Note: We are migrating Mail Servers right now (3:00PM PST)... please wait until we give go-ahead for any additional waitlist requests.

Edit: As of aprox 3:45PM PST mail should work for most people. If you get a failure to deliver message to: waitlist@bitcentury.com, please just try a bit later until DNS propagates around the internet.
Thanks
Luis

For those not wishing to read the entire (very amusing) saga. The TL;DR version is this:

1. The Chips have been acquired from the factory in Taiwan
2. Punin is already trying to test them on a PCB (presumably to address Bitfury's online bet which expires in just a few hours!)
3. Bitfury has privately acknowledged that BitCentury will be getting Alpha chips for testing and punin already has Nigel's shipping address in Australia! We will be posting pictures/videos etc as soon as we get them, but it's realistic a few days away, likely next week some time before we actually receive our alpha chips.

In the mean time, here's some pictures from punin's blog that might be of interest:

Speaking of getting Bitcoin related work done fast and across the globe, some of you might interested in the status of Bitfury's ASIC. On this Finish blog (use google chrome to translate to English), you can follow punin's adventure as he flies from Europe to Asia to acquire BitFury's chips from the factory, to then distribute them to all sorts of countries around the world for hard core engineer alpha testing.

https://bittiraha.fi/content/matka-alkaa

Enjoy!
Luis

Hi Foofighter,
We initially looked at incorporating in Canada, but once we sat down with our lawyers, we realized it made no sense given our staff thus far is already in 4 different countries, and will likely expand in the future to others as well.  We are not a typical operation primarily based in 1 or 2 countries. While today we are looking at shipping from Russia, tomorrow it could be designing PCB boards out of Australia, designing power components out of Taiwan, PCB printing and assembly from China and running a website out of Finland. Then 1 year later it could all change. So maximum flexibility will be key to being competitive.

Further, what is considered local for me as a Canadian, is considered offshore for the other business partners and potential future investors.
Likewise incorporating in the USA in certain states is considered 'offshore' from the perspective of many other countries. Even more so when incorporating in Russia. As such, since we would be considered offshore no matter where we incorporated, we then considered various countries to incorporate in that would be more or less neutral to any of our current and future business partners, investors and ventures. With this, we considered a location that was historically stable and then obviously, it made sense to consider corporate tax neutrality which we see as benefiting everyone involved including our customers due to retail price impact, granted individual import/duty taxes may still apply.

Bahamas was only one of many options, but we settled with this one as it could be done reasonably fast, inexpensively and our lawyers already have years of experience in incorporating other companies there without any issues.  To be clear, we are not trying to weave a complex web of offshore companies and tax structures to obscure what we are doing as has been popularized recently in the media with big conglomerates like apple, google, starbucks, etc. Sorry, we have no time or any interest in this,  we're just a bunch of engineers trying to get work done as fast as possible as anything Bitcoin related seems extremely time sensitive, as such being able to get things done FAST without a lot of bureaucracy was our #1 consideration.

Hope that helps,
Luis

Hi guys,
On the subject of waitlists for Metabank Bitfury Orders:
Thanks for your continued interest. We are not aware that Metabank has officially come out and stated that they may have additional units for sale should some of their potential customers from batch 1 not pay within a week. We believe this information is being propagated by at least 1 individual on bitcointalk.org with possibly questionable motives, but in short, we cannot confirm the validity of what is being claimed either way.  That said, it is not outside the realm of possibility. Do let us know if you find a reliable source of this information.

This situation is one possibility, but there are others which may eventually result in Metabank selling more units - or not! Odds are, *IF* the BitFury ASIC passes tests successfully first time, and *IF* Metabank is just holding off on those test results before selling more devices (likely at a higher price than before), then we might as well be ready, but really, do consider they many never sell units again, or at least not in the short term.

