For those of us who are still contemplating on keeping their shares, will IceDrill be doing direct shares since as a US Citizen I cannot keep my shares on Bitfunder after Dec 2nd.
Yes, our handling of direct shares is a necessity and should be considered a given. On Dec 2nd we'll be given a list of bitcoin addresses and their relevant share holdings. Exactly how we'll handle this share transfer will be made crystal clear well before that date (it's a current priority item). |
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EDIT: Apologies for the late posting on this, wanted to get a couple of feedback loops on it first. Share destruction: hosting option summaryThe Batch 1 Sierra units will undergo final assembly in Canada. We will pick up the machines directly from the manufacturer and begin deployment within 24 hours of the pickup. Machines will be deployed on a prorated order. For example if 20% of the hardware is converted in this way, every 5th machine we receive will be deployed to the investor hardware pool on a first-come first-served basis. The hosting solution includes the following: - Shipping & delivery
- Setup
- Maintenance
- Electricity cost
- Cooling
- No customs risk
- 24/7 Support
- All supporting equipment (racks, shelves, cabling, PDUs, controller servers, etc.)
- Replacement and reinstallation of any faulty hardware within 24* business hours.
- Hosting term: 1 year.
All inclusive cost: 252 USD per Sierra unit per month, based on 1000W continuous power consumption. Options offered to the investor: - The all-inclusive cost will be covered directly from mining output of your hardware. No further investment will be required. This cost coverage will be locked in with the first couple of days of mining.
- Full-service management of software and we give you access to our monitoring software so you know what your machines are doing at all times.
- Full access to all our research on overclocking, underclocking, cooling enhancements, infrastructure improvements and any other improvements.
- Option to implement above hardware/infrastructure research results on an ad-hoc basis. Note that any implemented customization that will void the warrantee of the machines will be at the behest (and therefore risk) of the hardware owner. The customization work will be done by DigiMex, but any extra costs incurred (e.g. higher power consumption by overclocking) will necessarily have to be covered by the investor’s mining output.
- Reinvestment: We would like to stay true to the original contract and negotiate a reinvestment clause at the start of the contract to have us both benefit from the cost-efficiency of bulk purchases. We understand that we cannot force it as you’ll retain ownership of the hardware, so this agreement will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
*waiting on confirmation from Hashfast regarding the exact RMA agreement. Please note we did state that 15 October would be a deadline for a decision. This really only applies for the non-hosted option of taking delivery yourself. If you host it with us, the re-routing of the hardware is obviously unnecessary. |
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Q&A: Share destruction for hardware ownership option.Hosted hardware sounds good... but what if you don't have 120 000 shares? What if you have, say, 5000 shares?
We don't have an elegant solution to this at the moment, but we’re working on a proposal. We welcome any suggestions/guidance on the matter and will post the proposal when it’s ready. The basic premise for the proposal would be to preserve the terms of the original investment in a (shared) hosting solution. Where is it shipping from? I want to know which customs it will go through.
The machines will undergo final assembly in Canada. For the duration of our IPO the valuation of BTC spot price was stable around $100. All 0.0014 and 0.0015 BTC shares sold within that week. The $7080 cost you're showing is for a batch 2 Sierra, which will ship about a month later (see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=262052.msg3242499#msg3242499) than the batch 1 Sierras we'll be deploying. Sorry if I missed it, but what if we still wanted to keep our shares as US Citizens? How would we be collecting dividends and potentially sell our shares later?
This means I don't have to get rid of my shares but it wasn't clear if Dividends can still be paid for them (If not then I agree with you, someone verified would have to hold them)
If Dividends can still be paid, I can still withdraw bitcoins from bitfunder and would rather just leave the shares in there.
Seems risky, but it's a very valid question. We're awaiting a response from Ukyo on this. i am not from US and i dont want to clear my position?!
You scale down the mine and crash the stock. dont do this.
Clearing your position is optional, we cannot and will not force you to do it. Please note that the total amount of shares will also be scaled down proportionally (by destroying them). This means that in terms of hashing power per share and in terms of reinvestment per share, the amount will stay the same. When I paid for .0014 BTC a share, not only did I expect 10 MH/share but also hosting, maintenance, management, potential dividends, etc. IceDrill now wants to swap shares for hardware without taking into account the other factors.
The hosting proposal is forthcoming and will take into account all factors. It is designed to be an all-in, full-service hosting offer which will aim to preserve the terms of the original investment in a hosting solution. maybe havelockinvestments could help?
