Which review sites have the most reader and most unbiased reviews?

I see a lot of review sites but it is hard to understand who you can trust and who is just trying to make money from whichever gaming site that pays that highest referral

So I have been thinking about what would be a balanced resolution to what seems to be clearly false advertising of lying about October/November as possible shipping dates.

Basically what I am looking for is break even with the HF hardware (which the MPP was supposed to provide).

I think suing is a very bad option.  Only the lawyers make out in that scenario.

Here are some options that I think are balanced...
1) Customer has the option of canceling their order and having the same amount of BTC returned
or
2) Customer has the option of receiving batch 1 order and after 90 days... any statistical gap between break even and the paid amount would be refunded (therefore achieving break even ~27 BTC)
or
3) If HF can provide MPP quantities of the rev0/1 boards, customers can opt for immediate MPP and you take your chances at ROI... no other reparations will be available.

Of course at this point option 1 would I think be preferable for all parties involved since batch 1 customers are not receiving what we were initially expecting when we ordered.

I personally like option 2 as I think it is the most balanced.  For those who paid with bitcoin... after 90 days with the hardware if we have not achieved break-even, HF will refund the difference.  From my calculations if we get mining on 1/1/2014 and get MPP on 2/2/2013, that combo after 90 days will return about 25 BTC.  If they refund 27 BTC per order in April (90 days after initial hardware receipt), I will consider myself made whole.

If you want it to be at the top... keep it updated.  

Your other threads have become hate and fear-fest's.

Publish or perish.

Edit: why not... I've never moderated a thread before, but I will give it a shot.

If you want it to be at the top... keep it updated.  

Your other threads have become hate and fear-fest's.

Publish or perish.

The subject covers the high points.

I have an original August (arrived Sept.) kit with 2 cards averaging around 30GH/s.
It has been mining on and off at eligius at:
http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1PNv6yHvwEToEX2bWvwUDz5RMt21MnZZHd

Prefer a US buyer.
This would be for the whole kit (i.e. 1 M-board, raspberry pi with sdcard and the two H-Cards).  
This kit was never over-clocked.

If you are good with a soldering iron (and more adventurous than me), you can probably get more speed out of these cards.  

Realistic offers will be treated realistically.

[The details:We will give you double the extra capacity you would have needed to break even (up to a maximum of 4x your original purchase). The extra capacity will be chips only, to be used with a HashFast or third party chassis.]

The Protection Program is buried in a couple of threads so I am bringing it out into the light for full discussion:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270384.msg2922794#msg2922794

. . .
That is the reason behind our Miner Protection Program, and the guarantee we provide is:

If any of our pre-purchase customers has not achieved payback on their investment in HashFast equipment within 90 days* of taking delivery from us, we will support them by providing them with up to 4X the Hashing capacity they originally purchased, free of charge.


The details:

We will give you double the extra capacity you would have needed to break even (up to a maximum of 4x your original purchase). The extra capacity will be chips only, to be used with a HashFast or third party chassis.

*Assuming you have been running your mining rig 24/7, ROI calculated from the daily difficulty level, block arrival rate, and hash rate of equipment delivered.

Eduardo deCastro
Founder and CEO, Hashfast

I would like to start the discussion on the details section.
First I would like to thank HF for offering this program as I don't think any of the other vendors have anything similar.  However, the details section is a bit brief, and it seems like they are providing raw chips.  This doesn't seem like much help.  At this point, asics are very custom development, and not plug and play.

How are you guys reading the "The extra capacity will be chips only, to be used with a HashFast or third party chassis"?  It kind of feels like raw chips to me.

An analogy:
I kind of see this as the similar to buying a Nuclear Power Station (bare with me).... which is admittedly a niche market (like bitcoin miners).  The vendor (GE?) says... if your power station doesn't provide the power you need, in 90 days we will give you enough Uranium to build 3 new power stations for free!  Which is a great deal, the Uranium is the most difficult component to acquire, but building a power station is not easy for most and there is limited capacity in the environment for qualified builders.

If the vendor had stated "We will upgrade your existing power station", or "We will provide additional power stations (if your current stations are at capacity) for a nominal fee", I think this would be a much more powerful statement, and more compelling as a customer.

Feel free to discuss... HashFast feel free to join in the discussion with any clarifications or misunderstandings.  
It is interesting and exciting how the mining vendor space is shaping.  Just like the difficulty curve  

So... is bitcoin price on mt. gox pretty much governed by whales humping (with the micro-trash bot trades random walks between the whales)?

