KnCMiner Openday Wednesday 5th & Monday 10th June

[gateway]

I find it odd that not much info has come out, and its been around 24hrs now.. is their a moratorium on info till x date

There's just not much info to tell.

• Are ORSoC part of KnCMiner? Yes they are.
• Is ORSoC a legit company? Yes it is.
• Is ORSoC's area of expertise desgning FPGAs, ASICs and embedded systems? Yes it is.
• Is there a working FPGA prototype hashing at 6.2GH/s? Yes there is.
• Is there an ASIC prototype? No there isn't.
• What's the plan? To make the ASIC from the FPGA, order the chips with preorder money, and send them directly to assembly.
• Are there any gerbers for the ASIC PCB's, etc. that can be showed to us? No, they say they ASIC PCBs will be just based on the FPGA PCBs.
• Is this feasible? Mmmm, yeah, why not. That was BFL's plan too - right?
• Is this extremely expensive, knowing they are planning to do 28nm? Yes it is. VERY expensive.
• Is this project at least x10 bigger in terms of revenue streams, etc. compared to anything else ORSoC has done before? Yes it is. It's a huge project for a tiny company.

Guys, we knew that before the Open Day. Honestly, there's not much more to be said. You want to know if they are legit? Yes, they are, as legit as BFL was. Will they succeed? Don't know, but they seem to have the appropriate skills. Would they be able to deliver in the promised timeframe? Nobody knows. We just know that everybody else (included Avalon) missed the deadlines.

Summing up: this is a gamble, boys, and the odds to win this gamble are the same that you had before the Open Day.

FULL STOP.

[retro72]

Main problem everybody is overseeing is scalability.

Again: huge project for small company.

They had problems with their Paypal account? OBVIOUS, that's a lot of payments flowing to an account that probably had very fewer (or none) in the past. And do you know what happens when you open a new bank account for a new company that suddenly receives millions of $ from payments coming all over the world in just a few days? There are alarms that ring. Swedish tax authority *may* temporary freeze the account and ask for clarifications, or their bank can put some limits and temporary hold the funds/block incoming ones (as Paypal probably did) until everything is clarified, and that takes some time. This is just an example, there are many scalability problems you may encounter when you are a company that suddenly makes a project x20 bigger than the other projects you have done in the past. For example, has ever KnC or ORSoC developed and commercialized a consumer product with that kind of price-tag and manufacturing costs and delivered it to thousands to consumers all over the world in a record time? No, they didn't. And this, as we all know, is a project tightly linked to a crazy schedule - the question is not if they can design a Bitcoin ASIC, is not if they are scammers or not, the real question is how many chances there are that they can meet such a super-tight schedule and not be overwhelmed to what it's coming to them.

Heck. They even allowed people to sell pre-order IDs and offered to manage that... What they were thinking? I hope they stopped to do that, but IMO that's just an example of how they may be underestimating the scale involved in this project, and thus they may incur in delays.

As I said earlier: I invested in them. I do not want to spread FUD, I love the fact that there is a new competitor in the ASIC game, and I will very happy to support them and keep investing if this go well. But I'm just amazed to see how there is a lot of people so eager to justify their own investment (or blinded by greed) that they will just act as irrational fan-boys, losing all contact with reality.

QFMFT

[retro72]

This project is being entirely funded by pre-orders. They don't seem to have committed much of their own cash to it. Anyone re-mortgage their house to fund it....nope.....Asked family and friends....nope.....Went to the bank with a business plan....nope. They haven't even rented an office fer cryin' out loud!

That blarney about pre-orders being the "most decentralised" is just a smokescreen to cover the fact that they've invested jack squat. They figured if Avalon and BFL could get away with it, so could they.
If they aren't balls deep in this what's to stop them walking away if things go bad? A few angry forum posts??  

If they don't sell enough pre-orders you don't get your asics. If something goes wrong and they need a second round of funding.....You don't get your asics. I understand why some of you are eagerly optimistic, you've probably just spent a lot of money but don't kid yourself. The success rate in this industry has been pretty low to date.

And if someone really did pay with cash. You need a slap!!

[600watt]

Hi folks,
Sorry for the wait but the meeting was around 2 hours and it takes a shitload of  time to process all questions and make it fairly clear what was said.

