Although I appreciate the wonderful sentiment, I'd prefer that we act like adults here.

I personally don't believe the recent hashrate spike is sustainable. I think it will level off and then progress linearly. A few months ago many predicted difficulty would be over 100 million in July based on exponential extrapolation alone. Soon after it leveled off. People speculate a lot here, and are usually wrong. I'm probably wrong too, but to have an x-petahash difficulty in December would require way too much capital and gives mining companies too much credit. Fact is we live in a cyclical, imperfect world and its not as easy as putting numbers into an equation. I recall reading somewhere that predicting difficulty with any accuracy is a fool's errand; I tend to agree.

Given the recent price bump and good press, it's possible the window may not have shut on profitability completely, but it's closing quickly. We need these chips very soon, or I'll be on the refund bandwagon too. (I'm not paying assembly costs so I'm willing to give it more time.) As others have pointed out it will be easy enough to buy cheaper chips elsewhere, however to take that additional gamble I need proof that Yifu is processing refunds quickly AND that prodigits/ragingazn will be on the ball to promptly refund everyone in the group buy the proper amounts.

We're not quite there.... yet.

If the difficulty levels off somewhat, 500GH will still be profitable for me. It's simply not sustainable for difficulty to continue rising 75% per month. That puts it at 600 million in December. Obviously I'm betting against that. Also, buying the parts myself I've saved a considerable amount on assembly costs.


I like this idea, but it's just too much of a gamble given Avalon's recent track record (will they deliver gen2 chips on time?) and the fact that Bkkcoins already stated he would be hesitant to work on updating his board design for them.

I'm still in but I have over 900 chips in this group buy and the rest in Steamboat batch one (just chips). ROI still looks good but only because I'm planning over 500GH. In light of recent events though, I don't blame the smaller orders for wanting a refund.

I have parts ordered and ready to build 100 K16s locally, I even have extra of some of the hard-to-find parts, so maybe if steamboat offers a refund I will be able to pick up more chips here. No guarantees though.

The whole situation is really unfortunate and I'm trying hard to stay positive and make the most of it. Steamboat, Zefir, Chris (Bkkcoins) and others have put so much work into this, it would be a shame if nobody put these Klondikes to work.

Agreed.

I don't necessarily think it raises a red flag. Maybe he liked your price, needed a few more chips but not enough to commit the full 12btc sight unseen.

The reality is we may not get the shipping info changed like we wanted to, so there's a certain amount of trust needed with ragingazn. Sure he's non-responsive, somewhat unprofessional (could be age-related) but I don't think he's going to run with chips that are rapidly declining in value. And there's a reason why we have his verified address through John K which I don't need to spell out.

Would I prefer the shipping info changed so ryepdx can distribute them? Yes. Do I believe Avalon will change it? Probably not. I don't think anyone's successfully had their shipping address changed with these chip orders. Zefir's 2nd batch was delivered today, and this batch was ordered 11 days later.

Zefir ordered that batch on 4/18 and I believe this batch was ordered on 4/27. Hopefully we have some good news incoming soon.

Thanks for the update. I'll be anxious to hear how the meeting with the customs agent in NYC goes.

Let us know what you find out.

Looks like I'm running into a slight delay with my supplier for the IR3895. If anyone has extra, PM me.

Agreed. It appears that prodigits is working with ragin rather closely on their project, hence the updates. I don't mind getting information from him, but if we could verify his information that would be great.

This is ridiculous. Maybe I missed it but who is Gary and what does his company do?

He's alive! Nice to see you back.

Ragin, even though you seem to be spread thin at the moment, please consider dropping in to calm our fears more often, even if it's just to say hello, I'm here but the chips are not. I don't have to tell you that the whole DIY community is on edge right now and your increased activity here would be helpful, not only to your own reputation, but to neo-asics as well. We are trusting you at this point.

I'm also for ryepdx distributing the chips. Ragin has a lot on his plate. Sounds like the sample chips went to prodigits7 or are just being held by ragin since he won't tell us. Regardless, the goal is to make sure everyone gets their chips sent wherever they need ASAP after they land on our distributor's doorstep. That means creating an updated spreadsheet and verifying addresses. The chips could show up any day now--let's make this happen.

This. It's not a part of a grand conspiracy. The regulators have jobs to do and need to learn about bitcoin in order to justify their existence. If they didn't, there are new regulators lined up ready to take their jobs.

Regulators gonna regulate.

