Hey guys, I've gone ahead and created a thread for documenting the various versions of their ToS, which should help customers provide their lawyers with copies of the particular ToS they agreed to:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=402364

Please let me know if there's already a resource like this. If not, please refer anyone you see in this thread or elsewhere on the forums with a copy of the ToS to that thread. I know there've been a few people who have posted copies in this thread, but they're buried underneath all the other chatter.

Thanks!

Is there a canonical resource for keeping track of the legal data we'll need in going against Hashfast in court?

In case there isn't, I've gone ahead and created a thread for documenting the various versions of their ToS, which should help customers provide their lawyers with copies of the particular ToS they agreed to:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=402364

Hashfast has been changed its terms of sale without warning and without noting revisions many times. They seem to be under the impression that such changes can take effect retroactively. That is not the case, of course. However, many of us were not wise enough to save a copy of the particular ToS we agreed to when we agreed to it. This thread exists for the purpose of reconstructing the history of their ToS and for helping affected members acquire copies of the ToS they agreed to. I don't expect any legal action without this particular document to get very far.

I will be keeping an eye on this thread and updating this post with a timeline linking to the variations of the ToS and when they were first spotted. If you have any datapoints to add, please post them here. If you can confirm any of the datapoints posted here (aside from the current one, which we can all see for ourselves), that would be helpful as well. And please, keep the extraneous chatter to a minimum.

Edit: This resource already exists at http://hashfast.org/Terms_of_Sale. Locking the thread, but keeping it up to help other people find the wiki via the forum's search bar.

I just sent this message to a couple of my customers, and I'm posting it here as well:


As it says above, please let me know if you have any questions. Sorry this has turned out so poorly for everyone.

Sure, if you disregard the fact that those of us who'd be receiving them if they shipped them out now paid anywhere from 60 to 50 BTC per miner. That makes them very cost-inefficient. Had they shipped in October, then your statement would have been true.

I think you're taking the idea too much at face value. Yes, it's called "post-scarcity," but that doesn't imply we're talking about a place devoid of human wants, or even a place where scarcity does not exist at all. NeuralKernel hinted at this fact:


(edited for relevance)

A post-scarcity world arises when self-sustaining technology provides the world, or the vast majority of the world, with the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy for free. When one doesn't have to work to survive, but one may work to create a more comfortable life for oneself, or to provide meaning for one's life. That's what we're talking about when we talk about "post-scarcity."


I disagree with this. Your statement would be true of a world where consumers were perfectly informed and the only way to get money from a person is to benefit them. As it stands, though, it is entirely possible to trick a person out of funds. It is entirely possible to hold a gun to their head, both literally and metaphorically. This is a fine ideal regarding what money should be, but it does not match the reality.

I don't mean to practice thread necromancy, but here I go. I don't frequent the newbie forums (probably should), but this thread happened to come up as the top hit in a Google search for "cryptocurrencies for a post-scarcity world".

I really like Doctorow's work, even though I *do* feel his writing isn't quite on par with, say, Neal Stephenson's. His work contains a lot of ideas that resonate with me, and that's enough for me to read every damn thing he releases.

I've been tossing the question of how to implement "whuffies" in the real world around in my head ever since reading Down and Out. The idea of a reputation-based currency seems to run through a few of his stories. The Rapture of the Nerds seemed to allude to a similar type of currency, IIRC. The keystone problem, as far as I'm concerned, is the necessity of tying a single, canonical, counterfeit-proof identity to each actor in the economy. Without that particular piece, you face a serious problem with fraud.

Of course, I suppose there would be much less incentive to defraud people when technology takes care of all one's fundamental needs for free, as is the case in Down and Out. Therefore we *might* be able to get away with a less stringent version of whuffies where, though it's *possible* to cheat the system, there isn't much incentive to. To further discourage fraud, there could be a system in place that ties reputations to pseudonymous economic identities, much as is currently possible using a combination of Bitcoin and Web of Trust, but with the possibility of any actor retracting their economic support of any other actor at any point in time. An identity without much of an economic history, or an identity with a long history of retracting economic support at an unusually high rate, would eventually find themselves locked out of the economy.

