POLL: Will Avalon Batch 3 or raw ASIC Chips ship first?

[jermwerty]

Title says it all.  Assuming the current delays hold, which realistically goes out the door first?   Speculation encouraged!

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[eroxors]

Chips. Fewer steps to ship, fewer delays.

[Dalkore]

It would be a travesty if chips shipped first.   That would not be a good move on their part being that Batch 3 was ordered "before" the chips.   I very much doubt they would do that to their customers of Batch 3. 

[relm9]

I very much doubt the chips would go out first. Probably a month after batch #3 is fully shipped.

[plectrum]

The real question in my mind is how soon will rev2 chips come out after all off these rev1 chips are sold?

Or am i reading too much from this interview
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/engineering-the-bitcoin-gold-rush-an-interview-with-yifu-guo-creator-of-the-first-asic-based-miner

If ASICs are the technological pinnacle, what’s next for bitcoin and mining?

Of mining’s technological evolution? Yes. In terms of major technological developments, it will be a while. What’s going to happen is that there is going to be a die shrink in order to reduce power consumption and increase speed based on smaller gate sizes. Eventually we’re going to reach the theoretical wall because of physics. The atoms will be too small. I don’t know when that will be hit, but the sooner the better.

If bitcoin is a $1 billion market, and it only takes less than $1 million to secure the network right now, that’s not a lot of money for someone to try and take over the mining scene. The faster the technology progresses, the more secure the network is, because it will be that much harder for a malevolent entity to mess with the system. We want to reach 14 or 10 nanometers as soon as possible. IBM/Intel is playing with 7 nanometers right now. The sooner the better so we’ll never again have this scenario where one company like Avalon essentially controls more theoretical computing power than the entire network’s hash rate. This will never happen again.

[Kartaiv]

If the chips ship first, which is possible since they do not requiring any assembly, they still won't be running and online for some time after that. So even if batch 3 ships after the chips they will likely be online before a vast majority of any of the raw chips.

[wrenchmonkey]

If the chips ship first, which is possible since they do not requiring any assembly, they still won't be running and online for some time after that. So even if batch 3 ships after the chips they will likely be online before a vast majority of any of the raw chips.

Personally, I think you grossly underestimate the skills and determination of some of the members of these chip buys. There are at least two projects which I am confident will be completed and tested prior to shipment of chips, meaning that boards can be assembled and ready for chips as soon as they arrive. 15 minutes in a reflow station, and these boards will be ready to mine.

I guarantee there will be many people who will be up and mining within a day of receiving their chips.

[tempt]

If the chips ship first, which is possible since they do not requiring any assembly, they still won't be running and online for some time after that. So even if batch 3 ships after the chips they will likely be online before a vast majority of any of the raw chips.

Personally, I think you grossly underestimate the skills and determination of some of the members of these chip buys. There are at least two projects which I am confident will be completed and tested prior to shipment of chips, meaning that boards can be assembled and ready for chips as soon as they arrive. 15 minutes in a reflow station, and these boards will be ready to mine.

I guarantee there will be many people who will be up and mining within a day of receiving their chips.

Thats what I think too. I've been working on such a project when the announcement came and we've worked out a somewhat detailed plan of what is needed to do and what timeframe one would need to set everything up so only the chips need to be assembled. It was less than 8 weeks!

[glendall]

I'll be very disappointed if the chips go out before batch 3.

The chips should be a heck of a lot easier for Avalon to get out the door though, obviously.

[dan99]

chips will go out first ..

[CoinHoarder]

I'll be very disappointed if the chips go out before batch 3.

The chips should be a heck of a lot easier for Avalon to get out the door though, obviously.

This- Batch 3 customers paid first, they should get their product first.

[Wayne_Chang]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

[Matthew N. Wright]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

[Wayne_Chang]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

Ridiculous! If so, how you define "selling chips"? Charity or donation?

[punin]

There's no option "The boys are off to bahamas, and nothing will ever ship"

[KS]

Bad business sense to sell chips first. Easier, sure, but stupid.

If they have invested in the full rigs, they need to clear that inventory first.

[Matthew N. Wright]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

Ridiculous! If so, how you define "selling chips"? Charity or donation?

Read the article. It answers that question and others.

[Wayne_Chang]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

Ridiculous! If so, how you define "selling chips"? Charity or donation?

Read the article. It answers that question and others.

"Not interested in it" does not equal to they can break the basic rule. In this logic, they can have all our money but don't give us anything and say: Hey guys, we are not interested in the business with you guys.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

"Not interested in it" does not equal to they can break the basic rule.