What Bitcentury will do then, is organize a product tracking waitlist of sorts,  wherein people that are interested in eventually buying units can email us (See email below, please don't PM me on here), and I will add you to the list.  There is no money/bitcoins involved in this, and so this is not a pre-order, but rather a waitlist for a possible pre-order. As such, we offer ZERO guarantees of any kind.

We will simply try our best to be ready to buy more units *IF* and when they sell them again.  If they do sell them, we will announce our selling price at the time and then you can judge whether or not you still want to commit to the purchase.  You will be given 24 hours notice once we have confirmation and emailed you that we can purchase more units, and nothing would be official until you actually send us the bitcoins to secure your queue order (later to be followed by a signed service agreement).  Failure to send us the bitcoins within 24 hours of notification will result in you losing your place in the queue to the next order/customers.
  
Please be sensible with your requests. Anyone asking for more than 10 units, we may require some proof you actually have the bitcoins/funds to pay for such an eventual order.
Those that have already contacted us and we have replied to you in one form or another (if unsure, please email us as per below), you will be automatically added to this list, and we will contact you over the weekend with your place in the queue & how many units.  

So, if you are interested in being on a waitlist please email: EDIT: The waitlist is now closed, so email was removed

With the following info:

EMAIL Subject: Waitlist request: Name, # units, June XX, 2013

1. Your BTC Source Wallet Address:  
2. First/Last Name:
3. Address:
4. City:
5. State/Province:
6. ZIP:
7. Country:
8. Phone:
9. # of Units:  
10. Your Email Address:

Thanks,
Luis

Hi oaxaca,
Even the brightest make mistakes. Feel free to offer a better value service. Competition is a good thing.
Cheers,
-Luis

Hi Foofighter,
Good question. What you might notice in the contract is that some clauses got removed and others simplified. We were advised not to over commit, and especially not to be too specific where possible to allow for maximum operational flexibility.  In regards to the mining, our intentions are the same as before, but we were advised not to include the details in the contract. Imagine a situation where one of our staff was making copy/paste or typos in the destination BTC address and all the mining proceeds from your machine went to somebody else? Imagine we didn't discover this until later after many customers were affected. Our lawyers thus advised to remove these clauses to limit our liability as well. On a similar note, I think is important we also state publicly that from the 57 machines we've purchased from Metabank thus far, 10 of those were purchased for Bitcentury from our own funds, and yes, with those we intend to mine to get more familiar with the machines, but also for profit generation, to cover company costs or raise funding for future ventures, etc. At the end of the day, we aim to grow our business and expand into other areas, time/opportunity permitting. Building trust and being transparent with our customers I feel is critical to achieving that goal, especially in this line of business given the current environment.
Cheers,
Luis

Hello everyone,
Service Agreement (Contract) Update#4: Well, it's finally ready! We appreciate everyone's patience with this, it was important we did sufficient due diligence. I'd also like to thank the individuals that provided constructive feedback and contributed to its improvement. Feel free to comment further on it if you wish or ask any questions. Over the next few days, our customers should be getting  an email from us, with a copy of your Service Agreement(s) and some basic instructions. Also, I will leave up the early draft I posted a few days back so people can easily compare the changes, but FYI after a week or so I will delete it.

Service Agreement URL: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz7CvNpsvWycTmlDcHBzVUs0Qk0/edit?usp=sharing

Cheers,
Luis

Hi Foofighter,
We have not finalized exactly what we will do yet, and likely won't until we give it a try and find what works best. Our goal is to optimize the logistics such that your device is out the door to you as soon as possible but still undergoes some decent amount of power on testing. We discussed something along the lines of picking up the systems from Metabank, dealing with paperwork during the day,  testing the systems overnight, and packing them back up and ship them out the next morning. Then rinse and repeat. There are many more things to consider in this logistics operation (how fast can we get systems from Metabank? Will it be all at once or small batches? How reliable are the first units after testing? (This may impact how much testing subsequent undergo). How are the units  packed from metabank?  Are they delivering plain circuit boards in an anti-static bag, or do the systems come with full CNC milled aluminum boxes (Avalon style)? What is the quality of the boxes/packing material from metabank? Is it good enough for international shipping or will we need to source additional/better packing material? How many units can we reasonably process in 1 day?  etc), so I am hesitant to commit to anything specific, but as soon as we figure out exactly what works best we can certainly communicate it.

