xCrowd dot co dot UK

[peetah]

Amidst their odd call for rockstar help, I think most people missed the big picture. They may be late to the party, but when you're bringing in P sized hashing power, you won't be considered late for another seven months.

Whether it's a scam or a party crasher or the guy who delivers the Pizzas that everybody is waiting for, it's still worthwhile to watch this space. Especially since they're not asking for preorder. Or equity investment. Which is refreshingly out of place these days.

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[evilscoop]

mmm its nothing more than a holding site...

come back when there is actually a scam to poke fun at

[th3joker]

That's less than 20m miles from me lets see what they come up with I can always visit to verify!!

[pizza]

I emailed them and let me say they seem the most refreshing and forward thinking company out of all ASIC companies. Their product specs are based on ROI which is a genius strategy. They can never be late as whatever difficulty the network is at that time they will have the coresponding specs for a 1-2month ROI.

Wont be wasting my money on anything else until a company like them comes out where you can purchase and not pre order.

[Bitcoinorama]

Just had a brief look on the web and apologies for assuming devil's advocate but...

On their call for a developer they have used a particular logo that can be found at https://www.namerific.com/xcrowd, but not xcrowd.co.uk which is why they claim their site to be. Yet xcrowd.com is currently for sale for on namerific for US $10.5k?!

Is that how they plan to raise initial funding?? It's seems bizarre, unless they've ripped off the logo to not want to keep the more valuable internationally recognised commercial .com, over the UK specific .co.uk.

I'm sure there's a reasonable excuse if genuine, just weird that they have adopted the same logo and/or want to sell the more valuable domain.

Also what's with the San Francisco connection?  https://angel.co/xcrowd

Again I'm UK based and can check them out in future of they are open to indepependant third party verification for the sake of the community.

Wish them the best of luck if they are sincere, A.

[pizza]

Just had a brief look on the web and apologies for assuming devil's advocate but...

On their call for a developer they have used a particular logo that can be found at https://www.namerific.com/xcrowd, but not xcrowd.co.uk which is why they claim their site to be. Yet xcrowd.com is currently for sale for on namerific for US $10.5k?!

Is that how they plan to raise initial funding?? It's seems bizarre, unless they've ripped off the logo to not want to keep the more valuable internationally recognised commercial .com, over the UK specific .co.uk.

I'm sure there's a reasonable excuse if genuine, just weird that they have adopted the same logo and/or want to sell the more valuable domain.

Also what's with the San Francisco connection?  https://angel.co/xcrowd

Again I'm UK based and can check them out in future of they are open to indepependant third party verification for the sake of the community.

Wish them the best of luck if they are sincere, A.

Probably venture capital, california is still the tech hub for start ups

[Bitcoinorama]

Would a Ph/s - something that vast not put them in the realm of centralisation and be a -ive for the community?!

[Bitcoinorama]

Also, and he maybe a verified investor on Angel.co, but he has no prior investment experience there, my gut is not backing this as confidently as you Pizza. He's currently no competition to ORSoC or the open source community;

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/servicebox

Still I'd like to see someone in the UK make a viable product.

[pizza]

They dont mean a PH/sec product they meant network difficulty being PH/sec when they release a product. Dont be surprised if they can out compete ORsoc, who has the most money wins.

If they are capable of putting out ASIC products without pre orders they are far more competitive than KNC in my opinion.

[Bitcoinorama]

Well are they? how on earth do you know they are? From one email with the guy? He has nothing of reasonable significance available on the web. He's had some IT experience and runs a Muslim women's fashion label, that's it. Oh and he may, or may not have some connections in Boston and San Francisco, but chooses to recruit from the UK?!

And no he who has the most money does not win. BFL are currently sitting on bucket loads of the stuff and they got smacked by a graduate, Yifu Guo, with Asian tech links forged from university; Avalon.

[pizza]

Well are they? how on earth do you know they are? From one email with the guy? He has nothing of reasonable significance available on the web. He's had some IT experience and runs a Muslim women's fashion label, that's it. Oh and he may, or may not have some connections in Boston and San Francisco, but chooses to recruit from the UK?!

And no he who has the most money does not win. BFL are currently sitting on bucket loads of the stuff and they got smacked by a graduate with Asian tech links forged from university; Avalon.

