[Group Buy#2] Avalon ASICs CHIPS! 1 chip = .078BTC = 282Mhash!

[ragingazn628]

Starting Group Buy #2.

Group Buy #2 Spread Sheet

http://store.avalon-asics.com/?page_id=9605

Please post questions about Group Buy#1 here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=177994

This thread will be separate for group 2!

Product Description

• the only payment accepted is Bitcoin.
• the chips being sold are packaged and tested.
• the lead time on the chips is 9 to 10 weeks.
• made to order from TSMC foundry and then packaged and shipped.
• the minimum order quantity is 10,000 chips and the maximum order quantity is 200,000.
• the chips are identical to those in Avalon, clocking 282Mh/s per chip.
• the password is “I understand and agree”.
• communication protocol, reference board design provided in early May.
• everything will be open source from FPGA to PCB design.
• we do not offer technical support of any kind, this is final.
• if you do not know what to do with the packaged chips, please do not purchase.

Status Updates:
2013-04-28: 2nd batch has ~6300 chips left
2013-04-27: 1st batch ordered, 2nd batch has ~6800 chips left

Order Status

Code:

#10129 	April 27, 2013 	Chips ordered 	฿782.10 for 1 item

Remainder
Only send payments from an address you control (i.e. you can sign with it). If you send from MtGox or other exchanges, you risk loosing your funds since you can't prove you sent them.

How to sign:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179769.msg1922342#msg1922342

Policy update: Refunds
Your orders are binding after your funds have been used to pay for a batch. Before that (while coins are piling up for the next batch), you can demand for a refund and will get it paid back in full. Note that after you got refunded, I will not accept future orders from you (to prevent free risk-offloading to me).


Terms:

• Total BTC PER order is 782.1 BTC (Before fees)!
• The final 2.1 BTC shipping price will be divided by how many ever people are buying the chips - so if 20 then 2.1/20 and will be added to your contribution! It is currently set to 0.0525 (divided by 40 people) - I will refund any extra and if we go over I will cover the rest to save everyone a headache of sending more!
• Minimum BTC required to invest is 1BTC! Which equates to about 12 Chips! Each Chip costs 0.078BTC
• You will be responsible for paying your own individual shipping when the ship arrives in the US (Connecticut)
• Chips will be shipped as soon as they arrived (if time/weather allows) and as soon as I know the address that they're going to.
• Individual Shipping will be required to have tracking! Individual also include custom fees!
• In order to provide the best protection for your investments I will buy packing supplies to make 100% sure your product isn't damaged during the shipment.
• There will be a 5% fee for organizing this group buy and shipping out individually to contributors. It takes time to keep track of everything. Takes gas to drive back and forth to ship out. Etc.
• BTC will be sent to this address: 1Q429SRTE6wRiXfThyABoyfU7Eygc3qaBF
• Before sending please confirm with me so I can tell you how much to send.
• All chips amount will be realistically rounded down. If you want your amount to be rounded to the next number use the Chip Calculator in the spreadsheet.

Shipment
The chips will be forwarded to you as soon as I receive them and you paid the fiat component mentioned above. Delivery within USA will usually take less than a week; overseas will take what it takes. You will be given the option to select shipment method on time and resolve custom specific issues.

Trust
JohnK has confirmed and verified all my identifications and shipping address destination from utility bills - so you can feel safe in this group buy.

Group Buy#1 I have been 100% compliant with any requests so I will do the same for this group buy and for future batches

Communication
I live in CT, USA Eastern Standard Times. I work at home so most PMs and replies to the thread will be answered shortly. I do require 6-8 hours of sleep so if I am not here please don't be discouraged




Who should buy and who should not
You can order chips either if you plan to develop your own mining board, or want to buy a ready-to-mine assembled from other developers / manufacturers. In the latter case, with your order you secure the chips from the current batch and decide where to send them for assembly when they arrive.

Escrow
I did not offer escrow for a simple reason: as soon as the payments fill up to 782.1 BTC, I'll order another batch. No idea how long the chips will be in stock, but I would like to act fast. The first group had a few delays because I took pledges first and when those pledges filled I proceeded to collect the funds. And by doing that it caused delays because over 300+ BTC pledged were pulled out. So I will NOT be taking pledges. You must have BTC in hand to participate.

Reservation, Payments
This is a first come first serve group buy. Only participate if you have BTC on hand!

Extras:
I am also currently working on an ASICs project with the local engineers in my state. I will keep everyone updated on how far we will proceed. We do not have anything concrete yet, just getting our feet wet. Who knows, some people might want their chips to be made into a mining machine.

[ragingazn628]

2013-04-28: 2nd batch has ~6300 chips left

[oda.krell]

'k. Please forgive me for the idiocy of the following question(s). I'm completely new to the entire mining aspect of Bitcoin, so I know, before ordering any of these puppies I need to understand if I actually grasp what I need to learn, and buy in addition, to make use of those chips. That's my job, and I understand that much :)

That said, here's the question that you maybe can help me with:

I guess I don't get the whole batch 1, batch 2 thing. Are all of them ordered and paid for already, or do you need to collect the funds to place the order. What I try to understand is this: if I transfer the required btc to you, how long will it approximately take before you start shipping them?

