On a matter of principle, I understand your frustration having likely lost over 15 btc to this myself, but there is no leverage for us to make such a demand any longer. The original terms of the IPO were thrown out and rewritten with the exchange of these Profit Units.

Worse, I feel suspicious of whether or not investors will ever see a satoshi out of the pool of btc that is currently hanging out there. I'm not calling this an outright racket, but it would make for pretty fantastic example of one.

-Communication and updates have been poor
-What we are given are promises on a timeline, but they're missed
-We're given excuses about why the distributions thus far have been infinitesimal, or why they're being delayed, or why everything including share assignment is happening so slowly (if at all anymore)
-We were forced into a new agreement as our holdings were formally converted to PUs
-Other available options for share assignment and distributions were foregone in favor of an unproven, un-established, crippled system built by Cryptomex. I'm not clear on the exact relationship of Cryptomex to the Petamex>Digimex>Icedrill family, but CMX seems to be a completely separate entity even though under the same ownership
-No clear formal explanation was given as to the process of registering to just receive payouts vs. submitting an overly intrusive KYC document for trading shares.

What expenses have changed that they can't begin any distributions of current holdings before yet another very timely financial report is done? Is there anything even showing that the portion of "private" shares that were purchased before the original IPO went public actually produced capital? Now it would be convenient to dissolve those private shares (owned by who?) into the public pool in the PU conversion. Why does it feel like we're being strung along until there's a resolution with HF at which point it'd be a very opportune time for some to cut and run? It's a lot of accusations; but if what you're standing in looks like shit and smells like shit...

For me, it's been over a month since I've registered on Cryptomex and over a week since I've sent both DT and Will a PM and as of now; I haven't received a response, nor my shares, or a single satoshi.

How long could this process of transferring shares feasibly take? Has anyone waited longer than 6 hours for confirmation that their shares have been claimed on IceDrill.io?

It has been over 6 hours since I signed and verified ownership of my address, however, the site is still reporting I am holding 0 shares.

Unless Hashfast would be able guarantee a batch 1 delivery, 40,000 shares for a batch 2 baby jet is far too much. Further still, if you remove all the individuals with fewer than 120,000 shares, the average shareholder has only ~6,500 shares. That still leaves a very large majority of people without much of a reasonable option at this point.

However, I might be interested in seeing if a group buy, organized, price negotiated and paid by IceDrill to Hashfast for Nov. batch 2 Baby Jets. The current going price for a BJet out of b2 is $2,760 -or- about 22BTC -or- nearly 16,000 shares. I think that may still be too high for a lot of shareholders, but with a large b2 order, IceDrill should be able to negotiate a better price. I think it would be ideal to try to get units to holders for as little as 10,000 shares. This equates to approximately $1,750 at current BTC price for a BJet -or- ~$4.38 per GH (HF's current b2 price is $6.90/Gh). This gives shareholders with at least 10,000 shares a good option and the benefit of the appreciated value on the coin they spent at the beginning of the IPO offering. Obviously, whether or not Hashfast would be willing to go that low is uncertain. Those with less than the 10,000 shares may then be better served with a buyback option at .0014-.0015 per share, or a shared hardware hosting contract - don't really see an easy way to handle the smaller hands in this IPO beyond that.

There is unlikely to be a wonderful solution for everyone given the mess it has become. -and I place no blame upon IceDrill for it.

I’m wondering if Avalon's contributions are a bit conservative here. In a few articles from TGB, they consider the chips capable of OC’ing to 400 up from the nominal rating of 282 Mh/s.


It may be in error to expect every chip OC’d, but depending upon your intended use with these figures, you may want to account for some potential of higher rates out of Avalon.

http://thegenesisblock.com/latest-shipment-of-avalon-asics-could-increase-network-hashrate-by-500/
http://thegenesisblock.com/800000-avalon-asic-bitcoin-mining-chips-expected-over-next-month/

Also, just wanted to say thank you to D&T and the contributors here for this thread and data. This is an extremely valuable roundup of information that I wish I had a month ago. As this is relevant to every miner and prospective miner, I’d personally like to see this become a sticky thread. I’ve also used some of the data here in a difficulty projector / profit calculator google doc I just began to share.