You're missing the point I was proposing (tongue-in-cheek as it may have been)-- they were not intending to make this into a business in the first place. They weren't interested in being a business. That should speak volumes to you in their attitude towards handling customers.

[miningusa]

Fingers crossed it wil be batch 3 

[botlove]

It would be a travesty if chips shipped first.   That would not be a good move on their part being that Batch 3 was ordered "before" the chips.  

i totally agree

how much time passed between batch 3 sales and the bulk chip sales?  In my opinion, that number is the MINIMUM amount of time that should pass after the last batch 3 unit is delivered , until the FIRST bulk chip order is delivered.   I'm guessing that's about 2.5 months.

/EDIT:   This issue is not as significant when you compare the relative processing power of batch 2 versus batch 3, and therefore batch 3 doesn't absolutely need to be delayed as much as the chips.  but the chips, when shipped, will devastate the ROI on the customers of batch 3....... there's a big difference... so let's not even start comparing the delay of batch 2 / batch 3 delivery to the delay of the bulk chip delivery.....

[ecliptic]

If the chips ship first, which is possible since they do not requiring any assembly, they still won't be running and online for some time after that.

A lot of people serious about it will have the chips running 24-48 hours after receiving them

(Not the ones shipping them back and forth to get them assembled)

I guarantee there will be many people who will be up and mining within a day of receiving their chips.

I'd love to hit within 24 hours for all the chips, but I'd prefer to play it safe, eat a day or two loss and run a test batch of 2-4 for 24 or 48 hours.  I wouldn't be surprised if all the big orders do this

[tempestb]

I like how Avalon takes months to build their miners, but you guys can do the same job in 48 hours. 

[Kartaiv]

I like how Avalon takes months to build their miners, but you guys can do the same job in 48 hours. 

Exactly why I didn't bother replying.

[emanymton]

I like how Avalon takes months to build their miners, but you guys can do the same job in 48 hours. 

Since we already have the designs from avalon or possibly another open source project, pcb's can be fabricated in advance.
This just leaves the final step of having the asics attached to the boards once they arrive.
If you have access to a company with quick turnaround there's no reason why this isn't possible.

[ecliptic]

I like how Avalon takes months to build their miners, but you guys can do the same job in 48 hours. 

How long do you think it takes to design a product from scratch versus build it from already existing drawings and specifications (or slightly modified ones)?

It's the difference between designing a new Smartphone and producing one when it is in full production

[TheSwede75]

Chips will ship within a week or two, anything that requires assembly and testing after this.

[dan99]

chip comes first, their priority is selling chip

[TheSwede75]

In all fairness I think no one here can really be sure how the avalon 'business model' looks. Considering they are taking several order a DAY for the chip-only 10k batches @ currently over $100.000 I would probably argue that it is likely that their margin and profit off the chips alone is far higher then the more labor and component intensive miners.

This would also explain their 'rush to market' with the chip only orders.

Of course, another factor would be any sign that the BFL patented (?) 28nm chips are about to go to market as chip only orders as well. This would definintely shake up the market as they at least theoretically would absolutely crush the current avalon design in GH/s per watt and space.

[TheSwede75]

Don't forget batch 4 and/or 5, if they decide to do them.

They will not ship chips until they sell batch #4 or #5.

The idea of selling chips was to decentralize the network, but ASICMiner is selling (and delivering) their products like hotcakes so the urgency
of decentralization has kinda diminished.

I bet the chip delivery is at the bottom of their "to do" list.

There is a reason this absolutely crazy opinion is not listed as a choice. Why in the world would they ship chips AFTER something that hasn't even be announced yet? Please use your brain.

[K1773R]

raw ASIC Chips

ROFL

[wrenchmonkey]

These people saying that shipping chips before completed miners "breaks the first rule of business" have almost certainly never owned or operated a business. NO BUSINESS holds back later, simpler, orders while waiting to fill more complex orders.

For example, one of my businesses that I own builds rifles. We sub-contract all of the machine work, and do assembly in house. We also sell individual components. If I have somebody order a complete custom-built rifle today, and somebody orders an individual part (or batch of individual parts), should I sit on order #2 until after I've built and shipped order #1?

Well, it takes me 5 minutes to ship out an item already on the shelf, so naturally, I can ship it same day. I might be waiting on other parts for the rifle, or it might just take me a while to assemble the complete rifle, either way, I'm not going to sit on a simple order for a week, just because somebody else ordered a more complex order the day before. If I have enough parts on the shelf to fill the second order, without further delaying the 1st, one will be set aside for the custom build, and the other one goes out. End of story.

