Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com

[HyperMega]

How is providing a tape-out date giving away commercially sensitive information if they have already given a projected shipping date?

Because you are informing your competitors, of which there are several, exactly where you are up to.

I guess that the real "dangerous" competitors of KnC know that the tape-out must be executed end of June/beginning of July to have a minimum chance to meet the announced start of delivery in September, because they have all the numbers too (e.g. 28nm foundry cycle times, time required for bumping/packaging). And they also know, not announcing a tape-out means probably that it was not done yet.

So KnC competitors most likely feel quite comfortable without hearing anything about it. It's harder for KnC customers, which are at the same time investors in a risky business where time-to-market is everything.

If KNCminer were a serious business, they would have used venture capital to order the wafers etc. not taken a penny in pre-order money off people, and stormed onto the market with all guns blazing after not having warned the competiton they were coming. Hopefully they will do that with future products.

The Bitcoin ASIC business is currently away too risky for bigger venture capitalists. And the other problem is that those guys probably would not be happy with some ASIC miners. I guess, in case they would invest, they want at least 51% of your company.

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[Phoenix1969]

Maybe they don't wish to be cast in the same mould as BFL? I'm betting that the way that they invited people to visit and have given out plenty of information and generally communicated with customers and potential customers makes for most people feeling much more confident?

I'm not 100% that they will manage their projected delivery dates, that would be unreasonable with a product that's at this stage. However, I'm pretty confident that I'll be getting a box from Sweden months before I'd have got anything from BFL , it will work and stay working and I won't be hearing "in 2 weeks" over and over when the time comes.

There's always a risk in this type of purchase, but count your blessings that you're not trying to even get an email reply from Flutterby Labs
A month late..that's overachieving over in Kansas.

It's more likely that it's because the are noobs, you can tell that from the way they simply cancelled the Mars FPGA unit with little regard for the impact on their reputation that caused. Fortunately their competition is not organized at this point, so it doesn't really matter.

Show us where mars was offered.  It wasn't. It was a prototype, and that's all.  Never was it EVER stated that Mars would be available for purchase, other than you buying your own altera card & fpga chip from orsoc. There is soo much BS in here now, about nonsensical issues & misinformation, that it's more like a whiners room for people who assume stuff without reading, or comprehending what they read.

[ASIC-K]

im pretty sure they did actually offer the mars for sale, but then scrapped that plan for ASIC.

[Mota]

im pretty sure they did actually offer the mars for sale, but then scrapped that plan for ASIC.

Not for sale. for preoorder, without any money involved. they scratched it before they added paid orders. that is a huge difference.

[dwdoc]

Show us where mars was offered.  It wasn't. It was a prototype, and that's all.  Never was it EVER stated that Mars would be available for purchase, other than you buying your own altera card & fpga chip from orsoc. There is soo much BS in here now, about nonsensical issues & misinformation, that it's more like a whiners room for people who assume stuff without reading, or comprehending what they read.

"Mars
 
This device will be the first mass produced product and is available for purchase in the next few days."


https://www.kncminer.com/news/news-10

[ASIC-K]

Maybe they don't wish to be cast in the same mould as BFL? I'm betting that the way that they invited people to visit and have given out plenty of information and generally communicated with customers and potential customers makes for most people feeling much more confident?

I'm not 100% that they will manage their projected delivery dates, that would be unreasonable with a product that's at this stage. However, I'm pretty confident that I'll be getting a box from Sweden months before I'd have got anything from BFL , it will work and stay working and I won't be hearing "in 2 weeks" over and over when the time comes.

There's always a risk in this type of purchase, but count your blessings that you're not trying to even get an email reply from Flutterby Labs
A month late..that's overachieving over in Kansas.

It's more likely that it's because the are noobs, you can tell that from the way they simply cancelled the Mars FPGA unit with little regard for the impact on their reputation that caused. Fortunately their competition is not organized at this point, so it doesn't really matter.

