Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com

[davewr2013]

Seems like KNC is hiring people, does this mean they will have better customer service?

There is nothing wrong with customer service, they work their socks off above and beyond the call of duty to answer all the emails. Sure they don't know every answer, but they're as new to the hardware as you are. There's a hell of a lot more happy customers, than unhappy.

Some of you really need some perspective.
KNC is not perfect but they are 80% better than their nearest competitor.
So they won't get better customer service, they will have the best customer service!!   

That pretty much sums it up.

We have a company in Canada called Lee Valley Tools -- they get it right most of the time and even their worst detractors (and there are very few) admit it. KNC seems to be going the same way -- not perfect at all -- but at least making the effort to get better.

In the end after-sales follow tells the tale about a company.

When I was asked to evaluate all the machinery out there and decide which company was the safest I chose KNC because I thought they would have the best hardware with the fewest delivery problems and at least reasonable service over the long haul. Our miner arrived around Oct 21 -- finally -- after snuggling up to customs officials and shipping mavens for almost a week. But it did arrive and it does work.

If KNC had modified the label as requested or DHL had actually looked in our file -- it would have saved us three days -- but so far that is the worst that has happened. We can live with that. Screw ups happen and that is far from the worst thing that happened to us over the years.

The firmware updates have consistently improved miner performance -- although not by great amounts.

The only issue I see that does not sit right with me is that Saturn (like us) and Mercury customers probably bought on the basis of future upgrade possibilities.

I got my upgrades -- hopefully... So I'm OK -- if they work as they should. However, since it appears that more boards can be made -- then KNC should follow through for the customers that could benefit most.

That's my $0.05 (Nickles) worth -- we don't have pennies any more -- so now it's at least  Five Cents to mount  a soap box here.

[BitcoinApprentice]

...

will be 1 month mining Monday 11/18 at 8:30pm or so CST USA....... quite the ride...and a U.S. Senate hearing on Bitcoin tomorrow   er here is the link I've been saying it is a house hearing...I guess it is a U.S. Senate Hearing....I make a prediction that the Senator from N.Y. where finance is big is really really gonna not like BTC from that banking state imho

here is the Cspan link http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Currenci

so if they are positive even a little or neutral on BTC ....strap your self in for a rocket launch on BTC vs USD price imho ..if negative on BTC imho it will correct somewhat but I've no idea how nuts BTC prices will go ...if by some miracle it comes out that this hearing has no issues with BTC of any note


[/quote]
Thanks for the link, I still plan to request/order my senators to tell this committee to keep hands off numbers in a computer, and would urge others the u.s. to do the same. Gotta keep these KnC's running!

[The Avenger]

25,000+ first batch units on a mostly automated assembly line.

25,000?  

Is that a guesstimate or based on anything official?

I can't cite my source but I can say it's reliable to say that their order queue for first batch is near their maximum capacity for production. They had an order blog up at some point (not sure if they still do), but there were some huge orders on there, saw some single orders for more than 100 units.

My KNC order prediction was very much on point, as has our difficulty estimate related to orders coming online, the past few times.

Like I said about 500 pages back, when KNC comes online (as they have) difficulty is going to skyrocket, and keep doing so, and when Cointerra (and Hashfest if they ever do) comes online, it's going to cause eyes to pop.

Their 2nd batch is already sold out too i think, and they're almost full on their 3rd. They're using a mostly-automated production line, several of them.

They're the "KNC of America" as I've said before, except they've taken an even more hands-off approach. Chip design they handled, overall product design they handled, they outsourced everything else: Power, Cooling, Assembly, Shipment, etc.

I don't doubt. I imagine US miners much prefer to deal with a US company - much easier shipping and suing!  

Kinda explains why knc sold their stock of rma boards - they know they are going to be useless in a month or two, why keep them on hand? Turn them into cash now. Who is going to rma a board when it'll then be the mining equivalent of a 5870 gpu in a few months?

They will sell any miners left after the pre-orders are out the door. If no one wants them at that price, they'll sell them at reduced price to shift them. They've already added a clause saying that they will continue to sell through Dec, Jan etc if other companies add lots of to the hash power to the network (which is what is happening). They aren't going to hold on to equipment that will be redundant and no one wants in 4 months time.