You and me both. I've got my reflow/hot air workstation all ready to go, the parts organized, and no eta on chips. That combined with all the negativity here about Avalon and a scary difficulty jump soon is making it hard to stay positive. But thank you for the work you've put in so far--the community owes you a debt of gratitude even if they don't seem very gratuitous at the moment. Anyway it's nice to hear marto's good news, let's hope for more in the coming days.


I can help you with this one, I have plenty extra of the Sumida alternative on hand. I'm in the US, though.

With people who are techno savvy, I say that Bitcoin is the world's first truly peer-to-peer digital currency. That piques their interest.

For others, it's the concept of mining and how Bitcoin is created that is a challenge to explain.

-----

There's a new faucet in the middle of town.  It's dispensing a metal called Bitcoin. This new metal is vastly superior to traditional forms of currency (dollars, pesos, yen, even gold) in many ways, so people in this town are collecting it to trade for things.

Alice has her bucket hooked to the faucet. She believes in the idea of this new kind of gold and her bucket is pretty nice. She gets a block of coins every 10 minutes, but she must keep her bucket securely fastened to the faucet so others cannot steal it.

Along comes Steve. He believes in this idea as well. He hooks up his bucket, which is the same as Alice's, and contributes his time and resources to watch it. Because the faucet only dispenses a limited amount of coins every 10 minutes, he must split his reward evenly with Alice.

Soon Harry, Fred, Egon & Spangler show up with their buckets. Soon, the whole town is mining for bitcoins using the same bucket and splitting the loot.

Now here comes Mike with his fancy bucket. Not only is it bigger, but it's faster at collecting bitcoins. It's also more flashy so to scare away would-be thieves. Mike hooks up to the faucet and collects a larger percentage of bitcoins because of his better bucket. Soon, Alice, Steve, Bob notice Mike's fancy bucket and higher profits. They and the others are now running out to upgrade their buckets.

Before long, bucket shops have sprung up all over town selling the newest, largest, and fanciest buckets. The more of the best, most powerful buckets that are hooked up to the faucet, the more secure the Bitcoin system is, and the more coins are released into the wild (to a point). Alice, Bob, Mike and the others have become like system administrators for Bitcoin, helping to secure it from pirates, marauders and thieves; and their buckets process and approve transactions from all other Bitcoin users, so long as they stay properly connected to the original faucet.

-----

...And so on. You really have to dumb it down for some people. And that means no mentioning computers, mathematics, economics or the internet. To really get them thinking, you could end by saying that the faucets are not all in one town, but all over the world, and each faucet is simply an internet connection.

As another customer with a substantial batch 1 chip order, I agree. Worst case scenario for me is that I end up building my K16s, attempt to recoup most of my investment and hope that BTC does well over the next year. Keep in mind that Bkkcoins is still developing the driver for the K16. People forget that chips are only a small part of getting (and keeping) these boards online. Having the chips in hand doesn't guarantee anything if there are still kinks to be ironed out. I do believe the chips will eventually come, however late for many customers, which is unfortunate.

What I won't be doing is letting my emotions run wild and start calling for Yifu's head when we don't even have a clear idea of what's going on. I suspect those who think they do either invested more than they could afford to lose, are trolls, or want to discredit Avalon. I knew what what I was getting into months ago and I'm not going to jump ship now.

Thanks Enigma, here's the transaction ID of the send to Enigma's address:

http://blockchain.info/tx/cd35a4783d929fca38632ff622b509769808f0a54056993a1fdcba2707ba288f

raging, if you could update the spreadsheet that would be great.

This post confirms that I have sent payment for 70 chips to Todamont.

https://blockchain.info/tx/72112017096d9750ac7fea759e2a2162b50bea656a6729e0d41c02e943c20143

ragingazn, glad to see you back. I hope you might update the spreadsheet to reflect this and other ownership transfers that have happened.

Giving Ryepdx the shipping list and access to the spreadsheet needs to happen sooner rather than later. I assume his personal info has been verified through John K.

Done.

Whew. Just caught up on the last few pages. For those who missed it, ragingazn is working through a death in the family and depression and is currently.... distancing himself from the internet. The chips, however, will be delivered to his current address, meaning he will be home to accept them. Ryepdx has offered to take over distribution (thank you sir) and is working with John K to sort this out. I think that's correct.

I see people are also transferring ownership of chips in this thread, do we have someone who is keeping the spreadsheet updated?