Official Avalon mining rig clones thread from bitmine.ch (NOW SHIPPING)

[giorgiomassa]

May i ask how and from who were you able to source the Avalon chips?

From: http://www.coindesk.com/bitmine-to-drop-4phs-of-asic-power-onto-bitcoin-network-before-april/

The Avalon OEM community has been a small but frustrated one. BitSynCom, the company behind the 110nm chip, has been promising supplies for months, with significant delays. However, last week, it said it is now shipping 40,000 each day. Tens of thousands went to Zefir, a Swiss party who organized a group purchase. Bitmine CEO Giorgio Massarotto drove to Zefir to pick up between 37,500 and 40,000 chips over the weekend – that equates to around 16TH/sec of capacity.

Yes, we bought them from Zefir, the only thing is that coindesk completely messed up the quantities, we didn't get that many chips at all, we asked them to correct the article.

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[zefir]

May i ask how and from who were you able to source the Avalon chips?

From: http://www.coindesk.com/bitmine-to-drop-4phs-of-asic-power-onto-bitcoin-network-before-april/

The Avalon OEM community has been a small but frustrated one. BitSynCom, the company behind the 110nm chip, has been promising supplies for months, with significant delays. However, last week, it said it is now shipping 40,000 each day. Tens of thousands went to Zefir, a Swiss party who organized a group purchase. Bitmine CEO Giorgio Massarotto drove to Zefir to pick up between 37,500 and 40,000 chips over the weekend – that equates to around 16TH/sec of capacity.

I already wrote in my own thread that the author messed up the numbers here - the correct quantity is in the 7k range.

The long story short is this: I have tons of Avalon clones in order with bitmine. 35% of chips from the first two batches of my group-buy are mine and contractually agreed to be converted to clones. Since customers and miners became more impatient with time - up to the level to freak out, Giorgio asked me to provide them the chips planned for my own Avalon clones. So instead of adding 22 more devices to my mining operation by end of this week, I agreed to sell my chips to bitmine and enable them to satisfy their customers.

Obviously I have been compensated for the potential mining profits I could have made with them as part of the trade, i.e. bitmine paid an reasonable premium for the chips to keep their promise and to fulfill their part of the deal as best as possible.

With that in mind, it is really sad to see how some members and customers in this thread fail to honor those efforts but instead now moan at bitmine for their reached ability to deliver

[GandalfG]

I do not understand your sadness zefir
We are all waiting for delivery. And unlike you and the other organizers we not only earn but also lose in this whole business.
You already earned a nice amount money in the commission from each chip. And totally don't worry about our losses who are growing day by day.
Complaining about the lack of patience with your customers is hypocrisy.

[tranquille]

I can only second that GandalfG.

Zefir - without knowing details of said transaction - I would very much assume that you didn´t do the deal in full selflessness.
If the price wasn´t right  - the deal would have never taken place. You got fine fiat and were furthermore derisking your investments!

Besides Bitmine´s efforts to speed up delivery - there are stil unadressed issues.

• I.e. the change of return policy after the preorders were filled being the biggest one!
  The risk was derived from Bitmine AG to their customers in an illegal way imho.
  
• Another one being the outlook for a upgrade to gen 2 bitfury chips - which is not adressed anymore.
  
• The third issue being the following (closely relevant to the second):
  
  That´s part of a recent Bitmine AG PR sent out by it´s now majority shareholder (at least according to their news release):
  http://bitcoinprbuzz.com/established-multinational-investment-firm-plunges-into-bitcoin-funds-development-of-next-generation-asics/
  
  

  Massive Luck Investments is currently in the final stages of making pre-production arrangements of ASIC chip sets, based on the most advanced existing 28-nanometre technology, with both power consumption and hashing power characteristics significantly outperforming any existing or publicly announced Bitcoin mining ASIC technology. Some of these next generation ASICs may be made available to the public, but the great majority will be utilized in their own datacenters, for industrial scale mining.

So in essence Bitmine AG is turned into a mining shop - directly competing with the oh so valued customers.
This is a very bad move imo and makes me consider to exert the former return policy and cancel all my bitmine orders immediately.

I am still awaiting a reasonable statement from Bitmine AG.

[tarmi]

I like how group buyers and assemblers of Avalon IC are unloading all the risks on ordinary customers!

they are even getting some premium for that.  

looks like a pyramid scheme to me.

[giorgiomassa]

I can only second that GandalfG.

Zefir - without knowing details of said transaction - I would very much assume that you didn´t do the deal in full selflessness.
If the price wasn´t right  - the deal would have never taken place. You got fine fiat and were furthermore derisking your investments!

I don't see why people are complaining with Zefir at all, he reserved a few chips out of his first batches and he publicly stated that already months ago, he's free to do with his own chips whatever he wants, why is this being questioned at all?

[rebelrat]

I like how group buyers and assemblers of Avalon IC are unloading all the risks on ordinary customers!

they are even getting some premium for that.  

looks like a pyramid scheme to me.

Agreed, with some Black Market elements for sure.

[ImI]

(THUMBS UP) for Bitmine!

I really like the way your are managing those Avalon defaults and i am definitely looking forward to your gen2!

[zefir]

I like how group buyers and assemblers of Avalon IC are unloading all the risks on ordinary customers!

they are even getting some premium for that.  

looks like a pyramid scheme to me.

Dude, what are you talking about?

Noone is offloading risks here. I bought  and paid my chips as everyone else - and as everyone else I am free to do with mine whatever I like. From those 8 batches in my group buy, I paid 40k chips and I am not going to ask you or anybody else what to do with them.

In fact, over the past weeks my customers offloaded their risks on me by asking for refunds. Naturally they did this for their late orders while keeping early ones active - very fair. So far, I served all requests to make everyone happy in this mess, but if this is your way to say 'Thank You' for that, I obviously was wrong.

