Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com

[timmmers]

I paid with PP because unlike bitcoins it's quick and simple, same as anything I buy online. There's not much point in PP for chargeback purposes working out well since it's 45 days only and we all knew that KnC weren't going to make it in 45 days.
I'd never buy anything worthwhile with BTC, it's just not sensible at all and it's certainly not as simple or protected as other options. If a company ONLY accepts BTC I have to assume they have a reason and it's not usually going to benefit me.

One thing that BFL did for all of us was to make us aware of almost everything that we could fall foul of when getting involved in pre-ordering rigs and paying for them. Got to thank them for being so completely incompetent and customer unfriendly I think, and so unlike KnC so far thankfully

[creativex]

That's someone that will always be counted on to measure EV in fiat. ^^^

[vesperwillow]

Trouble is this is not MS, this is an extremely time sensitive hardware investment and it loses value every second of every day and that includes the time frame between when the pre-order is placed and when the pre-order is(hopefully) delivered.

Every investment in a ground-floor startup in something emerging is time sensitive because your potential profits will always be behind the curve. In this case it's a piece of hardware, in MS's case it was getting the sale.

The risks are off the charts and they're being 100% handed to investors. Please see nearly any BFL investor for confirmation.

Uh, No. BFL is off the charts. KNC is a spec when you compare the two, which is why I put the comparison against all current OEM's. To say KNC is off the charts just doesn't fit, not to mention, their model is very different from BFL's.

at least shoulder some of the risks themselves, but they did not do this.

Yes, because taking credit card payments and paypal doesn't offload any miniscule amount of burden from the consumer, and doesn't load risk onto KNC's shoulders at all. Considering no other company currently provides so many reversable payment options, the risk isn't 100% on the individuals.

Let's say I have 100 Jupiters ordered, after they're in transit I could call my business credit handler and tell them whatever I need in order to reverse the charge. They'll be more than happy to do so and give me my open credit back. Or, I could simply cancel right now. It's not nearly as risky as, say, paying in bitcoin, or a bank transfer.

While I understand what you're getting at, the picture isn't quite as goth as you're trying to paint it.

I'm just disappointed that they've not helped to move us beyond this pre-order model and it's lopsided share of the risks heaped upon investors.

They've gone from about a 90 day window to a 30-60 day window, with the probable progression to a 15-30 day window. That's positive progress. It just sounds like you want Amazon Prime ASIC Foundary or something, but you're not going to get it. Anywhere. For quite awhile.

Either you're a genious or your viewpoint is skewed because hardly anyone else sees it that way, especially considering KNC has taken more risk than any other startup in the ASIC world. There's risk with ANY altcoin mining OR purchasing OR preorder of equipment. Any! There's risk with the stock markets for heaven sake! Presently, every other option out there is 99.9% vaporware compared to KNC. At least with KNC's "pre order scheme" as the spirit of your posts call it, you can get your money back.

You mean like the guy that voiced his agreement almost immediately after mine?

"hardly anyone" != "nobody"

The market is moving away from the pre-order model anyway as more and more vendors enter the space.

A moment ago the complaint was the market is still stuck in a preorder phase, and now the market is moving away? KNC is the only OEM making "leaps and bounds" toward a shorter delivery window. So yeah, I agree with you there.

Vendors are having a lot more difficulty getting investors to throw pre-order funds at them even now.

Could also be because most systems are becoming more expensive than ever before, and word is getting out about all of the OEM's. Not just because people don't like preorders.

I believe THIS is the post you're attempting to pick apart, so let's put it here for context shall we?

The pre-order model flat out sucks for investors. At best it's a zero interest loan with the purchased gear as collateral. The gear that hasn't been built yet mind you. Yes knc is offering refunds and I wouldn't even have given them a second look otherwise, but we need to move beyond this ridiculous sales model. Just because you can get a refund doesn't mean you don't have losses. Those that are ordering are plainly interested in BTC and as such have numerous investment opportunities. When knc announced their plans to develop this hardware those that invested made their choice. Whether it was the right choice or not remains to be seen, but if they paid with BTC at that time then they're already way behind because they locked in an exchange rate that was most likely lower than it is now. If they paid with fiat then they likely could've purchased BTC directly and been better off. Again, nothing against knc as they've acted in good faith thus far, I'm just disappointed that they've not helped to move us beyond this pre-order model and it's lopsided share of the risks heaped upon investors.

