Been out of the forums for a few months, busy with other business.
I see several new comers to the ASIC field, and could some people please summarize how they look, how legit they look etc.?
AntMiner -> This thread i have gone fully through, slightly skeptic but looks more legitimate than some, at least some pics of chips, boards etc. but there was HUGE heatsinks (or what looked like) at the backside of the boards no one explained etc. and the similarities to one of the pre-existing chips is curios one, while they claim to achieve so much more.
their web site isn't up... seems like an unprofessional company... or maybe, they're just getting going. one to watch, for sure.. but jury's out...
BlackArrow -> Very good sounding offers etc. but highly skeptic of their lowest $/Gh and J/Gh claims - and apparently they have absolutely no history of products and nothing tangible in hand to show? Do they have a workshop, has someone visited them etc.?
They seem like a good company... very early in the design process for their new boxes and silicon. they're claiming Feb delivery but that seems optimistic based on where they are. but can't rule them out.. and i personally like the simplicity of their box design. a stack of heatsinks with 3 fans at the front, and 3 at the back... and a bunch of 100 GH chips underneath the heatsinks. I'm watching closely. but I'm not expecting them to deliver in feb. maybe march at the earliest. also, their price is so low because they're forwards pricing it.. and have to account for risk.
HashFast -> Don't really know much about this one.
Cointerra -> Went bust, right?
Hashfast and Cointerra... thats funny... ! neither are bust, in fact far from it... as both have taken significant pre-orders. Both have sold out of their first couple of batches (which if you do the math, is several million bucks for each batch... thus even after the $5m they will have paid their fab and partners to go into production, both have plenty of cash right now which they are no doubt investing in more production and future products). Yes, both had some production problems but apart from KnCMiner, almost everyone in the bitcoin asic space has delivered later than planned - most have delivered many months later so if hashfast and cointerra deliver when they currently say they will, their delays are very minor by comparison to Avalon or ButterFlyLabs, etc. Right now hashfast has announced they're running almost two months late, and cointerra, though a month late taping-out is still claiming that their december orders will deliver in late december... and if thats true, they aren't actually late at delivering. Both companies claim that their january, feb and march orders are unaffected by their 1st batch delays... and that makes sense. Either way, both companies look like they will deliver in december... with hashfast probably delivering before the end, and cointerra delivering at the end of december. Both of these companies are claiming very dense asics packed with Gigahashes. Hashfast has a 400 GH chip and cointerra a 500 GH chip. Cointerra is focussing on the higher end of the market and their min system is 1 TH and most of their sales are a 2 TH system thats very densely packed in a 4U box.
KnC -> They are shipping but big QA issues right, but still in the end delivering more than promised? They come and go out of stock constantly? They are in sweden - anyone know if they allow payment during pickup? For me it's quite quick to get to Sweden since i live in Finland
Did their original announced timeline hold?
KnCMiner has been the most reliable and stable bitcoin system provider to date. They shipped when they said they would, and their products outperformed the claims by a significant margin. And their customer support is better than my experience with anyone else so far... so hats off to them. Sure, you will find a tiny percentage of their customers whose systems arrived damaged, or the chips weren't working right... but their support will handle it. In general, these guys have outperformed any expectation and their products work. Sure, the next generation of hashfast and cointerra will outperform and undercut them on price.. but, those guys aren't out yet and kncminer has delivered plenty of systems while the other guys can only dream of shipping And KnC has a new version coming in a week or so thats slightly faster... and they've already announced they're working on the next generation chip with their partner alchip... quite how long that'll take i don't know but at a guess Q2 next year.
So many entrants on this very expensive field to get started up - somehow i think many of these are outright scams. I'm looking to offset risk by putting in orders for multiple places.
No one seems to have anything in hand - except a few very expensive options @ eBay?
plenty of scams so stick to the good ones. BitFury, KnCMiner - both shipping... or the ones that are cheaper and faster... hashfast ($5/gh) and kncminer ($3/gh). or the new new ones, bitmine, ant miner, blackarrow etc... ones to avoid. anything scammy like Payonix, Xcrowd, etc. And though not directly scammy, really awful business practices and slow delivery (ButterFlyLabs)... or useless technology companies who are completely clueless and don't stand a chance of success like VMC/AMC or terrahash.
The simple way of discerning if its a scam or not... Do you know who the people are behind the company? If they have real names, and real faces, and real history in silicon or technology industries... *and* have real financial investors... then there's a good chance they're real and not a scam. The guys who hide behind usernames, or suddenly appear out of nowhere claiming they've got 28nm chips (which cost $5m to produce) are clearly scammers. The amount of capital to make bitcoin mining chips is too high for someone to turn up unannounced and suddenly have great silicon... !
For my bets. Ive bought KnCMiner (hashing away, good roi).. and have pre-ordered Hashfast, Cointerra (and a tiny bit of BitFury). Ive tried to buy ButterFlyLabs but most of my systems have yet to deliver... and i was once a shareholder of AsicMiner who were once gods but are now on the way out due to inactivity.
