You really just erode your own credibility by posting transparent rubbish like this. Why would you deliberately compare chip level and device level power consumption, especially when AM isn't even producing mining devices?

I don't understand why you have so much hate for AM. You and Guy seem to like to sink the boot in and goad jimmothy about the lack of dividends at every opportunity. I don't get it, it just makes you guys look childish and/or threatened. What will you start saying if they DO pay divs?

Anyway, this issue isn't as big a clusterfuck as some might have been expecting. These things happen so often, and to their credit, SP-tech are communicating well and honestly - but this is exactly why I'd rather take my money to Vegas and play roulette than tie up my cash in pre-orders.

lol, I clicked.
Maybe that would explain why Spondo's chips got screwed up.

Why would you compare those two numbers? AM don't even produce consumer hardware.
If I recall correctly, at chip level AM Gen3 sim result was announced to be 0.35W/GH and actual performance was tested at 0.70W/GH (at the same clock speed).

Anyway, Guy is often making snide remarks about AM and the under spec. performance of Gen3, so hopefully the rockerbox won't underperform by that margin or he'll look a bit silly.

The franchise formula subtracts a 15c/kWh allowance for electricity expenses before applying the 80/20 split.
15c/kWh seems pretty generous. I'm guessing these hashratio guys would be paying around a third of that rate.

OK, I'm home, just watched through the video. I think I've got 95% of this right, bits I'm unsure about are in red.
Open to any corrections of course.
I've tried to stay fairly literal with the translation. Note that the narrator says "factory" to mean "farm", and "computer" to mean "miner".

starting @25:30
Narrator : Not just a get-rick-quick dream - bitcoin mining. After some negotiations, we made contact with one of the best mining groups in China. Among them is Mr. Choto 趙東 (actual Chinese reading might sound slightly different). He was working as a computer engineer before. Today, Mr choutou is headed to Yamai-town, 500km from Beijing. In this place, he says there's a secret factory for mining.

Mr. Choto : The site of the mining factory is a secret for safety reasons. Please don't film around here.

Narrator : It's said that the Chinese mine 300 billion yen worth of bitcoin per year. What on earth kind of site could this be?

Mr. Choto : This is the mining factory.

Narrator : At first glance it looks like a normal warehouse but, upon looking inside there were countless computers lined up. The number of units is approximately 6,000. "Mining" is doing special calculations. The faster these calculations can be done, the bigger the profits will become.

Mr. Choto : This one is amazing. It calculates incredibly fast. Altogether this factory can acquire around 7 million yen worth of bitcoin in one day.

Narrator : Mr. Choto started mining in April of last year. At that time, he was operating with two computers in his home. One year later, it's become a 24 hour mining operation cooled by huge fans. The total profit at this stage has reached 20 billion yen. Why have they made this factory in the countryside, 500km away from Beijing? The reason is the cheap price of electricity.

Mr. Choto : It uses around 70,000 yen per hour, so in a day that exceeds 1,500,000 yen. In a month ... I can't figure it *chuckles*

Narrator : Mr. choto says bitcoin is something he's invested (bet) his life on.

Mr. Choto : Not to venture anything is the greatest risk. Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology. And I've been given this revolutionary chance. I can't let go of it.

Narrator : Today, one of his mining colleagues has come to visit from Beijing. Alone it's hard to beat the competition, so Mr. Choto carries out his mining in conjunction with others.

Other dude : I'm here to compete. People who don't want to fight it out should go and do something else.  ...  Thanks a lot, see you in Beijing.

Narrator : The computer operation known as mining is producing a lot. What we see from this site in China is that (bitcoin is) far removed from traditional currencies as a means of exchange.

I'm at work right now so can't watch. But I can understand Japanese reasonably well.
I probably don't have time to do a complete transcript but I'll try and post the theme and important points when I get home later.

EDIT : Just noticed the interview is only 5 mins or so, not the entire 30. I probably can manage a transcript in that case.

So we're not waiting for answers to question number 3 & 4 then?

Do you have some information about this that nobody else does?

I have one copy of Frozen Synapse ($24.99 in steam store)
and two copies of Terraria ($9.99 in steam store)

I have the games in my inventory and will gift them on steam.

make me an offer!

They should fly off the shelf at this price.
Getting pretty damn close to SP30 price point. May be less efficient but it's in hand as opposed to September pre-order.

Believe me, he does. In fact, I'd say he's the most hardworking troll on this forum.
It's semi-informed drivel at best, but I can't figure out what his motivation is to pump out such a volume of it.

If you already have (or have cheap access to) PSU hardware, and you don't have a more attractive franchise offer on the table, I still fail to see where the franchisee's risk lies.
15c/kWh is a very fair allowance for electricity. I'd be surprised if many large scale miners pay that much.

I don't put a lot of faith in this "AM　selling chips at cost" rumor either.
The only source of it is a forum post from Spoondlies-tech (Guy Corem), who, in my opinion, doesn't conduct himself very professionally on this forum.
I don't know what the actual production costs are, and I doubt he does either.
I'd be surprised if production costs were high enough for AM to have to sell chips at a loss/break-even point this early in the game.

What's the formula for franchise arrangements? I keep hearing about it being risky for franchisees but I don't understand why.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, where's the risk? Are you talking about BTC/USD risk? The gear may not be worth 0.2BTC but isn't that irrelevant since it's only a refundable deposit?

What are you guys censoring?

Beastlymac refunded me my 0.1 BTC just 12 hours ago. I'll resend it when I'm home tonight (~10 hours from now).

If your difficulty crystal ball is that finely tuned that 2 extra difficulty periods out of ~25 will give you that much information. I envy you. If it hits 300B on June 29th instead of June 1st, will that mean the difference between your SP30 making ROI or not?

Sorry - from our POV it looked like you'd backed out.

Just for the record. RoadStress never put up his end of the bet. He seems to have fallen off the face of the earth - maybe trying to get a refund on his SP30 pre-order(s). 

Beastlymac has kindly offered to do it for free! If it's ok with you let's send him the funds up front and the bet can be settled at midnight (let's say GMT) June 30, 2015.


Thank you!

If the bitcoin difficulty is more than 300 billion at midnight on June 30, 2015 - I win.
Otherwise - you win.
Escrow? winner pays?

EDIT: accidentally a word

Good point. At today's BTC price, there's only about half that $1.74B of value to be mined in the coming year.
You can't assume $0.5/GH will be the going hardware rate for a whole year though.

I would be interested in making a small wager about what the difficulty will be at the end of June 2015!