Ladies and gentlemen,

We've just launched pre-orders for our brand new product... the LittleFury! The world's fastest usb powered bitcoin miner :-)

I'd like to keep this thread reserved for Metabank related orders, so for more details, please visit:
1) Our website: https://bitcentury.io  (watch the latest video in the blog and also visit the store)
2) Our bitcointalk thread related to the LittleFury: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=258926.0

I'll also be sending out emails shortly to everyone with a brief update related to this
Cheers,
Luis

NOTE: This offer is now closed. We have decided a better business model for us is to offer the design for lease/license. So if you are interested in this, please contact us at info@bitcentury.io.
For our customers who ordered our LittleFury USB miner while orders were open, we fully intend to deliver them to you, and are in fact targeting an accelerated delivery schedule.
Thanks,
Luis
-----------
Hello everyone,

My name is Luis, and I am one of the co-founders of BitCentury.io, a new Bitcoin mining vendor. Today we're announcing our first innovative product, the LittleFury!
Before we get started on the details, we'd like to officially thank and congratulate BitFury for achieving what many thought was impossible - A very low powered and high speed ASIC done right, all by himself, with no prior ASIC experience, on the very first try, and in a very short engineering time frame. *Pure genius* by anyone's standards! Thanks BitFury, without your ASIC, our product offering would not be possible!

What are the specifications of the BitCentury USB PCB/Board?

The board will operate at 4.5W to provide a hash rate between 3-4Gh/s, which makes this the world's fastest USB powered bitcoin miner!
The hash rate is heavily determined by the operating conditions of the device (USB quality, Thermal characteristics, etc). The device is powered and provides communication via USB3 and will contain 2 (TWO) Bitfury 55nm ASIC chips.
Note: Our PCB will be CE certified.



What is your price?

We are charging 325$ USD to cover manufacturing, testing as well as shipping & handling. The 325$ USD includes shipping charges to your location (aside from any customs fees which may be applied by your country). All units will be sent out via DHL, and a multi-lingual manual will be provided.

Only send funds from a full wallet that you can prove you are the owner of. If you ever wish to modify your order a signed message will be requested verifying your ownership over the address which sent the coins.

How do I order?

You can order on our website via our store at https://store.bitcentury.io


When will units be shipped?

Devices will begin shipping in November 2013.


What if I want a refund?

We are currently not offering any refunds relating to pre-orders from these devices unless we fail to deliver your order by Jan 1st 2014. On this date, we will open up refunds for users who request it. You will be refunded your full bitcoin payment to us. To be clear, we will not be mining any customer sold products for more than a few hours before shipping. The mining will be done for quality assurance testing purposes so as to minimize any chance of us shipping DOA (dead on arrival) products to our customers. The reason for the Jan 1st, 2014 refund date is that in the event there are any delays outside of our control for the November 2013 estimated shipping time frame, we will still have some head room to make good on delivering your orders.


Thread Moderation Policy:
1. Keep it civil: We welcome all respectable comments and opinions; however, any rude/insulting posts will be deleted. Let's keep it friendly and civil please :-)
2. "Reserved" Posts: People making "reserved posts" usually intend to make a detailed comment at some point. To be clear, we don't accept reservations for products without payment in our store. So, if you don't edit your "reserved" post after a few days with some content, I will delete it just to keep the thread more legible. Thanks for your understanding.

This thread is reserved for upcoming BitCentury updates.

Excuse my previous post. I had to read up on how this all works.

Theymos,  I bid 1 @ 8.75. If kslaughter doesn't pay, I echo the words of the concerns of the users and strongly request you reset this auction for fairness. If you can't/wont do that, then I bid 2 @ 6.75.

Thanks.

Reserved... will likely be making a bit shortly... just catching up on thread and trying to understand rules.

Hello everyone,

We called Metabank again today, and had a long list of questions but didn't have much luck with the person answering the phone as they couldn't answer the vast majority of them, but we did manage to get *some* useful information.

Q1: At which stage of development is the Metabank mining equipment? Has the PCB design been completed? Are you testing final PCB yet? What can you share?

A1: I believe the PCB design is finished and sent off to various (PCB) factories, but not sure if agreement with one of them is finalized.

NOTE: If we look at Bitfury's recent post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=254996.msg2717867#msg2717867, we see a brand new design for a Bitfury PCB. I have confirmation from a 3rd source that this is indeed MetaBank's PCB. I was told it is 8 layers. Below is a picture of it.  Given Metabank sold 120GH units, we can assume they will hopefully be targeting 2.5GH/chip as there are 48 chips on the board (2.5x48=120). We believe 2.5GH should be do-able so long as proper cooling is provided. Also, another guy in a forum post elsewhere here managed to achieve 3.4GH/s, but only with a huge heat sink connected to the chip.

