[WTS] Avalon Chips Available to Order; Purchase Consortium, 1 chip minimum.

[ProfMac]

I and many others received email that announces the sale of the Avalon chips.  Additional detail is on the Avalon store page.  A minimum purchase, 10,000 assembled and tested chips, is BTC 780.

I propose to form a purchasing consortium and place an order.  I assume that an earlier order is better, as we are racing known and unknown competitors.  It is not defined what this consortium will do next.  The actions may increase or decrease the value of the chips.  Transactions involving the chips are all valuated in BTC.

In very vague, broad brush terms:

1.  You could redeem your shares and take possession of your chips.  Postage and handling are prepaid with your shares.  Share ownership reverts to me.  The chips are probably useless in a home/hobbyist environment.
2.  The chips could be resold in smaller amounts to groups that are making something interesting with them.  I will hold a buy-back auction to redeem a corresponding number of shares with any coin received.  This may or may not produce profit.
3.  The chips could be the manufacturing inventory for something interesting that I make with them.  I will hold a buy-back auction with the net coin received after expenses.  This may or may not produce profit.

It has been 10 years since my first serious PCB project.  You may see elements of that project as presented in a Kickstarter project that is approved, but not launched.  An Avalon chip project will be significantly more advanced and difficult in many different dimensions than the project that I did back then.  Others attempting ASIC based projects have missed deadlines.  I also have an old resume on line at the moment.

I am offering shares for sale as interest in a batch order of 10,000 chips.  There are a total of 10,000 shares, 1 share represents 1 chip.

THE OFFER, Auction #1
Losing bids are fully returned.
This is a multiple-winner auction, the largest bids win, the remaining bids lose.
You may bid for 1 share by making a payment to the bitcoin address 13oUpURSCtDTYpkZP6kd7YAtL9iJ9gYRgy
Each address that pays forms a bid.  If a transaction submits payments from more than 1 address, each address is an independent bid.
The payment from each paying address in one transaction is adjusted so that the total of the adjusted payments equals the total received by 13oUpURSCtDTYpkZP6kd7YAtL9iJ9gYRgy.
Multiple payments from 1 address count as 1 bid, the adjusted amounts are added together.
The bid amount is this total of adjusted amounts.
The block-chain holds all the auction information.  The auction is as transparent, as public, and as anonymous as the block-chain itself.
I may close the auction at any time, for any reason.
I may return your coins and cancel your bid at any time, for any reason.
The no bullshit no fine print terms of sale on the Avalon store page apply here as much as possible.
Correspondence signed by the paying address will be accepted as authentic.
END OF OFFER

I have a similar auction running for shares in a Batch #2 Avalon.  A link to that auction is in my signature, you may wish to bookmark that link, read through that discussion, and examine that payment address in the block-chain.  This auction is modified slightly based on that experience.  There is a preliminary third party web page announced toward the end of that discussion, and it gives the totals from highest to lowest.

I need to raise a total of BTC 780 before Avalon sells out, I do need enough money to handle the chips after I receive them, and this auction must outbid other situations that are also bidding for my time.  In recent Avalon sales, there has been significant after sale increase in price, in some instances more than 12X. 

The following table may offer you some guidance in order to remain competitive at auction.  If the cutoff at the number of bids in the second column gives a minimum of the total in the third column, I will offer that many shares in this auction.  Please note, this table does not set a minimum bid.  I will simply set some cut-off in the future and all larger bids are in.

Code:

@ BTC 0.2028 average	10,000 shares	BTC 2,028 total
@ BTC 0.2167 average	9,000 shares	BTC 1,950 total
@ BTC 0.2340 average	8,000 shares	BTC 1,872 total
@ BTC 0.2563 average	7,000 shares	BTC 1,794 total
@ BTC 0.2860 average	6,000 shares	BTC 1,716 total
@ BTC 0.3276 average	5,000 shares	BTC 1,638 total
@ BTC 0.3900 average	4,000 shares	BTC 1,560 total
@ BTC 0.4680 average	3,000 shares	BTC 1,404 total
@ BTC 0.5850 average	2,000 shares	BTC 1,170 total

I will keep the auction open at least until Thursday, 4/18, at 13:00 GMT (8:00 AM CDT), a little more than 48 hours, or until I have BTC 1,170 in payments, whichever occurs first. 

