The real question is: was he involved with the IPO? Its no crime contracting theseven or others to work on a chip nor to ask RFQ to a fab to see if its feasible. As pretty much everyone seems to agree on, this almost certainly started as a legitimate experiment. Its only when they collected 7000 BTC on a pack of lies and subsequently decided to run with it that it became criminal. Was Fabr involved in any of that? Remains to be seen, but Ive seen no evidence. AFAIK Theseven was contracted post IPO and my guess is Fabr didnt do a thing related to it after starting work at zopo. All involvement Ive seen even predates the "labcoin" name.

As for his sister, thats another matter. It could have been Alberto posing as her, I simply do not know. I dont even know if there were still together at that time or even now.

The very first post of user labcoin, dated May uses the "Samuel Noi" alias:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=209553.msg2195210

As for the chatlog, it was probably from well before the IPO, when the venture was most likely still legit. Moreover whoever was claiming to be Fabr on IRC may not have been Fabr. Isnt that the same chatlog where "sam"/alberto claimed to use allesi's handle or something? Either way, someone using Fabr's name on IRC (if even that gets confirmed) from before the IPO time, by a scam artist that has been hiding behind the same ID ever since is hardly compelling evidence.

As the saying goes, follow the money. "sam" (ie Alberto) is the one who received it. If he cut in Fabr or others then they will have to answer for that, not for their names being abused on sheet full of lies. If anything at this point TheSwede is far more demonstrably complicit than Fabr and he does have legal liability (providing material support to public selling of unregistered securities is a crime and makes him as liable as Alberto) - regardless of how much or how little he knew.

Congrats, looks very interesting. Out of curiosity, how big is your first batch, and what kind of production volume do you hope to achieve?

For the record, Im going to put everyone with an advertising signature so bright and obnoxious that it requires sunglasses on ignore. Nothing personal fubly, just getting sick of all the gambling/HF/whatever ads and tons of nonsense posters posting solely to monetize their signature space.

Most likely because it was actually true that Fabrizio contacted a fab and talked to Howard Wang, but never pursued the opportunity because it wasnt one. This would have happened well before labcoin, the IPO and before ALberto got involved. Alberto exploited that to give a veneer of credibility to his scam. As for scammers having morals.. lol.


See above. As for leading right back to alberto, this was so 'obvious' no one found out for many months.


Because he got an actual job and an actual life? Most of what I found of fabr online is when he arrived in shenzhen and was looking to make local friends there. Not that weird. He's been there for a while now. As for staying low now, I know I would.


Its not the first thing I would do if I found out my brother in law, and possibly sister where involved running a large scale scam that involves my name. Especially not in China. Would you? Besides, he would have known Alberto took over the "business", may not even have objected to that being described in the "company history",  but that doesnt mean he was still involved or had anything to do with it since the IPO.


AFAIK, "Sam Noi" alias has been around for as long as labcoin as "nominee director" for labcoin. And whats more, you seem to agree with me that this probably started as a legitimate even if naive attempt. The key issue is when the money was raised and by who. I see no reason to believe Fabr still had anything to do with it at that point, I strongly suspect that was Alberto and Alberto alone (perhaps with Alessi) posing as "Sam Noi". If fabr had still been involved, do you really think he would let his real name, linkedin profile etc be published while letting Alberto use an alias?

Hank missed a crucial little detail: DnT's list is anything but exhaustive and "??" does not equal zero.

For instance I dont know how many Monarchs BFL is going to ship, but I do know it will very much be a non zero number. There are also no known numbers (and no estimates) for KnC post November, or hashfast post december, Cointerra post January,  but somehow I doubt all these companies will close shop and retire. Particularly for next year, the list should be considered a minimum minimorum, its basically what we know but for the most part it doesnt contain estimates for "known unknowns", let alone unkown unknowns (think 28nm Bitfury chips or similar surprises).

edit: as illustration of my point, here is another "surprise":
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=330665.0

No word yet of what volume they could achieve, but it looks fairly legit and specs are on par with Bitfury.

Sure, your miner will be profitable if:
- You are about the only one who thinks it will be profitable at those prices. If too many others think like you, they will order more miners and thereby reduce profitability until it no longer is profitable. Quite likely so many thought like you they have already ordered so many miners it will not be profitable for anyone.
 AND
- Cointerra sees no reason to lower prices even if you are their only customer, despite the fact they have a >1000% gross margin, oddly they would rather sell nothing than sell at 500%

OR

- none of the asic vendors are able to meet market demand, thereby limiting supply and keeping difficulty artificially low, but for some reason, *you* are able to get your hands on your terraminer anyway, even when other people dont.

As for that 500% diff increase by March. Heh.