I wouldn't be surprised if they retire and get out of the game after that. They are obviously gamblers, but they aren't stupid. It looks like their gamble will pay off, but probably not for their customers who gave them the free loan of millions (pre-orders).

I'd still be right about the last part if BTC had stayed at $120. But now it's quadrupled, everyone feels they are going to break even by doing fiat calculations. But if you paid 70BTC for a jup, if you got your order after the difficulty change on 16th October, you'll never see anywhere near 70BTC back mining with it. So anybody who thinks in btc see's they lost buying from knc.

So I wonder if the fire-sale of boards was an indication they are planning to clean up and clear out? They might have one more go with a multi TH/s miner, but would they risk losing everything if they f it all up?

[soapmodem]

Any news about the KNC-Miner Tuner software?

First parts are inside the fw 0.99 ? !!

When will they launch it?

I'm guessing/assuming that the tuner lauch will coincide with the shipping of the November units.

Any news on this O'rama?

[vesperwillow]

I don't doubt. I imagine US miners much prefer to deal with a US company - much easier shipping and suing!  

I agree about that, most especially the shipping--3 days ship time vs dealing with customs. I'll be honest, if I had money to spend I would've placed orders with Cointerra recently. I had an option to get some early January orders, but couldn't cough up the money.

Kinda explains why knc sold their stock of rma boards - they know they are going to be useless in a month or two, why keep them on hand? Who is going to rma a board when it'll then be the mining equivalent of a 5870 gpu in a few months?

Well, they owed it to the customers to sell the boards either way. I'm sure if an RMA issue comes up in the near future, KNC will do what it's been doing--overdelivering, and simply give them a new something or another, or will make it right. I've got a Mercury, would love to get another module for it, and I can actually afford the module, but they all sold out. Sucks KNC has no way to help out folks like me.

They aren't going to hold on to equipment that will be redundant and no one wants in 4 months time.

As long as people are willing to shake money, they will provide a product lol. Just like BFL, still providing essentially bricks which consume electricity.

I wouldn't be surprised if they retire and get out of the game after that. They are obviously gamblers, but they aren't stupid. It looks like their gamble will pay off, but probably not for their customers who gave them the free loan of millions (pre-orders).

I think they'll be in for awhile since they have most likely recovered all of their start-up costs and are maintaining operations in a self-sustaining fashion. They're going to focus on scrypt solutions when the BTC mining rush has subsided a bit. They would only get out if BTC suddenly went belly-up. This is true about any of the companies.

I'd still be right about the last part if BTC had stayed at $120. But now it's quadrupled, everyone feels they are going to break even by doing fiat calculations. But if you paid the equivalent of 70BTC for a jup, if you got your order after the difficulty change on 16th October, you'll never see anywhere near 70BTC back through mining a jup.

That's a really good point some people don't think about. 70BTC back in the day was, let's say, 100USD = 7kUSD. Now it's 500USD = 35kUSD. So unless their miners have provided that, they lost "in the long run" against BTC.

It depends on their focus though. If they wanted mostly free/cheap mining equipment, and they had already mined a bunch of coin, then in reality it cost them very little, and they can use the machine for another month or 2 and still dump it for a few grand.

If they used BTC they'd been holding for money, they lost the fiat race for sure.

So I wonder if the fire-sale of boards was an indication they are planning to clean up and clear out? They might have one more go with a multi TH/s miner, but would they risk losing everything if they f it all up?

I doubt they're going to vanish. They're going to come out with some more amazing die-power. My guess is they're trying to get their current chip design to push 250 per chip, and then they'll call it "good". Their next design they will likely try to push 750 per chip, if not 1TH, as the current tapeout of competitors is over 500GH per chip with room to spare.

KNC could be the first to deliver a 10TH mining unit, and I bet it wouldn't be a stretch to say 4th quarter 2014 to see that in the works.

Big kudos to KNC's continuous efforts to make the current systems run even better. I had faith their chips would be stout, and I have not felt left down. As I posted a few pages back, my Mercury jumped over 10GH stable going from .96 to .99, and it's seeing 175-200GH for short bursts now.

