I think you are missing the point.  When LCD HDTV came out they were like $5000 for a 42".  Then $2,000 then $1,200 then $8,000 then $500 now what $300? (<$200 for a cheap brand).

The point is why didn't everyone just wait a decade and save a lot of money.  Hell you would "profit" if you delayed consumption even if you just put your money under a matress even WITH inflation reducing the purchasing power of your dollar.  The purchasing power of a dollar (despite being inherently inflationary) rose against HDTVs.  If you bought the first year they were available it would have cost you $5,000.  If you waited just a year you could have saved $3,000 if you waited another couple years you could have saved $4,000.

By your logic the TV industry would have failed.  Nobody would ever have bought a TV, nobody will ever buy a TV because prices will be cheaper next year.

Except people DID buy TVs and they did so (many of them) KNOWING the price would be lower next year.

Why?  Simple the need/want NOW outweighed the cost savings of delaying.  Now some people DID delay consumption especially when the deflation was the steepest.  Waiting a year today might save you $20 but waiting a year in the first year might have saved you $4,000.  So some consumption was delayed.  Ok but people still bought TVs, and cellphones, and ipods, and bluray players, and computers, and gaming consoles, and camcorders, etc.

The electronics industry is healthy and growing depsite every product they make is almost certainly going to be cheaper AND better in the future.

Deflation does have an effect on delaying consumption just like inflation has an effect on accelerating consumption (which has led to a lot of the problems we have today) however nobody delays consumption forever.
Are you going to take your Bitcoins to your grave with you?  Is every Bitcoin holder?  What is the point of a Bitcoin holding value if you never USE that value?  Is it just a video game, the nerd who dies with the highest Bitcoin score gets bragging rights?

People will spend.  People spent gold based currencies despite the fact that gold held its value remarkably well.  People may not buy every piece of garbage at whatever price a company wants if the value their money but they will buy something at some price.

Just use your backup wallet file.  I mean cryptocurrencies are the first money that can be backed up.  You could make a hundred copies if you were that paranoid.  
You made a backup right?

You have a backup of the wallet on the USB stick in the bank right?  Flash memory can fail.

Update KNC sept/oct to 2 PH/s.  Asked for clarification on their "70% of all coins" press release.  It is unclear what the 70% refers to.  Is it hashrate at the time of the press release.  70% of the average hashrate since they started shipping?

As the network was 1.3 PH/s before KNC started shipping and was ~4 PH/s at the time of the statement the upper bound would be 2.7 PH/s (that would be if nobody else shipped a single GH/s since 1 Sept).  If we look at 70% being the average hashrate from the time they started shipping that would be ~2 PH/s.   70% of the peak hashrate would be 2.8 PH/s which would be impossible.    So my best guess is KNC shipped 2 to 2.5 PH/s in Batch 1.  This would mean the made up 70% to 80% of the hashrate increase since 1 Sept and all other competitors were 20% to 30%.


My guess is that Nov batch is probably the same size.  This is based on nothing more than hopefully KNC knows their own limitations and it took >2 weeks to deliver the first batch thus it probably will take at least 2 weeks to deliver the second one.  If the second batch is significantly larger (say 50%+) than the first the Nov orders will roll into Dec.

So based on the order count and the Sept/Oct batch I agree we probably are looking at another 2.0 PH/s to 2.5 PH/s shipping in Nov.  I left it at 2 PH/s for now but will adjust upward based on clarification of the size of the Sept/Oct batch. Those wishing to be more pessimistic should add 1.0 PH/s to the total to account for higher Sept/Oct and Nov batch sizes.

Well supply, demand, geed, fear, and momentum.

The sharp rallies and falls have more to do with geed and fear.  That applies equally to Bitcoin.

It is debatable that NVidia is better at gaming.  Even if one card is superior there are lots of cards at lots of price points.  Also both companies have traded top spot in benchmarks for years.  Competition is a good thing it means better products at lower prices for all consumers regardless of which brand they prefer.

However in OpenCL NVidia has higher floating point power (good for scientific simulations) while AMD has superior integer performance. Hashing (mining uses hashing not encryption) is all integer math so an AMD chip is going to be superior.  However what is the "kill blow" for relative performance is AMDs chips have an instruction which reduces a complex rotation which normally takes 3 operations plus a delay into a single operation.   That single instruction adds about a 15% to 20% "bonus" to AMD GPU performance.

