KnCMiner Openday Wednesday 5th & Monday 10th June

[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...

Dude.... I don't know whether you're naive, deluded or worse. I know plenty of "smart, wealthy, self made men". Every single one of them has put MORE than their house on the line to get where they are today. Some have lost EVERTHING only to make it all back. If you're not willing to put skin in the game. You shouldn't be playing.

"Donating their time for free is risk enough". Will you listen to yourself. The only reason they weren't salaried is they HAD NO MONEY!!! Do you think their time will be free now they have millions of your pre-order money?  I'm pretty sure Champagne has been cracked and loans are being paid off as we speak.

"Quite frankly I wouldn't even consider investing in anyone reckless enough to jepordise their family" More fool you. I wouldn't even think of investing in someone who has less to lose than I do. How much are you going to lose if this fails? How much are they? I'm guessing you'll lose more.

"This is nothing more or less than a kickstarter crowd source and require due diligence on both sides!" Then the should have gone to kickstarter. It's telling that they didn't isn't it?

I'm done arguing with folks here. I've got no skin in the game so I'm going to sit back and enjoy the show. You carry on deluding yourself. I hope you didn't put too much on that credit card your putting all your hopes into. Debt can put your home at risk. You know that right?

That's my point and I've said all along, do not risk more than you can afford to loose.

I'm not getting into debt for this. There are way too many unforeseen factors such as whatever hashrate may be for the foreseeable future and how it reacts beyond.

Do your due diligence; we appear to have a talented team of guys providing specialist knowledge and experience in ASIC technology adapting to a new field, in what can only be described as a genuinely competitive sprint.

There is nothing stopping anyone from hanging back and buying when ASICs are cheaper for more moderate returns. In fact that may well be wiser.

The fact is it is a very exciting feat of engineering in a high pressure situation.

No I wouldn't expect them to risk their personal assets on this endeavour, and I certainly hope they are not. It would be moronic, when they don't have to. Indeed, they may have some liquidity now, but I doubt they're cracking out the champagne just yet, they still can't be sure of the final costs until everything has happened as planned, which never does. The time that they have given so far unsalaried under the expectation that they can raise enough funds has been time donated to the project. So far it's looking quite positive for them. They have to work hard now to ensure the story ends that way.

Good luck to them!

Please point me in the direction of all this free money you can get your hands on. It certainly wasn't around when I started my business. If I went to the bank they wanted the capital secured against my house THEN would they match what I put in.

I developed property before now. I cashed in a few bonds, secured a loan against my house, worked hard for a few years and did very well thank you. Now I own a boutique animation studio and dabble in bitcoin as I have a renderfarm.  I can hash with it when its idle. So maybe I'm not as desperate as some of you seem to be. I have a lot of processing power sitting around so why waste it.

None of this came without risk. You think you're not playing with your "own personal assets" just because it says VISA on the card? If you can't pay they take your assets. There is no free money. If you default they blow your credit rating...... No mortgage for you. If you cant pay, they take your car....... Hello oyster card. If you really go deep they take your house......Back to mum's basement. That's how it works.

Maybe to you the system is moronic. Maybe it is. But its not so moronic they're giving money away. You think you can start a business without putting your own funds in? Think again. I knew people who approached property like that. Rising market, banks throwing cheap credit at you. "Its not my money its the banks. Gear up!!" Quite a few of them lost their shirts when the market tanked.  This Asic game reminds me of that. It won't last forever though. The bubble will burst.

There's a phrase: "Hurt money" its what you look for when investing in a startup. Has this guy put "hurt money in " Hurt money is enough to hurt, not to ruin but to hurt. I put hurt money into my business. Not enough to cripple me but enough to make sure I sweat when things looked tight. If these guys haven't got hurt money invested, they don't deserve my money, or yours.

Right ok, I'm not sure why this is so hard to comprehend. I'm paying by credit card for the security the card company offers in assuming liability.