Not anytime soon, probably a 6-7mo timeline as with everybody else. True they could be incompetent like BFL, but their response about their product vision seemed far from it.

The only reason i say they are ahead in my book compared to KNC is that they wont require pre orders and the strategy of their products. Yes this is based from an email from xcrowd but so is my information of KNC.

Im not saying KNC is bad, I think knc is very good too, its just xcrowds go to market strategy and business development strategy sounded better to me.

End of the day we will have to wait and see.

[Bitcoinorama]

Dude you just called out bot ORSoC and KNC on the KNCminer thread as being scammers due to some inside info from your uncle...and now your saying you don't know?

Which is it? Either you know something and you can back it up, or that recent outburst was bs.

[pizza]

Dude you just called out bot ORSoC and KNC on the KNCminer thread as being scammers due to some inside info from your uncle...and now your saying you don't know?

Which is it? Either you know something and you can back it up, or that recent outburst was bs.

That was a joke....

[Bitcoinorama]

Do you want to clear that up before you harm their reputation without justifiable cause kid?

[pizza]

Do you want to clear that up before you harm their reputation without justifiable cause kid?

I did

[Bitcoinorama]

Okay, so back on track. You emailed this guy who detailed his plan to produce without pre-ordering.

So rather than build a monster rig for himself he wants to bring high-spec low cost mining rigs to the community for under a grand, less than the bulk chip cost. That's very kind of him, do you wish to detail the email response and let us know what he said ad how he plans to realise this vision of fair low cost mining whilst make a proft for himself?

[pizza]

Okay, so back on track. You emailed this guy who detailed his plan to produce without pre-ordering.

So rather than build a monster rig for himself he wants to bring high-spec low cost mining rigs to the community for under a grand, less than the bulk chip cost. That's very kind of him, do you wish to detail the email response and let us know what he said ad how he plans to realise this vision of fair low cost mining whilst make a proft for himself?

You make much more stable money selling devices than mining yourself do some simple math. 10,000 units x $5,000 for say a high end unit. $50,000,000 id take that anyday than mining myself where there isnt even liquidity to sell your bitcoin.

I will email them and ask them if its ok to post the email out of courtesy, and will post it later if ok.

I also think we are over exaggerating the costs of the hardware excluding development cost because of greedy companies like avalon who is probably selling their units for 10000% profit.

[Bitcoinorama]

Ok look, if these were powerhouses that justify their cost to consumer when the hashrate is as high as you claim, then after cost to manufacture how much of that $5k per unit do they see?

No doubt Avalon are marking up significantly.

[pizza]

Ok look, if these were powerhouses that justify their cost to consumer when the hashrate is as high as you claim, then after cost to manufacture how much of that £5k per unit do they see?

Probably alot, avalon 1st batch was $1,300 probably chip cost at high volume is $200 per unit. Say they make 2.5k a unit thats still a hefty profit

[pizza]

Imagine even a 1k profit thats still $10mil in profit alright be back later will post info if they say its ok

[Bitcoinorama]

Yes but they outsourced everything and only produced runs of 500. So you have deign elements to factor in, time involved, PCB costs and manufacture, case manufacture, logistics etc. that can be costly at such small runs. Although completed once it become cheaper.

[Bitcoinorama]

Also, you may not be familiar with the UK. If they were based in tech hubs like Cambridge, Loughborough or Cranfield then that would offer more weight, but Birmingham is not the epicentre of tech wizardry, although it is full of chancers. Not saying this guy is one, but request from him what he and his colleagues bring to the table aside supposedly 'tonnes of money'. Focus on where they've gained experience. Either bringing products to market or ASIC/FPGA/Chip development or both.

[peetah]

They may be  (a) a scam (b) a PH/s solo mining threat (c) a new asic player that shares the love.

The fact that they're not actually scamming anything (yet) does warrant our attention. 1P is 3 million Avalon chips. Or 200,000 jalapenos. Neither Avalon nor BFL will be producing anything close.  Which means they're going for tech that is two generations ahead of current tech. Or they have a truckload of idle cash waiting to come in to the market.

[Bitcoinorama]

Or he's a Brummie conartist that's talked himself out of his depth...

I'm not being funny I wish him all the best as I'm a decent guy, but I checked out his background and he's not convincing. His 'partners' abroad may tell a different story, but I don't know anything about them.