Show us where mars was offered.  It wasn't. It was a prototype, and that's all.  Never was it EVER stated that Mars would be available for purchase, other than you buying your own altera card & fpga chip from orsoc. There is soo much BS in here now, about nonsensical issues & misinformation, that it's more like a whiners room for people who assume stuff without reading, or comprehending what they read.

"Mars
 
This device will be the first mass produced product and is available for purchase in the next few days."


https://www.kncminer.com/news/news-10

THIS. im right. youre wrong. ha

[Mota]

Maybe they don't wish to be cast in the same mould as BFL? I'm betting that the way that they invited people to visit and have given out plenty of information and generally communicated with customers and potential customers makes for most people feeling much more confident?

I'm not 100% that they will manage their projected delivery dates, that would be unreasonable with a product that's at this stage. However, I'm pretty confident that I'll be getting a box from Sweden months before I'd have got anything from BFL , it will work and stay working and I won't be hearing "in 2 weeks" over and over when the time comes.

There's always a risk in this type of purchase, but count your blessings that you're not trying to even get an email reply from Flutterby Labs
A month late..that's overachieving over in Kansas.

It's more likely that it's because the are noobs, you can tell that from the way they simply cancelled the Mars FPGA unit with little regard for the impact on their reputation that caused. Fortunately their competition is not organized at this point, so it doesn't really matter.

Show us where mars was offered.  It wasn't. It was a prototype, and that's all.  Never was it EVER stated that Mars would be available for purchase, other than you buying your own altera card & fpga chip from orsoc. There is soo much BS in here now, about nonsensical issues & misinformation, that it's more like a whiners room for people who assume stuff without reading, or comprehending what they read.

"Mars
 
This device will be the first mass produced product and is available for purchase in the next few days."


https://www.kncminer.com/news/news-10

THIS. im right. youre wrong. ha

Not really. ha. you won't find anyone who actually paid for one.

[ASIC-K]

same difference. lol. it was going to be sold.

[erk]

The Bitcoin ASIC business is currently away too risky for bigger venture capitalists. And the other problem is that those guys probably would not be happy with some ASIC miners. I guess, in case they would invest, they want at least 51% of your company.

$3.5mill is what KNCminer said they needed for the wafer run, that's petty cash for a venture capitalist, in a sellers market too, would have been even easier. The problem is that engineers and technical people have little idea how to raise funds for a new venture, so they resort to the pre-order path and put up with truckloads of impatient buyers as a result.

[webjoe]

The Bitcoin ASIC business is currently away too risky for bigger venture capitalists. And the other problem is that those guys probably would not be happy with some ASIC miners. I guess, in case they would invest, they want at least 51% of your company.

$3.5mill is what KNCminer said they needed for the wafer run, that's petty cash for a venture capitalist, in a sellers market too, would have been even easier. The problem is that engineers and technical people have little idea how to raise funds for a new venture, so they resort to the pre-order path and put up with truckloads of impatient buyers as a result.

I applaud the non-VC path.  If you can do it without a VC, why would you go down that path?  Also, the notion of "venture capital" is a very American concept - yes, there are VC's in UK and other parts of the world, but it's nascent compared to the United States and maybe even limited to just the major metropolitan cities (Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles, etc).  I doubt the time to market timeframe is conducive to raising a venture round for KNC.  Then the trolls will start talking about how late to the game they are...

[erk]

I applaud the non-VC path.  If you can do it without a VC, why would you go down that path?  Also, the notion of "venture capital" is a very American concept - yes, there are VC's in UK and other parts of the world, but it's nascent compared to the United States and maybe even limited to just the major metropolitan cities (Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles, etc).  I doubt the time to market timeframe is conducive to raising a venture round for KNC.  Then the trolls will start talking about how late to the game they are...

Nonsense, I have an IT company in the building that I am in, who got $40mill VC from Amsterdam and are doing great. Israel is also one of the VC  IT hubs of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital_in_Israel

Most people don't know how to find and access VC offers, there is a lot of misinformation about.

