USD is not backed by anything else than the paper they are printed on/metal used for coins. Gold backing etc. was removed a reaaally long time ago.

You should watch: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
The portion about money is made very easily understandable

Infact, most money does not even exist what is in circulation. Money is literally printed, and mostly economies are based on loan. Hell, for USD the US govt doesn't even own the currency! It's private currency.

The examples were kinda close guesstimates. Not actual maths, i need to do couple days of maths to verify everything at first.
Also need to do some kind of estimate on buyer amounts, scaling requirements etc.

But i guess we will have at least 12Ghash by launch date for offer. That would be quickly scaled to 20Ghash during the first month, if not faster. That is already quite an nice capacity! Using new 5830s that would be about 41 cards online.

Link, want to check specs etc.

Clearly it is money for money, but so is any hosting model

Customer gets in this:
 - access to any desired amount of hashing power without figuring anything out
 - No need to fully purchase the hardware upfront
 - no need to manage hardware, software etc. just "push a button"
 - no need to manage electricity capacity or scaling issues

We get:
 - Money upfront towards the Hardware
 - Steady monthly profit
 - We get to own the HW (ie. sell it if it becomes useless)

So the business model will be staying ahead of the direct HW owned profit vs. our pricing, to a degree.

With monthly our benefits are emphasized. This would allow us to grow our cluster waaaay faster than otherwise, as we get money upfront, not after the fact.

While at first glance it might look like it does not make sense for us to offer this, ie. we'd be doing an charity. That's actually a PRO for the business.
Truth is that if we spend like 10k € on hardware day 0. We have to wait atleast till day 11 till we can add capacity by mining ourselves (whatever the return happens to be). Selling that same capacity to end customers at day 0 for 1/3rd of the cost + mohtly rate, allows us to add ~3300€ worth of hardware online, which we can use for mining, or yet again sell, and cycle for 1100€ more capacity.

That would bring us at day 30 capacity of at least 14400€ in terms of investment.
At which time we get again monthly payments.

Assume monthly payments total to 1/5th of HW price after costs, it would mean we have gained 33% + 11% + 2.2% + 20% + 20% on the hardware at end of month 1, totaling 86.2%.
Assume difficulty raises so much that HW ROI drops to 25% monthly in the next couple of weeks, this is significantly higher rate of growth.

Assume atleast 10% turnover monthly too, ie. at day 1 of month 2, we can again sell 1k € worth of investment to new customers for new setup fees.

At which point HW has devalued itself only by 20-25% worth.

New HW gets released, we instantly invest into it, and start recycling our HW, and after enough has been swapped, lower prices accordingly, meantime profitting from old rates with new HW (increased profit margin).

The model you describe would require customer to pay HW + Operating costs for 1 year upfront, with no way of backing out, meaning it's actually worse than just doing it yourself, way more expensive, way less flexible. You'd pay full HW price + full operating cost, but end up owning nothing but the gained BTC, meaning you loose immediately 100%+our margin on the HW investment. Makes absolutely no sense.

This should be win-win-win situation, customer wins (lower initial investment, lower risk), we win (risk is offset by customers, operational costs covered if BTC goes haywire), bitcoin network wins (commercial mining service!).

The example pricing on my initial post should be actually quite close to the actual.

crappy 250W PSU from the 90s will probably have reeeaally bad efficiency. Imagine running 10x200W GPUs, each with 250W cheapo crap, with 60% efficiency. You are drawing 333W per PSU from the wall. 3.3kW total. You spent 100€ on the crap PSUs.
Buy 3xCorsair/Enermax, say 120€ each. 360€ spent, but you magicly gain close to 90% efficiency, if not over. Let's assume 87%. You are drawing ~230W per card -> 2.3kW.
So you are saving 100€ per month right there!

100€ vs. 360€ -> 2.6months for ROI!

Nevermind reduced risk, warranties etc.
Ofc, the 250W cheapos, if bought new will have a warranty too, and are likely close to 80% efficiency, so ROI will increase to 9-18months.

Short term -> Cheapos good. Long term -> Cheapos not so good. (Unless the cheapo happens to be mfg by Enermax or Seasonic)

delivered as expected

An idea - Mining hosting

An idea to offer mining hosting, your feedback appreciated

First a little bit about us(??)
Pulsed Media is a smallish specialized niche hosting company. There is 2 of us working daily on tasks, and we got quite an nice market share for our niche. We do well by our automation and methods to increase stability, performance and usability above all others

I've been familiar with bitcoin for over a year, but have not been doing anything related to bitcoin, letting it to mature a little bit more Recently, i've setup my first ~1.4Ghash of power, and waiting for GPUs to arrive for another 1.7Ghash. This is just for testing before starting to roll out a cluster.