Such an increase from JUST a firmware update is phenominal and people seem to ignore it. That's a $300 value based on 10GH mining capabilitis from products out there.

Also, I love the popcorn meme. That is definitely one of Moss's best scenes.

[Biffa]

25,000+ first batch units on a mostly automated assembly line.

25,000?  

Is that a guesstimate or based on anything official?

I can't cite my source but I can say it's reliable to say that their order queue for first batch is near their maximum capacity for production. They had an order blog up at some point (not sure if they still do), but there were some huge orders on there, saw some single orders for more than 100 units.

My KNC order prediction was very much on point, as has our difficulty estimate related to orders coming online, the past few times.

Like I said about 500 pages back, when KNC comes online (as they have) difficulty is going to skyrocket, and keep doing so, and when Cointerra (and Hashfest if they ever do) comes online, it's going to cause eyes to pop.

Their 2nd batch is already sold out too i think, and they're almost full on their 3rd. They're using a mostly-automated production line, several of them.

They're the "KNC of America" as I've said before, except they've taken an even more hands-off approach. Chip design they handled, overall product design they handled, they outsourced everything else: Power, Cooling, Assembly, Shipment, etc.

I don't doubt. I imagine US miners much prefer to deal with a US company - much easier shipping and suing!  

Kinda explains why knc sold their stock of rma boards - they know they are going to be useless in a month or two, why keep them on hand? Who is going to rma a board when it'll then be the mining equivalent of a 5870 gpu in a few months?

They will sell any miners left after the pre-orders are out the door. If no one wants them at that price, they'll sell them at reduced price to shift them. They've already added a clause saying that they will continue to sell through Dec, Jan etc if other companies add lots of to the hash power to the network (which is what is happening). They aren't going to hold on to equipment that will be redundant and no one wants in 4 months time.

I wouldn't be surprised if they retire and get out of the game after that. They are obviously gamblers, but they aren't stupid. It looks like their gamble will pay off, but probably not for their customers who gave them the free loan of millions (pre-orders).

I'd still be right about the last part if BTC had stayed at $120. But now it's quadrupled, everyone feels they are going to break even by doing fiat calculations. But if you paid 70BTC for a jup, if you got your order after the difficulty change on 16th October, you'll never see anywhere near 70BTC back mining with it. So anybody who thinks in btc see's they lost buying from knc.

So I wonder if the fire-sale of boards was an indication they are planning to clean up and clear out? They might have one more go with a multi TH/s miner, but would they risk losing everything if they f it all up?

1. Stating they sold their stock of RMA boards is an unsubstantiated guess on your part designed to spread FUD. Dunno what your agenda is, or what you hope to achieve with those sorts of mud slinging speculative remarks.
2. KNC miners are for sale in $ and have always been for sale in $ if you converted your BTC into $ to buy by using bitpay then thats your problem, however the return should be calculated in $
3. The only argument against buying miners is to have bought BTC instead at the time you might have bought your miner, but thats easy to say with hindsight. The point is that buying a miner makes you more likely to profit from BTC price hikes because you are more likely to be in for the duration, most coin traders would have sold all their coins at the first 10% price hike.

[vesperwillow]

1. Stating they sold their stock of RMA boards is an unsubstantiated guess on your part designed to spread FUD. Dunno what your agenda is, or what you hope to achieve with those sorts of mud slinging speculative remarks.

I believe the RMA comment came a few pages back from KNC, but I might be wrong.

[Biffa]

1. Stating they sold their stock of RMA boards is an unsubstantiated guess on your part designed to spread FUD. Dunno what your agenda is, or what you hope to achieve with those sorts of mud slinging speculative remarks.

I believe the RMA comment came a few pages back from KNC, but I might be wrong.

I'd be interested to see it. I think its pure speculation.

[BitcoinApprentice]

They are doing the right thing when they look after their customer's interests. Limiting the total growth is one way. Another would be to produce as much as possible and offer discounted hash rate to previous customers.

The latter could be more beneficial to their customers as it would decrease the influence of competing solutions from other vendors. But for Bitcoin as a whole I prefer seeing lot's of competing products out there We'll see how long KNC remain this dominant though!

