Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com

[joeventura]

Total wild-guess here but I'd bet only a relatively small percentage of KNC customers even read the forums and don't know anything about recent troubles...My point, I have a feeling that those of us who are active and critical on the forums are a very vocal minority and the masses simply don't know or care about the details.

This is simply not possible. People paid 20-26K for 2 machines.
To me, this is serious money (not to play with).
You could buy a reasonable midsize car for 26K (Honda, Volkswagen or Toyota)

I beg to differ. You are giving the "average Joe" way too much credit!  Lol. People are generally lazy and will often expend the minimal amount of effort to research their purchases. New people continue to flock to blatant scams and always will. So a somewhat reputable company like KNC will have very little difficulty attracting new, uninformed customers.

Unless the average Joe is me.

[1715038403]

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[1715038403]

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[RealMalatesta]

Who is going to buy from Knc again?

I bet not many.

People will buy if price and product is good and NOT a 4-6 mo preorder (2-3 wk probably OK).
Are you saying that ~2th machine for $3499 in 2 wk is not competitive? In 4 wk-I don't know.

Of course, theoretically speaking is competitive,  but dont forget that only a few , if not none, trust Knc anymore.

They failed with an inferior product. Who is trusting them with the hi-tech 20nm???

Total wild-guess here but I'd bet only a relatively small percentage of KNC customers even read the forums and don't know anything about recent troubles. It's illuminating to read the alt coin forum and see all of the people who are still absolutely giddy for the Titan. Many of them have absolutely no idea of KNC's SHA miner history and they continue to site KNC as a company that "over-delivers". Heck, the official BFL forum still has a lot of cheerleaders excited for their Monarchs despite poor communication and continued delays.

My point, I have a feeling that those of us who are active and critical on the forums are a very vocal minority and the masses simply don't know or care about the details.

I agree. In groups other than here (nanog, delug and alike), people still are over-enthusiastic about KnC. "Hey, see, I've received this mail. I will get TWO miners, not only one..." That's the sound there.

So it is about time to set up a website for publishing the facts.

And frankly: The facts on the Frankenjupiters and Neverneptunes are one issue. This will not hurt them. What will hurt them are facts about the people behind KnC. About the founders, the money they used, the investors, about their bank-plans and alike. Because THIS is what counts in the world of finance. A couple of miners have been ripped off? That's a banker's normal day-to-day business. But it looks different when a banker has to think twice if he wants to be involved with sex, drugs - and no, no Rock-n-roll....

[helmax]

Bitcoinorama is gone a long time ago

[RealMalatesta]

I love stuff like this. It won't speed up my refund (if it ever will come), but gives some feeling of comfort...

Recently, Pierce angered bitcoin enthusiasts through his involvement in KnCMiner, a company that sold broken computers to bitcoin miners. Pierce says his involvement with the company is limited, and that the firm is committed to compensating its customers.

[RealMalatesta]

And this:

KnCMiners is a Swedish company that sells specialized computers designed to run the complex algorithm that creates bitcoins — a process known as “mining.” Although any computer can technically run the program, fierce competition among miners has spurred an arms-race of computing power, in which users are forced to constantly upgrade their hardware to continue to make a profit.

Pierce is the chairman of KnCMiners.cn, which he describes on his LinkedIn page as “distributor of KNCminer Bitcoin ASIC mining devices in China.” In a statement, he said that he does not “own KnCMiner or have anything to do with the principal business” and only works as a distributor of KnC products in China.

The firm has recently been mired in controversy after hundreds of its customers received damaged or otherwise useless hardware. On an April 28 blog post, the company apologized to its customers for selling them products that were “quite frankly unusable.”

Bitcoin miners took to the company’s forum and to popular discussion board Bitcointalk to complain about delayed refunds. Commenters appeared particularly upset by the fact that KnCMiners refused to refund them in cash, and insisted to pay in bitcoin.

But perhaps the most bitter complaint in the forums was that KnCMiners had shipped the broken computers just as it prepares to begin competing with its customers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company has built a large mining center in Boden, a city in the remote north of Sweden. The “mine” will run state of the art supercomputers night and day, taking advantage of the region’s freezing weather to cool down the machines and make millionaire profits.

Pierce offered an explanation for the data center. He said the idea is that people will be able to purchase “shares” of a supercomputer and allow a professional company to manage the day-to-day function of the machines — which means that KnC would not in fact compete with its consumers.

He added that bitcoin-mining hardware is by definition “a prototype” that cannot be expected to work perfectly. He said that KnC is “the most reputable of any company in the business” and that it had offered its clients a good deal by shipping new machines to them without requiring that consumers return the faulty ones.

KnCMiners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

[RealMalatesta]

And this:

KnCMiners is a Swedish company that sells specialized computers designed to run the complex algorithm that creates bitcoins — a process known as “mining.” Although any computer can technically run the program, fierce competition among miners has spurred an arms-race of computing power, in which users are forced to constantly upgrade their hardware to continue to make a profit.