Luis

Contract Update#3: We met with our lawyers today, some changes were discussed. They will work on them tomorrow and we will try to provide a final version for release the day after,  so this would be Wednesday; assuming of course, nothing else needs to be altered after they are done with it, but I can say it is almost in a final state at this point as it is.
Cheers,
Luis

Hi guys,
Contract Update#2:We've received the final version from our lawyers first thing this morning, but we need some time to review it, and I'm pretty sure at minimum a few amendments will be required. We are meeting with them later today to discuss changes. We'll provide updates as they become available.
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Luis

Hi RoboCoder,
You ask a good question. We are internally discussing if and how this, or something of the sort might work. We are trying to finalize a customer contract so this and some of the other details mentioned earlier today may require some editing of our contract. Once we have come to a decision we'll announce the details. We'll get back to you as soon as we are able.
Thanks,
Luis

funny

Dogie, you can disagree as much as you like with us, but I ask that you be civil about it. As stated in numerous places this is only an early draft and anything may change. You may be quite right that some statements may not be legal, at minimum in your jurisdiction - I am not a lawyer, that's why we hired a law firm to review it. Further, if you don't like the upcoming legally binding contract, you do not have to buy a product from us or if you own one, you can request a full refund under the terms stated. We could have waited until Monday to provide only the legal version, but we released this early to allow people to judge as to whether or not they are ok with our intended sales contract proposal, and yes we welcome feedback.

And lastly, we should actually thank you, as you were the one who suggested we should have a sales contract in the previous thread. So thank you.

Regards,
Luis

Hello everyone,

Please find below a link to an unofficial draft copy of our intended sales contract. As stated in the document, any and all words, conditions, obligations etc may still change pending our lawyer's final review and recommendations; however, I don't anticipate any drastic changes.

Given we still have some time until we can meet with our lawyers on Monday to acquire the final version, please feel free to review it and provide any feedback, concerns, suggestions etc. I look forward to your comments!  

The PDF has a password. The password is:  NOT LEGALLY BINDING DRAFT COPY

View document here: [EDIT: This has now been removed, as it is no longer necessary]



Thank you for your patience thus far with this process,
Luis

Sales Contract Update: I am still awaiting a call back from the owner of our law firm regarding the finalized sales contract for all our customers. If I don't get a call back soon, I will just post our non-lawyer-approved sales contract draft which should at least give you all an idea of the terms we are considering. We would then wait until Monday to get the final version and post that immediately.
Cheers,
Luis

Understood nubbins, everyone has their own cost/risk tolerance and budgets. Clearly, with 41 units sold in about 1 week so far, some people seem to like our offer. With the recent developments (Bitfury's officially acknowledging us + likely getting alpha chips for testing + me getting Johnk verified + sales contract about to be published), it is highly likely that given we are keeping our fiat price the same (BTC is slightly higher, but only because of BTC/USD price drop) I would not be surprised  if even more people find our offer to be even more attractive than before. Also, just FYI, once the alpha chips are confirmed to be working, I would not be surprised if the cost/unit would rise substancially - something not under our control at the moment. So if you are buying from somewhere else, it may be wise to do it sooner rather than later. Best of luck to you as well.
Luis

Absolutely! Good luck!

Hi,
We will proxy as many as our customers want to buy until Metabank.ru runs out of allocated chips from their assigned wafer lot.  

