Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com

[Biodom]

What is the most plausible theory for more than two months of silence re Neptune despite apparent discontent of customers?
Here is my speculation on possibilities (from the most probable #1 to almost impossible #5):
1. They are experiencing significant difficulties with Neptune design and want to overcome those problems before updating.
2. They are positioning to change their business model from selling individual units to the "fair shake" cloudhashing model, where customers will be buying slots in the icelandic super-mine managed by KnC. Everyone who ordered Neptune would be offered a slot with a modest increase in hashing power (to 3.5-4TH), but will have to pay extra for "hosting".
3. They were bought by someone or majority bought by a third party (perhaps even by a government-controlled entity).
4. They were bought/invested into by 21e6 (or merged with 21e6). Alternatively, they were supplying Jupiters to a single unknown party (cloudhashing?).
5. They are resting on their prior success and "taking it easy".

1. No
2. Perhaps
3. No
4. No
5. No

It may not be outside the realm of possibilities that they have other projects they are working on?

JOE hit nail on the head.

 

insider?
mind reader?
master spy?
or just plain smart?

If you refer to me who is the author of the original post....I am JPS, LOL 

[Every Day Junglist]

some news is better than no news...

[sbfree]

So who wants to buy a KNC controller card for a mercury/neptune/saturn?

Don't think I will have a use for it now.

how much?

[elasticband]

"We will release more details of this as we get closer to the delivery date, but for now we have one of the world’s largest data centres to build."

Translation - You aren't going hear shit from us for a while.

Yip everyone might best go buy some avalon gen 2 miners or some antminers, the world is doomed

ps love your work but i would love to see a screenshot of that

[ElGabo]

2 Neptune customer batch for sale

   

[davewr2013]

I read it as a notice that they will deliver -- but now accept a real possibility of being late... so they are covering their bases.

That means that not completing our order was probably the right call.

I just ran all the numbers based on best guess -- and so far these estimates have been close enough that we are confident in the outcomes. (+/- 5%)

Our Jupiter will still deliver another 7.5 BTC economically -- buying a Neptune with Mid-April delivery would have got us a 4BTC profit. Maybe, maybe not. Mid May delivery no longer seems to pay out with positive ROI.

By doing nothing we are now probably 3.5 - 4BTC ahead.

Good enough for me.

[dropt]

No matter what way you slice it, this is bad news for all of us.  It doesn't matter if you're a KnC customer or not.

[Cablez]

Yep.......so I'm out boys.  I know butt rape when I see it.

[DimensionsOfHell]

Well they basically mislead Jupiter/Saturn/Mercury customers and caused them to delay making other purchases.

They have had their factory going full tilt likely making 28nm cards that they have no intention of selling to the customers that got them off the ground unless they bought into their next generation of devices (thats a big FU in my book)

Absolutely agree.

They never mentioned whether they were selling upgrades so I asked that question explicitly,

If the answer comes back NO then I am done with KNC.

They caused me to delay, spend money I didn't need to and I am not a Neptune customer and don't plan on being one.

I also want to know about the Upgrade Modules as they didn't mention anything about it. I'm with Joe, if they don't sell the modules, I'm done with KNC. I've waited for so long to purchase the modules, and nothing.

It seems they don't really give a shit about their first customers, the people that helped them get off the ground, they only care about their current "Neptune" customers.

Guess I'll be adding more Ants to my farm until something better comes along.




EDIT: Anyone think about what happens to all those miners in the newly built data center IF Plan A actually comes through? That is a shit ton of hashing dedicated just to KNC. I'm fairly certain that would be WAY above and beyond the 5% they've declared to mine for them selves.

[bitpop]

Amazing! Knc #1

[RoadStress]

Ok so KnC just turned from white to grey for me. While i don't care so much about the Neptune delay, what i care is that they are building a big datacenter in order to cover all Neptune Batch 1 customers in case of delay. That means at least 3Th/s * 1200 units=3600 Th/s just for them (yes they will hash for Batch 1 customers but only in case of a delay and just for a limited amount of time). That 3600Th is more than the promissed 5% (maybe it will be 5% after they ship the Neptunes, but until then it's just greed).

Instead of selling 1-2 Jupiters to previous customers they go their own way and keep all Jupiters for them. Avalon did it, Bitfury did it, BFL did it. The dark side is too powerful in the Bitcoin world.

[Ghrindy]

This is BAD news!

It seems EVERY (pre-order) mining company starts with promising 'all the world' to their early 'investomers', and as soon as production starts, they somehow forget those promises, and change their priorities to:
'maximising shareholder-value' (and no, 'we' are NOT those shareholders!)

And of all mining-companies, KnC seemed the most honorable, up until this last news statement.

Like some have mentioned here before, it appears KnC couldn't ship Jupiters (OR modules for that matter) not because they couldn't get some components, but just to fill their datacenter first.

which brings me to: Kncminer.cn
this company is is the exclusive reseller/distributor for KnCminers in China. (only mentioned a few times in this 1500-page-thread)

Owner(chairman) of KnCminer.cn is Brock Pierce http://www.linkedin.com/in/brockpierce (a well known bitcoin-entrepeneur)

I wouldn't be surprised if he (BP) didn't resell any of those machines, and just started his own mining-farm in China!