Given each chip is 7mm x 7mm, if you slap a ruler to your computer monitor (as I did ), then you can see this image appears to be to scale. With this, we can easily measure the board dimensions being aprox: (23cm tall x 32.5 cm wide) or ( 9.1" x 12.8" )




So, assuming the design is finished, and assuming there are no design flaws, and assuming the PCB manufacturing process as well as the assembly process proceeds without flaws, and they have already picked out their external box CNC milling etc, etc. Also typically, you first print & assemble a prototype board, then test it extensively, if all goes well, you give the order to mass produce. So it does seem indeed that an end of August delivery date *may* be possible under best case scenario; however, when there are complex boards involved, it is not uncommon to experience delays for one reason or another, so I don't want to get everyone's hopes up, but it does appear at least to be within the realm of possibility. When we asked them directly, this is what we got:


Q2: Can you give us any more precise date on when the boards will be ready for customers?

A2: It is still too early to say the exact date, as there are many steps left, so we can still only say Aug-Oct; however, maybe if you call towards end of this month we might have a better idea.


That's about all we got out of them, all our other questions they couldn't answer, but suggested we write them via email. We are going to do that in Russian (real Russian, not google's comedic transliterate). As soon as we get a reply, I will post answers - that said, we have written them a few times before, and maybe 1/3 times we get a response.  Questions are mostly of technical nature, so you guys can prepare and know what to expect. Here's some of the questions we had prepared:

1.Will there be a power supply capable of 110/220v?
2. Will there be an external case?
3. What is the targeted Watt power draw of the entire unit?
4. Can you guys start providing status updates on your website so everyone doesnt have to call you?
5. Will there be a box provided for the product that can be shipped internationally?
6. Will your device be CE, UL and RoHS certified?
7. Which software will come with your board? (i.e. cgminer?), if not, will it have an English interface?
8. Which communication method(s) will the board have:  Wifi, USB or Ethernet ?

Lastly, if you guys have any other specific questions you want to ask, maybe list them here, and we can try to ask them for the next time we call them / email them.

Cheers!
Luis

Correct. Sorry we recently stopped accepting wait list requests and changed the thread subject back to what it was originally "Metabank pre-oders ", we should probably change it to something more relevant to where we are at now to minimize confusion. We are not taking any more Metabank pre-orders at this time, as Metabank has not announced any more units for sale.  

As for the status of our previous Metabank orders, as has already been stated, Metabank has said they have not experienced any delays so far, but a more specific target delivery date has not been provided, they are still touting: Aug-Oct 2013.  

To provide a bit more clarity, once asic chips are in hand (and we know they have had them for about a month now at least, certainly before us), it can take several weeks to a couple of months to have a PCB designed from scratch. This depends of course on schematic and layout engineer experience, on complexity of the board, thermals/voltage/performance targets/error rates, amongst many other things. Then after design is finished, ideally access to PCB printing manufacturer is immediately available and depending on how many layers the PCB will have, whether it is double sided or not, what type of alloys are required, size of PCB and especially how many units need to be produced, this impacts PCB manufacturing time, but generally speaking it can be as little as 3-5 days upwards of a couple of weeks. Next comes the assembly process where ASICs and dozens of other components are put on the PCB boards. This is typically a 3-10 day process depending on similar factors - volume of boards needing assembly and inventory availability to all the dozens of components required to be put on the board are critical. If assembly company is missing 1 component it can delay things for a week or two easily. Lastly comes the external metal case design & milling and volume production which itself can also take a few weeks, although in theory it can be done in parallel to other processes, but can only be assembled after a PCB has been fully completed (PCB printing+PCB assembly). All in all, assuming Metabank had test alpha chips in mid June, August would be very ambitious date but not impossible, Sept should be realistic, and October should allow them some extra time in case at least 1 flaw was found and re-design had to take place which means going back to step 1 but only a couple of weeks to fix a design flaw instead of upwards of 2 months of starting from scratch.  In short, it is a relatively complex process, involving many many steps, requiring a wide range of skills sets and nearly always involving several 3rd parties who don't always meet their initial stated timelines - as has been evidenced by just about every single company out there trying to develop and sell ASIC mining gear.

While the above is a general idea of how things progress, actual timelines regarding where Metabank is at are entirely speculative at this point as  Metabank has not been very forward with where exactly they are.

On the news front, we are working on some really exciting stuff in the background that we will hopefully be able to announce in a few short weeks, but we can't really disclose any specifics right now (don't you just love cliff hangers?).