Again, sorry if that question was already answered (maybe that's what your point "lead time" meant), but I just want to be sure to understand what to expect.

[ragingazn628]

'k. Please forgive me for the idiocy of the following question(s). I'm completely new to the entire mining aspect of Bitcoin, so I know, before ordering any of these puppies I need to understand if I actually grasp what I need to learn, and buy in addition, to make use of those chips. That's my job, and I understand that much

That said, here's the question that you maybe can help me with:

I guess I don't get the whole batch 1, batch 2 thing. Are all of them ordered and paid for already, or do you need to collect the funds to place the order. What I try to understand is this: if I transfer the required btc to you, how long will it approximately take before you start shipping them?

Again, sorry if that question was already answered (maybe that's what your point "lead time" meant), but I just want to be sure to understand what to expect.

Hey there,

Unlike Zefir (who only bought the first batch and resold it with a 10% mark up + tons of fees), I am charging only 5% for hosting the group buy and organizing things and packaging and shipping out the chips to individuals and you are responsible for your own individual fees (like shipping and import fees/ taxes etc.) - He also charges I believe $20 to ship your item out + you pay fees, with 10% more percent and another 20% for import fees and such.

Group Buy #1 is already done and chips pre-ordered. As soon as there's enough BTC for this group buy I will order immediately. At any point in the group buy you need your BTC back I will happily refund you but you cannot participate again, unless it is a dire emergency and you need the cash etc. -

Avalon states that they will start shipping out the chips 9-10 weeks so that will be the minimum. Once I know the order is coming to me I will make it my 100% priority to get this thing ship off to people ASAP! I will put everything else aside. As far as "lead time" that's mentioned by Avalon ASICs not me, I think it means that their expected manufactured date.

Please don't hesitate to ask any more questions

[salty]

Hi, just registering my contribution, I put in for 128 chips. I can't do SMT, but I know a local guy who does, or may ask one of the PCB developers for a package quote....

[ionstorm]

Hey guys, other than burnin who else is building asics with these chips and have proven progress?  I'll buy some Chips if I can see some proof of work, and I wondering its possible to receive the built machine before BFL ships all theirs.  If anyone can address my concerns or don't mind assisting me in finding a person to build me a asic I'll be buying some chips :-)

Thanks

[ragingazn628]

Hi, just registering my contribution, I put in for 128 chips. I can't do SMT, but I know a local guy who does, or may ask one of the PCB developers for a package quote....

Added you to the list. Please send as soon as you can! Thanks!

Hey guys, other than burnin who else is building asics with these chips and have proven progress?  I'll buy some Chips if I can see some proof of work, and I wondering its possible to receive the built machine before BFL ships all theirs.  If anyone can address my concerns or don't mind assisting me in finding a person to build me a asic I'll be buying some chips :-)

Thanks

I am putting a team together in my local state but nothing concrete yet.

[salty]

Hi, just registering my contribution, I put in for 128 chips. I can't do SMT, but I know a local guy who does, or may ask one of the PCB developers for a package quote....

Added you to the list. Please send as soon as you can! Thanks!

I sent btc yesterday do you need the transaction id again?

[salty]

It's looking like I may want my chips sent to BkkCoins in Thailand, would that be ok? Anyone else looking seriously at this option in this batch want to pool postage?

[flyonwall]

Time is of the essence. We need this going. If you are interested, pledge now. Once the pledges reach the threshold, I am paying.

[wrenchmonkey]

Just to clarify, no escrow is taking place on this buy?

Also, shouldn't we do this second buy basing the shipping price on a per-chip basis, rather than a per-order basis? Dividing all fees, including shipping and tarriffs by the 10,000 chips, and rolling it into one easy to calculate per-chip cost should save everybody a lot of headache, and will be more fair for everybody involved.

I'm interested in another 50 chips or so. But I don't want to pay more than my fair share of the freight on these things again, if that can be avoided.

A guy ordering 2000 chips paying the same as a guy ordering 10 chips, is crazy. Assuming 80 buyers like last time, that's .8% shipping per share. Guy one is benefitting from 20% of the order, he should be paying 20% of the shipping, but he's only paying a flat share of .08%.

Guy 2 is benefitting .01% of the order, while paying 8 times his share of the shipping. He should be paying .01% of the shipping costs..  

Just take the 782.1btc for the order, add the 2.1btc for shipping, for a total of 784.2. (823.41 Figure in 5% fees ( Divide that number by 10,000, and you get a result of .082341BTC per chip, shipping and fees included.

The tariffs can be divided by 10k as well, for a per-chip cost.

Individual shipping from OP to buyer will be whatever they are. No need to socialize the shipping and tariff costs though.

Also this makes it really easy to calculate how much to send per chip. If I want 50 chips, I multiply .082341 * number of desired chips (50).

50*.082341= 4.11705BTC

On the OP's end, it's also simple. Divide number of BTC sent by .082341 to verify number of chips paid for. Easy peasy!

Should save the hassle of needing to do refunds for confusing over-payments, or any of that. Seems to me that a great deal of the work that JohnK had to put into the last one was figuring out who overpaid, by how much, and why. I know I had trouble figuring out how much I needed to actually send as well.