Fck it, i'm out!

[arlekyn13]

Ok so KnC just turned from white to grey for me. While i don't care so much about the Neptune delay, what i care is that they are building a big datacenter in order to cover all Neptune Batch 1 customers in case of delay. That means at least 3Th/s * 1200 units=3600 Th/s just for them (yes they will hash for Batch 1 customers but only in case of a delay and just for a limited amount of time). That 3600Th is more than the promissed 5% (maybe it will be 5% after they ship the Neptunes, but until then it's just greed).

Instead of selling 1-2 Jupiters to previous customers they go their own way and keep all Jupiters for them. Avalon did it, Bitfury did it, BFL did it. The dark side is too powerful in the Bitcoin world.

I think they'll start selling hash rate once they're done with shipping/hosting Neptunes

[Nono242]

So, the Neptune isn't taped out yet. The chip is still on development. After is taped out, it takes again roughly 3 months at least before the chip comes out of the fab. We will never see the Neptune before end of May at the earliest.

With their Jupiter modules they prefer to mine instead of selling the modules.

They don't say when the plan B will be activated precisely so that might be end of June.

Very disappointing KnC.

[atadro]

Ok so KnC just turned from white to grey for me. While i don't care so much about the Neptune delay, what i care is that they are building a big datacenter in order to cover all Neptune Batch 1 customers in case of delay. That means at least 3Th/s * 1200 units=3600 Th/s just for them (yes they will hash for Batch 1 customers but only in case of a delay and just for a limited amount of time). That 3600Th is more than the promissed 5% (maybe it will be 5% after they ship the Neptunes, but until then it's just greed).

Instead of selling 1-2 Jupiters to previous customers they go their own way and keep all Jupiters for them. Avalon did it, Bitfury did it, BFL did it. The dark side is too powerful in the Bitcoin world.

can't forget about the rule of ASIC hardware vendors

contracts with investors > promises to investomers

[vesperwillow]

Just caught the newsletter. So basically, what Avenger and I have been saying for quite awhile, has come to truth. They absolutely ignored their NPS for their Batch 1/2 customers, and have been hoarding 28nm. Unless I'm taking that newsletter entirely wrong.

Don't you like how they talked about the NPS as if it related to the Neptune customers, when it didn't? Am I one of the few in this thread to notice that?

And how they're talking about things "as the end of the NPS phase" comes. Fancy wording. Basically they're like "lol, we held out and nobody held our feet to the fire". Competition has been shipping for almost 2 months now, throughout the entire NPS phase.

Anyone seeing this as good, stop being optimistic and be a little more analytical: they're basically putting on a parachute because they're not 100% sure of their internal milestones anylonger. This way their ass doesn't skid on your face as hard as a pure crash.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but they're going to be using on-hand 28nm systems to provide the 3TH per Neptune customer (the first 1,200) if they're late. They supposedly only ever kept 5% of their total deployed hashrate. Is 5% of their original deployed hashrate equal to or less than 1,200 3TH machines? ..... Something to think about.

They've clearly jumped ship from the community, from supporting you folks who propped them up with your free capital loans.

Glad I didn't bank on KNC this time.

[RoadStress]

Ok so KnC just turned from white to grey for me. While i don't care so much about the Neptune delay, what i care is that they are building a big datacenter in order to cover all Neptune Batch 1 customers in case of delay. That means at least 3Th/s * 1200 units=3600 Th/s just for them (yes they will hash for Batch 1 customers but only in case of a delay and just for a limited amount of time). That 3600Th is more than the promissed 5% (maybe it will be 5% after they ship the Neptunes, but until then it's just greed).

Instead of selling 1-2 Jupiters to previous customers they go their own way and keep all Jupiters for them. Avalon did it, Bitfury did it, BFL did it. The dark side is too powerful in the Bitcoin world.

I think they'll start selling hash rate once they're done with shipping/hosting Neptunes

I think they can get more $ per GH now from loyal customers than after they are done shipping Neptunes, unless they go Bitfury style with way overpriced plans/miners to catch some suckers in.

What i don't understand is why make a big datacenter now with Jupiters when you can set things up and do it with Neptunes with lower power consumption than Jupiters unless they plan to sell them after they have Neptunes in hands.

[vesperwillow]

What i don't understand is why make a big datacenter now with Jupiters when you can set things up and do it with Neptunes with lower power consumption than Jupiters unless they plan to sell them after they have Neptunes in hands.

Because they don't have Neptunes now, they have Jupiters. One of the most important factors, beyond efficiency, is mining now vs later. Which is why the folks using antminers and the other chinese equipment over the past 45 days, will make more than someone getting a Neptune 3 months from now.

[perezoso]

Yeah.. I'm not a KnC customer - BFL (ugh) and HF (ugh) - but when I saw this, my first reaction (and it remains my reaction) is that the consumer-miner is out of business once the present generation of machines is no longer viable - those are already delivered or whose delivery is obliged by contract. 

We're walking dead.  Zombies.  Mining will now be done by chip companies, probably allied with capital for datacenter fab and operation.  You might buy shares, but shares that will only ROI with steep BTC appreciation.  It's over.  And I barely even started!

[makngeerwork]

Good to see you all funded a new data center.

Good Luck.