Sometime after there are BTC 1,170 or more of bids on the block-chain and BTC 780 are 6-confirmed by that time, I will attempt to make the chip purchase and upon success of that purchase, I will declare the auction a success.  I may keep the bidding open even after I have made the purchase.

If the Avalon store is "out of stock" I will wait at least two weeks to see if I have another possibility to purchase.  I purchased a Batch #2 Avalon on Feb. 18, during the 2nd round of purchasing, so this seems to be a prudent precaution.

It is not defined what I will do if there are between BTC 780 and BTC 1,170 in bids.

Code:

@ BTC 0.7800 average	1,000 shares	BTC 780 total

This auction may cause a significant number of transactions.  It is feasible for the transactions to fill more than 20 blocks.  Please consider bidding early, and paying respectful miner's fees.

If you are a bitcoin software guru, you may consider producing a web page that will make a specified number of new addresses, transfer coin to them, and submit the transaction.  This would be useful to someone who wants to purchase a few hundred chips in this style auction.

I will be traveling on business this week, and communication will be catch-as-catch-can.

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[Entropy-uc]

What are your qualifications to handle the board design, manufacturing, assembly and testing?

[ProfMac]

What are your qualifications to handle the board design, manufacturing, assembly and testing?

For purposes of this auction: none.

[phk]

I encourage people who don't know what they are doing to buy as many of these chips as possible.  I will buy them from you at pennies on the dollar later.

Whats wrong with somebody wanting to act like a distributor?
It works for Coca-Cola and it works for Digikey/Avnet/Arrow?

[miter_myles]

lol - everything avalon these days turns into a sub-group buy and/or share/auction related thing...

not crapping on it.. but find it interesting..

 

[phk]

This isn't some heathkit project you solder together in your garage.

It's a QFN48 package with a grand total of eight digital signals.

(yes, you could solder together in your garage).

[phk]

My guess they will be selling them $100 a pop :-)

... not that theres anything wrong with that, right?  Bitcoin is anti-central bank, not anti-free-market

[Entropy-uc]

This isn't some heathkit project you solder together in your garage.

It's a QFN48 package with a grand total of eight digital signals.

(yes, you could solder together in your garage).

get back to me on your yield after you do it with 10 000 chips.

The only think dumber than giving money to BFL is trying to be your own BFL.

[phk]

This isn't some heathkit project you solder together in your garage.

It's a QFN48 package with a grand total of eight digital signals.

(yes, you could solder together in your garage).

get back to me on your yield after you do it with 10 000 chips.

The only think dumber than giving money to BFL is trying to be your own BFL.

Sadly, I will not be getting back to you on my yield with 10k chips.  That is mostly because I don't have the $$$ to buy 10k chips.

I do, however, have $ to buy 10 chips from a distributor (like this thread was attempting to organize...).

The fact that the distributor doesn't know ANYTHING about electronic circuits doesn't bother me at all.  I trust he is more experienced with UPS/Fedex.

By the time the TSMC fab is done, I expect Avalon would have released the pin out / interface specification (May timeline).  What more do I need from the distributor?

[aTg]

Let me get this straight, you're the one who is out all orders and now want to re-sell?

[ProfMac]

Let me get this straight, you're the one who is out all orders and now want to re-sell?

If that's addressed to me, I don't know what you mean.

[ProfMac]

I encourage people who don't know what they are doing to buy as many of these chips as possible.  I will buy them from you at pennies on the dollar later.

Whats wrong with somebody wanting to act like a distributor?
It works for Coca-Cola and it works for Digikey/Avnet/Arrow?

Both of those organizations know exactly what to do to utilize their product, and they offer support.

This isn't some heathkit project you solder together in your garage.

I can't remember anymore whether I ever had a heathkit or not.  I wanted one and I had other kits.  I did read the entire Scientific American book of projects for boys.  My opinion is that many of those projects would be challenging today for graduate students.

I wonder how many people both know what bitcoin is, and also know what heathkit was.

While many of your comments are on point in general in any bitcoin forum, please do go back and re-read my original post.  I thought I was pretty droll, very under-promised, issued proper cautions about the difficulty, and gave the exit strategy as well as the buy in strategy.  I did not promise easy money, nor did I promise a marketing  view of engineering or science.  It may appear rushed:  I thought I was racing the clock, and the "out of stock" status seems to agree with this thinking.

I do value constructive criticism and I spend considerable time evaluating it for any instruction that I may gain from it.  However, I find that I assimilate the criticism better when I see some connection to my own actions.