Would this not just be delaying the same issue? Even though we have been in contact with Havelock, we don't think the US regulatory landscape will change before the mine is operational. And if there are regulatory issues for you guys too, then U.S. asset holders can show you some stinking photo ID so you can comply with the KYC regulations.
As I understand it the problem isn't with non-verified US persons. The problem is with US persons, photo ID submission does not address the issue. If someone has a suggestion to preserve the original intent of the investment, while complying with the regulatory requirements, I am sure IceDrill will consider it.
Completely agree. We'll seriously consider any viable suggestions for solutions on this matter. To date we've only seen "move to another trading platform" as a suggestion, which we feel is untenable long-term. A managed hardware solution (i.e. hosting) is a start, but it needs to include all the privileges the original contract had in mind.
The shares for hardware proposal does not include any actual information (especially on the parameters for the hosting option). Preserving the original investment via a hosting contract (as jimbobway mentioned) is the intent so we're modelling the hosting offer around that. We’re just waiting on confirmation of some parameters and will post a summary of it when ready.
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Hi All
We've been reading all of the feedback and will answer all questions and address all concerns shortly.
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Hi All
Although we received no forewarning, the recent news about BitFunder/WeExChange did not come as a big surprise to us. The current regulatory landscape in the US requires these steps to be taken and we applaud Ukyo for implementing them before they become so problematic that it would force a site-wide closure for all.
It seems like most of the BitFunder markets took a pretty hard hit in terms of share price yesterday, no doubt from a big sell-off across the board. This was probably to be expected as regulatory uncertainty is a big factor in the bitcoin space at the moment.
As it stands US persons/entities have to essentially clear their asset positions before 1 November 2013, just over 3 weeks from now.
To this end we would like to propose the following offer:
Shares for hardware
As stated, each IceDrill.ASIC share represents 10Mh/s at the start of the mine becoming operational. What we would like to propose is a shares for hardware swap. So, instead of selling their shares into the open market (to clear their positions) investors instead take possession of the hardware itself. For this trade, these shares would be handed back to us and then simply destroyed.
The Good:
You can clear your IceDrill.ASIC BitFunder position without selling all your shares for cheaper than they are worth.
The Bad:
Scaling down the mine in this way would affect our future reinvestment capacity downward from the start. We currently have no way to gauge how much this would shrink the mine by, but the amount of shares transferred and destroyed in this way will be completely transparent and announced after the deadline.
"Taking possession" of the hardware itself can take two forms:
1. We instruct Hashfast to ship your units to you instead of to us (effectively a re-sale). In this case the shareholder/customer pays for any fees, customs and shipping costs that might occur.
2. DigiMex hosts the machines on your behalf (a re-sale with a hosting agreement).
The hardware for share swap is calculated as follows:
1200 000 Mh (one Sierra unit) / 10 Mh (per share) = 120 000 shares per Sierra unit.
Please note this proposal will necessarily have an execution deadline of midnight 15 October (UTC) in order to ensure ample notice for delivery re-routing, as required.
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DT, could you please investigate what are the options?
Hi all We're working on some options to propose to investors. The first of these proposals will be along shortly. |
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Hello,
I'm planning to invest some in Icedrill.
I read that the deploy of about 300TH/s is supposed to be achieved in last quarter of 2013, presumably in november. Is this currently on schedule or we have to expect some delay to december?
Welcome aboard  We're still on target to start mining in November. See: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269216.msg3267500#msg3267500 for the final numbers. If all goes according to plan we'll start with around 235 Th/s. |
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Hi all
Just to be clear. I was the one who suggested the change from 0.0016 down to 0.0015, not DT. Ludvig actually warned me strongly against very probable backlash, regardless of the size of the change.
In my opinion it was a fair change to make the payback goal slightly more attainable, short term. The spirit of the clause was "gauranteed ROI", not "guaranteed profit" before private shares attain value.
As I represent all investors (public and private) it is my job to make the goals for both sides attainable. We agree that the unilateral change to 0.0015 is wrong contractually, and the "spirit" of it has nothing to do with it.
Following public feedback, the change has been cancelled. The payback clause remains as it was originally: 0.0016 BTC to be paid in dividends (per share) before private shares enter the market.
As it stands, we will suggest further initiatives to make the payback clause more attainable. These will be presented as options to public investors, not unilateral contract changes as with this (now defunct) change.
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Sorry for the delay guys, my bad. Keen to look over the numbers as well. Travelling today so please hang tight for a while longer.