There is another difference but it is growing smaller.  NVidia has generally designed chips around a "fewer but more complex/powerful shaders" concept while AMD has designed chips around a "massive number of simple shaders per core" concept.  SHA-2 hashing is very simple and thus fits more efficiently into "a lot of simple cores" model.  However overtime AMDs shaders have gotten more and more complex while NVidia has added more and more shaders so this difference is closing.   It is also one reason why the relative performance of a 7000 series isn't double that of a 5000 series despite the 30% higher clock and 50% more transistors .  The 7000 series is "faster" but not as fast as it would be if the 7000 series was just a die shrink of the 5000 series.

So the combination of better integer performance, instructions which provide a significant speed improvement, and a higher shader count all make AMD a better fit for mining (and a worse fit for other OpenCL tasks).  There is no reason NVidia couldn't design their chips differently they just have chosen not to.  In most industrial and scientific tasks floating point performance is more important.  If anything AMD will likely need to improve floating point performance (possibly at the expense of integer performance) in order to get most OpenCL design wins.

Can KNC provide a direct clarification of the 70% of coins number.   Since KNC can't possibly know the exact number of coins mined it was likely marketing for 70% of the hashrate.  

Since KNC has already put it out their in a vague way, why not go all the way and give us a number.  If nothing else it will shut Josh up when he claims BFL has shipped more than everyone else combined.  

Simple question:  What was the size of batch 1 (sept/oct)?  2.0 PH/s? 2.4 PH/s?  2.8 PH/s?

If they had faith that Bitcoin would triple they would have done just that.   Many VC putting money in Bitcoin see companies and services as a way to rise the wave of higher adoption without taking a risk on the exchange rate itself.  If you owned a chunk of Bitpay and the exchange rate fell but real adoption increased and the company doubled gross revenue year over year well it is still a good investment.

Nobody said anything about lying.  "Working on" =/= tapeout imminent.  All designs to date have been rush jobs.  From concept to tapeout in rapid time.  There is a lot that probably be done to improve die efficiency, functionality, throttling, power management, dead core detection (and compensation), timely work change, cheaper connectivity, etc.   Obviously nobody is going to do a respin at 28nm (at another $2M a pop) unless the chip simply doesn't work. 

You work with what you got but all your lessons learned, wish list, and improvements that didn't make the last design/mask get pushed to the next process node.  Working on a next gen design for a year is not inconceivable.  By the time 2015 rolls around margins will be incredibly tight and availability high.  When the economics mean a sub 28nm chip makes sense you have a highly tested, perfected design and you jump to that.  Improved design, improved functionality, improved efficiency will be a way to keep marketshare and margins in the face of competition.

Thats good.  It wasn't directed at you just maybe some BFL customers who haven't got a call and will in the future will see that.  You did the right thing.  If your unhappy let them know your unhappy but in a civil way.  BFL will probably get transcripts, notes, and summaries.  Not sure it will do any good but Josh seems to think most BFL customers are happy customers and the forums just have a few loudmouth malcontents.  Maybe if they get a summary that 95%+ of calls had a negative view of the company/product it will wake them up.  Probably not but it can't hurt.

This single effort.  More than one firm has been quietly buying in the background with private money for much longer, no headlines, no splashes just buying month after month off market from companies who could facilitate trades.    

I think you underestimate the amount of money on wallstreet.  If they felt it was a good deal they could buy a lot more.  Think hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions if assets were liquidated or margin was used.

Bitcoin = money.  Wallstreet = money.  It is naive to think those with massive amounts of "the money of today" couldn't acquire a massive amount of "the money of tomorrow".  Most probably won't but it will simply be that they can't see the potential because Bitcoin is so far out of the box it seems impossible to them.  By the time it is obvious that Bitcoin isn't just possible it is everywhere the potential returns will be more normal .  Bitcoin can't keep doubling forever, growth will eventually slow down.

In BTC doesn't mean the BTC amount.  It likely means they intend to use Bitpay or some other service to automate refunds.
I would love to be wrong but counting on anything more than 100% USD refund is a fantasy.

I mean lets look at this logically.  You rant about how they used our money to fund the NRE.  How did they fund that in BTC?  How did they purchase masks in BTC?  How did they buy a batch of wafers in BTC?  How did they contract an packaging house and assemby house in BTC?

