that stil would not explain all three failing - the shorted board would fail, but its unlikely all tree boards shorted at once and long enough to do this damage before killing the PSU
those look like garbage 18-20awg wires, but again - this should have failed on the board with two connectors long before the ones with three.

If i had to make a guess, i would say its related to the polarity, perhaps a custom wiring job gone wrong. Im not sure though if the S7 would force such a massive power draw though in that scenario?

even the connector on the controller burnt up. I dont think its a problem with the S7 - this looks like the result of a server PSU conversion where the wires were done wrong, and a GND or 12V wire was in the wrong pin, or shorted out in the breakout board/soldering

I remember plugging in my first SP10 (one of the early non-preorder batches) when i was running a few S1 units. Within seconds i knew that this was not meant for home mining, the sound was horrific at full speeds.


I tink spondoolies greatest problem was that they designed an amazing combination of hardware and software in anticipation of BTC>$1000. The SP50 would have been a hands-down king of the hill if bitcoin prices were high enough to cover its expensive hardware component choices.

in terms of $/TH (not even including the specialty PSUs), the Sp50 would probably cost at least 50% more to produce that whatever bitmain sold as an S9/S10 competitor. In the midst of a mining race, the manufacturing is a trivial part of the final pricing, but when things reach an equilibrium (as it has over the last few months), sales prices realign with manufacturing cost and only the cheapest products find sales. This is why bitfury is well-posed to take the crown with thier simple string designs and software

My broker does not allow sortng of pinks/OTC or i would have. but as you said, there may only be a few hundred shares bridging a $2 price difference

Im surprised it hasnt tanked further TBH. that sort of news pretty much dooms BTCS as their website is useless and thier mining doesn't have the SP50 contract.

is the quality important? te coin can range from 2.5btc (no grade, imperfect) to 3.25 btc (quality ungraded, or ~MS65 graded) to 4btc (MS69-70 graded)

I put 4BTC into asicminer. not again.

Yeah I'll have to look into it, but even manually generating a qr and copying it into a template image should be pretty quick, <5min, maybe ~2min in bulk..?

Ive got everything lined up for a sample set. Iv got the time tomorrow to produce the templates and place an order. Pricing will be <$20 for a set of 3 unique cards and is cheaper on bulk a mentioned before.

It was alluded that these will not be the same thickness as the 'indestructable' cards made by the likes of bitkee, but thicker titanium cards are expected in the near future. Not sure if that means these will be flexible/flimsy, but ive got a good feeling.

I'm always looking for input - is bip38 with a secure password the best route? Do I expose myself in any major ways (beyond the possibility that a malicious production could retain the info and monitor the addresses - which is an argument easily made against bitkee/casascius in the past)?

thats a lot IMO. those 1BTC coins are worth ~2.5BTC each (can fetch up to 3BTC if graded well), and the remainder have a total value of ~0.5BTC

0.6

0.03

coin 2 at 0.02
both at 0.03

0.5 BTC

i know its not by auction rules, but bidding has got to start somewhere, and its a nice coin

from the mycelium discussion page (which only shows the most recent 3-6 messages because of a terrible job formatting it):

"I did not say you are buying shares of the whole company. Just the wallet division
There is no minimum investment, yet. We may make one if there is s transaction spamming
We are not valued at $100,000,000, and will not accept that valuation. We do not expect 10x growth in a year."

which is almost total opposite of the basic terms page:

"Let's suppose that this time, with this crowdsale, it will be valued at 100 million USD. Imagine that when we sell another portion one year later it will be valued at 1 billion USD."

this is worse than paycoin

$100,000,000 valuation of a software wallet that probably took less than 100,000 man hours to develop? and projected 10x increase in value in a year?

NOOOOOPE

clearly venture capital firms have not been interested, and it makes sense since a realistic valuation is probably $2,000,000 or less. There are a half dozen qualified software wallets out there already who are not deluded into assuming billion-dollar valuations

I'm not sure if I could make a business of it or not, but I know if I provided a folder of 50+ jpeg files I can get extremely competitive prices

A lot comes down to my samples, which I'll make sure to show off. If they can laser and appropriately-sized monochromatic design easily and cheaply i could produce cards beyond simple storage (like public address only, customised artwork/ID cards, etc) if the image is provided by the buyer and can be achieved

I was surprised to,it sounds like it's $1/side/card to use a fiber laser (whatever that is, supposedly a step up from co2 lasers)

Design isn't available yet, they are a Canadian supplier of metal rings/blanks who I approached with the custom request. Provided a 1-colour jpg or similar image format they can engrave that on the blanks. As such, custom work shouldn't b a problem if you provide the design, otherwise I will just use a basic qr/text format that might take a minute to produce and verify if all you provide is the text address and/or key

Tldr; if you can make r template you will get the best price. Otherwise I might add a small fee to prep it myself (maybe $2/card assuming it takes 2-4min to produce and validate the layout). I'm working to get a sample made early next week.

What do people suggest for a secure bip38 password storage? I considered adding 'clues' to the cards, but that still exposes some risk of cracking if they are not unique or cryptic enough, and seems like more of a risk then writing them on (flammable, water-damagable) paper if not well thought out

exactly - and AFAIK thats the biggest issue with 3rd party cold storage cards (regardless of assurances otherwise). BIP38 allows you to employ complex passwords immune to bruteforce, but as mentioned those open up other problems (where do you store that password?).

Its not for everyone, but i thought that if there's enough interest for 20+ cards the prices are quite good for n-of-m (still using BIP38 as backup) or simply to carry a public key around in your wallet as a conversation piece.

Im hoping to get some sample cards next week to demonstrate what is possible. Tere's no reason why i could not have custom engraving based on desins you provide, oterwise format will be similar to other cryptocards like the bitkee

Im quasi-fresh to BIP38 though. common sense says that this is the weak point in the chain and must be protected against bruteforce attacks, while also being able to be remembered. many services offer to destroy all records, but it is naive to think that's reason for a weak password IMO.

Ive been able to find a producer capable of manufacturing high-quality cold sstorage options on business-card sized metal blanks (aluminum, titanium, or stainless steel) with a wide variety of colour/anodizing/engraving capabilities.

As with many things, there is a significant benefit to bulk purchasing custom work slots like this, to the extent of 50-60% cost reduction for even 1-off engravings

1-sided BIP38 cards (basic design, written address, private key, and QR code) range $3 for aluminum to $6 for titanium
2-sided cards are about $1/ea more
1-sided titanium would be about 5/$20, 10/$30, 20/$50, 50/$100.
basic shipping would be ~$5-10 depending how many cards are ordered
 
This is massively cheaper than anything else ive seen available, and if a group purchase reaches 100+ Another 10% could probably be saved.

If interested, please put desired number of cards, material, and number of unique designs. BIP38 is required so that your private keys are kept secure even if exposed during the manufacturing/engraving process.

the halving will only further reinforce "economy of scale" for large miners. but it shouldnt be a surprise - most people saw it coming for years now, ever since the first time when people paying >$0.20/kwh were squeezed out due to poor or negative profitability.

the greatest force for decentralization is if price rises faster than the hashrate, which is unsustainable for more than a few months at a time