[canth]

I applaud the non-VC path.  If you can do it without a VC, why would you go down that path?  Also, the notion of "venture capital" is a very American concept - yes, there are VC's in UK and other parts of the world, but it's nascent compared to the United States and maybe even limited to just the major metropolitan cities (Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles, etc).  I doubt the time to market timeframe is conducive to raising a venture round for KNC.  Then the trolls will start talking about how late to the game they are...

Nonsense, I have an IT company in the building that I am in, who got $40mill VC from Amsterdam and are doing great. Israel is also one of the VC  IT hubs of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital_in_Israel

Most people don't know how to find and access VC offers, there is a lot of misinformation about.

+1. They also have the option of getting funding through regular bitcoin investors through an IPO on one of the exchanges. I for one would greatly value the ability to invest in KnC.

[erk]

+1. They also have the option of getting funding through regular bitcoin investors through an IPO on one of the exchanges. I for one would greatly value the ability to invest in KnC.

I agree, I think that an IPO for a good ASIC hardware company would find lots of interest. One that is not interested in making huge mining farms for themselves like ASICminer, but just providing quality hardware for the general public. With the benefit that a lot of their shareholders would also become loyal customers.

[canth]

+1. They also have the option of getting funding through regular bitcoin investors through an IPO on one of the exchanges. I for one would greatly value the ability to invest in KnC.

I agree, I think that an IPO for a good ASIC hardware company would find lots of interest. One that is not interesting in making huge mining farms for themselves like ASICminer, but just providing quality hardware for the general public.

FYI, KnC has not disclosed how many miners will be purchased by employees and owners of the company, but for argument's sake I'll let you assume that it's a (much) smaller operation than ASICMiner's.

Whether it's mining or selling hardware, I'm all for being able to participate as a shareholder. Without going back through the numbers, I believe that ASICMiner has distributed more dividends to shareholders from selling mining hardware than actual mining dividends.

[webjoe]

+1. They also have the option of getting funding through regular bitcoin investors through an IPO on one of the exchanges. I for one would greatly value the ability to invest in KnC.

I agree, I think that an IPO for a good ASIC hardware company would find lots of interest. One that is not interested in making huge mining farms for themselves like ASICminer, but just providing quality hardware for the general public. With the benefit that a lot of their shareholders would also become loyal customers.

IPO? Is this 1999?  You're kidding about this right?  IPO oriented company needs at least 3 years of trailing revenue and a prospectus that people understand.  People still don't get what a Bitcoin is, let alone a mining hardware manufacturer - I'll be surprised if even the Winklevoss twins can get their Bitcoin ETF through.

EDITED: I didn't realize you guys are talking about an IPO on something like Bitfunder in the spirit of ASICMiner. I think KNC wants to go the high road of a traditional business (with preorders!) than experiment with an unregulated and quasi-shareholder model.

[webjoe]

I applaud the non-VC path.  If you can do it without a VC, why would you go down that path?  Also, the notion of "venture capital" is a very American concept - yes, there are VC's in UK and other parts of the world, but it's nascent compared to the United States and maybe even limited to just the major metropolitan cities (Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles, etc).  I doubt the time to market timeframe is conducive to raising a venture round for KNC.  Then the trolls will start talking about how late to the game they are...

Nonsense, I have an IT company in the building that I am in, who got $40mill VC from Amsterdam and are doing great. Israel is also one of the VC  IT hubs of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital_in_Israel

Most people don't know how to find and access VC offers, there is a lot of misinformation about.

Agreed about Israel.  However, this IT company you're mentioning that got $40M didn't start with 0 revenue when they got their VC funding - unless the entrepreneur or founder has a track record.  Nor do I believe that they are building a hardware product (correct me if I'm wrong). You need some degree of traction - maybe after their first successful launch of their products can KNC attract the right VCs.  Before that, they're going to rely on angel investors or family, friends, and fools - and I think we belong to the "Fools" category.  Crazy enough to bet that it'll all work out in the end.