Hopefully this will answer some of your questions and help you form a better perception on whether KNCminer is the real deal or not, ie if they can do this.

Since I don't wish to bombard the forum with a crazy amount of text I've put it in a GDoc. Let me know if there are any issues.

Link - https://docs.google.com/document/d/15js8JsyHAiGoq_ELzx0hxG4xdA9ePJrhrc8y2bbWbRc/edit?usp=sharing

confirmed.

[DPoS]

This project is being entirely funded by pre-orders. They don't seem to have committed much of their own cash to it. Anyone re-mortgage their house to fund it....nope.....Asked family and friends....nope.....Went to the bank with a business plan....nope. They haven't even rented an office fer cryin' out loud!

That blarney about pre-orders being the "most decentralised" is just a smokescreen to cover the fact that they've invested jack squat. They figured if Avalon and BFL could get away with it, so could they.
If they aren't balls deep in this what's to stop them walking away if things go bad? A few angry forum posts??  

If they don't sell enough pre-orders you don't get your asics. If something goes wrong and they need a second round of funding.....You don't get your asics. I understand why some of you are eagerly optimistic, you've probably just spent a lot of money but don't kid yourself. The success rate in this industry has been pretty low to date.

And if someone really did pay with cash. You need a slap!!

but there has been one pattern in the positive..  just about all the first few customers will get their ASIC...  the scaling you talked about does smack the late crowd

I think worst case is that the 1-500 get their stuff before Christmas

[KS]

@Rampion:

Train has left the station so CHOO CHOO MTF!

[KS]

This project is being entirely funded by pre-orders. They don't seem to have committed much of their own cash to it. Anyone re-mortgage their house to fund it....nope.....Asked family and friends....nope.....Went to the bank with a business plan....nope. They haven't even rented an office fer cryin' out loud!

That blarney about pre-orders being the "most decentralised" is just a smokescreen to cover the fact that they've invested jack squat. They figured if Avalon and BFL could get away with it, so could they.
If they aren't balls deep in this what's to stop them walking away if things go bad? A few angry forum posts??  

If they don't sell enough pre-orders you don't get your asics. If something goes wrong and they need a second round of funding.....You don't get your asics. I understand why some of you are eagerly optimistic, you've probably just spent a lot of money but don't kid yourself. The success rate in this industry has been pretty low to date.

And if someone really did pay with cash. You need a slap!!

Everything is pointing at them treating this like a very high risk investment. Low capital, low investment, "shell" company, pre-order money. They could just walk away with minimum damage.

I hope a/ they don't pull that kind of shit and b/ they have a backup plan if KNCMINER AB is unsalvageable (sell chips to the community directly through ORSoC?)

Crossing fingers.

[Emmie]

• Are ORSoC part of KnCMiner? Yes they are.

Correction: some ORSoC *people* are part of KNCMINER, not ORSoC as a company. Different implications.

But what about this then?
http://orsoc.se/orsoc-and-kncminer-are-partnering-up-to-develop-bitcoin-mining-products/langswitch_lang/en/

[pizza]

Still have 3 spots left for 1-500 pre order. 1 Saturn 2 Jupiter anything lower than 5BTC will not be considered.

[glendall]

A pre-order 'golden ticket' sold for over 5 btc in the auction forum.  Pretty incredible!  Also very lame IMHO... The scalpers are making more profits than anyone ordering ASICs recently.

edit : post above posted while I was writing this. I can't fathom why anyone would pay over 5 btc.  It's a free market...go for it...but from my eyes this seems like an insane amount of money to pay on the chance to make a risky gamble.

[DPoS]

A pre-order 'golden ticket' sold for over 5 btc in the auction forum.  Pretty incredible!  Also very lame IMHO... The scalpers are making more profits than anyone ordering ASICs recently.

dont hate the playa hate da game


dreams are always sold with high margins

[retro72]

This project is being entirely funded by pre-orders. They don't seem to have committed much of their own cash to it. Anyone re-mortgage their house to fund it....nope.....Asked family and friends....nope.....Went to the bank with a business plan....nope. They haven't even rented an office fer cryin' out loud!

That blarney about pre-orders being the "most decentralised" is just a smokescreen to cover the fact that they've invested jack squat. They figured if Avalon and BFL could get away with it, so could they.
If they aren't balls deep in this what's to stop them walking away if things go bad? A few angry forum posts??  