Conference was great. Was really cool to take a couple of days off and meet some of you in person. Was good to attach some faces to usernames.
I second it was a great conference. Maybe we should invest in that quantum miner :-) Had nice chat with Jordan Ash on the topic. Whooooosh, over my head. That said, if I were in a position to pay that (small) research grant I'd probably go for it. |
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Sorry for the delay guys, my bad. Keen to look over the numbers as well. Travelling today so please hang tight for a while longer.
Conference was great. Was really cool to take a couple of days off and meet some of you in person. Was good to attach some faces to usernames.
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Hi guys I'll be in Amsterdam at the Bitcoin conference starting tomorrow: http://theconference.eu/. If you're there, please come say hi, would be cool to meet some of you face-to-face. If you're not going to be there, change your plans - Amsterdam is a great city During this time I might be a bit unresponsive on here. All will be back to normal when I get back on Sunday. Will |
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Hi all
We would like to close the 3rd batch of the IPO sooner than the 30th of September. As it stands, no shares have been sold at the offered 0.0016 XBT price so we would like to close it now.
If there are any objections to this, please speak up.
Batches 1 and 2 were successfully sold and raised the required funds for execution as stated. The project is a go.
No objections when are you closing it? As we've not seen any objections to closing the third batch, we'll do it today. |
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Will also how long will it take you to get the full hashrate up and running once you recieve chips?
We'll be receiving fully-built Sierra units, not chips. We'll start hashing as soon as soon as they're plugged in. The full deployment will probably not take more than 48 hours, assuming we don't run into any problems. |
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As stated before: To everyone who prefers to use BTC-TC to trade bitcoin securities, we're sorry it didn't work out. If you have any suggestions on what we could do to facilitate trading IceDrill shares there, we'd be happy to explore it further. For now, we'll "leave well enough alone".
The request for suggestions is now moot, see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=125629.msg3214807#msg3214807 |
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I suggest to Will and the Icedrill team to ban this retard from your forum, all he does is piss people off, and turn them away from your security.
Suggestion noted, but respectfully declined. This is an open forum pertaining to our IceDrill project, as such we welcome any and all on-topic posts. We have no delusions about our ability to control behaviour on a public and anonymous forum. We know what we signed up for when we chose it as our main communications platform. I prefer it this way, really. In my opinion: If people are easily(?) turned away from our offering by the words of someone who we have no connection to or control over, then bitcoin investments (and perhaps the bitcointalk forum as a whole) probably isn't for them. |
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Like i understood to buy shares i need to buy them from Bitfunder and i can sell them to make profit.
Correct, you can make a profit/loss by speculating on the share price. Next to buying and selling share i will also get dividend right? Can you tell me how much this is and from when you are planning to give out the dividend to the shareholders? For this do you need a BTC address from the shareholders or where will the dividends go?
Yes, dividends will be paid from mining profits, see offering here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269216.msg2879844#msg2879844 (2nd post), heading "IceDrill.ASIC offering". Dividends will be paid directly to BitFunder accounts which hold IceDrill shares. |
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That is correct. Our first submission was a copy of the listing at BitFunder. The submission process is different at BTC-TC, so even though all the contractual information was in there, they needed to be placed in the defined headings (details tab of security). So for the 1st submission, the prospectus admittedly had "holes" (empty fields). After we reformatted the BTC-TC submission to conform to the required headings, we submitted it for a re-vote. The votes did not change and no further reasons were given for the NO votes. The exception is that BTC-TRADING-PT vote did actually put it up for a re-vote and we thank them for it, regardless of the result. For the record, I personally really like the enforced BTC-TC information/prospectus layout, as well as the voting process. As stated before: To everyone who prefers to use BTC-TC to trade bitcoin securities, we're sorry it didn't work out. If you have any suggestions on what we could do to facilitate trading IceDrill shares there, we'd be happy to explore it further. For now, we'll "leave well enough alone". |
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Hi all
We would like to close the 3rd batch of the IPO sooner than the 30th of September. As it stands, no shares have been sold at the offered 0.0016 XBT price so we would like to close it now.
If there are any objections to this, please speak up.
Batches 1 and 2 were successfully sold and raised the required funds for execution as stated. The project is a go.
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Some hardware questions by D&T, answered by Simon today. Can you provide the dimensions of the package (important as I am looking into immersion cooling so critical heat flux is important)?