The simple answer is they didn't.  When you paid x BTC using Bitpay, Bitpay converted it into y USD and deposited into HashFast bank account.

Nice graph (bookmarked).  I still don't believe LTC has enough advancement improvement to overcome BTC network effect but the graph does illustrate at least for the time being LTC is in a different category than the rest of the alt-coins.

Actually you could put it as 4 categories.

I) BTC

II) LTC

III) PPC, NVC, NMC, Worldcoin, Feathercoin.

IV) The hopeless pointless masses.

To those getting the calls try to remember none of these unlucky employees work for BFL.  Their company bosses signed a contract for BFL so they make calls for BFL.  Hell 99% of them probably have no clue what mining or a mining rig is.   They are just phone jockeys.  The computer dials your number and they follow a script and try not to take the attacks they know are coming personal.

So try now to lash into these people.   This thread brings back bad memories.  My first IT job was customer support for Cannon.  <shudder>  although it did get better when I moved over to the professional SLR department.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but you are not going to get a refund of "exact amount of coins".  Prices were in USD, invoices in USD, all advertising in USD.  If you get a refund it will be in USD.  If you want that refund paid in BTC (instead of say a bank wire) it will be at the exchange rate of the day.  The only way you are getting exact coins back is if by some small miracle the exchange rate crashes back to the same one it was on the day you paid.

You don't have to believe me, and don't attack the messenger.  You can hold out hope and wait for Hashfast to contradict me but that contradiction isn't coming.

If they taped out a month ago that would seem probable.  However having not taped yet, Dec becomes highly unlikely (I would say impossible but like cracking a Bitcoin private key I guess it is possible) and even Jan is questionable.  

If we assume they pay for a high cost low volume "rocket run" you are still looking at 30-45 days from tapeout before wafers are fabricated.  That assumes no delays or complications at the foundry.  The foundry will pad their windows with another 2-3 weeks in the contract so they can juggle around orders to keep the fab at 100% capacity.  Remember that fab cost the company a couple billion and the value of the wafers it produces falls with Moore's law.  Downtime is not an option and if necessary they can (and routinely do) bump small orders to reoptimize their operation.

So say Cointerra taped out today, wafers might be done in early to late Dec.  Add in 7-10 days for wafer transport, cutting, packaging, and testing and you are looking at late Dec, early Jan before they have chips.  Remember a wafer isn't a chip so fabrication taking 45 days doesn't mean on the 45th day you have a chip ready to solder to a board.  You have a giant wafer which needs to be cut, tested, packaged, and shipped.  Even if they are amazing and have all their ducks in a row give it a week for all PCB assembly, production, testing, and shipping.  That puts shipping starting in early to mid Jan (and I am being optimistic).  At this point (with tapeout not done) there is no slack in the schedule.  It isn't like budgeting 8 weeks for chips but it doesn't matter if you are 5 weeks late starting because you can get chips in 3 weeks.  Any delay starts pushing you into Feb range.  Without tapeout done there is no way they can be further along in the schedule.  Packaging can't happen until you have wafers, wafers can't start until tapeout is done.

I almost bought in early Oct but the lack of a tapeout announcement concerned me (not bragging I bought from three companies and none have arrived yet).  Even with a tapeout on Oct 1st, a Dec delivery would be pushing the limit. Now consider that we are 38 days past that point and the tapeout isn't done.

That quote is about KNC.  It has nothing to do with your magical 38 TH/s nonsense.

Don't forget that 22nm and below uses double patterning.  That means 2x as many masks, and fabrication takes 2x as long using the expensive fab equipment 2x as long.  

So people don't take my words out of context.  I never said KNC was giving their employees busy work or that we won't eventually see a sub 28nm processor.  It is just that I strongly (and am willing to eat crow if proven wrong) do not believe the economics make sense for sub 28nm in 2014.  Someday but not in 2014 and probably not in 2015 either (although I am less certain on this).

Some people pointed out that well ASICS have high margins.  Yes they do but the margins are collapsing rapidly.  We have gone from $50 per GH to $10 per GH with Cointerra offer <$3 per GH in Jan, and some lesser names (questionable) offering sub $2 in Feb.  I have no doubt raw chips will see $1 per GH in 2014 and prices will only go lower.  If your cost per mm2 is double that of 28nm the fact that your chip is smaller isn't going to do much good to the bottom line.   It doesn't really makes sense to spend $4M to $8M extra cost to have chips with a HIGHER marginal cost than both your own chips and your competitors.   Eventually 22nm and below WILL be cheaper per mm2 than 28nm but that won't happen for a while.     

