I thought they may have only worked with chips other people engineered and designed.  I didn't know they too can engineer and design chips themselves.  I'll give them a shout to ask some questions.

I'm assuming BitFury, Bitmain, Avalon, etc... own patents on the chips they use?  I ask this because a chip is made up of many layers.  Many times those layers have already been engineered and designed by intel, AMD, etc... and depending on how those designs of different layers are put together, one can accomplish different things.  It takes a hell of a lot of time and money to create a custom chip from scratch with many different layers.

I wish we could begin some type of "Crowd Fund" project for all of us other than the current makers of mining rigs.  

I'm not sure how much money is involved with engineering and designing a 16nm chip?

I'm not sure how long the process is for engineering and designing a 16nm chip for bitcoin mining?

I'm not sure how much a substantial size order of the wafers for the chips would cost?

I'm not sure how much the engineering and design would cost for the boards the chips would go on?

Bottom line, I'm not sure how much the cost would be [Ball park figure from start to finish] to engineer, design and manufacture a 16nm rig(s).  It may be that 2 or 3 different 16nm rigs could be designed and manufactured to meet the needs of all levels of home miners [no matter how small or large they are].  Maybe only one size should be made that would appeal to all levels...

Certainly, we as a community, can come together to figure out a way to do this.  No?

EDIT:  If we, as a community, are going to overcome the threat of 51% control by one company or 90% control by 3 or 4 companies, we have to work together to compete.  We have strength in numbers.  It doesn't matter how small or large an individual investment is.  There is strength in numbers.

There would have to be a minimum dollar amount on what an individual invests.  The issue is determining what that amount would be.

The minimum amount would basically be equivalent to the "cost" [from start to finish] for one rig.  The issue is determining the cost from start to finish for that one rig out of many.  The profits made from that rig by the initial investment would be left up to the investor by their operating costs when mining with that rig or number of rigs.

Once the community is able to determine the approximate amount of funds needed for a certain number of rigs, an escrow account of some type can be created for a crowd fund to receive the funding for that amount.  Those funds would not be touched unless the determined amount is reached for implementation.  If that amount is not reached by a certain time frame, everyone would simply get their funds returned back to them.

We would have to decide if the funds invested with bitcoin should remain in bitcoin or should the bitcoin be converted into USD to avoid volatility?  There are all kinds of things to consider in a type of venture like this.

Sorry for the delay.  I've been VERY busy lately.  I would like to think the "bull" stampede will begin soon.  I think Hearn has put a damper on things for a little while but it will come back again.

I certainly hope so.  If we (home miners) do see them, they will come from Bitmain and/or Avalon.  I would like to believe Bitmain has been working on a 20nm or 16nm design.  If they have been, I don't expect it to be available for purchase until September or October.  My two cents....

EDIT:  I doubt very seriously we (home miners) ever get our hands on a "new" 16nm rig made by BitFury.  Maybe a "used" rig several months later but not a new one.

I'm sure everyone noticed how Batches 8 and 9 BOTH came off the website as "sold out."  Then we have a batch 10 available for February 16 to 20.

Is it possible that Bitmain was not selling as many batch 8 and 9 rigs as they had hoped and ended up having to mine with them on their own?  Is it possible they took those batches off their website the beginning of their holiday and began mining with them over the holiday?  Is it possible Avalon has made the decision to do the same because their sales are not coming to fruition?  They had the rigs priced too high in my opinion.  They are still priced too high and they know it.  I can see Avalon and Bitmain combined easily adding that much hash power from rigs they intended to sell along with rigs they intended to keep for themselves.  It's also possible BitFury is testing quite a few rigs on their own or possibly beginning to roll out rigs ready for prime time while Bitmain and Avalon are mining with rigs they intended to sell.

I would agree with you on that note.  However, they may not have built all of this and hooked it up in a month.  This may have been a "planned" event in the making for over the last 3 to 4 months in which they are now implementing.  This could be BitFury doing it themselves while mining from new "Unknown" pools they created.  Hell, it could be SPT being silent about the SP50.  I'm only speculating... sharing thoughts... more minds working together are better than one.

EDIT:  If we see a fairly decent drop after the Feb. 16 - 20, 2016.  It's possible Bitmain may have mined with the batch 8, 9 and 10 rigs over their holiday before selling them to consumers.

Why does someone have to buy rigs from Bitmain and/or Avalon to increase the network hash rate?  Can Bitmain and/or Avalon not add this hash rate themselves without selling to someone else?  Can Bitmain and/or Avalon not make one last push before the block halving?  Hell, those of us who bought their rigs paid 3, 4 or maybe 5 times as much as their cost to make them.  Which means they could make 3 for themselves [at a minimum] for every one (1) they sell to us.  They could set up their own "Unknown" pool to mine solo from without adding it to their "public" pool.

I would have to agree with you notlist3d.

Mine expire March 2nd.

This probably means we may not see the price lower on S7's until after that date.

Good, I'm happy to hear that.

I've learned a lesson in all of this:

Coinbase has no clue [If you use other wallets, such as Trezor, Blockchain.info, etc...] to store bitcoin for safe keeping.  When we send funds into those wallets from our Coinbase wallet for cold storage and later transfer them back to our Coinbase wallet to cash out to our Checking account, they will assume those are payments even though they are not.  So, it's best to keep your transactions with Coinbase each year below 200 transactions to avoid having to ask them for a "corrected" Form 1099-K.  You don't get a form 1099-K unless you reach 200+ transactions coming into Coinbase AND those 200+ transactions add up to more than $20,000.00.