Cheers!
Luis

Yes and no. I once asked Bitfury the very same question. Here's his paraphrased response:

GDS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDSII

Reserved

Tacotime, what a pleasure to see you in our thread! This reminds me, I need to catch up on your MC2 Alt-coin thread (URL: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=169204.0). My initial impression was that it looked like a promising start to a real and improved alternative to bitcoin, as compared to all the other "clone-coins" out there (to use the polite terminology).

@fpgaminer: I'll let Nigel comment on that, since he's the one that will be handling the alpha chip testing.

Greetings,
Just another quick update. We can confirm that our Alpha chips are officially en route! ETA = Mon or Tues (depending on time zone).  In case you are wondering, the Bitfury alpha chips will allow us to:
a) Peer review and confirm the chip's functionality, hashing speed potential and power usage
b) Allow us to start thinking about possible PCB designs in the event Bitfury ever decides to sell chips like Avalon or BFL.

Have a great weekend everyone!
Luis

Hi guys,
We recently spoke with  Metabank and here's some information we'd like to pass on:

Q1: When will the machines be ready for delivery?
A1: In Autumn, around October.

Q2: We heard of at least 1 individual on Bitcoin forum that was selling Metabank devices after you announced Batch 1 was closed, can you explain this? Do you have any more units you can sell us?
A2:The batch is closed, we have not sold more equipment since we announce the closure.

Q3: Will your product be a bare circuitboard or will it ship in a case like avalon and BFL have.
A3: Most likely it will be in a case

Q4: Do you know if it will be dual voltage power supply? (110/220V). How many watts will the unit draw at the wall?
A4: Sorry, I don't know answers to either of those questions. We are not at that stage yet.

Q5: Can you explain if the interface from the computer will be USB or Ethernet?
A5: It most likely won't be connected to the computer, just the power plug. It's independent from the computer .

Q6: Yes, but how'd the computer intercommunicate with it? What's the interface?
A6: There'll be software for that

Q7: So it'll require special software to run from the computer? Which mining software? cgminer? something else?
A7: Yes. I can't answer questions like this yet. If I make a mistake, I'll leave you misinformed.

Q8: What is your estimate for when there might be a Batch 2? When is Bitfury getting Batch 2 chips from factory?
A8: I can't tell the exact dates at this point. Around the release of the Batch 1, we'll have understanding when the Batch 2 will be pre-ordered.

As we get more details over time, we'll do our best to pass them along. Right now, i'd say they're in very early stages of designing the PCBs, so obviously not all the details are worked out yet. PCB design can take a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on complexity, access to all the necessary equipment, engineering skill level, design flaws/re-starts, etc. Likewise for the chip assembly process on the PCBs, although that part can be done in about 5-10 days, depending on volume and availability of all the tiny components (aside from the ASICs).
Cheers,
Luis


PS. I'm a little behind on waitlist requests, but will try to get to those in the next couple of days. Thanks for your patience.

Hi guys,
It's been a few days since we've provided some updates. This is mostly because we've been busy dealing with some administrative work in the background. FYI, we have not yet received our alpha chips. It looks like the first ones went to individuals primarily involved in producing PCBs for Metabank and similar parties that were investors in Bitfury's chip manufacturing, so this is not a bad thing. There is apparently a larger set of chips already in Europe that will be shipped out to all the remaining selected testers such as our organization; however whilst we have no exact ETA we were told 2 weeks, about 1 week ago. So let's see what happens there. In the mean time, one of the Bitfury chips was sent to zeptobars.ru, which is a site that apparently analyzes chips under high zoom optical microscopes.

Here's the relevant eyecandy:

QFN packaging - execellent for thermal performance and low inductance connection to leads:


Chip without the packaging - tiny! This plus low voltage operations, should make for some awesome USB hashers one day.


If we correctly understood some of the Russian postings, bitfury's chip will have over 700 cores (crazy). This is a good thing in the sense that for example, with BFL chips there's 16 cores (avalon I think has 1? Correct me if I'm wrong). If during the manufacturing process dust or other particles get in the die's surface, it could cause a core malfunction. This is why on some BFL chips, some people are saying that one BFL device performs slightly slower than another, because 1 or 2 cores may have been damaged. When you have 700+ cores, the hashing rate differential will be less noticeable. To be clear, this picture does not show identifiable cores.


Nano art on the chip. Apparently Bitfury had some spare time on his hands ;-) Surprised it wasn't a bitcoin symbol or the logo from his FPGA website: http://bitfury.org.


Etching materialization


Repetitive pattern of hash calculation blocks:


55nm is at least 5 times smaller than what we can see in optical microscope, so not all details are visible

How's this for more Bitfury news...