But see, that's just it--is it looking out for the customer's interest to hold their product's shipment until a time which they determine is best?

They said at the beginning they would offer the first-gen folks special discounts/vouchers for this very situation, and for every generation after, ship immediately (as soon as realistically possible) unless they were the only ones influencing the network, in which case they would hold product. They're no longer the only ones influencing the network, and should simply be constantly shipping. Products should be discounted heavily every generation after. 100GH units, for example, are being projected to be worth less than $100USD by March, in some analysis markets. They're doing this in one way by giving us more hashing power. But still.

On the topic of Swedes, I like Swedish businesses, they are very straight shooters and really go out of their way. I really admire their culture as a whole.

The idea of protecting the network is, at best, idealistic and ephemeral. They're just delaying the inevitable, the continuing difficulty rise. The sooner difficulty plateaus the better for everyone. Network protection comes from diversified hashing, not slowing down shipments.

I believe it's a method for them to simply not have to worry about parts acquisition delays and production delays, the 'protection' mantra gives them 'spare time'. It's a smart move regarding a business angle, I'm not knocking it.

Just saying, "protecting the network and its miners" is really out the window. It's a wet noodle being waved in the wind. Just ship equipment as it comes through and let the system manage itself.

Cointerra sure as hell isn't going to delay. 25,000+ first batch units on a mostly automated assembly line. That's going to kick a lot of people in the dick when they wake up one day and see the difficulty jump the maximum allowable.

I once remember KNC asking the community if we would be interested in a Litecoin (Scrypt) FPGA/ASIC miner, it was on their home page few days. I wonder now if they will be able to do it or if they have interest at all,  after rolling out and selling all they have with this 28nm Project they will have plenty time for development.


I really wonder if they were serious about it.

Yes, they are serious but it's not their primary focus right now.

The best interest of any ONE given customer is to have as much Hashing as they can afford. Artificial restrictions are falsely noble, especially when other producers are in the market.  Of course everyone that has miners wish they were the top hasher, but that line slowing NETWORK hash increases is best left to real capitalistic supply/demand!

A scheduled release does let one hope their results be be good for a month or two, but there are way too many variables. We aren't given exactly how many units are to be released by each company so it's all an educated guess anyway. Buy as much as you want to afford, and when the HW price drops, buy as much as you want to afford... & repeat.

 The Only parameter I would suggest to KnC is to disallow a single customer from buying ~50% of stock, etc., Such as Gates/Winklevoss/NSA to allow a majority of customers access.

[The Avenger]

1. Stating they sold their stock of RMA boards is an unsubstantiated guess on your part designed to spread FUD. Dunno what your agenda is, or what you hope to achieve with those sorts of mud slinging speculative remarks.

I believe the RMA comment came a few pages back from KNC, but I might be wrong.

I'd be interested to see it. I think its pure speculation.

Thank you, but vesperwillow and I are correct:

It was always the case of what volume of RMAs would occur once shipping commenced being an unknown. Also if there was to be any yield issue beyond firmware, so there was in essence a float of modules kept.

Now that's complete, the surpless can be sold as the promised upgrades, and priced fairly.

RMA for batch one is complete! Didn't you know? Everyone's miner is working 100% perfectly now don't you know. Who needs a stock of rma boards? Let's fire sale them and turn 'em into dolla dolla bills y'all!

[vesperwillow]

Just saying, "protecting the network and its miners" is really out the window. It's a wet noodle being waved in the wind. Just ship equipment as it comes through and let the system manage itself.

The best interest of any ONE given customer is to have as much Hashing as they can afford. Artificial restrictions are falsely noble, especially when other producers are in the market.  Of course everyone that has miners wish they were the top hasher, but that line slowing NETWORK hash increases is best left to real capitalistic supply/demand!

A scheduled release does let one hope their results be be good for a month or two, but there are way too many variables. We aren't given exactly how many units are to be released by each company so it's all an educated guess anyway. Buy as much as you want to afford, and when the HW price drops, buy as much as you want to afford... & repeat.

 The Only parameter I would suggest to KnC is to disallow a single customer from buying ~50% of stock, etc., Such as Gates/Winklevoss/NSA to allow a majority of customers access.

Yup.