[CoinHoarder]

ProfMac seems to be a trust able guy.

I know there are plans of development with this chip (just check this subforum.) Maybe a group buy like this will make said development more likely, so I hope you can get at least one order in for the sake of legit ASIC options.

Good luck!

Also.. this is not a thread to argue about such, let PRof do his thing. Everyone knows you are kind of speculating that someone will develop a controller board or pcb or whatever you need to make these things hash.

[aTg]

Let me get this straight, you're the one who is out all orders and now want to re-sell?

If that's addressed to me, I don't know what you mean.

If you taken all pre-orders of chips for resale?

[Entropy-uc]

I encourage people who don't know what they are doing to buy as many of these chips as possible.  I will buy them from you at pennies on the dollar later.

Whats wrong with somebody wanting to act like a distributor?
It works for Coca-Cola and it works for Digikey/Avnet/Arrow?

Both of those organizations know exactly what to do to utilize their product, and they offer support.

This isn't some heathkit project you solder together in your garage.

I can't remember anymore whether I ever had a heathkit or not.  I wanted one and I had other kits.  I did read the entire Scientific American book of projects for boys.  My opinion is that many of those projects would be challenging today for graduate students.

I wonder how many people both know what bitcoin is, and also know what heathkit was.

While many of your comments are on point in general in any bitcoin forum, please do go back and re-read my original post.  I thought I was pretty droll, very under-promised, issued proper cautions about the difficulty, and gave the exit strategy as well as the buy in strategy.  I did not promise easy money, nor did I promise a marketing  view of engineering or science.  It may appear rushed:  I thought I was racing the clock, and the "out of stock" status seems to agree with this thinking.

I do value constructive criticism and I spend considerable time evaluating it for any instruction that I may gain from it.  However, I find that I assimilate the criticism better when I see some connection to my own actions.

Well, in this case you are the apparent adult inviting children to come play on the highway.

What exactly will you do with one chip?  Avalon modules have 80 chips in them.  How will you manage risk of yield loss?  Who will you contract to build them?

How long will it take to go from order to hashing hardware?  What will alternative cost at that future date?  How many ASIC programs will be shipping in that time frame?

They are not my children, so go ahead, let them play in the highway just as rush hour starts.

[Bogart]

For myself, I appreciate being offered the chance to come play, and will judge for myself the risks.

Even if I fail to build any working hardware, I may still end up having bought myself an education of sorts.

As was mentioned earlier, I can still sell the chips on to someone else.

I don't know if "being your own BFL" is too fair of a comparison.  Most of the hard work here (making the chips in particular) is already done, and I hear there is a reference design of some kind to be provided.

[ProfMac]

Let me get this straight, you're the one who is out all orders and now want to re-sell?

If that's addressed to me, I don't know what you mean.

If you taken all pre-orders of chips for resale?

I still don't get what you want to say. 
At this time I haven't accepted any money and I haven't made any purchase.
I am willing to collect enough money from small purchasers and put together a minimum order that they cannot get on their own.
I put together a clean and transparent way to do so.
If you have a question on the mechanics of the deal, I will try to answer them.


.

[ProfMac]

I encourage people who don't know what they are doing to buy as many of these chips as possible.  I will buy them from you at pennies on the dollar later.

Whats wrong with somebody wanting to act like a distributor?
It works for Coca-Cola and it works for Digikey/Avnet/Arrow?

Both of those organizations know exactly what to do to utilize their product, and they offer support.

This isn't some heathkit project you solder together in your garage.

I can't remember anymore whether I ever had a heathkit or not.  I wanted one and I had other kits.  I did read the entire Scientific American book of projects for boys.  My opinion is that many of those projects would be challenging today for graduate students.

I wonder how many people both know what bitcoin is, and also know what heathkit was.

While many of your comments are on point in general in any bitcoin forum, please do go back and re-read my original post.  I thought I was pretty droll, very under-promised, issued proper cautions about the difficulty, and gave the exit strategy as well as the buy in strategy.  I did not promise easy money, nor did I promise a marketing  view of engineering or science.  It may appear rushed:  I thought I was racing the clock, and the "out of stock" status seems to agree with this thinking.

I do value constructive criticism and I spend considerable time evaluating it for any instruction that I may gain from it.  However, I find that I assimilate the criticism better when I see some connection to my own actions.

Well, in this case you are the apparent adult inviting children to come play on the highway.