Yeah I'm familiar with the post.. the context as well. Doesn't change where I'm coming from.

The way I see it, KNC's model and execution (thus far) is an exponentially better system than BFL or others have had, and I believe they'll be leading the way toward a less "preorder" system. At the same time, I'm confident someone else (putting money on Cointerra) will likely perfect the system and bring a model which is more along the lines of what you describe.

[Ytterbium]

The market is moving away from the pre-order model anyway as more and more vendors enter the space. The evidence of this is all over the forums. Compare knc's reception to hashfast's reception. People are slowly wising up to the dangers thanks to BFL and Avalon. Soon vendors will not have the option to offload 100% of the risks associated with hardware development to their investors. Vendors are having a lot more difficulty getting investors to throw pre-order funds at them even now.

People were critical of hashfast not because of the preorder model but because of the payment methods. They only accept straight up bitcoins, bitpay and bank wires - which is a bit crapola.

KNC on the other hand has cc, paypal, bitpay, bank wire. The wise would be using PayPal or CC.

Hell I'm sure if Cointerra or Hashfast had CC/PayPal, heaps of people would've jumped in. Same can said for any other company out there.

Bitcoin only is fine if they were willing to allow cancellation, and could prove how they would pay for it.

My feeling is that Pre-orders are OK if you allow cancellations before shipping, which is required by law, by the way. I felt like HashFast was selling something that would never ROI, and their Miner Protection Program is ridiculous.

[cognoscente]

Shell Shocker @6:00 pm Pacific time:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152044

RAIDMAX RX-1000AE 1000W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Plenty of pci-e connectors

[Ytterbium]

Shell Shocker @6:00 pm Pacific time:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152044

RAIDMAX RX-1000AE 1000W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Plenty of pci-e connectors

I'll probably just grab a PSU out of one of my old GPU miners.

[Bitcoinorama]

The market is moving away from the pre-order model anyway as more and more vendors enter the space. The evidence of this is all over the forums. Compare knc's reception to hashfast's reception. People are slowly wising up to the dangers thanks to BFL and Avalon. Soon vendors will not have the option to offload 100% of the risks associated with hardware development to their investors. Vendors are having a lot more difficulty getting investors to throw pre-order funds at them even now.

People were critical of hashfast not because of the preorder model but because of the payment methods. They only accept straight up bitcoins, bitpay and bank wires - which is a bit crapola.

KNC on the other hand has cc, paypal, bitpay, bank wire. The wise would be using PayPal or CC.

Hell I'm sure if Cointerra or Hashfast had CC/PayPal, heaps of people would've jumped in. Same can said for any other company out there.

Bitcoin only is fine if they were willing to allow cancellation, and could prove how they would pay for it.

My feeling is that Pre-orders are OK if you allow cancellations before shipping, which is required by law, by the way. I felt like HashFast was selling something that would never ROI, and their Miner Protection Program is ridiculous.

I get accused of all sorts of things by pointing this out, but it comes down to who is prepared to stand by their design decisions and promises, and who isn't. Hashfast has done everything they possibly can to hype an unfeasible delivery time and remove accountability. It's dishonest. No secure payment method, which holds them to a claimed Delivery date. No refunds until months after claimed delivery date, even then it's a two week window, part of which they will be unlikely to have returned from a Christmas break from. A piss poor warranty which speaks volumes about how they intend to reach their claims, by producing an unstable product which they don't want to stand behind. All of which, including the used of 'anticipated' from a previously stated delivery date have been revisions to their terms AFTER people have purchased via non-secure payment means. Sorry, but look at it for what it is. People need to use their heads, and trust their gut.

[itod]

I felt like HashFast ... Miner Protection Program is ridiculous.

What's ridiculous about it? I read it again and again, and can't get what you mean:
https://hashfast.com/miner-protection-program/
On the opposite, it made me commit to HashFast group buy when decided where to invest my coin in 2nd gen ASICs.

[Ytterbium]

I felt like HashFast ... Miner Protection Program is ridiculous.