I created this simple spreadsheet for my own use after wishing I could find a better more realistic way to project difficulty levels than the many fixed % growth calculators out there now. There would, of course, be a return to stabilized levels, but it was just a matter of finding where and possibly when that curve would take place. I’m not here to argue for when and what the difficulty will be in the coming months as everyone can agree we’re headed for some sharp inclines, but rather to provide a framework that others can use to adjust the curve according to their own outlook. The figures used in the chart are a bit more optimistic than what I used for my decisions regarding mining HW investments.

In this document, there are two spreadsheets; a difficulty projector and a hardware gross profit calculator. To use these, please only edit the fields colored in green. (You'll need to download your own version to edit)

Difficulty Projection sheet; Adjust the figures in the top row labeled, "Percent of Difficulty Change". Rather than adjusting these figures according to their impact on difficulty levels, focus on the impact to the "Avg. TH Added per Week" (Gold) column to reflect your opinions for how much cumulative hash power will reasonably / optimistically / pessimistically be dropped into the network on a weekly basis from ASIC vendors.

When I originally made this, I didn’t have an extensively thorough collection of information regarding quantities of ASIC pre-orders, but for this version I’m making public, I’ve included a table with some excellent data being pulled together in DeathAndTaxes’ thread. I’d like to thank D&T and those who have contributed there in putting together this very valuable data. Using this information and some other basic understandings of profitability & efficiencies, I believe you can come to some fairly reasonable and accurate forecasts.

Cumulative Profit Calculator Swap your miner hardware hashing figures into the "Coin mined/day" table under the "Speed in GH" column. Determine the length of time in days that you wish to project out with that equipment and distribute that between the two given Time Ranges. Currently, I've got 390 days, or about 13 months, split between the two time ranges of 210 and 180 days. The % of time range at the top of the sheet can be adjusted to change the number of mining days at the corresponding difficulty levels. At the moment, it is setup to calculate about a month for each difficulty column. Finally, you can adjust the difficulty levels in the upper table and the Projected BTC value as you see fit. The grayed out portions allow you to consider losses with a delay in shipment or to compare HW returns if received at different times.

I believe everything is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions or find any bugs, please let me know.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah2uk3JcIcJ_dGhHeG5fU3E3UXBnd2ljVDMzXzk2MUE&usp=sharing

It has already come back from the dead before. Some might jump ship to another alt coin, but all that's effectively doing is separating the wheat from the chaff; the weak from the strong; the prospectors from the believers.

To be clear, for question 6; I wasn't asking about what would happen to the Mars line, but referring specifically to the BTC v1 device. At what point will KnC cease selling and producing the v1 BTC FPGA miners? Is there a set deadline? After x,xxx units sold? Whenever they just happen to get around to transitioning it to a LTC product?

Appreciate the additional questions, KS. Looking forward to some of those answers.

Thanks, daggeteo, for your thorough and organized approach. Can't say I'm even aware of the recording law in my own country, as sad as that may be, but I'm happy to say I learned something new about Sweden today.

For those interested in an FPGA LTC miner;

A couple projects seem to be in the works, one from just over a month ago. I can't say I've dug too deep as I don't have a very strong interest, but some may be interested to know KnC is not the only one in the pool.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172164.0

https://forum.litecoin.net/index.php/topic,2702.0.html

Then don't be disappointed if you don't get a response. To my knowledge, you're the first to bring this up in this thread. However, while they seem to drop in time to time, it would be foolish to expect them to scour every post on every page to see if anyone has a lingering question that needs answering.



Here is a quick list of requests I'd be grateful to you, daggeteo, or anyone else that will be in attendance, to provide feedback on. Or, if anyone in the community has seen information pertaining to the following, that would be helpful just as well.

Videos, at least photos of:
1) Mars unit hashing
2) Mars without a cover/case …shots of the internals if possible
2) Hashing results in the software client
3) The power supply attached
4) A meter read of the power draw at the outlet – hopefully they’ll provide a monitor, or do you have one you could bring?

Include a common object for size reference, or a ruler for measurement in the photos/videos.


Questions:
1) Is this demo unit built on the final design revision that we’ll see used at the time of full-scale production?
2) When will Mars begin production, if it hasn’t already?
3) Has any development work yet begun on the ASIC modules?
4) (If you’re not able to get a wattage reading from a meter)What is the power consumption on the Mars device?
5) What is the projected power consumption of the Saturn/Jupiter?
6) Do you plan on discontinuing the Mars BTC miners by a certain date or a quantity sold?
7) With this modular design, how will the ASIC units be interfaced with each other, considering that additional devices may be added at a later time?
8 ) Will these connected ASIC devices use a single shared network connection? What about the power?


