Several issues.

The claim that PoW is "inefficient" is economically naive, at least in the form presented here.  The exact cost per transaction is difficult to determine at the moment because of price fluctuations, but ultimately the efficiency of the network will settle to a value determined by the total value transferred over total cost of running the network. The cheeky claim that it "costs hundreds of time more than a credit card transaction" can hardly be taken serious if it is presented without any kind of calculation, as was done here.

Re: network security. PoW at the scale of the current Bitcoin network is de facto secure (no attack ever succeeded, no realistic attack vector that does not involve massive clandestine hardware production is known), and it is getting more secure each day as additional hashpower comes online. "Increased" security through PoS is an advantage that holds little weight then.

On the other hand, there are numerous disadvantages of PoS. The most significant ones I can think of:

Coin distribution by stake, instead of coin distribution by work. There is something intuitively unappealing about handing the highest rewards to the already largest holders of an asset, and there is something intuitively satisfying about rewarding those who "work the hardest". Don't take my word for it, ask around. This is probably the most basal reason why a majority of the Bitcoin community dislikes PoS.

Consensus forming in the case of competing chains. From a technical perspective, probably the strongest argument. Summarized in the well know form as "The trouble with Proof-of-stake is that there is nothing at stake" if there is a need to form a consensus which of two or more competing chains is the canonical one. I'm not informed enough on the current state of the discussione to know if there have been, generally accepted, solutions to the problem, but the entire problem is alien to PoW because hashpower/energy is a limited resource.

Simplest answer: cash flow problems.

May 21st, 2014

Dear Ed,

We are getting in touch with you because you have previously requested a refund of your CoinTerra hardware order.

At the time of your refund request, it was likely communicated to you that we typically take between 2-4 weeks to process refunds. Unfortunately, we received a larger quantity of refund requests around the time that we started to ship our April batch of TerraMiners to customers, and as a result we are running behind on processing them, as they are refunded in the order in which the refund request is received.

Your refund request is still active, and we are currently anticipating between 8 and 12 weeks processing time for some refunds.  We will continue to work towards processing the refunds as quickly as possible.

However, we would also like to share with you two incredible limited-time offers that, should you choose, will quickly get you back on track with your bitcoin mining activities:

Option 1

Some customers requested their refund because of the hash power deficit of 400 GH/s in the 1.6 TH/s units. With manufacturing running at full capacity we are now able to ship the 1.6 TH/s TerraMiners immediately from stock, and so for a limited time, if you are a US resident customer* who purchased at the original price of $5,999 (plus shipping) we can ship you 2 x your original order of TerraMiner IV 1.6 TH/s Bitcoin miners with FREE ground shipping on the additional unit(s).  That’s 3.2 TH/s for the same price paid for 2 TH/s!

An order for 1 x TerraMiner IV at $5,999 entitles you to receive a second TerraMiner IV with FREE UPS Ground shipping. An order of 2 x TerraMiner IV’s with total price of $11,998 + shipping entitles you to receive 4 x TerraMiner IV 1.6 TH/s shipped immediately with FREE UPS Ground shipping for the additional 2 units.

Option 2

Some customers requested a refund because for whatever reason they were unable to run the TerraMiners in their location.  We have been working on a solution to this problem and you may have read the announcement on May 12th that we have now launched a new service offering cloud-based Bitcoin Mining Contracts through CoinTerra Mining at:

http://mining.cointerra.com

A cloud-based mining contract is a solution where you receive regular payouts at the contracted hash power for a fixed term, powered by our scalable TerraMiner farm in a 24 x 7 datacenter: No equipment, no electricity costs, and no hands-on system management required.

For a limited time we are offering the equivalent of your purchase price of each TerraMiner converted to the 2 TH/s mining contract which is currently priced at $7,999 - a savings of $2,000!  If you have 2 x TerraMiner IV’s then you will get 2 x 2 TH/s plans, etc.

To discuss your order, please reply to this email with your preferred phone number and time of day to reach you (please include your time zone) and we will get in touch. If you are only able to communicate via email (for example, if you are not comfortable speaking in English) then please reply to this email and we will get back in touch.

In the event that you these offers do not interest you, we completely understand and we will keep you on the refund list and we thank you for your ongoing patience and understanding as we work to stay ahead in the incredibly fast-moving Bitcoin ecosystem.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions.

 

Team CoinTerra

customeroffers@cointerra.com

May 21st, 2014

Dear Ed,

We are getting in touch with you because you have previously requested a refund of your CoinTerra hardware order.

At the time of your refund request, it was likely communicated to you that we typically take between 2-4 weeks to process refunds. Unfortunately, we received a larger quantity of refund requests around the time that we started to ship our April batch of TerraMiners to customers, and as a result we are running behind on processing them, as they are refunded in the order in which the refund request is received.

Your refund request is still active, and we are currently anticipating between 8 and 12 weeks processing time for some refunds.  We will continue to work towards processing the refunds as quickly as possible.

However, we would also like to share with you two incredible limited-time offers that, should you choose, will quickly get you back on track with your bitcoin mining activities:

Option 1

Some customers requested their refund because of the hash power deficit of 400 GH/s in the 1.6 TH/s units. With manufacturing running at full capacity we are now able to ship the 1.6 TH/s TerraMiners immediately from stock, and so for a limited time, if you are a US resident customer* who purchased at the original price of $5,999 (plus shipping) we can ship you 2 x your original order of TerraMiner IV 1.6 TH/s Bitcoin miners with FREE ground shipping on the additional unit(s).  That’s 3.2 TH/s for the same price paid for 2 TH/s!

An order for 1 x TerraMiner IV at $5,999 entitles you to receive a second TerraMiner IV with FREE UPS Ground shipping. An order of 2 x TerraMiner IV’s with total price of $11,998 + shipping entitles you to receive 4 x TerraMiner IV 1.6 TH/s shipped immediately with FREE UPS Ground shipping for the additional 2 units.

Option 2

Some customers requested a refund because for whatever reason they were unable to run the TerraMiners in their location.  We have been working on a solution to this problem and you may have read the announcement on May 12th that we have now launched a new service offering cloud-based Bitcoin Mining Contracts through CoinTerra Mining at:

http://mining.cointerra.com

A cloud-based mining contract is a solution where you receive regular payouts at the contracted hash power for a fixed term, powered by our scalable TerraMiner farm in a 24 x 7 datacenter: No equipment, no electricity costs, and no hands-on system management required.

For a limited time we are offering the equivalent of your purchase price of each TerraMiner converted to the 2 TH/s mining contract which is currently priced at $7,999 - a savings of $2,000!  If you have 2 x TerraMiner IV’s then you will get 2 x 2 TH/s plans, etc.

To discuss your order, please reply to this email with your preferred phone number and time of day to reach you (please include your time zone) and we will get in touch. If you are only able to communicate via email (for example, if you are not comfortable speaking in English) then please reply to this email and we will get back in touch.

In the event that you these offers do not interest you, we completely understand and we will keep you on the refund list and we thank you for your ongoing patience and understanding as we work to stay ahead in the incredibly fast-moving Bitcoin ecosystem.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions.

 

Team CoinTerra

customeroffers@cointerra.com

I'm almost certain the refund was in fiat since the prices on cointerra's site are all in USD and because they use bitpay to process payments and automatically adjust the BTC price based on the current exchange rate.

I wouldn't complain if I'm wrong though.

Update 2013-11-11: Peter from Cointerra finally got back to me and said they will send me a refund in the form of a check for USD.

So I think this makes week 7 this week and no refund...they did offer to be more communicative, though so far that hasn't actually meant anything...