Locking thread due to refund status being a known quantity now.

Yifu has made good on his refund promise except for 2 bugged refunds which will be handled separately.


Update:
New refunds have started to be processed.

ok. this is pretty stupid of me, and completely my fault.

the system is designed to move cold storage to hot wallet -> then send out refunds.

but apparently the move failed and the script tried to send a bunch of refunds while the input contained no coins...

1000 coins have been moved and script resumed, I'm sure people should see refunds instantly and can vouch. and once I get back on location I can enable more coins to be moved and thus refund resumed.

again, I apologize for the long delay.

I can vouch that I received my refund and the 1000BTC does show up being sent out.  If I had to guess, the is refunding in roughly store order number.  Since my order is now "complete" I will share my order number and if anyone else would like to do the same, we may be able to help folks determine where they stand in the refund line.

9 refunds clearly posted here:
https://blockchain.info/address/1JrwWrt3TYUzMYFEBLX5hTo1zFsEY6tWZN


---------------

Not much more to report.

Just noticed my store status just went to refunded.

Not in my wallet yet, but I think the wait is over.

Progress!

Thanks Yifu!

Edit -- Update for status:
Anenome5 - submitted a refund request early and received a full payout
                - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=257748.msg2750933#msg2750933

jspielbe -no refund transfer yet (edit for unrelated BTC transfer not from Bitsyncom)  Refund processing completed 8.28.2013  - Store Order Number 4513
Btcsql - received refund.
Mik3 -   received refund
6 other refunds seen in blockchain.

Avalon will be shipping Batch 3 in the next couple of days and I am putting one of my B3 4-modules up for sale.  If there is enough interest I may add a second 4-module unit.
Purchase was originally made March 25th with order number 451X (currently in processing state like all B3 sales).

I like Dogie's format for his auctions so this auction will look similar.

Details:

• 4 module
• 85GH rated (appears stable up to 110 stock cooling with overclock firmware with existing 4 module Batch 2 systems)
• PSU is included.
• Shipping from Denver, CO
• I'll kick in upto 2btc worth of shipping (if local pickup - save 2 btc) - you must make up the difference
• Happy to escrow with JohnK but you will have to pay the fees

Auction starts at 125 btc per unit. Minimum increment of 1btc.
BIN is 225btc per unit.
Bid format is units @ price per unit.
BTC bids only.

I reserve the right to withdraw this auction or sell by pm/blind bid.

Auction will end when I get tracking information from Bitsyncom on the unit/units - as they will be on their way to the US at that point.  I will post information as requested to this thread and PM. 

I will ship to the winner the same day as I receive it.  If you prefer it burn-in tested I can run it against eligius with an address of your choice.  If I receive them on a Friday and I am unable to ship immediately, I also offer to run them against eligius with your address until I can get them re-shipped.

I created a thread with some diffuculty projections in google docs in Mining Speculation.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236050.0

Feel free to make a copy and play around with the numbers.  It uses an exponential least squares best fit determined by Wolfram Alpha.
Do your own due diligence and bid responsibly.

Good Luck!

As B2 is slowly going out the door (emphasis on slowly), I am considering divesting some of my risk and selling one of my pre-orders for a B3 4Module.

What is the going rate for pre-orders?
Would it make more sense to wait until I have my units in hand?

Would be willing to use escrow (though buyer would have to cover the cost).

Any advice on a new to selling on bitcoin talk marketplace forum person?

[0.0207254]

I went ahead and made a new Google Spreadsheet with the latest difficulty data in wolfram:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auya3iRE6az1dDc0UVgwMU52YVpTazVjSHByOGNiWHc&usp=sharing

This time I didn't make any changes to the exponential factor spit out by wolfram.  It seems little too optmistic, so I don't think it will be accurate for more than 1 or 2 retaigets.

Here is the wolfram link:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=exponential+fit+%7B%7B13%2C+3651012%7D%2C%7B37%2C+4847647%7D%2C%7B96%2C+11187257%7D%2C+%7B120%2C+15605633%7D%2C%7B156%2C26162876%7D%2C%7B167%2C31256960%7D%2C%28189%2C50810340%7D%7D

Again... feel free to tweak the values.

Edit: Updated 7/13 with latest difficulty numbers: base = 2.83643 exponential=0.0142844
Edit: Updated 8/16 with latest difficulty numbers: base = 1.89041 exponential=0.0172202
Edit: Updated 8/31 with projected difficulty values: base = 1.05869 exponential=0.0207254 !!