What's ridiculous about it? I read it again and again, and can't get what you mean:
https://hashfast.com/miner-protection-program/
On the opposite, it made me commit to HashFast group buy when decided where to invest my coin in 2nd gen ASICs.

It's way to complex to model. 

You have various difficulty growth thresholds that trigger different numbers of chips, you have to estimate the difficulty growth over another 90 days it takes to get the chips in order to figure out if they'll be profitable.  Remember, they don't send you the number of chips you need to have an ROI, at the current difficulty, instead they send you the number of chips you would have needed to ROI based on the difficulty growth from when you got your machine until the current point in time. But if the difficulty has gone up more then 4x in that time period, you still may not see a positive ROI, even with those chips.

And of course the extra chips themselves will increase network difficulty as well 

[itod]

I felt like HashFast ... Miner Protection Program is ridiculous.

What's ridiculous about it? I read it again and again, and can't get what you mean:
https://hashfast.com/miner-protection-program/
On the opposite, it made me commit to HashFast group buy when decided where to invest my coin in 2nd gen ASICs.

It's way to complex to model.  

You have various difficulty growth thresholds that trigger different numbers of chips, you have to estimate the difficulty growth over another 90 days it takes to get the chips in order to figure out if they'll be profitable.  Remember, they don't send you the number of chips you need to have an ROI, at the current difficulty, instead they send you the number of chips you would have needed to ROI based on the difficulty growth from when you got your machine until the current point in time. But if the difficulty has gone up more then 4x in that time period, you still may not see a positive ROI, even with those chips.

And of course the extra chips themselves will increase network difficulty as well  

I don't have to model anything, just have to look at the wallet to see how much it generated. If it's not enough in 3 months - get compensation. It can't get more simple than that.

You've miss-read it, they don't (to quote you) "send you the number of chips you would have needed to ROI based on the difficulty growth from when you got your machine until the current point in time". They will send 2X Ghash/s you would have needed. They've may also said they would send 10X mining power, but in that case nobody would believe them they are that generous  

You're third argument about their Miner Protection compensation's Ghash/s' also increasing diff honestly is not worth commenting.

For me their solution to put their customers at ease is elegant and innovative. If only every other ASIC supplier/manufacturer followed somewhere along these lines there would be less delays for sure, since every delay transfers BTC from their pocket to their customers pocket.

[Phoenix1969]

HashFast's MPP looks like a straight admission they are going to either be late, or under spec...
Not to mention that 500 baby jets isn't anywhere near an entire reel of chips, What do you think they intend on doing with the rest?  
Now they promised them out as compensation for their shortcomings.
Hashfast will soon be known as TrashFast, or Crashfast imho due to the crowded design of their poorly designed chip, which they now know is the case, because after posting the "Why we're better than KNC" news, loaded with misinfo about KNC's chips; KNC then reciprocated with the true chip-specs, which obviously showed their guesses were quite far from the truth, and in fact, KNC has a much larger heat footprint, which will be much easier to cool. That's why I think HashFast will be no threat.... at all. So little time in the race, and already showing mistakes & wild promises indicating late delivery and/or under spec delivery.
Personally, I wouldn't touch them from the beginning, due to the "BTC only" policy when they started pre-orders... huge RED FLAG, then they followed up with the silly/wrong KNC comparison(Showing lack of knowledge), followed by the ridiculous MPP saying "If you don't ROI within 90 days".... They will give you 400% more hashing power?..They straight up say..." Yes, that does mean that if you don’t make your money back in 90 days, we will increase your mining capacity to up to 2 Terahashes!"  I see a dead fish soon.

[regular]

HF supposedly has chips that have been ordered by the IceDrill mine as well.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269216.0

[RChevalier]

For what it's worth, Pre-Orders are sort of a necessary evil if you want to see a worthwhile return.  If you are willing to accept the risk, you get in before everyone else and reap a much greater reward.  If you wait until units are "off-the-shelf" deliveries, you won't see a whole lot back with everyone else trying to get a piece of the action.

Simply put, Pre-Orders exist as a vehicle for those that accept it for what it is.  Bashing Pre-Orders is sort of like bashing redheads because your "preference" is with brunettes, in other words, it's non-sense.