Some people have also pointed out that 22nm uses less power and at nominal clock that is correct however it is pretty easy to make silicon use whatever power you need.   Drop the clockrate 20% and you can probably drop the operating voltage 10% to 15%.  The exact amount will depend on the chip design but I am sure all the companies are looking at how low they can undervolt their chips.   Either ship future boards with an adjustable voltage regulator or swap out one resistor and have it operate at a new fixed lower voltage.  Power in is silicon chip is reduced by the square of the voltage reduction so TADA like magic a 10% to 15% drop in voltage means 20% to 30% higher J/GH.  22nm in theory (and reality always falls short or GPU wouldn't need to get bigger and more power hungry) is 30% lower power.   

So 30% lower power with $5M in NRE + 2x (maybe 3x) higher marginal cost or 30% lower power by replacing a $0.10 resistor.  Hmm that is a tough one?  Granted the resistor option means your chips are slower but as pointed out to justify a lower process node the marginal cost is very low.  So take a Sierra as an example (the same thing would apply for a Jupiter or Cointerra rig).   Drop clockrate 20%, voltage 15%, and your use 4 boards instead of 3.  Now you have a marginally faster unit (1.3 TH/s vs 1.2 TH/s) which uses roughly the same power, with same chassis, same power supply, and same boards.

In time the premium on 22nm over 28nm will drop lower and lower and eventually will reach parity with 28nm.   Just like 28nm eventually reached cost parity with 40nm and 40nm reached cost parity with 55nm.  Around that time a respin with an improved design, enhanced functionality, and the benefits of lower power consumption and margin cost makes sense.

Don't believe me how about NVidia.  NVidia estimate for cost parity between 28nm and 22nm is Q1-2015 and cost parity between 22nm and 14n is Q1-2017.   NVidia and AMD won't be using sub 28nm on GPU in 2014.  I mean just think about that for a second if you think 16nm SHA-2 processors are right around the corner.  Two of the biggest companies in processors will be delaying even 22nm until 2015.

Why don't cellphones still cost $2,000 and cellphone plans cost $0.35 per minute?

Which is why I said the most relevant "M" would be M0.

No nothing gets converted.  The higher "M"s are simply broader defintions of money. They all are inclusive of the lower "M"s.

M0 = currency.  Money in physical form.  There is ~$5T globally.  Bitcoin's 21M closest equivelent would be M0.
M1 = M0 + all demand accounts (checking accounts).  Accounts that can be withdrawn instantly w/ no restriction or penalties.
M2 = M1 + all restricted accounts (savings, money market, small value short term CDs)
M3 = M2 + longer term larger value CDs
M4 = M3 + Commercial Paper (short duration high quality corporate debt) and T-bills (short term govt debt).

Another way to look at it is our entire global economy functions on ~$5T worth of currency.   If Bitcoin replaced that completely (the elimination of all other forms of currency on the planet) it would mean that the Bitcoin money supply would be worth ~$5T (purchasing power in 2013 dollars) and each Bitcoin valued at ~$240,000 USD (1 BTC = $5 trillion / 21M = ~$240,000 USD).

You can't use GDP without considering velocity.  Global GDP is roughly $75T but the global economy accomplishes that with ~$5T in currency.  The velocity of M0 is thus ~15x.  In other words a dollar exchange hands roughly 15 times a year.  The above calculation assumes the velocity of Bitcoin (in a global scenario system) would be similar to the velocity of the global money supply.  That may not necessarily true but it is a starting point.   For example if the velocity of money for Bitcoin was twice as high then Bitcoin could support a $75T global economy with an purchasing power (because there would be no exchange rate at that time) of half as much (~$120K not $240K ea).   Likewise some have made the argument that Bitcoin is more than just currency that it would replace some broader definitions of money that potentially could mean a higher valuation of Bitcoin because the velocity of the broader money supplies is much lower.  Velocity of M2 is ~3x (M2 = $25T, GDP = $75T).

So you can either look at the big picture in terms of the relatively money supplies (BTC money supply vs global money supply) directly or you can consider GDP vs 21M BTC using velocity.Money supply is timeless.  GDP is a measure of commerce over a specified period of time (usually annually).  Velocity is the correction between the two.