Pierce is the chairman of KnCMiners.cn, which he describes on his LinkedIn page as “distributor of KNCminer Bitcoin ASIC mining devices in China.” In a statement, he said that he does not “own KnCMiner or have anything to do with the principal business” and only works as a distributor of KnC products in China.

The firm has recently been mired in controversy after hundreds of its customers received damaged or otherwise useless hardware. On an April 28 blog post, the company apologized to its customers for selling them products that were “quite frankly unusable.”

Bitcoin miners took to the company’s forum and to popular discussion board Bitcointalk to complain about delayed refunds. Commenters appeared particularly upset by the fact that KnCMiners refused to refund them in cash, and insisted to pay in bitcoin.

But perhaps the most bitter complaint in the forums was that KnCMiners had shipped the broken computers just as it prepares to begin competing with its customers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company has built a large mining center in Boden, a city in the remote north of Sweden. The “mine” will run state of the art supercomputers night and day, taking advantage of the region’s freezing weather to cool down the machines and make millionaire profits.

Pierce offered an explanation for the data center. He said the idea is that people will be able to purchase “shares” of a supercomputer and allow a professional company to manage the day-to-day function of the machines — which means that KnC would not in fact compete with its consumers.

He added that bitcoin-mining hardware is by definition “a prototype” that cannot be expected to work perfectly. He said that KnC is “the most reputable of any company in the business” and that it had offered its clients a good deal by shipping new machines to them without requiring that consumers return the faulty ones.

KnCMiners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For someone who only is distributing KnC-devices in Asia, Pierce is obviously deeper involved in KnC's day-to-day-business as we all thought.

[SgtMoth]

I have 10 working boards from the replacements, 5 more have broken pieces, and 3 more that wont start

[SgtMoth]

these looked like new boards, most of them

[RealMalatesta]

I have 10 working boards from the replacements, 5 more have broken pieces, and 3 more that wont start

Two more days, and KnC will tell you that they've sent you crap for educational purpose.

[Biodom]

And this:

KnCMiners is a Swedish company that sells specialized computers designed to run the complex algorithm that creates bitcoins — a process known as “mining.” Although any computer can technically run the program, fierce competition among miners has spurred an arms-race of computing power, in which users are forced to constantly upgrade their hardware to continue to make a profit.

Pierce is the chairman of KnCMiners.cn, which he describes on his LinkedIn page as “distributor of KNCminer Bitcoin ASIC mining devices in China.” In a statement, he said that he does not “own KnCMiner or have anything to do with the principal business” and only works as a distributor of KnC products in China.

The firm has recently been mired in controversy after hundreds of its customers received damaged or otherwise useless hardware. On an April 28 blog post, the company apologized to its customers for selling them products that were “quite frankly unusable.”

Bitcoin miners took to the company’s forum and to popular discussion board Bitcointalk to complain about delayed refunds. Commenters appeared particularly upset by the fact that KnCMiners refused to refund them in cash, and insisted to pay in bitcoin.

But perhaps the most bitter complaint in the forums was that KnCMiners had shipped the broken computers just as it prepares to begin competing with its customers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company has built a large mining center in Boden, a city in the remote north of Sweden. The “mine” will run state of the art supercomputers night and day, taking advantage of the region’s freezing weather to cool down the machines and make millionaire profits.

Pierce offered an explanation for the data center. He said the idea is that people will be able to purchase “shares” of a supercomputer and allow a professional company to manage the day-to-day function of the machines — which means that KnC would not in fact compete with its consumers.

He added that bitcoin-mining hardware is by definition “a prototype” that cannot be expected to work perfectly. He said that KnC is “the most reputable of any company in the business” and that it had offered its clients a good deal by shipping new machines to them without requiring that consumers return the faulty ones.

KnCMiners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

I just could not understand how both KnC and Cointerra think that the cloudhashing product could be nothing more than a total failure:
1. people can buy BTC directly through known entity (Coinbase) directly from their bank accounts.
2. people will soon be able to buy ETF(s) if they don't want to buy BTC directly.
3. Experienced miners know that ## can never work for cloudhashing

So, who is the target audience of cloudhashing? I understand that for a Hollywood actor, it might be attractive, but someone should point the facts to him.

[SgtMoth]

11 working boards now

[faetos]

Who is going to buy from Knc again?

I bet not many.

People will buy if price and product is good and NOT a 4-6 mo preorder (2-3 wk probably OK).
Are you saying that ~2th machine for $3499 in 2 wk is not competitive? In 4 wk-I don't know.

Of course, theoretically speaking is competitive,  but dont forget that only a few , if not none, trust Knc anymore.

They failed with an inferior product. Who is trusting them with the hi-tech 20nm???

Total wild-guess here but I'd bet only a relatively small percentage of KNC customers even read the forums and don't know anything about recent troubles. It's illuminating to read the alt coin forum and see all of the people who are still absolutely giddy for the Titan. Many of them have absolutely no idea of KNC's SHA miner history and they continue to site KNC as a company that "over-delivers". Heck, the official BFL forum still has a lot of cheerleaders excited for their Monarchs despite poor communication and continued delays.