The chips don't require any assembly, they will come straight from the forge, and require nothing more than slapping a shipping label on them, and sending them out the door.

Now, they certainly shouldn't ship chips that would be required to complete batch 3, to chip orders. But if 100,000 chips come in from the forge, and only 10,000 are needed for batch 3. They would be out of their minds to do anything besides slap labels on the remaining 90,000 chips, and get them out the door, while they work on assembly of batch 3.

As to the people who don't think it's possible for individuals to have miners online within 48 hours, I think you have a lot to learn. There will be miners online within 6 hours of receipt of chips. I can pretty much guarantee it.

On the other side of that coin, there will be chips that will NEVER hash a single nonce. Thus is the nature of the DIY community...

[Bitcoinorama]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

Ridiculous! If so, how you define "selling chips"? Charity or donation?

Read the article. It answers that question and others.

Have you any idea how much profit they are making on those chips, for guys that 'don't want to be in business'? An ASIC costs between $0.50 and $2 in mass production. Obviously the more volume ordered and less complex, the cheaper. Economies of Scale. That's a tidy little profit of 500-2000% per chip for someone who's so shy about being in a business. Again that's 5-20x cost value to them. They have no more non recurring engineering costs.

Batch 3 has to ship first, they owe it to those that took the leap of faith and have away their funds before the chips were announced. To be fair that's an area of customer service I do feel they excel at. Prioritising those that trusted them earlier. Those guys paid like 4-5 times as much as the inital order cost as well.

[wrenchmonkey]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

Ridiculous! If so, how you define "selling chips"? Charity or donation?

Read the article. It answers that question and others.

Have you any idea how much profit they are making on those chips, for guys that 'don't want to be in business'? An ASIC costs between $0.50 and $2 in mass production. Obviously the more volume ordered and less complex, the cheaper. Economies of Scale. That's a tidy little profit of 500-2000% per chip for someone who's so shy about being in a business. Again that's 5-20x cost value to them. They have no more non recurring engineering costs.

Batch 3 has to ship first, they owe it to those that took the leap of faith and have away their funds before the chips were announced. To be fair that's an area of customer service I do feel they excel at. Prioritising those that trusted them earlier. Those guys paid like 4-5 times as much as the inital order cost as well.

Leap of faith? What leap of faith is required to order a proven design, after 2 previous batches? Something tells me you have a batch 3 order, and your wishful thinking is overpowering your common sense.

There's not one single reason to delay filling chip orders, UNLESS doing so would delay filling the miner orders. As I said, if they were to ship out chips that are needed to fill batch 3, that would be unfair. But once the chips are in hand, and assembly is the only delay, sitting on orders that have been bought and paid for, that they have the capability to fill is foolish and bad business.

Full disclosure: I'm in on two group buys for bare chips, so I do have a vested interest in them running their business with some common sense, rather than bending to the pressure of the whiners who think they deserve special treatment, and a head start on mining, by virtue of their "faith" (speculation).

[Bitcoinorama]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

Ridiculous! If so, how you define "selling chips"? Charity or donation?

Read the article. It answers that question and others.

Have you any idea how much profit they are making on those chips, for guys that 'don't want to be in business'? An ASIC costs between $0.50 and $2 in mass production. Obviously the more volume ordered and less complex, the cheaper. Economies of Scale. That's a tidy little profit of 500-2000% per chip for someone who's so shy about being in a business. Again that's 5-20x cost value to them. They have no more non recurring engineering costs.

Batch 3 has to ship first, they owe it to those that took the leap of faith and have away their funds before the chips were announced. To be fair that's an area of customer service I do feel they excel at. Prioritising those that trusted them earlier. Those guys paid like 4-5 times as much as the inital order cost as well.

Leap of faith? What leap of faith is required to order a proven design, after 2 previous batches? Something tells me you have a batch 3 order, and your wishful thinking is overpowering your common sense.

There's not one single reason to delay filling chip orders, UNLESS doing so would delay filling the miner orders. As I said, if they were to ship out chips that are needed to fill batch 3, that would be unfair. But once the chips are in hand, and assembly is the only delay, sitting on orders that have been bought and paid for, that they have the capability to fill is foolish and bad business.

Full disclosure: I'm in on two group buys for bare chips, so I do have a vested interest in them running their business with some common sense, rather than bending to the pressure of the whiners who think they deserve special treatment, and a head start on mining, by virtue of their "faith" (speculation).

I have no batch three order. But having seen your behaviour on other threads I'm well aware how selfish you are.