I have enough cash to cover my purchase. It's just not being handed over direct. I want the buyer protection and I'm prepared to pay the card % fee to carry the burden whilst I keep hold of the cash.

I don't even mind not clearing the card debt immediately and paying the minimum payment to ensure I don't have to chase my cash back from the card company if anything went south.

I'm not spending more than the cash I'm comfortable spending on this project. I don't know where you've got the assumption I'm using debt!

Likewise there has been no need for any company directors to offer their house as collatoral for this, because social media, forums etc. offer a means of reaching a target audience, generating interest and funding the entire project at what ever risk they can reduce for themselves. That makes complete sense. I'm sure they do have hurt money, be it some direct, starting up the company etc., or out of potential profit reinvesting in their own stock for the proposed data centres they plan to sell shares for. I'm not sure what wealthy people you've met, but I've worked around private equity and the deals i've seen all involve minimising liability and personal debt, using OPM and consulting a network of lawyers and accountants to ensure that occurs.

Well goody gumdrops for you. I'm sure the majority of people that "invested" in this little venture are not as fortunate and all your naive assumptions, wishful thinking and flag waving have probably encouraged more than a few to "slap it on a credit card" You're ok though so no worries eh?

As for wealthy people, I've met a few but unlike you finance boys we had to use our own money. Not pension funds, tax payer bailouts or junk repackaged as AAA to make money. Minimising liability? In my day that was doing your homework, making sure the sums add up and not rushing in like a fool. Before I had a financial advisor, lawyers and accountants I did it at a coffee table with my wife. Now I do it in an office. Big deal. Of course you'd minimise personal liability but you can't eradicate it. Unless of course you say your building an asic then some people just bend over and hand you their credit cards.

Anyway its been fun sparring I'm off to bed.

No worries buddy, but just to reiterate what I have said numerous times in this thread; no one should be playing with money they cannot afford to lose!

Not least for the fact, irrespective of whether KnC succeed, and we do all hope they do, they certainly appear to be a capable team; but no one knows truly what competition, public knowledge, or not, truly exist and will exist in a few months. This could be fruitless if hashrate goes ballistic due to entities known or otherwise.

Absolutely no way should anyone be getting themselves in debt over this. That would be very, very unwise.

[1713518670]

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[1713518670]

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[retro72]

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...

Dude.... I don't know whether you're naive, deluded or worse. I know plenty of "smart, wealthy, self made men". Every single one of them has put MORE than their house on the line to get where they are today. Some have lost EVERTHING only to make it all back. If you're not willing to put skin in the game. You shouldn't be playing.

"Donating their time for free is risk enough". Will you listen to yourself. The only reason they weren't salaried is they HAD NO MONEY!!! Do you think their time will be free now they have millions of your pre-order money?  I'm pretty sure Champagne has been cracked and loans are being paid off as we speak.

"Quite frankly I wouldn't even consider investing in anyone reckless enough to jepordise their family" More fool you. I wouldn't even think of investing in someone who has less to lose than I do. How much are you going to lose if this fails? How much are they? I'm guessing you'll lose more.

"This is nothing more or less than a kickstarter crowd source and require due diligence on both sides!" Then the should have gone to kickstarter. It's telling that they didn't isn't it?

I'm done arguing with folks here. I've got no skin in the game so I'm going to sit back and enjoy the show. You carry on deluding yourself. I hope you didn't put too much on that credit card your putting all your hopes into. Debt can put your home at risk. You know that right?

That's my point and I've said all along, do not risk more than you can afford to loose.

I'm not getting into debt for this. There are way too many unforeseen factors such as whatever hashrate may be for the foreseeable future and how it reacts beyond.

Do your due diligence; we appear to have a talented team of guys providing specialist knowledge and experience in ASIC technology adapting to a new field, in what can only be described as a genuinely competitive sprint.