Your Observations:
1) Where are you? Office / Workroom / Lab …?
2) What else is around? Desks (with phones? ..how many?) / Workstations / Machinery …?
3) Who, specifically, is in attendance at this meeting? Do you see other people around as well?
4) How much noise does the Mars device produce? ..perhaps think of something comparative
5) Do you feel much heat radiation from the Mars unit?


Lastly, notes, Notes, NOTES! Leave no detail to the fallibility of memory. Better yet, use a voice recorder if you have one or are willing to install one on your phone. Ask before recording, of course.

Much appreciated!

I've also seen a handful of others having success with higher hash rates by flashing the bios.
This link considers flashing the Sapphire card, but the steps remain the same regardless.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174036.msg1980690#msg1980690

I haven't tried it yet myself, but plan on doing so in the next few days. Not sure if there will be any impact on your temps, though.

Thought I'd share some of the information I've gathered over the last couple of weeks from Sam at KnCMiner. Some of the following questions from me have been abbreviated to save space and your eyes, however, Sam's responses are untouched. Here are a few choice tidbits;

~~~~
Q: Are your Mars FPGA miners still in design development, or are they reaching production to amass stock for shipment in the 2 months?
The Mars products are in the prototype phase. We have ordered parts that have a long lead time frame for the mass shipments to start in just over 2 months’ time

Q. Your Mars product looks to be provided with software, may we use other software with these?
Yes as soon as we have a spare prototype we will allow developers such as luke Jr  etc to have enough time and access to code against the devices

Q. With the $2,000 voucher to apply toward the Jupiter model, are you then requiring customers to trade-in or return the Mars unit back to you?
We do not require the Mars product to be returned it’s yours to keep. IF we can issue a firmware update that will make it possible for it to mine anything else, we will do that free of charge to anyone who buys a Mars product.

Q. Are there any assurances that you’re capable of delivering Jupiter within your stated shipment goal to suspend the buyers’ fears of continual delays -or- final hashing specs not reaching original plans?
We know this concern is real and very valid, I would like to say
• We don’t make profit on the Mars product, The components are so expensive that we are really only producing it to prove we can make products in short time frames and that we can achieve our set deadlines.
• ORSoC have been building and making products based on ASIC and FPGA chips for over 10 years They have a proven track record, this is why we have teamed up with them as we can’t afford to let the community down by promising things we later change.
• The public figure for Jupiter is 250 GH/s but, as we stated in the release that’s the minimum and already doesn’t account for the 30% extra we expect to gain from the advanced coding ORSoC are famous for. So today we are saying 250 but we are doing everything we can to make sure that figure rises as high as possible not falls.            
          
Q. Had you considered adding memory to more appropriately re-purpose the Mars FPGA to mine a scrypt based cryptocurrency, such as Litecoin?
It has been requested by many, we may look at producing Mars2.0 or something similar to accomplish that very task, but as for redeveloping the current Mars product to mine litecoins, That would ofcourse delay the Mars product and the Jupiter range which is unacceptable to us.

Q. How far along are you currently with Jupiter's development? Do you have a working prototype at this time?
For Jupiter we currently do not have a working prototype. As soon as that arrives we will show it to the community that’s for sure

Q. Will you be providing pictures and/or videos of the Jupiter unit before you open up the order book for Mars?
Drawings possibly but not actual photos. It would look quite similar in setup to Mars as we are reusing the same ideas.

Q. Are your ASIC chips being developed and produced entirely in-house by ORSoC? Are they also responsible for assembly on the boards?
All the chips and PCB design is taken care of by ORSoC but final assembly is done in an assembly plant in sweden which we have out sourced to, That factory have all the equipment needed and to be honest are faster than us setting up an assembly line ourselves. (Time to market is critical so we choose to outsource to professionals when they are faster)

Q. Are your intentions to ship the Mars and Jupiter units in consolidated batch shipments, or immediately as they are manufactured and become available?
We won’t keep any on the shelf (unless we somehow manage to empty the back log). They will arrive from the assembly plant in the morning go through final testing and then shipped that afternoon

Q. Do you intend on holding consistent communication during development with prospective buyers to sustain confidence?
Oh yes, this email is one of them  we will have sessions in our offices where people can come and “play” with the prototypes we will have web videos and maybe even our own forum

Q. Are you able to elaborate a little further on the embedded Linux device in the Jupiter unit?
http://orsoc.se/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/dev_board_Ordb2a_web1.png
think of it as a RaspberryPi device, it will be tiny in size but specifically setup to do one thing,

Q. What type of connectivity will Jupiter have?
It will have a web interface that you connect to, on that page you will enter your pool details. Other types of connections are possible but we will limit them so we can deliver the box faster

Q. Will we need to supply our own power supplies for Jupiter, as we will with Mars?
Yes

Q. Will there be any sort of warranty coverage on the chips / boards / the water cooling system?
As its electronic we will offer a warranty on a send and replace setup. But as Jupiter is a modular device you will not have to return the whole device just the blade that has issues which allows you to continue mining while we get you a replacement.

Q. Might the Jupiter be capable of overclocking by the consumer?
If they know how, but it will void the warranty the box will come pretty highly tuned from us,

Q. Are the Jupiter units and Mars FPGAs being developed simultaneously, or is the focus on getting Mars out the door as soon as possible?
Getting Mars up and running is our top priority, we need to who the world that we can design and build a rapid prototype and have it run.

Q. You mention the possibility of owning a miner and having it hosted, and also being able to choose your hash speed for a given period and paying for that (alluding to rented hardware). Do you know how those fees will be applied?
It will not be on a % base, it will be on a fixed contract length for a supply of Hashes during that period, we are still working out the details. But we see that with hardware getting more and more expensive people with $100 to “invest” will have nowhere to turn to min coins soon and we don’t like that it makes this an elitists activity and we will look at ways of allowing the man/women with a hundred bucks still be a part of the comminuty.

We are very excited as well. The mining hardware market has treated its customers quite badly. We aim to show that not all companies are as bad as others, But what we really want is to show that if the community gather together they can help shape us providers and hold us to standards. So that the new companies which come along will have to meet those standards.
~~~~