[joae1975]

As fr as the pre-order model is concerned, there is nothing wrong with the model. The problem is the abuse of the pre-order model by some actors (ahem) in the bitcoin space.   I remember someone posting about how they saw an option to "pre-order" an Amazon kindle paperwhite and freaked out for a second.

But like I said, KnC is offering refunds at any point in time, and they are allowing people to pay with credit cards.  That's low risk for the customer.  

In fact, it's actually high-risk for KnC because people can order miners, get them and then do charge backs claiming they never got their system, or their CC was stolen, or for that matter  order with a stolen CC or whatever while mining away with ∞% ROI.  I would be... hesitant to go that rout.

I'm sure that it has been discussed before, but I really don't want to go through 400+ pages to find my answer. My question is about the pre-installed cgminer, more exactly, will it also have the "chosen" pool details already on it? Asking cause I've noticed those fields on the knc website where you can enter your pool of option, worker and so on. Or is that part of the knc website intended for customers that chose knc hosting for the miners? Also, is there a problem if 2 or more miners would mine under the same "worker"?

KNC will test your unit with those credentials.  So they will be installed at the factory before they send it to you.

Okay, but what if you ordered 2 Jupiters to be delivered at the same time?  Is that a problem?  We can change the preconfigured info, right?  I'm confused about this.

[timmmers]

That's someone that will always be counted on to measure EV in fiat. ^^^

Why not?? What should I measure in? Jaffa cakes? Gold? Some other commodity?
When BTC is a real and useful currency I'll treat it as one, until then it's a commodity much like gold.
I paid in pounds converted to dollars...and I'll measure success or failure by how many pounds I end up with in the long distant future.
I don't expect to be spending any BTC for a long long time unless there is a massive benefit to me in doing so. I don't want to end up like pizza man

[Phoenix1969]

HF supposedly has chips that have been ordered by the IceDrill mine as well.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269216.0

UUuuuughh, great; just what we need.

[AussiePete]

Business Risk vrs Reward ..........Thats what it is all about ..........Plus what if one of these companies turns out to be another BFL ............. then what is your re-course.

Personaly any business promoting integrity  , high quality and wanting to protect their reputation , has a lot to lose , if they dont live up to their promises . When this company uses paypal and credit card , this allow many to have the power to create a dispute and get their monies back immedatley . This company  now is showing they are trusting their business controls and expertise . Then when this same company has shown their improvements , proving they want to "Under promise and Over deliver"..........and if you have read carefully this is what they want their "Moto" to be .

New investments with new companies should always come with greater caution , but even now Im refusing to get a refund .......risk management doesnt mean I never expect a loss , it means Ive done my due dillergence and have weighed up possible gains vrs possible loses .

The safer bet is KNC ............we will see soon .........as longer as this  galloping diff doesnt destroy as all ............if you cant afford to lose it ....dont risk it

[creativex]

That's someone that will always be counted on to measure EV in fiat. ^^^

Why not?? What should I measure in? Jaffa cakes? Gold? Some other commodity?
When BTC is a real and useful currency I'll treat it as one, until then it's a commodity much like gold.
I paid in pounds converted to dollars...and I'll measure success or failure by how many pounds I end up with in the long distant future.
I don't expect to be spending any BTC for a long long time unless there is a massive benefit to me in doing so. I don't want to end up like pizza man

Anything that isn't undergoing a controlled demolition by it's issuer would be preferable. I personally try to measure value in ounces of AG, but I know that nearly everyone thinks in terms of continuously devalued fiat.

[Ghrindy]

For what it's worth, Pre-Orders are sort of a necessary evil if you want to see a worthwhile return. If you are willing to accept the risk, you get in before everyone else and reap a much greater reward.  If you wait until units are "off-the-shelf" deliveries, you won't see a whole lot back with everyone else trying to get a piece of the action.

^^^ This.  (nice avatar btw)

[gateway]

One week into Sept with not much word from KNC.  I believe they are waiting on the same things we are to get chips, and well hopefully get chips any day now than any month now.  It would be nice to have a bit more transparency esp so late in the game where shipping should be any time now.  I do also realize that transparency can also cause issues and potentially if they say oh crap we wont get chips till end of oct, lots of people might cancel.

Next Friday approaches mid month so the weeks are flying by ... any updates KNC, esp since we will prob have 100m+ diff by the time we hope to get our boxes this month.