Plans for a cluster?
The plans immediately shifter towards building a cluster, autonomously managed etc. This requires a little bit of sofware development, but nothing we couldn't handle to build quite fast if we put our minds into it and put some time & effort to it. Just something like 50-80hrs of efficient work for internal system built fully

Hashing contracts ... Cluster ... This gave me an idea
I saw the hashing contracts and their outrageously high pricing, i mean, more than the mining income is! :O Like WTF? (No offense meant, but really ... Charging HW + Electricity + 100% Margin? and you get to keep the HW!)
Ok, you are free to ask for whatever you want, and if you still get business - Good for you!

They are also quite opaque offers, little background info etc. force for 3 month contracts etc.
Why not offer properly?

We got space - We got contacts - We got (some) budget - and most of all, we are established
We are an already established business so there is plenty of BG info about us, we are stable and always looking to expand. So there is certain safety about what we got to offer, and we got established routines for managing a mass of customers in terms of support, and administrative tasks.

We got plenty of space and power!
We got roughly 150m2 space which is 4.4m free height, and mostly 5m high, also we got plenty of power. Currently we got installed capacity of 14kW, but being in a industrial building means we can install more with a week of notice, and the upper limit is quite high (being a big industrial building), probably 100kW+. Despite being off-net location we can get there atleast 100Mbps connectivity as well, if not faster, if required.

This space is currently used just for building custom computer chassis', warehousing and other kind of DIY projects. It's rented as cold, so during winters we anyways need some heating there! It gets really cold here during winters, peaking out at around -30C, and regularly over -20C. Summers tho might hit 40C (on direct sunlight), but this space is slightly cooler than outside during summers Heat will be somewhat of an issue during summers, ambient hitting 35C or so, but downclocking HW should handle that without installing any kind of AC

We already got several outlets for venting air to outside in the wall too, one of them being "damn big". and ceiling being high means there is always room for the heated air to rise and transfer through the ceiling.

Contacts
We got contacts to local refurb. hardware dealers, meaning we can reseller rates(=REAL cheap) on older hardware with 2x or more PCI-E connectors, fans, memory, cpus (ie. Celerons with heatsink just 5€ inc. VAT!). So some of the hardware can be built on REAL CHEAP.

We also get access to wholesalers so we get under market pricing. As a registered business VAT will be returned to us in a few months (23%). And this being Finland -> there is quite a lot of competition in computer hardware pricing, and relative to population there is a lot of computer stores :O

Some budget
We got also a steady budget to invest into new hardware, which does not affect the day to day operations. The same budget would just go somewhere else instead (ie. marketing, or 3rd party development). We could easily add several Ghash/s each month without selling any BTC, or without any revenue from hosting.

In practice
First of we need to add to the available space some shelves etc. nothign major, some exhaust fans, cabling and acquire a steady reliable internet connection there (not some 3G shaky one). 3G could work in the interim, maybe with mining pool proxy (haven't looked into it yet).

Then we can immediately shelve around 12kW-13kW worth of hardware (leaving a bit of room for peaks ie. rebooting etc.).

Add some remote management HW (VPN Gateway, remote reboot etc.).

And build up our software and monitoring. Build an nice interface for end users. This being the major work, maybe not in terms of hours, but how much thought needs to be given to it.

How would it work for end users, AKA Customers
When you buy up, you would get an interface where you configure your pools you want to use. It would show the number of cards, and give you ways to distribute among pools, or add weight to pools and it automaticly distributes or uses just as a backup some of them.
You would also see graphs of actual Mhash/s you are getting, and can upgrade/downgrade anytime.

This could potentially work on a Mhash based billing as well, allowing us to choose the most efficient HW possible and billed hourly. Billing hourly would give the user a "upper limit" selection for Mhash/s, and actual Mhash rate would be charged, no need for separate SLA. If monthly rate, then some kind of SLA needs to be provided.

If we cannot flexibly control the rate of Mhash/s (ie. stable multiple instances per GPU and using Aggression to determine rought Mhash/s rate. Something i've not even tested), customers would choose something like Low-end GPU, Mid-Range GPU, High-End GPU and number of them. Definitions being something like under 200Mhash/s, 200 to 350Mhash/s, above 350Mhash/s. However that would complicate matters, and more fine-grained control is best idea to develop.

Pricing
Due to heavy investment required (GPUs ain't that cheap afterall), pricing would consist of a setup fee and monthly(or hourly) rate.

An example pricing mostly out of my head:
0.25€ per Mhash/s setup fee and then 0.5€ per Mhash/s per month. So for 200Mhash/s the 1st month price would be 150€, 2nd month 100€.
1Ghash/s would be 250€ setup, 500€ monthly. (afterall with 3x6950s consuming over 600W alone).

Option 2 could be higher setup fee lower monthly:
0.50€ per Mhash/s and then 0.3€ per Mhash/s per month.
1Ghash/s would then be: 500€ setup, 300€ monthly.