===== Original =======
Just for fun while waiting for Avalon to get around to shipping B3 units, I created a google spreadsheet to project the estimated BTC generated for a given hashrate received at a particular time during the year.  Is it pretty easy to use... just put in your expected delivery date in the yellow box, and your hash rate in the green one.  Feel free to try it out!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auya3iRE6az1dG9fRkpXdFJtT1dNX0VCU1F0VFFUX3c&usp=sharing

To get the projected hashrate I used historical some data points starting in mid January through this last for difficulty adjustment (6/16/2013) and used and exponential fit in wolfram alpha.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=exponential+fit+%7B28.19%2C2968775%7D%2C%7B40.88%2C3275465%7D%2C%7B65%2C4847647%7D%2C%7B87.9%2C6695826%7D%2C%7B112.11%2C8974296%7D%2C%7B124.59%2C10076293%7D%2C%7B137.2%2C11187257%7D%2C%7B161%2C15605633%7D%2C%7B172%2C19339258%7D


One caveat:
Wolfram alpha's best exponential curve seemed a bit optimistic on growth rate. I upped it a bit to what I think would be more conservative (but who knows?!).
These projections put the difficulty at 100M+ at the end of september, and 1B+ at the beginning of March 2014.

I am not sure how to allow you guys to make your own edits without saving... so if you want to edit, you will have to make a copy I'm afraid.

I have been mulling over Bitfury/Metabank the last couple of days. 
Waiting for Avalon Batch 3 to ship and the rising network hash rate will do that.

Here is a summary of what I believe to be the facts:

• bitfury is well respected and a confirmed expert in the FPGA mining space
• metabank is a somewhat respected smaller bitcoin exchange like the russian version of campbx
• bitfury has designed a 65nm asic with compelling second generation specs
• metabank is selling a 120GHs miner based on Bitfury's chip design for ~19BTC but only selling within Russia
• the miner will not be standalone and will require specially provided mining software and eventually cgminer (though maybe not initially)
• bitcoin talkers with russian connections are setting up export businesses to pass through the domestic only sales for btw 3 and 8 BTC in profit
• most of these exporters are small operations and can't front the capital for a useful form of escrow (ie. if metabank doesn't deliver)

Risks:

• When prices/power are too good to be true... they probably aren't true... Bitfury miner is bordering on too good to be true.
• If bitfury is designing the chip but not the system, there are integration risks to the schedule
• Metabank might not be legit
• The export business isn't legit
• Miner may not be compatible with non-Russian power standards
• Miner for security reasons may not be exportable from Russia

Here are my Questions:

• Is bitfury building the whole machine too or just the asic (like BFL selling their chips) and Metabank has the first batch of chips with which to build their miner?
• Have any of the Russians here dealt with Metabank?
• Do they seem legit (i.e. is their business established enough that they would have more to lose by failing to deliver?)
• Will the miner be "easy" to use outside russia?

What other questions do people have?

Hey Mods/John,

It seems like this subforum has become 90% people trying to buy and sell (and I think we already have a marketplace for that).
Any chance we can get sub-subforum for all the new Asic products and services being hawked?
(or is there a filter option to ignore any title meeting a regex?)

Thanks for your thoughts!

So... has Goliath just been roused from a slumber?  Are we going to see Asics flooding the market any day now? 

Should Avalon Batch 2 and 3 folks be concerned? 

What says the "wisdom of the crowd"?

Has there been any word if future (AvAs2?) hashing modules will be backwards compatible with the current architecture?

They looks like they are pretty plug-n-play with the power and 40 line ribbon cable.  Would be great for those lucky ones who are able to get AvAs1's t be able to move up to higher speed/smaller process node asics without having to junk the whole box.

- Just my 0.0004BTC

From the news letter

Due to overwhelming demand, we are going to gauge interest on a smaller 2 module version of the Avalon unit that's effectively half of a Avalon original in size, and greater than 45Gh/s in performance.
 
As per usual the price of the unit is determined by the following equation.
mining_difficulty * ( 1 + number_of_month_in_lead_time) over a 30 day period on the unit's hashing power. to those interested, here is the form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rJJniFiYn0XMPZVKVni86xBvSTylWw0fv1c1zAfuR68/viewform

Discuss...

Editing the title to be a Proposal rather than an announcement.