Slogan Entry

"KNCMiner - We just want to be BFL"

BFL = "Bitcoins For Life" of course, what did you think it meant?

Instead of merely limiting buyers' risk ($100 USD+ is still quite a risk), why not eliminate it?

Either escrow the deposit, or don't require one.  If you ever actually ship product you will have customers banging down your doors to buy your 50 units so the deposit is completely unnecessary if this is not a scam.

What is the purpose of a 1 BTC deposit?

If you produce the product as promised, you can sell as many as you can produce for more than you're asking, so that's not it.

Is the deposit because you need the equivalent of $5,000 USD to fund this?   It seems your startup expenses will far exceed this amount.  In fact, it seems your expenses will far exceed your total revenue for 50 units at 8.99 BTC.

Not making much sense as a legitimate business...

Why is it that all these offers are always just on the verge of (but not actually) posting incontrovertible proof when they ask for funds?

I think he is questioning the credibility of the report since it's unlikely that a banker would discuss the details of a customer's account status with a third party.

Not saying it didn't happen, but it is odd.

FWIW - I believe that Roman will pay back funds.

Confidential = Information about any account (or potential account ) that isn't yours.

Your refund is coming... Just need a couple of more preorders and they'll have it ready for you.

Pirateat40, where are you?

Not sure what the implication of that statement is. 

Are you saying I needed to post commentary on the original image before I posted commentary on the image error level analysis?  If so, I didn't have anything useful to add to what was already said.

Or are you implying that the original image is so obviously faked that the error analysis is superfluous?  If so, I disagree because I think it adds some easily seen evidence.

Or is it something else?

Note in particular the square around the mounting hole in the lower right versus the circle in the lower left around the same area.  Based on the FAQ below, that indicates the image was manipulated in at least the lower right, if not both.  I know mounting holes are not important, I just mention the mounting holes because they are so blatant and easy to explain.

Look at the top of the ASICs and other areas as well, same is true.

The image is 600x400, surely no camera takes pics at that low res.  Simply post the original high res version, put this to rest.

http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=fc8c4db78c9c97aee0b347d86d57b391b81f9916.334748

http://fotoforensics.com/faq.php

Before the chart is completed I think we need a definition of what a "Success Scenario" is.

And also a definition of "ideal for bitcoin."

To be clear, I didn't write the article, I merely posted it here for discussion... 

However I am able to partially validate the author's point in that I too act as if Bitcoin is an investment.  In fact, I now regret using it as currency when I traded almost 100 for an Amazon gift code last year.

Saw this this morning.  I for one wouldn't spend my BTC now, so I'm treating it as a investment, not currency.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/04/03/why-bitcoins-rise-is-nothing-to-celebrate/


I’ve posted a very long piece on bitcoin over at Medium. Obviously, I’d love for you to go over there and read the whole thing — or at least save it somehow for reading later. But here’s the heart of the article:
 

Volatility is a serious problem, if you’re trying to put together a currency, rather than a vehicle for financial speculation. If the currency of a country ever fluctuated as much as bitcoins did, it would never be taken seriously as a medium of exchange: how are you meant to do business in a place where an item costing one unit of currency is worth $10 one day and $20 the next? Currencies need a modicum of stability; indeed, one of the main selling points of bitcoin was that it couldn’t be destabilized by government institutions. But that comes as scant comfort to people watching the value of a bitcoin behave like some kind of demented internet stock during the dot-com bubble.
 
In reality, then, bitcoin doesn’t really behave like a currency at all. In terms of its market value, it looks much more like a highly-volatile commodity. That’s by design: bitcoins were created to be the most fungible commodity the world had ever seen – to the point at which they would effectively erase the distinction between a commodity and a currency.
 
But is that a good idea?
 
The answer, of course, is no. It’s a bad idea to turn a currency into a commodity, because if the price of the commodity goes up, then everybody using the currency suffers from enormous deflation. Imagine a sucker who took out a loan in bitcoins a few weeks ago — she’d never be able to pay it back today. That’s a pretty good sign that bitcoins don’t work as a currency.
 
More profoundly, it’s incredibly corrosive to try to build a currency on mistrust, as bitcoin has attempted.

It’s because we place so much trust in banks, after all, that they are forced to take on a great deal of responsibility. Banks and central banks are given an important job to do, are regulated and scrutinized, and can be held responsible for their actions. The population of the entire country, as represented by the government, stands behind bank deposits and promises to honor them even if the bank goes bust. Money, in other words, is a key ingredient in the glue which keeps the social compact together. (What we’re seeing in Cyprus is in large part a demonstration of what happens when that compact starts becoming unglued.)
 