There is nothing stopping anyone from hanging back and buying when ASICs are cheaper for more moderate returns. In fact that may well be wiser.

The fact is it is a very exciting feat of engineering in a high pressure situation.

No I wouldn't expect them to risk their personal assets on this endeavour, and I certainly hope they are not. It would be moronic, when they don't have to. Indeed, they may have some liquidity now, but I doubt they're cracking out the champagne just yet, they still can't be sure of the final costs until everything has happened as planned, which never does. The time that they have given so far unsalaried under the expectation that they can raise enough funds has been time donated to the project. So far it's looking quite positive for them. They have to work hard now to ensure the story ends that way.

Good luck to them!

Please point me in the direction of all this free money you can get your hands on. It certainly wasn't around when I started my business. If I went to the bank they wanted the capital secured against my house THEN would they match what I put in.

I developed property before now. I cashed in a few bonds, secured a loan against my house, worked hard for a few years and did very well thank you. Now I own a boutique animation studio and dabble in bitcoin as I have a renderfarm.  I can hash with it when its idle. So maybe I'm not as desperate as some of you seem to be. I have a lot of processing power sitting around so why waste it.

None of this came without risk. You think you're not playing with your "own personal assets" just because it says VISA on the card? If you can't pay they take your assets. There is no free money. If you default they blow your credit rating...... No mortgage for you. If you cant pay, they take your car....... Hello oyster card. If you really go deep they take your house......Back to mum's basement. That's how it works.

Maybe to you the system is moronic. Maybe it is. But its not so moronic they're giving money away. You think you can start a business without putting your own funds in? Think again. I knew people who approached property like that. Rising market, banks throwing cheap credit at you. "Its not my money its the banks. Gear up!!" Quite a few of them lost their shirts when the market tanked.  This Asic game reminds me of that. It won't last forever though. The bubble will burst.

There's a phrase: "Hurt money" its what you look for when investing in a startup. Has this guy put "hurt money in " Hurt money is enough to hurt, not to ruin but to hurt. I put hurt money into my business. Not enough to cripple me but enough to make sure I sweat when things looked tight. If these guys haven't got hurt money invested, they don't deserve my money, or yours.

Right ok, I'm not sure why this is so hard to comprehend. I'm paying by credit card for the security the card company offers in assuming liability.

I have enough cash to cover my purchase. It's just not being handed over direct. I want the buyer protection and I'm prepared to pay the card % fee to carry the burden whilst I keep hold of the cash.

I don't even mind not clearing the card debt immediately and paying the minimum payment to ensure I don't have to chase my cash back from the card company if anything went south.

I'm not spending more than the cash I'm comfortable spending on this project. I don't know where you've got the assumption I'm using debt!

Likewise there has been no need for any company directors to offer their house as collatoral for this, because social media, forums etc. offer a means of reaching a target audience, generating interest and funding the entire project at what ever risk they can reduce for themselves. That makes complete sense. I'm sure they do have hurt money, be it some direct, starting up the company etc., or out of potential profit reinvesting in their own stock for the proposed data centres they plan to sell shares for. I'm not sure what wealthy people you've met, but I've worked around private equity and the deals i've seen all involve minimising liability and personal debt, using OPM and consulting a network of lawyers and accountants to ensure that occurs.

Well goody gumdrops for you. I'm sure the majority of people that "invested" in this little venture are not as fortunate and all your naive assumptions, wishful thinking and flag waving have probably encouraged more than a few to "slap it on a credit card" You're ok though so no worries eh?

As for wealthy people, I've met a few but unlike you finance boys we had to use our own money. Not pension funds, tax payer bailouts or junk repackaged as AAA to make money. Minimising liability? In my day that was doing your homework, making sure the sums add up and not rushing in like a fool. Before I had a financial advisor, lawyers and accountants I did it at a coffee table with my wife. Now I do it in an office. Big deal. Of course you'd minimise personal liability but you can't eradicate it. Unless of course you say your building an asic then some people just bend over and hand you their credit cards.