That said a ladies clothes reseller with some I.T. experience does not warrant blind faith.

And you were dumb to make that comment on the KNCminer thread. They have a legitimate background and even they may be a scam, but it's up to them to make a mistake.

[dan99]

interestingly looks more like a tell tell sign of a ....

[xcrowd]

I understand the skepticism surrounding any new ASIC developers or our Petahash release claim in our job post. I see it as a total waste of time trying to expostulate my personal lack of professional links to credentials in the semiconductor space as there aren't any but this is not an one man team.

We have not announced anything simply because we do not have a product yet. Furthermore, we do not plan to; until we have something of value that we can bring to the table.  - Once we do, we are happy to accept any requests for third party verification.

However the issue with the logo used and our domain does merit an honest response from us since that could result in some confusion on who we are. We are in the process of acquiring the .com domain which includes the logo that we used in our job post. Unfortunately due to some "unknown" reason the price of the domain increased two folds when we displayed interest in the domain. Confident that we could negotiate it down directly with the owner on Linkedin we used the logo for the post which was rather negligent of us in the first place. We have now stopped using the logo until we acquire the full rights to it.

To get back to the main subject; we cannot disclose much since the NDA terms are being written up now. However I can say that we are not primarily an ASIC developer, but we will be focusing on a larger project surrounding the Bitcoin ecosystem and it's fundamental architecture (look out for Project Satoko). The project will be open source based but will be supported by xCrowd through milestone prizes in ASIC mining units.

Again, I cannot disclose much in regards to our chip performance or time to market, but we will be aiming to be competitive within a 20x current network hash environment through the use of advanced process nodes and IP cores.

We will not be using any customer funds for NRE or production and all sales will be through an escrow with available payment plans if attainable. In other words, we do not see a cent until the product is in your hands.

We are not seeking any investments at the moment nor do we see this forum as the best setting for such requests.

We are currently recruiting in the Bay area; which is where we will be based once things get a little bit more solid. Unfortunate for those in Birmingham but if you are interested and based in North California or Guangdong China then don't hesitate to reach out.

[peetah]

Having established that you're probably not (a) a scam, then are you going to be a (b) solo mining behemoth?  Or a (c) party favorite that shares the love somewhat cheaply with the masses?

It will be easier to recruit if you let people know your ballpark strategy.

[tom_o]

Having established that you're probably not (a) a scam, then are you going to be a (b) solo mining behemoth?  Or a (c) party favorite that shares the love somewhat cheaply with the masses?

It will be easier to recruit if you let people know your ballpark strategy.

And the terrible question: What's the ETA?

[Bitcoinorama]

Sounds good, too good, but if there's no risk my end, then I'm all ears.

Will you be distruibuting in the UK as well? Being based here, you know how much fun it is importing high value items from the States.

Our customs and excise are particularly forgetful at alerting you when it comes to their ransom demands...

[pizza]

Having established that you're probably not (a) a scam, then are you going to be a (b) solo mining behemoth?  Or a (c) party favorite that shares the love somewhat cheaply with the masses?

It will be easier to recruit if you let people know your ballpark strategy.

since when do people not understand you make much more money selling mining hardware than mining yourself. Is the concept of simple math that hard?

[pizza]

Here is the email with xcrowd. Again wait for their official announcement none of this means anything.



Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately there is not much that we are able to disclose at the moment due to NDA complications and the fact that it is still an ongoing development.

However I am able to inform you that we are aiming for highly competitive products that we assume will be released in a PH/s range network or 30x current difficulty.

Although we have the resources to get to market as soon as possible,  it would still take at least 5-6 months when working on 28nm ASIC designs and 3d packaging ip cores.

To answer your other question; our sub $1, 000 products will be in the same range of hashing power as Avalon and BFL current releases.

Our main target at the moment will be to produce products that will return a ROI in 30-45 days depending on the network.

Please do keep a look out for further updates from us within the next couple of months.


Kind regards,

Abdi Mahamud




Hi,

 

I know you guys are in stealth mode read your profile on angel list. I just read your job posting on bitcointalk also.
I'm not an engineer just offering some advice on how you can succeed.
 
First, the no pre order route is great! As people are very weary about giving pre orders again; so is the devices under $1000.

Now the big problem here is, what will be offered for under $1,000? What kind of GH? Most likely I'm assuming FPGA's and that right there is DOA nobody will want them anymore.