Bitcoin, in that sense, is anti democratic. It’s based on mistrust rather than trust, it refuses to take any responsibility onto itself – indeed, it doesn’t even have a self to take responsibility onto. It’s nihilistic.
 
It’s fun to watch the bitcoin bubble, but it’s also important to understand that almost no one actually wants to live in the kind of world that bitcoin enthusiasts are looking forward to. Thankfully, the rising price of bitcoins is not some kind of market signal telling us that we’re closer to that world. But at the same time, it’s certainly not something to celebrate.

They initially said local pickup was canceled because it was too popular.  The new reason makes only slightly less sense.

And what reason would a company have to take the worst possible pics of their product?  You know, at funny angles, cropped in the middle of the product, and most importantly not showing any of the parts that customers would need to see to find some scrap of evidence that it's not a scam?  It's not a trade secret, if they actually shipped a single one to anyone, the customer is free to take those pics and post them on the Interwebs...

SCAM ALERT!!!  

~TaraBit Farms~ is a scam

I have been researching the identity of one Wilson Wilson, listed as cofounder of this organization.  Although I currently lack conclusive proof, I have reason to believe he is unwilling to take a Captcha test to prove that he's human because he is not a human.  I have the Bitcoin police hunting around WW's pen and as soon as they can capture a dung sample, we'll rush it off for DNA analysis.

Now granted, I will agree with the ASIC pre-order/investor crowd here and admit up front that I can't prove you must be human to operate an ASIC manufacturing operation, but still, it's something to consider when deciding how many TaraBit Farms ASIC Bitcoin Milking Machines to pre-order/invest in.

Please clarify:

Are you accepting payments in dollars from consumers before there is a product?

Are you accepting payments in BTC and/or dollars from investors before there is a product?

Since you're only selling the secret ASIC to investors, does that mean investors are actually consumers?

And does that also mean investments are actually pre-orders?

And the scam is revealed...

We aren't like BFL taking pre-order money...  We are calling pre-orders "investments" and only those special people will get our super duper top secret product coming out soon.

Please people, think before you give this guy any of your BTC!  Actually, scratch that - don't worry about thinking, just don't give him your BTC (as an "investor" or as a pre-order) until there is proof of a functional product.

I think you misunderstood my post.

In summary what I meant is that his LinkedIn profile is humorous at best, but there is some confirmation of his LinkedIn job history available via Google search.  IE, he may actually be who he says he is, which seems to be a possibly delusional dreamer with big ideas that are likely beyond his reach.

I think it's 50/50 that this guy is in the very early stages of trying to launch an ASIC (the other 50 being that it's a simple scam)
I think it's 99999/1 that he fails.

First the good news.  Some basic Googling seems to indicate that Max Avroutski is a real person that has some experience in various facets of IT.  This is a step ahead of most ASIC scams where all attempts to research the company turn up nothing before three days ago.  His LinkedIn page does not inspire much confidence though, for example:

"knowledge in business processes and business practices, law, material science, psychology, neuroscience, medicine, manufacturing processes, computer science and more;"

Best case scenario is that this is a very early stage venture that will likely encounter the same issues that the other legitimate attempts did.  Chances of success are slim and none, and Slim is warming up his car to head out of town.

Please do not attempt to preorder anything!!!

You can easily exchange BTC for whatever currency you wanted as soon as you mine it.  And you don't need to use BTC to buy milk or pay off debt, you can simply use an exchange to trade it for the required currency.

I don't think people believe it's a scam because they weren't aware of it.

It's a scam because it didn't exist prior to a few days ago even though they claim to be around for years, the scamster has provided no proof of anything, has refused to provide simple information (eg what's your old website that I've heard so much about), falsified reviews on his website, offers free units to anyone that criticizes him to try to buy their support, posted and removed fake unboxings on YT and then says proof will come from user YT videos, isn't mining any of the systems on a public pool, and on and on...

I understand we can try to justify each separate issue as a quirk or misstep, but as a whole why would a legitimate company operate this way?  In totality it makes no sense at all.  A legitimate company could simply provide some very basic information about the company and product to prove they are real.  Why wouldn't they?

Since the mountain of evidence against isn't persuasive, let's turn this around.  Can anyone provide any evidence that indicates this is real?

I hope it does show.  I will celebrate by drinking a case of Apfelschorle.