Just my $0.02. Take it for what it's worth.

[ragingazn628]

Just to clarify, no escrow is taking place on this buy?

Also, shouldn't we do this second buy basing the shipping price on a per-chip basis, rather than a per-order basis? Dividing all fees, including shipping and tarriffs by the 10,000 chips, and rolling it into one easy to calculate per-chip cost should save everybody a lot of headache, and will be more fair for everybody involved.

I'm interested in another 50 chips or so. But I don't want to pay more than my fair share of the freight on these things again, if that can be avoided.

A guy ordering 2000 chips paying the same as a guy ordering 10 chips, is crazy. Assuming 80 buyers like last time, that's .8% shipping per share. Guy one is benefitting from 20% of the order, he should be paying 20% of the shipping, but he's only paying a flat share of .08%.

Guy 2 is benefitting .01% of the order, while paying 8 times his share of the shipping. He should be paying .01% of the shipping costs..  

Just take the 782.1btc for the order, add the 2.1btc for shipping, for a total of 784.2. (823.41 Figure in 5% fees ( Divide that number by 10,000, and you get a result of .082341BTC per chip, shipping and fees included.

The tariffs can be divided by 10k as well, for a per-chip cost.

Individual shipping from OP to buyer will be whatever they are. No need to socialize the shipping and tariff costs though.

Also this makes it really easy to calculate how much to send per chip. If I want 50 chips, I multiply .082341 * number of desired chips (50).

50*.082341= 4.11705BTC

On the OP's end, it's also simple. Divide number of BTC sent by .082341 to verify number of chips paid for. Easy peasy!

Should save the hassle of needing to do refunds for confusing over-payments, or any of that. Seems to me that a great deal of the work that JohnK had to put into the last one was figuring out who overpaid, by how much, and why. I know I had trouble figuring out how much I needed to actually send as well.

Just my $0.02. Take it for what it's worth.

Correct no escrow for this.

Shipping calculator, yes I will do that. Seems a lot more fair let me work on it! Done.

Avalon Shipping Calculator (take # chip from I9) X/10000 * 2.1:

X = number of chips you buy. If you buy 5000 you will pay 50% of 2.1 - thanks for the suggestion wrench!

Are you in for this group buy as well wrench?

Those who overpaid a bit in shipping (before calculator will have their BTC refunded) - I want to keep this wallet cold before I start any refunds though.

[flyonwall]

I believe Yifu Guo sends the communication protocol and reference design docs only to those who place orders? If so, can each of us in this group buy get a copy of those? Thanks.

[ragingazn628]

I believe Yifu Guo sends the communication protocol and reference design docs only to those who place orders? If so, can each of us in this group buy get a copy of those? Thanks.

Yes of course.

[flyonwall]

Also, what are we going to do with the few sample chips that Yifu sends about a week after the order date? I would like to get those all to myself, if nobody objects.

[salty]

Also, what are we going to do with the few sample chips that Yifu sends about a week after the order date? I would like to get those all to myself, if nobody objects.

Why would you get those? especially ALL of them?

[ragingazn628]

Also, what are we going to do with the few sample chips that Yifu sends about a week after the order date? I would like to get those all to myself, if nobody objects.

It will be up to the group. I say top contributors gets them. IMO.

[Newscastix]

Also, what are we going to do with the few sample chips that Yifu sends about a week after the order date? I would like to get those all to myself, if nobody objects.

It will be up to the group. I say top contributors gets them. IMO.

I'm not in this group.. but common sense for me would say that the board designers should get them to design the mining boards.. makes the most sense, or?

[flyonwall]

Well, I am building a system where other chip buyers can participate also, but I'm OK with whoever has the largest order gets all of them. This way we can get this all done in no time.

[wrenchmonkey]

I would say that anybody who shows a promising design should get them to work on testing and development. BUUUUUT no one person should get all of them.

Maybe 4 chips to each developer, if there are 5 people with promising designs? 10 chips per person if there are only 2?

What are those developers prepared to offer the group in exchange to some high-value chips, weeks or even months before the rest of us get our hands on them? Guranteed open-source access, so we can have boards printed before chips arrive? Discounts on finished products? First spot in line for assembly services, or pcb kits? All of the above?

If we as a group are pitching in for a project, it's only fair that we benefit. I'm not a developer, so I don't want the chips, since I can't do anything with them in the mean time anyway (short of using Avalon's source to make a couple of boards and selfishly mine with them, which I don't want to do) but I want to know for certainty that anybody who does get the chips doesn't do so for their own personal gain, and not let the group benefit. Having 1.12GH (assuming division between 5 developers) of hashing power for the couple of months longer than everybody else is going to give you a decent edge. Having time to experiment, prove results, and market your product is a SERIOUS edge.

So what does the group get in exchange for that edge? Do we provide somebody an edge to develop their company, only to have that person turn around and realize they can charge way more for a developed product, and screw the rest of is?

I want to see some commitment for those asking us for chips, before I vote where they're going, but I'm just one guy, so that doesn't amount to much.

What say you?