Anyway its been fun sparring I'm off to bed.

No worries buddy, but just to reiterate what I have said numerous times in this thread; no one should be playing with money they cannot afford to lose!

Not least for the fact, irrespective of whether KnC succeed, and we do all hope they do, they certainly appear to be a capable team; but no one knows truly what competition, public knowledge, or not, truly exist and will exist in a few months. This could be fruitless if hashrate goes ballistic due to entities known or otherwise.

Absolutely no way should anyone be getting themselves in debt over this. That would be very, very unwise.

Wise words.
I'm climbing down off my high horse now and wishing you guys all the best. My wife bought me a Tee shirt that reads "to save time let's just assume that I'm right" so if you'd like to save time......

I'm still very much rooting for the success of this project. I've just got cautious in my old age.

Anyway it was good sparring with you. Politics and religion next?

G'night all

[Biomech]

Wise words.
I'm climbing down off my high horse now and wishing you guys all the best. My wife bought me a Tee shirt that reads "to save time let's just assume that I'm right" so if you'd like to save time......

I'm still very much rooting for the success of this project. I've just got cautious in my old age.

Anyway it was good sparring with you. Politics and religion next?

G'night all

Since I got delayed AGAIN, I have to say it's too bad you're off to bed.

I'm up for politics and religion (evil leering grin)

Ah well, guess I'll get that shot in a couple of weeks.

Related to the actual thread, I've actually thought your worthy opponent has taken the middle road all the way through this thread. As have I.

I am actually willing to go in debt for one of their machines, but not on a pre-order. Once they are actually delivering and I can properly assess the risk. By then there may be other players, but other than a couple of people, particularly terrahash and steamboat, who are building Klondike/avalon boards, I don't see anyone actually delivering anything impressive in that time frame. BFL is still dicking around with a couple hundred 5 GH/s rigs, nearly two months after they finally "started delivering", ASICMiner is too expensive right now, and Avalon is amateurish. Impressive amateurs to be sure, but not really ready for the big time. I'm hoping these guys can pull it off.

And as Bitcoinorama has pointed out, there is no way of knowing if somebody is quietly developing ASIC bitcoin miners in the dark. Despite some "wow that's magic" thinking that seems to follow anything technical, 28nm is not that technically impressive, just expensive. I lived and am about to go bach to Boise, Idaho and I could point you to two fabs there that are fully capable of it. There are a couple others there that probably could do it. Micron and Zilog for damn sure. And that's just one tech center. Silicon valley hasn't even popped their head up on this yet, nor New Jersey. That's just in the US. I'm sure you EU guys could point out another bunch of fabricators that are capable of it. The initial duopoly that currently exists is a bonanza for those involved. Unfortunately for them, the market will not allow that to continue. ASICS or possibly even something better will come out to compete. I've been in the tech game to some degree since I was a little kid, and the one thing that has been constant is that today's "unsurpassed" new gadget will be obsolete by the time it gets to market.

At present, KNC looks to be the best game in town. By August, we should all know for sure.

As somebody else posted not long ago: Isn't life about the strangest thing you've ever done?

[seleme]

Remortgaging your house to invest that money in a business is absolutely reckless. But it's true that risking your own money is something that someone who runs a business does on a daily basis.

Let's be honest, this thing of being able to gather massive funds from customers, risking nothing of your own money while enjoying big potential gains is a wet dream come true for any business. But it's certainly not the vendors fault, it's the market who brings this opportunity on the table.

You can bet that as soon as there is an established and reliable provider, shipping ASIC immediately at reasonable prices, this preorder madness will come to an end. From that point, potential competitors will have to fund new products risking their own money, and not the customers money.

Pre-orders are like getting free loans. You won't get that anywhere but in bitcoin madness industry.

