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The bigger picture question is how do you take in $18M+ from pre orders, fulfill a small percentage of your customers (1/2 of the first batch) and apparently have next to nothing in $ or BTC to show for it?
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Chip development costs really vary. Like you said, if they just did a process geometry shrink, then effort is small. If they are designing a lot of new stuff, the effort is big. The big difference is the tape out costs. 28nm is sub $2M, where as 16nm is around $8M now. The other issue with HF seems to be whether they paid their design contractors/vendors. Other than Simon, I am not sure they had any chip designers on staff. I had heard that they outsourced much of this. So maybe the IP is locked with different contractors. I do not know what HF did or didn't do or what they had planned to do. I can say that test chips are typically used to prove out sections of a new chip/new technology. It is a small fraction ($100K range vs $Ms) of what a full tape-out costs and is used typically to mitigate risk. It isn't typically viewed as an overrun, but more as money spent to reduce risk. The cost overruns in 16 NM come from the test wafers?
From a business or bank side when a developer asks for x dollars and you pass it then ask for more cash was my thought process. I was reading Bitfury scraped 16 NM because they ran into problems. Its about 80% more to develop 16NM compared to 28 but doesn't include what a developer can import from a previous chip?? It depends on how far along HF got. |
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I do not know what HF did or didn't do or what they had planned to do. I can say that test chips are typically used to prove out sections of a new chip/new technology. It is a small fraction ($100K range vs $Ms) of what a full tape-out costs and is used typically to mitigate risk. It isn't typically viewed as an overrun, but more as money spent to reduce risk. The cost overruns in 16 NM come from the test wafers?
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I would also like to see the public release of schematics, bill of materials and PCB layout files for the load board (board used to bring up the new chip). This can also help accelerate working board designs. Have you included the PCB design too? That's only the imaginary chips IP cost. PCB design costs are way, way lower. If you released the chip specs under public domain on tapeout's day you would probably get a few independent community designs + the ones you paid for ready for when you have the chips in hand. |
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Thanks pmorici. I will reach out and report back. Are their any details on the next gen IP? I would think it would have to be 16nm or 14nm and be in the sub 0.10 J/GH to stay competitive. The real question is how much additional work/money is needed to make this a working chip.
You can contact the Hashfast CRO if you are interested, they would have the details you are looking for. There are supposedly 3 generations of IP, 1, 1.5, and 2. |
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Are their any details on the next gen IP? I would think it would have to be 16nm or 14nm and be in the sub 0.10 J/GH to stay competitive. The real question is how much additional work/money is needed to make this a working chip. im amazed that the motion got denied? ya there was no mismanagement? but everyone got raises when they failed their obligation to their customers... and hashfast LLC that holds the IP to avoid force liquidation or to hide money from there creditors... WTF is going with these layers?
The trustee motion was denied because the committee already put a CRO in charge at the company. He should have almost complete powers, a trustee would have been more expensive and probably less familiar with the hf/bitcoin mess. The other motion got instead approved, and that was the one allowing a "substantive consolidation" between HF California and HF Delaware (so that creditors can now sell their vague next gen ip, for whatever is worth). |
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I remember back in January, folks reported that they got refund checks. Many didn't cash them, since the thinking was that this might release HF of greater obligations like a full BTC refund or MPP. I am sure that some probably did cash them. I lost money on this deal as did most of us, my question is did hashfast ever pay anyone anything?
looking forward to the answer.
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What was the motion that was denied? Similarly, what was the motion that was granted. I lost money on this deal as did most of us, my question is did hashfast ever pay anyone anything? Like suppliers? I think so? The hearing couldn't have gone better: Hearing Held. Motion denied for the reasons stated on the record; Mr. Siddiqui to upload an order. A status conference will be held on 10/24/14 at 11:00 a.m. A Status Conference Statement, preferably filed as a joint statment with counsel for the Unsecured Creditors' Committee, due by 10/17/14. (related document(s): 168Motion to Appoint Trustee filed by Office of the U.S. Trustee / SF) (lp ) (Entered: 09/10/2014) Hearing Held. Motion granted; counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors to upload an order. (related document(s): 148Motion to Consolidate filed by Official Committee Of Unsecured Creditors) (lp ) (Entered: 09/10/2014) |
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Anyone know how the hearing went today? There will be an important hearing this Tuesday. The US trustee wants to appoint a trustee and the creditors committee filed an opposition because they already put a CRO in place. The US trustee says that the CRO isn't in charge at the company (in the opposition to the opposition to the motion), while he actually should.
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No postings/updates for 5 days. Does anyone know what is going on with HashFast?
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I talked to Bitcrane and asked this exact question. They paid for the Yoli EVO design files and the chips and built boards in China. So other than buying chips that should have been going towards customer orders, they appear to be legit. |
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This is actually worse than the dotcom days, since the longer this takes to settle, the less the chips are worth. Both chips and IP are devaluing daily. I would caution anyone about getting their hopes up that's looking forward or counting on getting and substantial return from a bankruptcy filing. When the creditors or representatives of the banks are at the proceeding, they take the majority. And before them is anything that was secured debt. As a customer (no matter how much you paid), you usually have to wait until everything is liquidated (I'm talking like the pen holders on the desks), which is then divided to everyone else. Chances are high that you will get pennies on the dollar unless you are near the top of the list of creditors on the bankruptcy statement.