As you can see above, KnC does not have the intent to revise the current Mars pre-order devices to be capable LTC miners in the interest of developing rapidly and avoiding delays. Any FPGA LTC miner they would offer would be a new product to come down the road. That is to say, if nothing has changed since I received these replies. If I'm wrong, I'd hope & expect Sam will correct me here.

Despite the lack of LTC support for the FPGA, my attitude towards KnC has become increasingly optimistic. Granted they still have much to show, I empathize with their positions in what they're trying to accomplish.

Yes, Avalon has shipped their first batch of ASICs. They have 2 more batches coming down the pike.
BFL has begun sprinkling baby ASICs. (Jalapeno = 5'ish Gh/s) Mostly to developers, some "media", and apparently some customers, but not sure. Not many have gone out, but they're claiming they'll ramp up production and start shipping more and larger units.

When GPU miners drop out of the network en masse, their cumulative hash power will likely be a drop in the bucket in comparison to the widespread ASICs, so difficulty won't drop enough for much of a change in profitability for lingering GPU miners.

I do agree, however, that we will see a similar type of shift as you point out with CPU>GPU mining. With the only difference, and certainly a considerable difference, being that the ASICs aren't as easily re-purposed and sold (if at all) for recuperative costs. All profits are left up to the performance the ASIC had earned.

/CNC FTW!!!/

I really can't see any reason for any other coin besides BTC. As far as I know, no other coin is accepted anywhere for anything. Not saying that in time, they couldn't be, but with BTC's divisibility, security and ease, what is any other coin but a hope at turning cash for a pump and dump on someone more naive?

Also, a fairly new one is BTB - aka Bitbar. Supposed to be more rare than BTC, and has in fact started trading with a value greater than BTC. 

Yep, 4 or more hours and 5 or more posts.
2/5 for me. BYAHHHHHHH!

^^^
The sooner people, as a whole, stop looking at mining as the only means to making BTC the better. This type of effortless 'mine and find' mentality is discouraging to merchants' willingness to accept BTC; only adding to the treatment of it as a volatile store of wealth instead of a valid form of currency. Want more BTC and a stronger, more valuable BTC market? Ask to be paid in BTC or offer something someone wants in exchange for it. Still waiting for hookers with QR codes tattooed on their ass. Maybe you want to look into that?

BOT: For the time being, yes, ASIC may be out of the reach of some due to financial restraint or simply coming too late to the game, but at some point there will be opportunities for those individuals to get a slice of the pie. This professional mining market is essentially in the fetal stage, and you should expect to see more approachable products, and particularly services that we haven't yet seen, from new emerging businesses and entrepreneurs. Just have to give it time. Until then, get out on that street corner and make some damn coin!