Honestly with the competition the way it is you will need to offer a minimum of 50GH/sec at the $1000 or lower mark if you want to succeed. This is assuming your timeframe being far out into end of summer or later, as you are still hiring developers.

By that time if you aren't offering 250GH or 500GH for around $5,000 whether through multiple devices or just 1 device, I don't think you will get very far with the crop of competitors popping up.

 
Also. don't forget communication with the community, under promise and over deliver in every statement that you make.

Any info you can share with me would be great.

 
Thanks

[xcrowd]

Having established that you're probably not (a) a scam, then are you going to be a (b) solo mining behemoth?  Or a (c) party favorite that shares the love somewhat cheaply with the masses?

It will be easier to recruit if you let people know your ballpark strategy.

And the terrible question: What's the ETA?

Hi

I think this was mentioned previously but our end goal would be to use the funds from the post sales of our unannounced products to further fund our main start-up (xCrowd) and support the bitcoin eco-system and infrastructure through prizes for development projects. Projects such as a decentralised, truly anonymous exchange communications protocol based on current open source projects such as "Open transactions" and "Buttercoin" (Project Satoko Coin).

We will most likely discontinue manufacturing ASIC units after the first batch in order to focus on xCrowd, but we will be continuing support for the products released for the guarantee or support period announced.


ETA: In the words of our competitor.
 
BFL_Josh: "Originally Posted by swissminer 

it is done when it is done..

All jokes aside; we have got nothing solid to announce at the moment and we'd rather not get burned the same way as BFL. Time to market is crucial to us but we'd rather focus on the value proposition of our products when we are able to ship them.

[xcrowd]

Sounds good, too good, but if there's no risk my end, then I'm all ears.

Will you be distruibuting in the UK as well? Being based here, you know how much fun it is importing high value items from the States.

Our customs and excise are particularly forgetful at alerting you when it comes to their ransom demands...

It sounds too good to be true for those having to witness the dozens of scams, results and offerings from the current providers on this forums. Bitcoin in general has matured beyond the makeshift operations of it's past and we don't plan to regress back towards them in any way.

p.s. We hope to be able to ship to most non US sanctioned or embargoed countries, but please keep an eye out for the actual official announcement as we have not completed the due diligence on the logistics side.

[Bitcoinorama]

Sounds good, too good, but if there's no risk my end, then I'm all ears.

Will you be distruibuting in the UK as well? Being based here, you know how much fun it is importing high value items from the States.

Our customs and excise are particularly forgetful at alerting you when it comes to their ransom demands...

It sounds too good to be true for those having to witness the dozens of scams, performance and offerings from the current providers on this forums. Bitcoin in general has matured beyond the makeshift operations of it's past and we don't plan to regress back towards them in any way.

p.s. We hope to be able to ship to most non US sanctioned or embargoed countries, but please keep an eye out for the actual official announcement as we have not completed the due diligence on the logistics side.

Lol, don't think the UK's embargoed just yet, but Cameron's touting in NYC as I type, so he's working on it!!

[Phoenix1969]

In America, selling or doing business under the name "Abdi Mahamud" will be detrimental to sales for obvious reasons.
Why would someone decide to wait 6 or 7 months to purchase a product we could get in less than 90 days ordering from KNC?

#1 no credentials
#2 no facility
#3 no employees
#4 no experience
#5 no updates for over a month

am I missing something here?
How do you expect anyone to even consider your "dream" as a company?
You'd better go back, and sharpen your pencil.

[RayG]

Believe it if you like:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQ4H2AFCcAAkvR3.png:large

[Ytterbium]

Uh, well I guess if you have enough money you could make this happen.  Those cases look way over designed, since no one cares what this stuff looks like.

Also setting prices now for stuff that's not going to be out until early next year is kind of crazy.  We have no idea what the difficulty will be at that point in time and these prices might be impossibly high.

[eve]

They dont mean a PH/sec product they meant network difficulty being PH/sec when they release a product. Dont be surprised if they can out compete ORsoc, who has the most money wins.

If they are capable of putting out ASIC products without pre orders they are far more competitive than KNC in my opinion.

They don't need pre orders and has the lowest price per gh/s. Who can beat that?? Butterfly, Avalon and Knc took a ton of pre order money.