[Biomech]

Remortgaging your house to invest that money in a business is absolutely reckless. But it's true that risking your own money is something that someone who runs a business does on a daily basis.

Let's be honest, this thing of being able to gather massive funds from customers, risking nothing of your own money while enjoying big potential gains is a wet dream come true for any business. But it's certainly not the vendors fault, it's the market who brings this opportunity on the table.

You can bet that as soon as there is an established and reliable provider, shipping ASIC immediately at reasonable prices, this preorder madness will come to an end. From that point, potential competitors will have to fund new products risking their own money, and not the customers money.

Pre-orders are like getting free loans. You won't get that anywhere but in bitcoin madness industry.

You shoulda seen IBM circa 1979.

A gold rush, regardless of whether it's the real thing, is nothing new.

[Anenome5]

What engineering talent BFL had/has? Is it comparable to Orsoc's?
How does going strait to production sound, can some hardware expert enlighten me please?

Apparently BFL are rank amateurs by comparison. Orsoc is about as professional as it comes for ASIC design. No way are they going to have the kind of power and heat problems BFL had. They know the pitfalls of ASIC design well, no doubt. They have several designers who are ASIC specialists and have worked as Orsoc for years now.

[seleme]

Remortgaging your house to invest that money in a business is absolutely reckless. But it's true that risking your own money is something that someone who runs a business does on a daily basis.

Let's be honest, this thing of being able to gather massive funds from customers, risking nothing of your own money while enjoying big potential gains is a wet dream come true for any business. But it's certainly not the vendors fault, it's the market who brings this opportunity on the table.

You can bet that as soon as there is an established and reliable provider, shipping ASIC immediately at reasonable prices, this preorder madness will come to an end. From that point, potential competitors will have to fund new products risking their own money, and not the customers money.

Pre-orders are like getting free loans. You won't get that anywhere but in bitcoin madness industry.

You shoulda seen IBM circa 1979.

A gold rush, regardless of whether it's the real thing, is nothing new.

All I've seen in 1979 were my toys 

[Biomech]

Remortgaging your house to invest that money in a business is absolutely reckless. But it's true that risking your own money is something that someone who runs a business does on a daily basis.

Let's be honest, this thing of being able to gather massive funds from customers, risking nothing of your own money while enjoying big potential gains is a wet dream come true for any business. But it's certainly not the vendors fault, it's the market who brings this opportunity on the table.

You can bet that as soon as there is an established and reliable provider, shipping ASIC immediately at reasonable prices, this preorder madness will come to an end. From that point, potential competitors will have to fund new products risking their own money, and not the customers money.

Pre-orders are like getting free loans. You won't get that anywhere but in bitcoin madness industry.

You shoulda seen IBM circa 1979.

A gold rush, regardless of whether it's the real thing, is nothing new.

All I've seen in 1979 were my toys 

my toy in 1979

I didn't get my first PC til about 82...

Been playin' with computers since I was a little kid. I also had a TRS-80 model 2 in 79, but the Altair was more fun.

[seleme]

I lived in communist Yugoslavia in 1982. we couldn't see a PC on TV let alone have it 

[glowkeeper]

I am actually willing to go in debt for one of their machines, but not on a pre-order. Once they are actually delivering and I can properly assess the risk. By then there may be other players, but other than a couple of people, particularly terrahash and steamboat, who are building Klondike/avalon boards, I don't see anyone actually delivering anything impressive in that time frame. BFL is still dicking around with a couple hundred 5 GH/s rigs, nearly two months after they finally "started delivering", ASICMiner is too expensive right now, and Avalon is amateurish. Impressive amateurs to be sure, but not really ready for the big time. I'm hoping these guys can pull it off.

+1. Early adopters are taking a punt I cannot afford to take, but I wish you all the best of luck.....