On monthly options: Stop the rental, and you have to pay setup all over again if you want to continue.

On hourly basis we could charge just one time setup fee, which ups your upper limit for Mhash/s.
Example:
0.35€ Per Mhash/s setup fee. Minimum 50Mhash/s increments.
0.0009€ Per Mhash/s per hour. Minimum 50Mhash/s.
1Ghash/s per hour would be: 350€ setup fee, 0.9€ per hour.

Accounts would have to preload credit, at minimum 50€ worth per time.

All payments in BTC or EUR.

Mass discounts
We could give mass discounts for those who get high numbers.
Say, if you pay setup for more than 2Ghash/s, for all above that we could lower the per Mhash setup rate by 0.05€ or something like that

Scaling
Hourly rate might be easier to handle scaling in business sense, if charging is based on the actual received. (Say averaging per 5mins and so forth).
So if we get tapped, we can allow people to get setup for their chosen amount, and then we go get more HW. Ofc, if we are completely out and cannot roll extra capacity fast enough we would need to halt new setups.

Why would we do this - looks like charity to me?
Setup fees. Simple as that. Allows us to add more HW on the line faster, and we get to keep ownership of the HW for resale if they become useless and for other customers.

Sure, you will earn more than you are paying us, but we also get multiple streams of revenue, and can tap into non-techy markets by making it simple enough! People who have no clue, or cannot setup their own mining rigs.


Sooo, what do you think?

2009+ Medium or Large would be good for you probs

Yea, we are starting to look into BTC seriously and might eventually add it as official payment method. Just trialing right now, looking at accounting, tax repercussions etc.

~11EUR. So i even gave a "benefit".

Latest on bitmarket is 12.97€

It's been fluctuating around 12.5-13€ at Bitmarket for quite sometime now.

Remember: Used stuff is only max 70% worth today's retail price. Especially buying abroad when you most likely loose warranties ... (with original receipt, and if mfg has presence in country, then you still got a warranty but not otherwise)

Sorry but if i'd be looking to buy same or more as new cards, i'd buy new Seriously, 6950s cost just ~175e = 14.5BTC.

I can probably get it all shipped with 230$ to Finland via DHL Express, but as i said, i will not pay higher prices than new.

There's a reason i asked for EU, namely: Customs.
Try to explain them about BTC etc.
Nevermind customs is easily 31%: 23% VAT + 8% customs duty.  Tho as a registered company i do get the VAT back in couple of months.

EDIT: That being said, feel free to make an offer.

not really, they are kinda besides the point.

The different values under linux & windows are in question, driver issues, or just dif between linux & windows drivers?

I can't control power even under linux, i can't get it to 1.2 like under windows the default is 1.2! :O

That's the thing, why different defaults under linux & windows?

Will buy GPUs HD 5xxx or 6xxx. Preferred are: 5830, 5870, 5970, 6870, 6950 (Reference design), 6970, 6990
Will consider others in 5/6k series too.

Mobos, PSUs, CPUs and RAM also being sought. Cheap USB sticks.
Good cases, fans also considered.

*** ALSO SPECIALTY HARDWARE ***
Things which will help me manage our mining cluster such as:
 * IP KVM
 * Remote Reboot HW
 * UPSs: Any kind starting from 550W output, battery does not need to be in working condition. Even custom built are good!
 * 3G/ADSL Modem (ie. Cisco with 3G backup) or plain 3G physical standalone modem which will reinitiate connection if failed
 * VPN gateway

New or used, doesn't matter.

Will pay in BTC after confirmation. Larger transactions will require eBay/OTC/other proof than just a picture.
Picture proof always required.

Preferrably in original boxes but not required.

Offers including shipping to Finland in BTC. Shipping (to arrive) within 7 business days (~1½ weeks), preferrably less than 4 business days.

Looking total to spend 150BTC during the next couple weeks.

Indeed it would still need machining, there is some people who make the custom bellhousings, but asking 700£ for each which still requires machining, and he only makes 5 or less per year, doing castings only once a year ... It might be just easier to fabricate

where are these located, within EU or US?

I'd like a few transmission bellhousings but it would require a lot of work to figure out the mold alone oO;

Let me know if you have any interest in such, as it would be quite an amount of work to figure them out, but you could make a good deal of money selling them to the right audience
Nevermind they would be kinda big.

where is this physically located? Just thinking if it would have customs ...

I were assuming a set of patches, but apparently not. No reason to be an jackass for a valid point.

can you somehow move the game to another steam account? If so, i'll grab it!

indeed if not unlockable not a chance it makes 432MH/s. My well cooled (only GPU in that chassis) manages to crank out only about 360 unstable, 340 stable.

If i just could get the voltage up so i could get to over 875 clocks stable ...

I'll give you 10BTC inc. FI shipping for that tho.