The value we provide is this:
1)Trustworthy Russian staff: We have very competent trustworthy business contacts & soon to be employees in Russia that will receive the units from Metabank in Moscow. Depending on volume of sales, one or two of us may very well fly there ourselves for a period of time.
2) Secure testing & shipping facility We will setup a secure facility there to open each unit, test it to make sure it is working, package it for international shipping to you.
3)Proven Competency We are competent individuals as evidenced by our accomplishments in life and as evidenced by the information we provide in the questions that have been asked so far. You can also see 6 more pages of discussions here, prior to this thread. We recently moved the thread here so we could better manage it. Old thread worth reading: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=223656
4)Working hard to build trust with you  We are trying our best to build your trust in us. Today I was verified by "JohnK" as requested by several people here. This basically means that all along I am in real life who I say I am. I personally I am not just hiding behind some alias, and have provided my linkedin profile and have also had skype calls with some of our customers, although this aspect is not something I can promise to do for everyone due to time constraints.
5) Highly technical Senseless, and especially Nigel have a very strong technical background in this area (FPGA & ASIC design, PCB design, assembly, etc). I am less technical in this area than they are, as my area of expertise is in Network Engineering and Data Center Operations, but in short, we know what we are talking about and have done extensive research.
6) Long Term Business We're not just a bunch of guys running an overnight operation, we plan to be around for a long time as a business and have recently incorporated. In short, we are here to offer support after you receive your units.
7) Building a customer support structure While it has been a lower priority compared to everything else we've been working on, we aim to at minimum have a basic website up and running where over time we will build all technical, support and product offering information on.
8 )Unique thus far As far as I could tell, though I haven't extensively searched the forums, we may be the only Western company providing this proxy service in Russia, though if you want to gamble there seem to be several other mostly Russian individuals offering a similar service, but possibly of questionable trustworthiness.
9) Keeping our customers informed on a frequent basis: One of the challenges I've seen not yet seen well resolved with just about every single ASIC board company thus far, is that their staff is not easily accessible to customers, transparency is often lacking and customer service is for the most part seriously lacking. It's easy to talk when we haven't had a chance to prove ourselves yet, as we are not yet handling anywhere near the volumes they are, but I can assure you this is one of my highest priorities. It is risky enough to venture into any one of these operations as a customer, it is even more nerve racking when there is a huge lack of communication and support structure for the customer base.  I must admit that this is somewhat the outcome of a hashing speed arms race. It's all Engineers heads down doing the core work, while customers await with bated breath of any hint of what might be going on, often waiting weeks without any updates. Resources are extremely scarce in many of these circumstances, but now that some of these operations have millions in their pockets, those excuses should be gone, still customers are seemingly left in the side lines a lot of the times. I very much intend to improve on this circumstance with our company.

In short some of our profits are eaten up by operating costs and overhead in what we are trying to do (plane tickets to Russia, employee salaries, office space, custom exporting fees, shipping costs, etc), the rest is profit for us to re-invest in the future of our company and if we're lucky we may also end up paying ourselves some money for the countless hours we're putting into this at all levels.

Let me know if you have any other questions,
Cheers
Luis

Thanks stripykitteh,

As I had mentioned a few posts above, we have been in contact with Bitfury - now you can see the evidence ;-) . Also in that thread you just reference, you'll notice OrphanGland (our lead engineer/CTO) made one of the first posts, could have been the first after bitfury, but we were too busy talking to him about the alpha testing chips. Needless to say, we are aiming to be alpha testers as our ultimate goal has always been to make our own boards and ASICs, it's just we arrived a bit late in the scene to target the current nm sizes. Anyway, there's more news along these lines to come in the not too distant future. We are all very much looking forward to the resulting tests of these chips, but it would even better to verify them ourselves.
Stay tunned!


On another note, our sales contract was actually finalized earlier today; however, the lawyer assigned to this somehow didn't send it to us. We're not quite sure what happened. We contacted the lawfirm owner, and he left voice messages on every phone of the lawyer assigned to this, so hopefully by tomorrow sometime we will get it and post it here.

So all in all, lots of developments today:
* I got JohnK verified, hopefully to everyone's satisfaction
* We are looking to alpha test Bitfury's chips
* Sales contract is finished, hopefully we can release it tomorrow.

Have a good night everyone!
-Luis