KNC is in Sweden, I have no idea what the VC community looks like there - but they have a great home-grown tech ecosystem that seems to know what they're doing.  Minecraft never touched venture capital even though "Knotch" came from King.com, and Spotify came from ex developers from StarDoll (already successful before he left to start Spotify) - you'll need those type of chops to even get VCs interested pre-revenue, pre-users, pre-traction. 

I'm not saying venture capital is not a path they should take, it' just rarely make sense if you don't need it from the beginning.  You guys read too much Techcrunch to think that venture capital flows freely - build something first, get users or customers, then talk to investors.  Otherwise, keep your day job.

[dhenson]

+1. They also have the option of getting funding through regular bitcoin investors through an IPO on one of the exchanges. I for one would greatly value the ability to invest in KnC.

I agree, I think that an IPO for a good ASIC hardware company would find lots of interest. One that is not interested in making huge mining farms for themselves like ASICminer, but just providing quality hardware for the general public. With the benefit that a lot of their shareholders would also become loyal customers.

IPO? Is this 1999?  You're kidding about this right?  IPO oriented company needs at least 3 years of trailing revenue and a prospectus that people understand.  People still don't get what a Bitcoin - I'll be surprised if even the Winklevoss twins can get their Bitcoin ETF through.

I believe they are talking about a bitcoin IPO on bitfunder or btct.co.  This would be very easy to do and could instantly raise $1,000,000+  That's assuming of course that KnC even needs the funding which I don't think they do.

[DPoS]

Maybe they don't wish to be cast in the same mould as BFL? I'm betting that the way that they invited people to visit and have given out plenty of information and generally communicated with customers and potential customers makes for most people feeling much more confident?

I'm not 100% that they will manage their projected delivery dates, that would be unreasonable with a product that's at this stage. However, I'm pretty confident that I'll be getting a box from Sweden months before I'd have got anything from BFL , it will work and stay working and I won't be hearing "in 2 weeks" over and over when the time comes.

There's always a risk in this type of purchase, but count your blessings that you're not trying to even get an email reply from Flutterby Labs
A month late..that's overachieving over in Kansas.

It's more likely that it's because the are noobs, you can tell that from the way they simply cancelled the Mars FPGA unit with little regard for the impact on their reputation that caused. Fortunately their competition is not organized at this point, so it doesn't really matter.

Congratulations, you earned your ignore with that comment. seriously? you are calling orsoc noobs? everyone in their right mind would cancel the fpga at that point! I am impressed that they made the module they had to show that they could do it, but I doubt anyone would have bought on of those anyway. and they did it knowing what it would do to their reputation.

+1   felt the same after reading that.   The MARS was the FPGA prototype that is being used for the ASIC which is why there isn't that much more talk about the development.   Marcus is working on the 2nd gen at this point.   Everything is already done designwise with the first gen

[Ytterbium]

Speaking of the number of pads vs. the number of actual leads on the chip, check out this actual die photo of an Avalon chip: http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/avalon-bitcoin-mining-unit-rig

As you can see, the number of pads is completely different from the number of pins on the package.  There are something like almost 400 pad (I didn't count all of them).  Bitsyncom could have added more pins, without changing the chip design if they thought they needed more power, they could have gone from 48 to 200, and it wouldn't have meant a single change for the die itself.

It could simply meant they wanted more "power balls" or perhaps they wanted to add some redundancy on the data lines. The chip could have thousands of pads for all we know.

KNCminer were a serious business, they would have used venture capital to order the wafers etc. not taken a penny in pre-order money off people, and stormed onto the market with all guns blazing after not having warned the competiton they were coming. Hopefully they will do that with future products.

There could be 10s of companies doing exactly that. In fact, Yifu actually mentioned some VC backed projects that were looking to do ASICs for personal mining use. Hopefully none of them are up and  running before my KnC pays for itself

[opentoe]

I have the opportunity to upgrade my Saturn for $3500 and really not sure what to do. It is already pumping 400G/H/s which isn't bad for my first miner. If money wasn't an issue I'd probably just go ahead and do it.

Has anyone else upgraded their units with their upgrade packages or just kept the same?