Overall, our chip most closely resembles a modern "hot CPU" design (Intel Sandy Bridge E, AMD FX-9, SPARC T4, etc.). The package is a BGA, 45mm x 45mm external dimensions. The total die area is approximately 324mm^2. The die is split in 4 - i.e. under the metal lid there are 4 dies in a square arrangement, each approx 9mm x 9mm with 5mm gap in between each one (for better heat dissipation and spreading). One highly relevant feature regarding power use is that the GN chip incorporates on-die temperature sensors and a control system designed to adjust voltage and clock speed to the capacity of the cooling system. Thus if the cooling system can dissipate a greater amount of heat, the software can "overclock" the chip to fit it's power usage to the heat dissipation capacity, and produce greater hashing capacity. Similarly, the chip will "underclock" itself in response to external circumstances that reduce the available heat dissipation capacity (say, a very hot day, a failure in the cooling system, a blocked air vent...). The overall design intent is for the chip to always operate at the maximum possible hashrate dictated by the circumstances. Finally, one recent piece of news is that we have received results for the stage-III thermal test (full physical prototype) from our cooling system partner. Stage III tests involve the creation of a full and complete prototype of the system, including the same case, fans and cooling system that will be used in the Baby Jet as shipped. The only difference is that the chip is substituted by a variable-output heating element with the same form factor as chip. The test consists of running the Baby Jet as if in production, and increasing the wattage produced by the heating element while monitoring temperatures. Can you clarify that the nominal wattage of the chip itself is ~250W and the wattage of the system at the wall is ~350W? Both numbers have been used but it isn't exactly clear what they represent.
At the nominal operating point (400Gh/s) the best silicon will consume ~250W according to our simulations. There is some variation in silicon however, so some silicon will consume a few % more. This power level is at the chip only. The system has 2 power conversion stages between the wall plug and the chip - first an ATX power supply that outputs 12v. This supply is about 88% efficient. Then there is a second supply stage on the module board the chip is mounted on. This second supply stage converts the 12v down to approximately 0.7-0.8v that the chip runs at. The combination of the losses in both PSU stages and the additional consumption from the pump, fans, controller etc account for the difference between the 250W at the chip and about 350W at the wall. Can you provide the dimensions of the ASIC board? Estimate is fine. Can you also provide an estimate of the height of the tallest board component (excluding waterblock)?
The module board is ~4" wide and approx 10" long (may end up a little longer, up to 12" - we are still configuring the power connectors). Here is a draft layout - note this is not final and is subject to change. Dimensions in mm.  The tallest board components are two conventional air cooled heatsinks on the FETs that form part of the power supply. I don't have the height to hand - I will get back to you. Here is a rendering of a draft of the module boards, installed in a Sierra. Note - this design is not final, and is subject to change.  Can the controller handle more than 1 hashing board? If so is there an upper limit? 4 boards? 10 boards? 50 boards?
Yes - the controller (which is a raspberry pi) should be able to control many boards. We have not analysed how many. Our chip has been designed with a particularly advanced internal interface, and supports variable difficulty levels and n-time rolling on chip. This massively reduces the traffic from the controller to the chip, keeping the CPU requirements on the controller very low. The interface supports daisy chaining up to 63 chips to a single serial port on the controller. The traffic levels and limits will depend on the difficulty levels the chip is configured to run at, and the use of n-time rolling. Will you consider selling just ASIC boards instead of complete systems?
Yes - we plan to add complete module boards to our website shortly. These can be directly controlled via either a serial port, or USB. We will be open sourcing the drivers in CGMiner. |
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We are losing track of the issue that concerns people most right now. Many shares have been sold @ bitfunder below the official IPO price of 0.0014 BTC and are flooding the market now, causing a price drop and a loss for everyone who bought shares for the official price.
Either this has always been part of the plan or an unfortunate and never intended event, but we need a fix.
I disagree on the requirement for a fix. The statement that the block sales are flooding the market is factually incorrect, and publically verifiable: We made 3 block sales. For 2 of these trades the shares have been transferred to their owners. For the other one (3MM shares) the owner asked that we hold their shares until IPO completion. See: https://bitfunder.com/assetlistThe two owners mentioned above, represented by 1NJK4iPhxKnYG4t9bbJWSzM4c1teTvvkAD and 1EbNE1UUHxSuJVvanhsV6q1suAqtAFhizN hold 6MM and 2.5MM shares respectively. That has not changed, they have not sold their shares into the market. On that same list you'll see 13MM shares. They're in our possession. 10MM will simply be destroyed if not sold by 30 September, resulting in a removal of the current 6.25MM ask. The other 3MM will then be transferred to their rightful owner. |
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