And as Bitcoinorama has pointed out, there is no way of knowing if somebody is quietly developing ASIC bitcoin miners in the dark. Despite some "wow that's magic" thinking that seems to follow anything technical, 28nm is not that technically impressive, just expensive. I lived and am about to go bach to Boise, Idaho and I could point you to two fabs there that are fully capable of it. There are a couple others there that probably could do it. Micron and Zilog for damn sure. And that's just one tech center. Silicon valley hasn't even popped their head up on this yet, nor New Jersey. That's just in the US. I'm sure you EU guys could point out another bunch of fabricators that are capable of it. The initial duopoly that currently exists is a bonanza for those involved. Unfortunately for them, the market will not allow that to continue. ASICS or possibly even something better will come out to compete. I've been in the tech game to some degree since I was a little kid, and the one thing that has been constant is that today's "unsurpassed" new gadget will be obsolete by the time it gets to market.

C'mon Enterpoint, you know it makes sense......

[daggeteo]

FWIW they said they aren't taking a salary right now and somewhere someone said they can't take profits until they deliver in some Swedish law..

I guess that is kinda hurt money type stuff

Of course there's no way to prove it, but selling a few queue positions, of which KnC was more than happy to facilitate, would hurt them not as much.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15js8JsyHAiGoq_ELzx0hxG4xdA9ePJrhrc8y2bbWbRc/edit?pli=1

Question 26: They were asked about a pool and had to have it explained.

Also, where is Q. 27?

Sam claimed that he and Andreas have been mining, assumed as a team, prior to starting KnC. Was it solo mining or on a pool? And if pool, which one?

It had been asked and answered, they asked the group if we agreed which we did with no protests.

[Rampion]

Remortgaging your house to invest that money in a business is absolutely reckless. But it's true that risking your own money is something that someone who runs a business does on a daily basis.

Let's be honest, this thing of being able to gather massive funds from customers, risking nothing of your own money while enjoying big potential gains is a wet dream come true for any business. But it's certainly not the vendors fault, it's the market who brings this opportunity on the table.

You can bet that as soon as there is an established and reliable provider, shipping ASIC immediately at reasonable prices, this preorder madness will come to an end. From that point, potential competitors will have to fund new products risking their own money, and not the customers money.

Pre-orders are like getting free loans. You won't get that anywhere but in bitcoin madness industry.

Yeah. It's also true that this is a tricky situation. Let's be clear, if you had the skills to quickly produce Bitcoin ASICs, from a business perspective you have two choices:

a) Risking your own money, to mine the hell out of your hardware.
b) Using your customers money for the development, transferring all the risk to them, making a profit on the hardware.

Risking your own money to sell money-printing machines at a price that allows ROI in 30 days or less seems an unwise choice. What's the logic in it? If you achieve that, you mine yourself because your profits will be much higher, and you took the risk. Only way you are giving such a "good deal" to your customers is because you risked their money from the very beginning, transferring to them all the risks regarding delays, difficulty spikes and Bitcoin exchange rate. And this is why ASICs are a totally different game compared to GPUs of FPGAs, we are approaching uncharted territory, and I'm afraid that rather sooner than later big players will step in to create their own ass-kicking technology for their own minin operations.

ASICs indeed open a very real possibility of de facto centralization of the network. This is why Litecoin and other scrypt based coins, which are supposed to be "ASIC resistant", were created. ASIC really create a new scenario with a lot of negative incentives.

[KS]

Remortgaging your house to invest that money in a business is absolutely reckless. But it's true that risking your own money is something that someone who runs a business does on a daily basis.

Let's be honest, this thing of being able to gather massive funds from customers, risking nothing of your own money while enjoying big potential gains is a wet dream come true for any business. But it's certainly not the vendors fault, it's the market who brings this opportunity on the table.

You can bet that as soon as there is an established and reliable provider, shipping ASIC immediately at reasonable prices, this preorder madness will come to an end. From that point, potential competitors will have to fund new products risking their own money, and not the customers money.

Pre-orders are like getting free loans. You won't get that anywhere but in bitcoin madness industry.