Coinbase, is doing all businesses a good service by enabling us to convert bitcoin to FIAT and deposit it into our checking accounts.  I appreciate them doing this for the bitcoin community.  I only hope they are cooperative in working through misunderstandings about transactions.  It's impossible for Coinbase to know if bitcoin transferred into your Coinbase wallet was transferred from another wallet under our own control or from someone else in the form of a payment.  This why it is best to avoid putting Coinbase in the position to TRY to determine what transactions were actual payments and which were simple transfers from a wallet under our own control back into our Coinbase Wallet to cash out into FIAT.

I spoke to the IRS earlier today.  They told me to provide my evidence to Coinbase via email and via USPS certified mail; to ask Coinbase to send a "corrected" form 1099-K and to keep copies of all correspondence with Coinbase.

So, we are about to see if Coinbase will cooperate with me and "correct" the form 1099K.  I purchased $35,000 worth of bitcoin via my Coinbase Wallet and USD transfers straight into Coinbase exchange during the month of December.  When I transferred $30,000 of that $35,000 back into my Coinbase wallet from the Coinbase Exchange, they reported it as a damn payment on the form 1099-K for the month of December.  THAT IS JUST FLAT OUT WRONG!  

They have me down as receiving over $87,000 in payments during 2015 when it should only be approximately $35,000 in payments.  They had also messed me up for the months of June, July, November and December.

I had purchased $16,000 worth of bitcoin via coinbase wallet through my bank in July and transferred it to the exchange.  I later transferred it out of the exchange back into my coinbase wallet then into another wallet for cold storage then back into coinbase wallet to withdraw and deposit back into my bank.  They counted all of those as damn payments.  Pisses me off.

We will see if they will be cooperative and "correct" this for me.  It may be a simple mistake.  It stresses me out to say the least.

Everyone will know soon enough if Coinbase wants the IRS to audit people [To no travail] or if they are willing to assist their customers with their mistakes made on important tax forms by correcting them.

I know one thing, if they are not cooperative, it shows they have no desire to have a good reputation with businesses like my own who wants to grow and do even more business with them.  If they do cooperate, I will be more than happy to take the time to explain how helpful they were in clearing up the misunderstanding.

Like what you have going on there, Kilo! 

THAT should get the job of cooling done for sure.

I believe they are doing what they have to do in order to do business with banks.  Banks have to abide by these regulations and any other institution that acts like a bank and does business with banks on a large scale has to abide by the same regulations.  I simply ran into a regulation I was ignorant of with 200+ transactions totaling more than $20K must be reported with Form 1099-K.  If I had known this, I could have saved Coinbase and myself unnecessary paperwork.

My only concern is what transactions will be included in their total on Form 1099-K.  I'm concerned simple transfers back and forth from my everyday wallet to cold storage should not be added into the total on Form 1099-K.  I will find out soon enough I suppose...

As I've said before, it will occur.  Your evidence is only mounting up.

I say again, please stop posting here.  As your posts here [Or anywhere else for that matter] do not contribute anything positive to the forum or the bitcoin community.  If you cannot talk or debate respectfully, you are not welcome him, Sir.

You are not welcome here.

If you continue, you will receive a ban from a global moderator.  Not just your user name, but your IP address will be banned.

I can understand them having to report transactions "according to government regulations" since they do business like a bank and with banks that are also under the same regulations.  It's a way for the government to police [via the tax man] those who might commit fraud or evade taxes.

I do everything by the book.  I mark off all things that are allowed to be written off for tax purposes.  I invest what remains after expenses back into more mining rigs.  The ONLY payroll I have had is from the training part of my business when training telephone technicians.  There has been no payroll from bitcoin mining because I use ALL of it's profits to invest into more rigs or related hardware to grow my hash.

My only concern at this point in time is WHAT EXACTLY is Coinbase going to report on their 1099-K as transactions?  I more than likely will have to have several communications back and forth with them to PROVE that some transactions were simply transfers from cold storage address to coinbase or visa versa or from coinbase to another exchange after coinbase exchange went down to have the opportunity to sell my coin at another exchange in the event of a flash crash.  That occurred here recently when Coinbase Exchange went down.  This is what concerns me.

We will see how cooperative Coinbase is with me in future correspondence to clear up any discrepancies they may have on form 1099-K.

Agreed, form 1099 is for payments + the following:  

Box 1a. Gross Payment Card/Third Party Network Transactions

Enter in box 1a the gross amount of the total reportable payment card/third party network transactions for the calendar year. Gross amount means the total dollar amount of total reportable payment transactions for each participating payee without regard to any adjustments for credits, cash equivalents, discount amounts, fees, refunded amounts, or any other amounts. The dollar amount of each transaction is determined on the date of the transaction.

Yes, I can see this for day trading.

My only concern for me as a miner and NOT day trading is what transactions they may THINK are payments to me or income that are in fact NOT income or payments to me.  They were simply nothing more than a transfer from like a checking account to a savings account and then back from a savings account (cold storage) to checking account.  I'm curious if they will have those included on the form 1099-K.

That I'm not sure of.  That's what I'm about to find out when I get form 1099-K sent to me.