[Biffa]

Thank you, but vesperwillow and I are correct:

It was always the case of what volume of RMAs would occur once shipping commenced being an unknown. Also if there was to be any yield issue beyond firmware, so there was in essence a float of modules kept.

Now that's complete, the surpless can be sold as the promised upgrades, and priced fairly.

RMA for batch one is complete! Didn't you know? Everyone's miner is working 100% perfectly now don't you know. Who needs a stock of rma boards? Let's fire sale them and turn 'em into dolla dolla bills y'all!

Speculation and FUD, come on Avenger, selective quoting is so predictable from you.

Why don't you quote just a couple of entries down from the one you did?

What if RMA's are needed in the future?  SOL?

There is a float there as well solely for RMA, that won't be sold.

[BitcoinApprentice]

25,000+ first batch units on a mostly automated assembly line.

25,000?  

Is that a guesstimate or based on anything official?

I can't cite my source but I can say it's reliable to say that their order queue for first batch is near their maximum capacity for production. They had an order blog up at some point (not sure if they still do), but there were some huge orders on there, saw some single orders for more than 100 units.

My KNC order prediction was very much on point, as has our difficulty estimate related to orders coming online, the past few times.

Like I said about 500 pages back, when KNC comes online (as they have) difficulty is going to skyrocket, and keep doing so, and when Cointerra (and Hashfest if they ever do) comes online, it's going to cause eyes to pop.

Their 2nd batch is already sold out too i think, and they're almost full on their 3rd. They're using a mostly-automated production line, several of them.

They're the "KNC of America" as I've said before, except they've taken an even more hands-off approach. Chip design they handled, overall product design they handled, they outsourced everything else: Power, Cooling, Assembly, Shipment, etc.

I don't doubt. I imagine US miners much prefer to deal with a US company - much easier shipping and suing!  

Kinda explains why knc sold their stock of rma boards - they know they are going to be useless in a month or two, why keep them on hand? Turn them into cash now. Who is going to rma a board when it'll then be the mining equivalent of a 5870 gpu in a few months?

They will sell any miners left after the pre-orders are out the door. If no one wants them at that price, they'll sell them at reduced price to shift them. They've already added a clause saying that they will continue to sell through Dec, Jan etc if other companies add lots of to the hash power to the network (which is what is happening). They aren't going to hold on to equipment that will be redundant and no one wants in 4 months time.

I wouldn't be surprised if they retire and get out of the game after that. They are obviously gamblers, but they aren't stupid. It looks like their gamble will pay off, but probably not for their customers who gave them the free loan of millions (pre-orders).

I'd still be right about the last part if BTC had stayed at $120. But now it's quadrupled, everyone feels they are going to break even by doing fiat calculations. But if you paid 70BTC for a jup, if you got your order after the difficulty change on 16th October, you'll never see anywhere near 70BTC back mining with it. So anybody who thinks in btc see's they lost buying from knc.

So I wonder if the fire-sale of boards was an indication they are planning to clean up and clear out? They might have one more go with a multi TH/s miner, but would they risk losing everything if they f it all up?

http://persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gw-itcrowdmosspopcorn.gif

It's definitely good to plot BOTH the fiat Breakeven and the BTC breakeven.  I've passed fiat B/E, BTC will take a little longer.

[The Avenger]

Thank you, but vesperwillow and I are correct:

It was always the case of what volume of RMAs would occur once shipping commenced being an unknown. Also if there was to be any yield issue beyond firmware, so there was in essence a float of modules kept.

Now that's complete, the surpless can be sold as the promised upgrades, and priced fairly.

RMA for batch one is complete! Didn't you know? Everyone's miner is working 100% perfectly now don't you know. Who needs a stock of rma boards? Let's fire sale them and turn 'em into dolla dolla bills y'all!

Speculation and FUD, come on Avenger, selective quoting is so predictable from you.

Why don't you quote just a couple of entries down from the one you did?

What if RMA's are needed in the future?  SOL?

There is a float there as well solely for RMA, that won't be sold.

You don't read too good do you Biffa?

Guys, due to the fact we underestimated the demand and oversold, we had to wait for the rest to be produced at the factory.