Yeah. It's also true that this is a tricky situation. Let's be clear, if you had the skills to quickly produce Bitcoin ASICs, from a business perspective you have two choices:

a) Risking your own money, to mine the hell out of your hardware.
b) Using your customers money for the development, transferring all the risk to them, making a profit on the hardware.

Risking your own money to sell money-printing machines at a price that allows ROI in 30 days or less seems an unwise choice. What's the logic in it? If you achieve that, you mine yourself because your profits will be much higher, and you took the risk. Only way you are giving such a "good deal" to your customers is because you risked their money from the very beginning, transferring to them all the risks regarding delays, difficulty spikes and Bitcoin exchange rate. And this is why ASICs are a totally different game compared to GPUs of FPGAs, we are approaching uncharted territory, and I'm afraid that rather sooner than later big players will step in to create their own ass-kicking technology for their own minin operations.

ASICs indeed open a very real possibility of de facto centralization of the network. This is why Litecoin and other scrypt based coins, which are supposed to be "ASIC resistant", were created. ASIC really create a new scenario with a lot of negative incentives.

I think the next move of ASIC designers should be to stick to ASICs and not do complete miners, only distribute open source specs for boards, firmware, whatnot. Distributing only the chips allows for a bigger spread of the risk to numerous smaller entities and better network security overall.

[mxmz.in]

Did anyone think about KNCMiner offering to host ASICs for you? What I mean it sounds like a very bad business judgment to me. After all they themselves create the production of unlimited number of powerful ASICs and after little time running a ASIC will only be profitable with low electricity cost and management fees.

But they talk about Tier 3 datacenters and such. So they gonna pursue this endeavor just to find out later that running ASICs is barely profitable  and whoever runs it does it at home.

Initially I thought it was to avoid VAT, but now it turns out you pay VAT anyway if you leave the device with them. Yet they're a small company and cannot spread the energy across many different things.

[blastbob]

Hosting with some quick and dirty math is 300-400Euro per unit, per month.

[nosurrender]

Hosting with some quick and dirty math is 300-400Euro per unit, per month.

What did you base this assumption on. Just asking, because colocation of a "normal" server at e.g. Pionen datacenter in Sweden is priced about 70+ Euro a month.

[mxmz.in]

Hosting with some quick and dirty math is 300-400Euro per unit, per month.

What did you base this assumption on. Just asking, because colocation of a "normal" server at e.g. Pionen datacenter in Sweden is priced about 70+ Euro a month.

If the difficulty continue to rise - and that's the main goal of KNCMiner - there won't be any spare 50$ to shed on hosting

[Biomech]

Hosting with some quick and dirty math is 300-400Euro per unit, per month.

What did you base this assumption on. Just asking, because colocation of a "normal" server at e.g. Pionen datacenter in Sweden is priced about 70+ Euro a month.

If the difficulty continue to rise - and that's the main goal of KNCMiner - there won't be any spare 50$ to shed on hosting

What I'm not seeing any of you address when you harp on the difficulty rising is the FACT that these devices are the first wave of machines that are DESIGNED to handle that increase. NRE is expensive, once it's recovered the cost of manufacture is not that great. This isn't an all or nothing game. Yeah, it just got more complicated and will have to get more professional just to cope, but that's the price of beginning to go mainstream. If bitcoin is to succeed in the long term, these are things that are GOING to happen. Those that manage to get in on the beginning are going to make a mint, for a minute. That doesn't mean that all profits will thereafter immediately vanish.

[bitpop]

Difficulty has gone from 11 to 12 to 15 in just a week. Almost 50% increase.

[blastbob]

Hosting with some quick and dirty math is 300-400Euro per unit, per month.

What did you base this assumption on. Just asking, because colocation of a "normal" server at e.g. Pionen datacenter in Sweden is priced about 70+ Euro a month.

Power is the cost factor here..