If they don't sell enough pre-orders you don't get your asics. If something goes wrong and they need a second round of funding.....You don't get your asics. I understand why some of you are eagerly optimistic, you've probably just spent a lot of money but don't kid yourself. The success rate in this industry has been pretty low to date.

And if someone really did pay with cash. You need a slap!!

but there has been one pattern in the positive..  just about all the first few customers will get their ASIC...  the scaling you talked about does smack the late crowd

I think worst case is that the 1-500 get their stuff before Christmas

If you think that's worst case. I've got some nice beach front property in Syria you might be interested in

[retro72]

A pre-order 'golden ticket' sold for over 5 btc in the auction forum.  Pretty incredible!  Also very lame IMHO... The scalpers are making more profits than anyone ordering ASICs recently.

edit : post above posted while I was writing this. I can't fathom why anyone would pay over 5 btc.  It's a free market...go for it...but from my eyes this seems like an insane amount of money to pay on the chance to make a risky gamble.

I know. Sad isn't it. Satoshi must be pulling his digital hair out

[KS]

• Are ORSoC part of KnCMiner? Yes they are.

Correction: some ORSoC *people* are part of KNCMINER, not ORSoC as a company. Different implications.

But what about this then?
http://orsoc.se/orsoc-and-kncminer-are-partnering-up-to-develop-bitcoin-mining-products/langswitch_lang/en/

It doesn't imply any transfer of money. They will work together on the same project but the tasks are well defined and non-overlapping. KNCMINER will do the admin/sales and ORSoC the tech. KNCMINER collects the funds and pays ORSoC for the production bit, like any other supplier.

It's a regular business partnership where KNCMINER has a contract with ORSoC (I would venture as exclusive supplier). It's not a merger and nobody bought shares (although I think the ORSoC ppl are onboard to keep an eye on the business...).

[ElGabo]

An other question should be asked I think.

If everything goes fine and they can start producing, what will be the capacity of mass production? 10 20 50 miners a day? This would be important for shipping time...

[bobsmoke]

A pre-order 'golden ticket' sold for over 5 btc in the auction forum.  Pretty incredible!  Also very lame IMHO... The scalpers are making more profits than anyone ordering ASICs recently.

edit : post above posted while I was writing this. I can't fathom why anyone would pay over 5 btc.  It's a free market...go for it...but from my eyes this seems like an insane amount of money to pay on the chance to make a risky gamble.

Wow...pre order 61 sold at least for 6.6 btc....thats almost 800 dollars at current rate...pretty amazing!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=226069.msg2389543#msg2389543

[Bitcoinorama]

Look the beef with entrepreneurs not remortgaging their family property is ridiculous!

Quite frankly I'd advise anyone raising funds to avoid that approach as much as I advise peeps to use credit card to make payment.

I've been quite vocal and pressed for a Litecoin FPGA and credit card payment. KnC were flexible enough to consider that and the smarts to achieve it.

This is nothing more or less than a kickstarter crowd source and require due diligence on both sides!

If you think any smart wealthy self-made men risk their family possessions to fund projects you are at best deluded, or at worst mad! They have accountants and lawyers that oversee every step of the way to ensure their ass(ets) are protected. Quite frankly I wouldn't even consider investing in anyone reckless enough to jepordise their family. The fact they are willing to donate their time for free is risk enough.

I do however feel there should be an investor competence/intelligence test prior to receiving funds, but that's an impossible task...

[Xialla]

An other question should be asked I think.

If everything goes fine and they can start producing, what will be the capacity of mass production? 10 20 50 miners a day? This would be important for shipping time...

I still hope that they are technology professionals from Nordic and not some chinese guys from basement.) So, If they decide for taking pre-orders, they are pretty sure that they will deliver in time (during September).

[Bitcoinorama]

An other question should be asked I think.

If everything goes fine and they can start producing, what will be the capacity of mass production? 10 20 50 miners a day? This would be important for shipping time...

PM the question!

[KS]

An other question should be asked I think.

If everything goes fine and they can start producing, what will be the capacity of mass production? 10 20 50 miners a day? This would be important for shipping time...

They're not doing it in house. Cash will be a limiting factor and minimum order qty for ASICs. Bull traps.