I got stiffed back in the dot com days when all sorts of stuff went belly up and I was owed tens of thousands. So, I would just caution on making any plans, your best bet is getting a lawyer and go to the proceeding.
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You seem to be taking Eduardo's statements at face value, that he really had no involvement and Simon made all the bad decisions. If you are CEO, doesn't the buck stop with you? It seems to make more sense that Eduardo was involved in numerous bad decisions but doesn't want to take any responsibilities. I want to know more about Eddie's disappearance. I understand that he had a harrowing experience with the fire, but I haven't seen any real explanation for his apparent personal financial meltdown (did he keep his money in a burned up cookie jar?) and his absence in the period during which he blames bad decisions on Simon. Did he have some sort of mental breakdown? Why was he gone? If he had genuine medical issues, that's fine, I wouldn't begrudge him that. An explanation would seem in order, though.
If I rate him right I would guess it was a delightful one week excursion to Tijuana with blow and hookers. |
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+1 you don't take a vacation while your company is in jeopardy. Either you care about what happens to your company or you don't. Screw vacation. Act like an owner. He is protected under CA labor Law. Accrued time off in California must be paid out in cash value at time of employee separation. Even if the employee transfers to another state and remains with the employer. Either he takes it now or the estate pays it later. I believe even if he were to take a pay cut the accrued vacation must be paid at the rate he was at when it was earned.
I think the point was more that he is not just an employee of the company, he is one of two people on the board of directors and an owner. If he really gave a shit about trying to retain value for creditors, he would have delayed his vacation. certainly true |
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From https://icedrillasic.appspot.com/ IceDrill is DigiMex, so they are an early Batch 1 customer. Agree that don't understand what is their motivation to help the creditors. Do you have insight into this new creditor proposal? Can things get resolved quickly so we can all get some or all of our money back and move on? Before August 20th?
Sorry, I don't have any such insight. MinorMiner probably does, but he'd rather dox and stalk me than let the us know what brilliant move Koi is planning next.  Their original scorched-earth plan (Chapter 7) went nowhere, and now they are struggling to deal with the other, more reasonable, creditors. Koi and Gallo deserve each other, from what I've read. With luck, LiquidBits and IceDrill may form an alliance to sell the IP, fund board assembly, and host miners, to the benefit of all creditors. The creditors committee has to come up with a plan since the LB plan wasn't approved by them, so it won't include LB at all as they've said publicly they don't trust them or there ability to run a mine. But they talk about the Eddie-Guido franchise plan which has to be just as un-trustable as the LB one. Who is IceDrill and why would they do anything for the creditors? |
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Looks like Tim is gone. Got the following autoresponder. "Tim Wong is no longer employed by HashFast Technologies LLC. Please contact Cara ( cara@hashfast.com) instead, who will be able to direct your request to the appropriate person. Thank you, HashFast Management" Occam's Razor As I said and I will repeat for a long time, you are so full of shit. I was under the impression that the committee had to publish the franchising plan by the end of the week, but I don't see it. Why? We sent a reorganization plan to the debtors yesterday. Since the committee has no effective control of the company and can only object to their actions that require review of the judge, we will need to negotiate with the debtors to actually implement a plan. For that reason, it's not constructive for us to publish it publicly. If the debtors do not cooperate the judge has committed to hearing our motion to have new management put in place August 20th. Hopefully the debtors will be rational and we can get positive action taken before that date. |
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Do you have insight into this new creditor proposal? Can things get resolved quickly so we can all get some or all of our money back and move on? Before August 20th?
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I started a dialog with parts@ and got a reply from tim@hashfast.com regarding getting the manufacturing files, firmware and sales process. +1 to know their historical yield on boards as this is a non-starter if the yield is low. He states: "Once you purchase Golden Nonce ASICs, you will be provided the manufacturing files (schematic, BOM, and PCB layout files/Gerbers) for the mining board. The tools and software is already available at https://github.com/hashfast . Please provide me your address, and phone number and I will get an order confirmation sent to you for the Golden Nonce ASICs along with enough of the 5 hard to find parts to build boards. Once we have received payment, I will send you the manufacturing files." Completely useless until when they release the design of their board under public domain. Firmware included. And I wanted to see both the evo and the new half costs version.
Even after that, you would have to add PSU and cooling. $200. And you are being optimistic in your per board cost. $300 is. You could probably reach that price if you had the PCBs for in hand for free. So $300 + $168 + $200 for 650GH. Plus the yield, plus whatever could go wrong since that you will have to deal directly with suppliers. Good luck.
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There are 3 alternatives that I see on the table at the present time (in no specific order).
1. Liquidation. Force HF back into Chapter 7, assign a trustee, and all the creditors split all moneys (from inventory, IP, bank accounts, Bitcoin wallets) recovered after legal fees.
2. Liquid Bits proposal. Scared has answer some questions but it seems that there are still more to be answered.
3. Franchise proposal. The sad thing is it is seems to be tied in with Eduardo. Eduardo has been seen multiple times last week, walking his dog in the SF financial district, talking in Spanish, often mentioning the name "Guido", and talking about this proposal (overheard by people who understand Spanish and got taken by HF).
Regardless of tactics by HF or their attorneys, is there someone to force a conclusion to this sooner than later?
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Is there any more info on "8. Someone on the committee has proposed a "franchise model" that is very similar to LBs proposal except we would have ownership instead of being an unsecured creditor."? Seems intriguing. Very nice summary Minor.
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