Had Avalon stated they were selling bulk chips before Batch 3, those that purchased batch 3 would have probably bought chips. The time between the two announcements was under a month.

And yes leap of faith; as in batch 1 hadn't finished shipping, batch 2 had been delayed by that point, and batch 3 was promised by now at 4-5x cost of either of the previous batches. The price involved was due to the tech being proven. Delivery hadn't been, and still hasn't. And you DO want them to have that sorted before they send out multiple customer orders in the guise of single unit of 10,000 chips a piece...

[wrenchmonkey]

If chip goes first, that means Avalon breaks the basic rule of business. It will make them lost trust to any customers or pontential customers in future.

Didn't you hear? They weren't even interested in being a business in the first place.

Ridiculous! If so, how you define "selling chips"? Charity or donation?

Read the article. It answers that question and others.

Have you any idea how much profit they are making on those chips, for guys that 'don't want to be in business'? An ASIC costs between $0.50 and $2 in mass production. Obviously the more volume ordered and less complex, the cheaper. Economies of Scale. That's a tidy little profit of 500-2000% per chip for someone who's so shy about being in a business. Again that's 5-20x cost value to them. They have no more non recurring engineering costs.

Batch 3 has to ship first, they owe it to those that took the leap of faith and have away their funds before the chips were announced. To be fair that's an area of customer service I do feel they excel at. Prioritising those that trusted them earlier. Those guys paid like 4-5 times as much as the inital order cost as well.

Leap of faith? What leap of faith is required to order a proven design, after 2 previous batches? Something tells me you have a batch 3 order, and your wishful thinking is overpowering your common sense.

There's not one single reason to delay filling chip orders, UNLESS doing so would delay filling the miner orders. As I said, if they were to ship out chips that are needed to fill batch 3, that would be unfair. But once the chips are in hand, and assembly is the only delay, sitting on orders that have been bought and paid for, that they have the capability to fill is foolish and bad business.

Full disclosure: I'm in on two group buys for bare chips, so I do have a vested interest in them running their business with some common sense, rather than bending to the pressure of the whiners who think they deserve special treatment, and a head start on mining, by virtue of their "faith" (speculation).

I have no batch three order. But having seen your behaviour on other threads I'm well aware how selfish you are.

Had Avalon stated they were selling bulk chips before Batch 3, those that purchased batch 3 would have probably bought chips. The time between the two announcements was under a month.

And yes leap of faith; as in batch 1 hadn't finished shipping, batch 2 had been delayed by that point, and batch 3 was promised by now at 4-5x cost of either of the previous batches. The price involved was due to the tech being proven. Delivery hadn't been, and still hasn't. And you DO want them to have that sorted before they send out multiple customer orders in the guise of single unit of 10,000 chips a piece...

LOL! Selfish? OK, whatever, as I said, it's glaringly apparent that you have never run a business. Shipping orders that you have the capability to immediately ship (unless it would alter your delivery time on earlier order) is just good business.

Do you expect Amazon to stop shipping all orders, any time somebody places an order for a backordered item? "Sorry folks, we can't ship your orders, because Bubbah here ordered a singing fish, and those are on backorder for the next six weeks, we'd love to keep shipping orders, but we want to be fair to our customers, and Bitcoinorama says that's the only way..."

Get real. You ship orders as quickly as you're able to fill them. You don't accrue a backlog of shippable orders, just because other orders are going to take longer to fill.

[Kartaiv]

Had Avalon stated they were selling bulk chips before Batch 3, those that purchased batch 3 would have probably bought chips. The time between the two announcements was under a month.

Actually, IIRC, Avalon did say they were going to sell chips at that point (if you read their website FAQ), they just didn't give any details (when, cost, quantities, etc).

[jspielberg]

From the horse's mouth:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=240189.msg2562419#msg2562419

Looks like "by early July the chips that were ordered when we opened orders should be out the door by then"

So... if Batch 2 doesn't finish mass shipment in the next week... it is possible that chips could ship even before B2 is complete.

Good for chip purchasers... but a bit rough for B3-ers.

[HorseRider]

Yifu Guo offers refunding option for the Batch #3 orders.

[Wayne_Chang]

Yifu Guo offers refunding option for the Batch #3 orders.

So it means the trust, patience and time of batch#3 customers worth a piece of shit. Correct?

[Rampion]

Batch #3 is indeed VERY delayed. And let's remember its pricing was based on a certain difficulty level we doubled a while ago. I guess the best option now is asking for a refund.

At least it seems there won't be delays for the chips.