In this case, though, the problem becomes the easy proliferation of economic identities. I could generate thousands of them, have them all trade among each other for a time in order to build up economic histories, and then go on a fraud spree that eventually tanks their reputations and start the whole process over again. Or I could just do it slowly and spread out enough to avoid detection, effectively buying tons of luxuries without actually spending any whuffie permanently.

Alternatively, we could remove the economic incentive for fraud by only allowing people to *destroy* the whuffie they've given other people. In that case, we would have to create a mechanism whereby the destroyed whuffie re-enters the economy. And even with this scheme, there's a potential for abuse by griefers/trolls. It is, of course, a trade-off: some people would consider the ability to initiate chargebacks as a positive thing. Then again, I don't expect there to be many of that sort among this crowd. :-)

There's also the potential for whuffies to act *exactly* like "+1"s and "like"s. They could be created in the act of transaction, ex nihilo, and just as easily destroyed. But then you have a serious chance for runaway inflation and fraud. But that might be a cool way to look at things all the same, if only as an experiment.

So we might be better served in trying to create a truly post-scarcity planet than in trying to build whuffies. Building whuffies first may be a case of putting the cart before the horse. And as cool as whuffies are, I'm not sure the idea will get very far until we've got a clear list of the problems it's supposed to solve. Got any thoughts on that front, NeuralKernal?

If they do that, they sure as hell had better ship a box with the upgrades. Otherwise the "upgrades" will be little more than more MPP that we'll have to buy empty boxes for. When I bought my upgrade, I was buying another *functional* 400 GH/s, and I won't accept any less...

HashFast seems dead-set on refunding the USD value only, though. So even if you paid 50 BTC, you're still only getting 5 to 6 BTC back.

So far I've received and shipped on Bogart's miners. Nothing yet on yours, tolan77. Sorry. I emailed Colin again today and will hopefully hear back soon.

Yes, it is. It's only standalone because it installs its own copy of cgminer.

If you are considering paying the original BTC price, I've got a Baby Jet plus upgrade that cost me 50 BTC in total. I'm #525 in the queue. Order placed 8/29 at 8:55 PM.

Yeah, I second this. If they think they can change the TOS unilaterally after the fact and expect it to apply retroactively, then they've got another thing coming.

Unlikely that it'll happen, yes. But it would be a great PR move, assuming it didn't come at the cost of more significant delays.

+1 on this.

On a completely unrelated note, it'd be pretty cool if there were a tip bot for the forums.

Ah, boards. Definitely got that wrong. But we still have to buy empty rigs to hold the boards, it sounds like.

Yeah. January 31st/February 1st. We might not be so bad off if the network hashrate stays calm. Better than taking the offered USD refund, anyway. :-p

The one thing I can see really fucking this up is the fact that they're only sending *chips* as part of the MPP. They consider getting a rig to put them in a completely separate matter. >.<

If they are *really* interested in making their customers happy, they should ship the MPP before the official three months is up, since it should be obvious to anyone that people like me will *not* be making back their BTC investment with a mere 400 GH/s. I mean, we're almost a third of the way through it already since they decided to start counting from when the miners *should* have shipped, October 30-ish.

1. Get born.
2. Spend the rest of your life curled up in a fetal position.
3.
4. Profit!

Nah. People need to spend bitcoin in order for it to be successful. Hoarding bitcoin just starves the Bitcoin economy. If you're so bullish on Bitcoin that you can't bear to spend it on anything, then you should really have *all* your money in. Then at least your spending power will increase with the price. I've got everything I have, save for the stuff I'd already stashed away in an IRA and a 401k, and couple hundred in emergency funds, in bitcoin. By no means am I a Bitcoin millionaire, but it's been nice seeing my spending power increase even as I continue buying stuff with it.

Seriously, your head is in the wrong game if you only see Bitcoin as a way to obtain more fiat.