIRPZU

More worrying is that the site is hosted on microsoft azure. Oh dear.

Not sure how you think a visa card is going to alleviate these problems. The card is denominated in US$, and each time you make a local purchase or withdraw money at an ATM, its the official exchange rate that will be applied. Im fairly sure you wont be able to withdraw US$ at an ATM there, nor can you make payments in $, it will all be in Bolivares at the official exchange rate.

A card like this might be handy if you want to make (internet) purchases abroad, but I suppose you'll have import taxes that make that about as pointless? or am I missing something ?

TBH, none of those arguments should have any substantial influence on price.

I do share your surprise at the relatively high price though, but for quite different reasons. We're half way through Q1, Bitfury should be really close to deploying their next gen 28nm chip - its already overdue, but "imminent" according to their CEO (who btw recently bought Allied Control, the submersion cooling company AM was working with). Spondoolies should have their next gen out in this quarter and of course AM themselves seem close to releasing their next gen. All of these devices (and quite possibly some others I dont know about from bitmain, avalon or others) should achieve around 2J/GH which will cause network speed to roughly triple even at todays price, pulling AM1 divs below zero.

THe only reason I see to buy AM1 is as a bet that all these next gens will fail to perform anywhere near stated specs, or fail to materialize in meaningful numbers within the next ~6 months. Not a bet Im willing to make.

The common definition of a ponzi: a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator.
That is precisely what you are describing. The reason you think PB was "not really" a ponzi is because you also (incorrectly) assume the plan was not to maximize ponzi profits, but actually pay out investors according to difficulty- which potentially could have worked. As in: heads I win, tails you lose.

The problem is that this was never even the plan. At least until one month prior to the collapse, the numbers clearly showed pb was still taking in more new revenue than it was paying out. So it didnt collapse because pb ran out of money, it collapsed because he ran out of new money,  he had maximized his profits.

IOW, it really was just a ponzi.

+1. Recently lost 1BTC due to blockchain.info's android app. For some reason, I think after an update,  it no longer accepted my PIn or password. Well, it accepts the pin, which should unlock the password, but then says the password is incorrect. No amount of reentering the pw solves it. The email backup that I thought I made when I set it up, was never sent, although that could have been user error.

Indeed, makes you wonder. Havelock charge 0.4% fees, right ? x 232 BTC = 0.9 BTC per week.
How many people can you employ; even in 'panama' for ~$200 / week ?

No wonder their server is as often down as it is up.

Oh really? I hadnt even tried as I just assumed it wouldnt work  (didnt work with these mbank cards).
Gotta try this, this would be very handy indeed.

edit: indeed, it works

Here is another fact: just about every single ponzi scam in bitcoin history (and there have been a few) "delivered".
Until one day, it no longer did.

you activate it on ecoin website. To get the cards pin you have to call mychoice, the phone number is plastered all over the card. You will need the card numbers and the date of birth you gave ecoin.

By voting you'd be denying another kid his bike.
How is that showing heart?

A real business with real real mining hardware could eventually steal customer coins (but could also be held responsible)
A (n anonymous) ponzi operation can only eventually steal customer coins (and can probably not be held responsible).

What percentage of the network do you think these guys can host? Looking at the pics, I would guess no more than a few percent, if that.  
Is that "centralization" ? IMO thats no more centralization than the fact a similar (or actually, higher) percentage of the network might -by pure chance- have been powered by the same electricity provider or ISP 4 years ago.

I think the Euro card would be higher priority to most.

One more thing, you should really edit the first post and put all the info thats spread out thoughout this thread concerning countries, fees, testimonials etc in there in an organised manner so people may stop asking the same questions. And you should put the name of your company in the subject line if this is going to remain the official thread.

Anyway, again kudo's for top notch support.

A minute is just fine by me.
But if you are going to launch your android app, you might want to give the customer a choice between "instant" and "normal" or something.
I could imagine queuing at an ATM and not wanting to wait a minute.
Well..  even then hardly,..

speaking of which, eta of the android app?

Thanks for the quick fix, but not quite fixed it seems.
3776 is now pending.

Well, took a minute or so, assuming you didnt intervene

And 30 minutes later I got a confirmation mail from mychoice that the card is loaded (also reflected on e-coin website).

I suspect pmatveev being online had something to do with that .