What exactly will you do with one chip?  Avalon modules have 80 chips in them.  How will you manage risk of yield loss?  Who will you contract to build them?

How long will it take to go from order to hashing hardware?  What will alternative cost at that future date?  How many ASIC programs will be shipping in that time frame?

They are not my children, so go ahead, let them play in the highway just as rush hour starts.

Ok.  This one has some meat on it.  I will think on this.  I am internalizing it as:  make stronger disclaimers and stronger customer qualification.

But be warned:  I think Americans hate elitism, and your comments could be confused with elitism.  While I am fiercely proud of my education, credentials, and expertise, and often think I am the smartest guy in the room, I think it is a mistake to adopt the posture that only I can evaluate the risks, and only I can produce a quality design.

There is a WWII story that the Germans, in their elitist thinking, trained gunners, and drivers, and other specialists.  The Americans, well, were all over the map.  An American sniper could shoot a German driver, and the vehicle was dead, and the passengers sitting ducks.  Shoot an American driver, and the passengers decided who would be medic, who would be driver, and with our glorious randomness, they bugged the hell out of there while treating the driver.  "We voted, Let's Roll" is a uniquely American viewpoint.

I don't think that 1 chip is a good engineering purchase.  Someone who manages to purchase one for $10 and who puts it into clearcast and wears it for a nerd-bracelet or uses it for an executive paperweight is cool.  I'm certainly willing to pay $10 just to hold it in my hand and posses it.

My auction price is constructed so that I have 9 replacement chips for each one purchased at the minimum commit level.  This allows me to give courtesy replacement chips, although of course this is not promised in the offer language.

My first thoughts to build them are Olimex in Bulgaria.  They do really high quality work, they do some design, they do PCB production and assembly, they make some consumer products, and I am an established customer.  From Avalon's first notice to sold out was too fast to discuss anything with them, however.

I am not promising working hashing hardware.  I did leave that door open in the offer just in case I am overcome with optimism and bad judgement, but my target audience is one of the groups that think they want to buy a partial wafer and do something innovative.  It is up to them to use sound business judgement, and to only make promises that they can reasonably fulfill.  

I have been influenced by reading Kickstarter projects all summer.  I would probably detail out a device that is solar powered, that has onboard WiFi in a mesh architecture, that is totally self contained, and you open it up, set it in the sun, and earn some income and pay for internet access and a door to the world.  I lean toward those Loser Liberal ideals of letting a village in Africa, or South Texas, buy one and raise their level of education and prosperity.  The ROI is so fast, that the funders here could buy them, receive the mining income until 200% return, then the village could receive the remaining benefits.  What better way to insure peace than to help others?  It would take weeks to put this together as a KickStarter project statement, it is too much to do in the hour or two after a for sale announcement.

I think everyone is aware that BFL is in the room.  The quiet guys who want to sell chips to 2 or 3 OEMs are also in the room.  With as much guns, gold, and conspiracy thinking as I see in the forums, surely everyone finds it plausible that "they" are out there designing their own ASICS to dilute all of us "true heroes."  However, set against all of this, Avalon has set attainable goals, met those goals, and invested in additional capability.  Predicting future hash rates, bitcoin prices, or anything else is just to stare at the base of the waterfall and try to predict where the next drop will travel.

Again, I have not used any marketing hype.  I do not think I am enticing anyone to get involved at this level.  In fact, my actual language says "The chips are probably useless in a home/hobbyist environment." and An Avalon chip project will be significantly more advanced and difficult in many different dimensions than the project that I did back then and even Others attempting ASIC based projects have missed deadlines.

Perhaps you would read an invitation to a board of directors, if I had the free time to write one.  Won't happen this week, for sure.

[pheaonix]

sorry to interrupt your perfectly-reasonable-statement professor Mac, but I think it is hilarious you compared south Texas to Africa. things are /that/ bad here, but I am near Houston(third largest US city). I guess you mean the rural areas around Corpus. Hopefully we can have others half as credible as you get chips onto US soil and get them where they need to be: on a PCB in my house.

[ProfMac]

sorry to interrupt your perfectly-reasonable-statement professor Mac, but I think it is hilarious you compared south Texas to Africa. things are /that/ bad here, but I am near Houston(third largest US city). I guess you mean the rural areas around Corpus.

I'm thinking of when Lyndon bought toothpaste for each of his students.
And that not all the public schools have running water.
(And I own a house in Austin, and dearly want to go home with the Armadillo, and saw Townes at Waterloo)