[cimpex]

Bitmine hasn't offloaded their risks?

Bitmine changed the terms of sale without asking their customers.

Before (when everyone bought their units):

Q: I changed my mind, can I request a refund for my order?

A: YES, if the order wasn’t shipped yet, you are eligible for a full refund based on our Order Refunds Policy. Please contact our support team to ask for a refund. Also, kindly note that if you cancel your order, you will loose your position in the order queue.

now:

Q: I changed my mind, can I request a refund for my order?

A: YES, if the order isn’t in production yet, you are eligible for a full refund based on our Order Refunds Policy. Please contact our support team to ask for a refund. Also, kindly note that if you cancel your order, you will loose your position in the order queue.

They changed all 3 batches to "production" to avoid refunds. This is cleary an onesided breach of the contract. I asked them for refund, if they won't refund me I will file a case because of commercial fraud at my local police station. I recommend everyone to do the same if they won't refund. I already saved their old FAQ page for evidence. Just send me a PM if you need it too.

Do not take their upgrading offer. Twice the hashrate of an avalon means 200 GH/s in October! They have their bitfury chips in an october batch! Compare Bitmines price to a Bitfury Full Kit from bitfurystrikesback for e.g.

[Xialla]

changing TOS without any notification for customers? omfg, here we go again...

[tranquille]

how about starting to post relevant comments not emotional blah? 

changing TOS without any notification for customers? omfg, here we go again...

[gotah]

Guys,

I want to just remember 2 things:

1) We are not selling investments, we are selling products, so I think is not right ask a refund just because the market offers something better in two months from now and we cannot accept a refund request when your order is already in production and your chips have been ordered and paid (check here https://bitmine.ch/?p=802).

2) We've already given a lot of refunds (many of these have been confirmed here on bitcointalk) BEFORE we started production and we offered a lot of upgrades to the next generation, in fact we are still planning if possible to upgrade for free to 400 Gh/s instead 200 Gh/s but is not sure right now.

I bet you in finding another bitcoin company that invest their earnings to protect their customers orders


And finally, the general terms of sale are that all sales are final, and this has NEVER changed:

[tarmi]

OMG.

BFL all over again.

You have to admit that BFL practices are becoming business standards in this industry.

[cimpex]

For your information:
"All sales are final" for private customers is against European Law, even in Switzerland! This is NO B2B sale!
The good thing here: There is a law enforcement treaty between EU and Switzerland.

BTW: I asked Mr. Anselmi before your "production" status message applied. He asked me if I would change my mind when he offers me an "twince an avalon bitfury upgrade" and gave me time for the decision + I won't loose my right for refund. I decided for refund 1 week ago and I still got no confirmation nor the refund at my bank account..

[Xialla]

For your information:
"All sales are final" is against European Law, even in Switzerland! This is NO B2B sale!
The good thing here: There is a law enforcement treaty between EU and Switzerland.

BTW: I asked Mr. Anselmi before your "production" status message applied. He asked me if I would change my mind when he offers me an "twince an avalon bitfury upgrade" and gave me time for the decision + I won't loose my right for refund. I decided for refund 1 week ago and I still got no confirmation.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/shopping/shopping-abroad/returning-unwanted-goods/index_en.htm

Code:

This seven-day “cooling off” period begins on the day when you receive your purchase. 

You can choose to cancel your order for any reason within this timeframe – even if you simply changed your mind.

The seller must give you a refund within 30 days. This refund must include any shipping charges you paid when you made your purchase.

I know that Switzerland is not in EU, but I expect very similar conditions here.

[gotah]

For your information:
"All sales are final" is against European Law, even in Switzerland! This is NO B2B sale!
The good thing here: There is a law enforcement treaty between EU and Switzerland.

Our legals don't agree, remember this is a pre-order and the payment is an advance payment of 100% of the final price.

BTW: so your refund was not declined because you asked before right ? send me your order by pm so I can check the status

[Big Time Coin]

@cimpex all that red text just makes my eyes roll.  You're the kind of person that tries to win an argument by raising the volume of your voice, aren't you? 

It's totally reasonable to not offer refunds on assembly where they have to source parts.  The deal was "if chips are late, we are late" from the beginning everyone knew that.  It's not "if chips are late, you get a refund and we eat the loss on parts".  The fact that they paid extra to Zefir for chips to try to be earlier is commendable - they deserve praise not complaints.

[ProfMac]

For your information:
"All sales are final" is against European Law, even in Switzerland! This is NO B2B sale!
The good thing here: There is a law enforcement treaty between EU and Switzerland.

BTW: I asked Mr. Anselmi before your "production" status message applied. He asked me if I would change my mind when he offers me an "twince an avalon bitfury upgrade" and gave me time for the decision + I won't loose my right for refund. I decided for refund 1 week ago and I still got no confirmation.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/shopping/shopping-abroad/returning-unwanted-goods/index_en.htm

Code:

This seven-day “cooling off” period begins on the day when you receive your purchase. 

You can choose to cancel your order for any reason within this timeframe – even if you simply changed your mind.

The seller must give you a refund within 30 days. This refund must include any shipping charges you paid when you made your purchase.

I know that Switzerland is not in EU, but I expect very similar conditions here.

I am used to "custom orders" being "non-refundable" as a standard of business in Texas.  The consumer protections of commodity items does not apply.  Is that situation different in Switzerland?

[jimmy3dita]

For me (and probably others here) it would be enough an immediate hashrate increase at no extra costs, or a reasonable discount/product conversion applicable on the next gen Bitfury products (that should be delivered ASAP).

I'm not going to buy anything from Avalon (or any Avalon-derived product) anymore.