I'm not convinced this is legitimate.  It's one digit off the phone number for the real Can Electric and I've had no reply to an email I sent to Can Electric (the real one) asking whether they've ever heard of Tom and his project.  Nothing on the real Can Electric's website suggests that they have any experience whatsoever in developing computing technology, let alone any ability to handle the entire process in-house.

Next step is trying to contact Ari Asmar - the owner of the real Can Electric on the number on Can Electric's website.

The website has been changed and I don't have a screenshot of the old website.  They used to have "BTCFPGA LLC" posted at several locations before it was changed to "CAN-ELECTRIC". 

Have you not noticed the "hope this is real" posts?  While I don't think this project can be effectively re-branded before BFL delivers even if there genuinely are new owners (and I'm yet to be convinced that there are), there are definitely still people hoping to buy cheap next generation mining units ASAP.

Still no reply to my email to the real Can Electric.  If I don't get a reply within the next 24 hours, I will phone them.  There is literally no proof right now of them having bought anything from Tom.  The weird initial post announcing the "sale" implied that the new owner had not bought any debt and that Tom would still be responsible for refunds.

And y'all can dox Tom if you want but I'd like to remind you that you ordered your hardware from an LLC, not an individual, and that doxxing Trendon Shavers and his family didn't get anyone back a single Bitcoin.

I was aware of the change in timeline which projected the chips being finished 4-8 February.  Everything after that is on a very tight timeline.  It's 5 February in Asia, so Josh needs to leave soon if he's going to collect the chips on Friday and start shipping 10 days later (which to date is the "worst case scenario" he's acknowledged).

I saw the comments about Josh not leaving on 1-2 February because Josh sitting around in a hotel room waiting for the chips wasn't regarded as the best use of his time, but no update as yet on when he will be leaving for the fab.  The steps remaining after he collects the chips are :


I think they may be over-confident in believing they can meet the 18 Feb shipping date if Josh hasn't even left for the fab yet.

Looks like HardCopy produces FPGA prototypes as part of the ASIC design process.


http://www.altera.com/devices/asic/hardcopy-asics/hardcopy-iv/hciv-index.jsp

Any word yet on when Josh is heading to the fab?  The "worst case scenario" date for the chips being ready is rapidly approaching.

Here in Australia you can take them to Apple and they'll replace it with a reconditioned one for a moderate fee.  My son in law has dropped his in the toilet, run over it with the car, and smashed it while throwing a tantrum.  Each time Apple have been happy to replace it for a fee even though every incident has been his fault.

Yep, I was getting a "connection refused" (102) error this morning for a fair while.

I've already emailed the legitimate Can Electric.  All of Ari's FB posts since late 2011 have been made from Iraq.  If I don't get an email response within a couple of days I'll message him on the number listed on the real Can Electric site (which is one number different than the one on the bASIC site) and/or on FB.

They never set out to be a retail company with full on marketing and customer support and that's very much reflected in their priorities.

To some extent, Asian business culture is different than US business culture but I don't think that's the central issue here.

It is disappointing, to say the least, that Yifu hasn't answered the question of whether the batch of 53 units Avalon has shipped made it out of China before the CNY cut-off date as that affects when we can expect to see more Avalons in the wild.

From hero to villain in a few days...

Yep.  Stable again now.

Altera likely uses different fabs for different products.

It looks like Ari Asmar has been back living in Iraq since 2011, based on his FB page.

I'm not sure if this is accurate, but I read that HardCopy is trademarked by Altera and that they use TSMC for fabrication - and that TSMC doesn't even do 45nm. 

There were massive problems with payment processing.  The plan at this point is to refund orders where the payments didn't process properly and make those units available for sale at a later date.  People who ordered and whose payments weren't processed properly are extremely pissed off about that proposal, so who knows how they'll eventually handle this.

You're best checking the Custom Hardware forum for up to date information on this.

The problem is that nothing about Can Electric indicates that they have any experience in the IT field - and the revised BitcoinASIC site claims that they do and that they can do all sorts of hardware stuff in-house.  Their claims are so outrageous that I doubt anyone's even going to make a phone call to Iraq, although someone might email the real Can Electric tomorrow.

Re-branding bASIC would be quite a challenge anyway but it definitely can't be done when everything connected with that re-branding so far looks dodgy as hell to the extent that people aren't even sure this isn't Tom using the name of an obscure company without their knowledge.

Email sent to Can Electric using the email address on the actual Can Electric website.

Does anyone remember Tom vanishing to Iraq around November?  Although the real Can Electric site gives both a Canadian phone number and an Iraqi one, only the Iraqi number is given in the "Contact US" section of the bitcoinASIC site.

And yet you just know that someone is going to place a real order with them in spite of all the red flags "just in case" they're legitimate.

People had several days notice regarding Batch 2 orders and the time was even pushed back a couple of days.  It was also known that WalletBit was going to be the payment processor.

There's a lot to be critical of regarding how Batch 2 ordering actually went, but lack of notice about the sale time and who the payment processor was aren't among those things.