Bitfury started an open bet here: http://bitbet.us/bet/450/bitfurys-asic-will-work-with-power-1/

...and placed 99 BTC of his own money on the YES side. The Yes side meaning that he if he didn't deliver less than 1 W per GH/s per chip by June 15th, 2013, he'd lose his coins to the opposing betters.

Well June 15th came and went, and he missed the deadline by a few days, so he lost the bet from a time perspective. Now a few days later his chip is proven to be working and supposedly exceeding the power/Gh numbers, and so he is actually paying out everyone else who bet on the YES side who believed in him - something he never had to do.

More details here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228677.msg2516092#msg2516092

Genius + high integrity = Awesome! 

Hi guys,
I should have added this yesterday, but have been crazy busy recently. Bitfury claims his chip is fully working! That means actually hashing too, not just passing necessary voltage tests and what not.  If you have been following any of the ASIC developments in the past year or so, this is extremely impressive in the sense Bitfury is only self-taught, and learned and designed a 65nm ASIC pretty much all on his own in a very very short time frame. When I met Yifu at Bitcoin2013, even he mentioned that Bitfury was a crazy genius guy (paraphrase), but now we may very well have proof of this.

But it gets even better. According to him, his chip may even outperform his own pre-testing estimates for speed/power consumption. Before we all break out champaign bottles and do a little dance, it's better to get peer confirmations of this, or even better, wait until we get our alpha chips (ETA aprox 2 weeks from now) and verify all the claims for ourselves, but if true.... WOW!

Here's the relevant post from Bitfury in Russian. Use Google Chrome to translate.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=183368.msg2515577#msg2515577

Cheers,
Luis

PS. For those that purchased pre-orders, if you haven't yet sent me your service agreements, it would be great to get them by end of day Friday, as I should have time this weekend to process them all on my end.

Hi gateway,
The Batch 1 of orders from Metabank is officially closed. Anyone can keep an eye on any possibility of more orders/batches opening up from Metabank in two main ways:
I encourage anyone interested to bookmark the 2 links below and check daily, and flag us if you see anything opening up. We are also checking daily, but it doesn't hurt to have more eyeballs scoping upcoming opportunities:
(use google Chrome for translation from Russian->English)


1) Their website: https://metabank.ru/asic
2) Metabank.ru's posts here on bitcointalk.org: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=14120;sa=showPosts

Since there is currently no way to accept new orders, we are simply setting up a wait list, which costs nothing to sign up for. See details here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=226846.msg2467253#msg2467253

Cheers,
Luis

Hi Kev7112001,
No, I don't believe it is. We are referring to: http://metabank.ru, a Russian company.
Cheers,
Luis

I can now, they were all emailed this evening. Thanks for your patience everyone. I thought I was going to be able to get them out earlier but 'life' happened.
Kind regards,
Luis

Foofighter, you're welcome.

So the latest update is that 'punin' (the guy who flew from Europe to Taiwan to get Bitfury's chips from the factory), was not able to adequately test the chips in Taiwan. In short, he experienced some problems with the testing process, but not necessarily the chips.  There are many different ways to test ASIC chips from basic to advanced functionality. Some are very fast and crude methods that may in fact fry the chips being tested, to a wide range of ever more elaborate and safer methods that simply take longer because they require very specialized tools and may require test boards or even purpose designed PCBs... all the way to end to end testing which would actually require all software at all levels to be completed, and thus allow for a demonstration of bitcoin hashing.

Lacking the necessary tools in Taiwan, and possibly skill level, punin has already flown back to Eastern Europe and has handed the alpha chips to Bitfury late yesterday. Bitfury is thus in the process of doing some tests himself, and it looks like he may already have a PCB available by 'intron':



Since the June 15th bet is now off the table, individual testing/proof (by people, other than Bitfury), is now less of a concern and so we await Bitfury's test results.

Cheers,
Luis

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to let you know that I finished replying to everyone who had requested to be put on the waitlist so far. If you somehow didn't get an email from me yet, then please email me (not pm) your original email requesting to be waitlisted, and I will make sure you are in the right spot on the list, but I am pretty sure I got everyone.

Tomorrow, I hope to start emailing customers their sales contracts, although everyone hopefully already has had a chance to read them from my previous forum post.

On the Bitfury ASIC update front, we haven't much new to report. I don't believe that as of right now, there's been any confirmation either way of the preliminary test results, although it does look like Bitfury may have missed his bet deadline for June 15th.

Hope you're all having a great weekend...ideally not glued to the screen like I have been all day :-)
Kind regards,
Luis