Rocky Mountain Miners

So, I thought that this thread merited a bump after laying dormant for so long.

I'm a card-carrying, frustrated BTC miner... the ASIC arms race is crazy and has caused me to completely re-evaluate my digital currency strategy and expectations. Piling through the BTC mining forums looking for any indication of a reasonably powered and affordable rig that can actually be delivered on a date is incredibly frustrating and fraught with guesswork. Who will deliver in time to make any ROI? What happens when this or that ASIC company delivers their load and the network hash rate increases exponentially??? It's a dizzying prospect.

So I took a few days investigating the scrypt ASIC possibilities - gotta be first to the table to get the garlic bread... and I found only three companies with even the rudiments of a website, only one with a decent one that had some computer-generated pictures of what their equipment might look like... essentially, I didn't find a single manufacturer with imminent ASICs for scrypt. The biggest complaint I had about ASIC mining for BTC was the fact that unless you were immediately on top of shipping developments (complete guesswork and conjecture), you were just like everyone else, finger poised over the pre-order button, and the sell my old shit button so as not to lose your ass.

On the third page of my search, I found a link to Rocky Mountain Miners... sniff test? Nice website. Good looking equipment (not a milk crate of wires and power supplies). The Blog had some decent and timely information and the two owners are like-minded guys who are crypto-junkies like me. Litmus test? Let's call them and see if anyone answers... I've called every single ASIC company that may be producing a reasonable ASIC for BTC mining - I'm used to leaving messages that never get answered. Ring... Ring... Automated answer... hit '1' for sales. Expecting voicemail... 'Hello - this is Rocky Mountain Miners...' - a REAL PERSON! Wow!

I spoke to the REAL PERSON who had a REAL PRODUCT he could ship me in a week. He sent a real PayPal invoice that got paid. I received a real acknowledgement and response with a ship date.

Well, I paid for my Drill Bit rig (not the fastest rig I've ever seen, nor the most expensive either) - I've done my profitability projections and they look reasonable given difficulties in alt-coin markets are relatively low compared to BTC (more than a mild understatement) - and I'm likely to still have a place to live when the rig arrives and is running (the GF will not kick me out because I'm running some hot, noisy computer/milkcrate/wiry thing in the office 24/7 with a dozen fans pointed at it).

As to my background... I know my hardware, my OSes and my mining... I've been doing IT work for 30+ years. I could easily go out and roll my own rig for a few hundred under what these guys are offering - but that's not the point. They've taken the scrypt mining rig to a palatable level of design and packaged it in an unobjectionable way to allow the fun to shine through the BS. And for all of that, I think they deserve something more than a trollish, backhanded scam moniker. Hence this post.

If anyone is interested, I'll be happy to update this when my Drill Bit arrives... I'll be following the thread.

Peace,
R00tdude