Historical Difficulty Increase
30 Day   170 %
60 Day   488 %
90 Day   906 %
http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/

That happened before Hashfast, Monarch, Cointerra, Bitmine, ActM, Black Arrow even shipped a single 28nm unit. And before next gens from Bitfury, Avalon and Asicminer.

Im pretty sure fabr indeed knows who his brother in law is. And Im sure he will be questioned (and should be), but lets not nail him to a cross just yet, when its entirely plausible, even more likely, his name was simply abused.

IANAL and Im not sure if that would be argument enough (I dont even see it on the website anywhere?), but Im merely pointing out it may not be as straightforward as some people think. A ToS provision does not supersede law and doesnt make a visit to a lawyer by definition pointless.

Why is that exactly? Since when does the burden of proof lie with a defendant?
The only contract fabr may have signed is one between his company and a fab. He is bound to that contract, but I have no reason to believe he violated that NDA.

AFAICS, he has made no contract with you or other investors, has no obligation or (legal) liability whatsoever. Alberto could have put Bill Gates name as CEO of the company and called the company "Labcoin Inc / Microsoft" in his prospectus, link to Microsoft.com, BIll Gates Linkedin profile  and publish a sales contract with MS (for the purchase of a Surface tablet) and you think that somehow makes Gates liable or burdened to prove anything?

Just because hashfast (or BFL) puts something in its ToS, doesnt mean its legally binding. For instance:

No written contract for the sale or purchase of consumer goods, entered into on or after the effective date of this section, to which a consumer is a party, shall contain a mandatory arbitration clause.
..
The provisions of a mandatory arbitration clause shall be null and void.  

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/GBS/26/399-c

He's "ceo" of a company that most likely had (almost) nothing to do with labcoin, or barely more than TheSeven or Howard Wangs billing companies - should they have any. You didnt buy shares in iTec-Pro (which appears to be a non active shelf company anyway), you bought shares in a scam.

Maybe Fabr is more involved than Im inclined to believe, but his name and company name appearing on Alberto's sheet of lies is not enough for me to crucify him. I suspect he was asked merely to sign the fab NDA/toolkit/RFQ/ or whatever they did sign,  because they needed a legal entity to be able to just talk to the fab. Thats a fairly small favor to ask your brother in law, Im sure we have all done similar thing to avoid VAT or whatever.

If Im wrong about that, so be it, but Ive not seen credible evidence that he was more involved, or aware, nor that he even made any money from this.

alberto appears to be fabrizzio's (ex?) brother in law. Alberto may have been married to /involved with, his sister, allessia.
For no real reason other than gut instinct, I do happen to believe fabrizio got duped himself and may be in a very awkward situation now, especially if the involvement between alberte and allessia is still ongoing and even more if allessia is herself involved in this scam.

(That doesnt mean we should let Fabrizio protect the people that are involved, but keep it polite).

If you put that iban code in the above website, does it check out as a valid IBAN code, from the correct bank?
I would very much doubt bitcurex would block other cards, I dont even think they could know the iban is from a card.

What's the ICBP port on those pics ?

Anyway, my 2 cents: from the POV of a miner, these are great looking units for a reasonable price compared to the competition (at least for those with really cheap electricity).

From the POV of a shareholder, these look terrible. 96 (right?) asics for $328  ~$600 including nice case, 7 PCBs, 6 heatsinks, fan and assembly. Thats ~$6 per chip on average. Profit margin on this box cant be more than a few dollars, Im actually amazed they can make them for that price.

(edit: updated correct price, its 1.49 BTC from cchan, which is still not very expensive)

Just putting PL in front doesnt work. Im pretty sure your iban code was incorrect. Test (and generate) here:
http://www.ibancalculator.com/
 

Unless this is confirmed by Ken to be otherwise (ie, paid in full, BTC or otherwise), Im going to assume this is a fake order. Cant imagine spending $1M and paying list price.

FWIW, to see accepted payment options and delivery cost, the only way I found is entering a 'fake' order, so you can already deduce my $996 order from the November revenue, because I have no intention of paying for it.

Did you contact Meni Rosenfeld about this? He is (was?) supposedly trying to get some money back from Alberto regarding his bitdaytrade scam:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93445.0

He may or may not have recent contact information

You wrote this on the 23rd:
"The good news is that the silicon, arguably the more complicated part of the design, is right on track. "


And yet 2-4 weeks after promised product shipment to customers, you proudly post a first picture of a bare (ok,'packaged' lol) wafer. How could it have been on track?

You are screwed then. Or you get lucky if it goes up. Either way, that is no different than with other bitcoin escrow services, using multisig just eliminates the risk (and potentially, cost) of using an escrow agent.

If you would like escrow transactions that are protected against BTC price swings, thats something you should talk about with bitpay. It could be an interesting service for them, but Im not aware of them offering that yet.