My point, I have a feeling that those of us who are active and critical on the forums are a very vocal minority and the masses simply don't know or care about the details.

Drop some notes on their forums. I do as much as I can without getting banned. I hate seeing people being taken advantage of, but some folks like being doormats. KnC needs them to wipe the shit off their boots before they go into their datorhall. 

[RealMalatesta]

Now there are some interesting developements. First, some portions of a posting from the KnC-forum:

Talked to Lucy Edvardsson, Keith Gurnett, and it really doesn't matter who it is, the answer is the same: we are experiencing delays, it will take a couple of weeks longer, backlogged, bank requests being processed too slow, etc.
So I actually contacted their bank in Sweden, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (phone +46 771 62 10 00), their account name is KnC Group, and their comment was that KnC has been having "money issues". I called KnC with this information and after a short confused pause, the answer I got is that KnC is in the process of changing banks?!?

Whatever "money issues" are, it seems as if the "responsible" persons at KnC are just out of their mind. Now look at who has the domain "KnCBank.com":

Registrant Name: Samuel Cole
Registrant Organization: KncMiner AB
Registrant Street: Vallmyravagen 7A
Registrant City: Skogas
Registrant State/Province: huddinge
Registrant Postal Code: 14251
Registrant Country: Sweden
Registrant Phone: 0046732300149
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: samcole@hotmail.co.uk


This COULD be an indication that KnC already was aware in November last year that they may have issues with their bank and tried to set up something on their own. Or they are just plain megalomaniac and play Monopoly with our money.

[poodle63]

since this year read a lot reply from here, I'm get some thinking about KNC, due to they are try to invent 20nm chip for next gen miner, and mostly lead time of wafer process plus package and smt will took 3 months to receive first sample, so it is reasonable they say tap out last month, and which means their major batch is still on the road right now, and if things going right, it may took another month to have production batch this is the best shortest estimate.

Problem is did they done design right at first time, if not there will be another 3 month to receive corrective sample and another 3 month to receive major batch, so this is another 6 month wait and KNC might burning more than 6 million us dollar, so I'm thinking the only problem is KNC have to correct their preorder term to co-invest new product.

I personally feel KNC run too far this time, they may tripped and get some problem in their new product, they try to cutting edge but they may cut their finger this time on Neptune, hope they don't make same mistake on Titan. 

[Grix]

Spondoolies making some statements regarding KNC in this post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg6703090#msg6703090

1. They pretty much claim that KNC lied in the tapeout press release and didn't tape out in february but rather in march
2. They say that the fab itself takes at least 4-5 (I guess months but they accidentally a word), and of course in addition is shipping and assembly

If this is true that would mean that neptunes won't be delivered in Q2, but rather late July at the very earliest, and that's just the first batch, they have said that batch 2 will be delivered one month after batch 1 which will be delivered one month after customer-only batch, which means that batch 2 and maybe even batch 1 would not be delivered until Q4. Wow.

Thoughts?

[tzortz]

Sounds realistic for KNC.

[lemonte]

Spondoolies making some statements regarding KNC in this post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg6703090#msg6703090

1. They pretty much claim that KNC lied in the tapeout press release and didn't tape out in february but rather in march
2. They say that the fab itself takes at least 4-5 (I guess months but they accidentally a word), and of course in addition is shipping and assembly

If this is true that would mean that neptunes won't be delivered in Q2, but rather late July at the very earliest, and that's just the first batch, they have said that batch 2 will be delivered one month after batch 1 which will be delivered one month after customer-only batch, which means that batch 2 and maybe even batch 1 would not be delivered until Q4. Wow.

Thoughts?

Sounds like we will find out today, Kurt says there will be an update at some point for Neptune and Titan.

[poodle63]

The only problem of KNC is just stop to finetune performance, KNC could ship beta phase product to us and under performance let say 80% of claim, and give us upgrade firmware after ware while finetune completed, then we have 110% performance right after upgrade firmware.

market is changed, you not ship you don't think people will still wire money into you account just because of your vogue claim.

Oh~ summer is comming, and I don't have aircon in my room, hot hot hot~

[poodle63]

Spondoolies making some statements regarding KNC in this post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521520.msg6703090#msg6703090

1. They pretty much claim that KNC lied in the tapeout press release and didn't tape out in february but rather in march
2. They say that the fab itself takes at least 4-5 (I guess months but they accidentally a word), and of course in addition is shipping and assembly

If this is true that would mean that neptunes won't be delivered in Q2, but rather late July at the very earliest, and that's just the first batch, they have said that batch 2 will be delivered one month after batch 1 which will be delivered one month after customer-only batch, which means that batch 2 and maybe even batch 1 would not be delivered until Q4. Wow.

Thoughts?

if 20nm the que is pretty long, KNC might await AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and other graphic card maker. KNC is low priority customer for TSMC.

So lead time for KNC to receive chips will be such long long and long time after graphic card maker satisfy.

[bittawm]

if you go to knc news they latest news blerb has been deleted, it no longer says " we messed up...etc"