Why would you need to produce more boards at the factory if you have an overstock, much more than needed supply of rma boards?? I think this gives a fairly good idea of how few rma boards they have in stock.

Not getting drawn on this point again. It's all there if you read.

[Biffa]

Why would you need to produce more boards at the factory if you have an overstock, much more than needed supply of rma boards?? I think this gives a fairly good idea of how few rma boards they have in stock.

Not getting drawn on this point again. It's all there if you read.

Because maybe they aren't the big bad bogemen you make them out to be? Because they didn't include the RMA stock as its important to have around for, oh I dunno, maybe, RMA's?

Just because you have a big negative mental fixation fantasy about them doesn't mean that everyone else has to live your nightmare version of reality.

Case in point: CYPER is going to Stockholm today to pick up his new boards and RMA his faulty ones.

I understand you don't like to be proven wrong, so its ok, I know, for you this will fall on deaf ears.

[The Avenger]

Why would you need to produce more boards at the factory if you have an overstock, much more than needed supply of rma boards?? I think this gives a fairly good idea of how few rma boards they have in stock.

Not getting drawn on this point again. It's all there if you read.

Because maybe they aren't the big bad bogemen you make them out to be? Because they didn't include the RMA stock as its important to have around for, oh I dunno, maybe, RMA's?

Just because you have a big negative mental fixation fantasy about them doesn't mean that everyone else has to live your nightmare version of reality.

Case in point: CYPER is going to Stockholm today to pick up his new boards and RMA his faulty ones.

I understand you don't like to be proven wrong, so its ok, I know, for you this will fall on deaf ears.

Cyper's boards were set aside since before the fire sale:

Cyper there are four modules for you as I said, but you're dicking around not sending them!

See? Didn't fall on deaf ears. Now please run along, you made me reply one more time even though I said I wouldn't.

[FiatKiller]

Holy crap! I go away for a week and come back to BTC selling for $650! Wow, wish I bought more miners now. I did have to reboot the Saturn about 3X thru logmein. It seems to have issues after 12 mill shares.

[Biffa]

Why would you need to produce more boards at the factory if you have an overstock, much more than needed supply of rma boards?? I think this gives a fairly good idea of how few rma boards they have in stock.

Not getting drawn on this point again. It's all there if you read.

Because maybe they aren't the big bad bogemen you make them out to be? Because they didn't include the RMA stock as its important to have around for, oh I dunno, maybe, RMA's?

Just because you have a big negative mental fixation fantasy about them doesn't mean that everyone else has to live your nightmare version of reality.

Case in point: CYPER is going to Stockholm today to pick up his new boards and RMA his faulty ones.

I understand you don't like to be proven wrong, so its ok, I know, for you this will fall on deaf ears.

Cyper's boards were set aside since before the fire sale:

Cyper there are four modules for you as I said, but you're dicking around not sending them!

See? Didn't fall on deaf ears. Now please run along, you made me reply one more time even though I said I wouldn't.

Exactly they kept some aside, for RMA's CYPER's or whoevers it doesn't matter.

Either way, it makes more sense, my experience with them is that they aren't the sort of company to dick around with that sort of stuff, I could be wrong, I'm not infallible, but it makes more sense to me that they wouldn't do what you are guessing they have done and sell all their RMA stock.

Difference between us is that I'm not turning my SPECULATION into fact like you do, I don't know why you do, I don't even want to try and guess what your problem is, but its almost pathological looking at it from the outside.

If you used words like "I am guessing" or "I personally think" or anything that doesn't pretend like you are the only person in the world who REALLY knows whats going on and the rest of us are just deluded fanbois then you wouldn't appear so fixated.

[sickpig]

Holy crap! I go away for a week and come back to BTC selling for $650! Wow, wish I bought more miners now. I did have to reboot the Saturn about 3X thru logmein. It seems to have issues after 12 mill shares.

slightly OT but speaking of "logmein" I found a foss replacement that serves me well for the last 3 years: http://www.ntop.org/products/n2n/
(you should have a vps/server with a public ip to run as supernode)

[CYPER]

Got my new shiny boards and I am currently enjoying a tradional Swedish meal (chicken kebab  ) until it's time for the plane.