Just got off the phone with Bitmain re next batch of S9

[crypto_curious]

Nemo you said you tried escrow companies and they wouldn't accept the proposition why can't you use a Bitcointalk respected escrow provider and just pay the 1% fee (charge the group members) on top of your $50 handling charge? They would be able to use the funds to pay Bitmain directly and you as well and everybody is happy.

Also it wouldnt hurt it you make a video in your factory or your office talking about this group buy so people can confirm you are the business owner as seen in your other video's?

Absolutely. We can collect all the money to escrow agent address, give timeout maybe a day or two. Once all payments are there (I presume not all of them will be sent), we sum up what's there and escrow agent send ONE payment to Bitmain as required. That way, Nemo have no contact with money directly, and we are protected. It's doable I am sure.
EDIT: Why shipping costs would be not protected? Nemo's shipping costs would be released from escrow once machines are ordered directly from Bitmain. So everyone would send Bitmain+shipping to HK payment and another one - shipping from HK to your place, all in one payment to escrow agent address.

[Amstellodamois]

EDIT: Why shipping costs would be not protected? Nemo's shipping costs would be released from escrow once machines are ordered directly from Bitmain. So everyone would send Bitmain+shipping to HK payment and another one - shipping from HK to your place, all in one payment to escrow agent address.

I'm not talking about the shipping cost but the actual shipping.

Since everyone think it's smart to have 700 miners sent to an unknown location in HK with Nimo arranging the shipping to us.

[Kapz786]

EDIT: Why shipping costs would be not protected? Nemo's shipping costs would be released from escrow once machines are ordered directly from Bitmain. So everyone would send Bitmain+shipping to HK payment and another one - shipping from HK to your place, all in one payment to escrow agent address.

I'm not talking about the shipping cost but the actual shipping.

Since everyone think it's smart to have 700 miners sent to an unknown location in HK with Nimo arranging the shipping to us.

You are never going to find an escrow company that will handle everyone's bitcoins transaction, payment to Bitmain and then take delivery of the S9's and ship each one out to the group buy members? That defeats the purpose of Nimo even being involved in it.

I think as long as the money is escrowed once the actual units are delivered to his factory there is less risk of him stealing the hardware particularly if he is running a legitimate business from there - I'm pretty sure he has already disclosed this location earlier so surely there is someone in China who is buying a couple of units that could go check it out. Besides whoever would escrow it would verify the delivery address directly with Bitmain before sending the funds.

Also there is no chance this group buy has 700 miners that will be paid for I would be surprised if this even goes ahead to be honest.

[Amstellodamois]

EDIT: Why shipping costs would be not protected? Nemo's shipping costs would be released from escrow once machines are ordered directly from Bitmain. So everyone would send Bitmain+shipping to HK payment and another one - shipping from HK to your place, all in one payment to escrow agent address.

I'm not talking about the shipping cost but the actual shipping.

Since everyone think it's smart to have 700 miners sent to an unknown location in HK with Nimo arranging the shipping to us.

You are never going to find an escrow company that will handle everyone's bitcoins transaction, payment to Bitmain and then take delivery of the S9's and ship each one out to the group buy members? That defeats the purpose of Nimo even being involved in it.

I proposed to have all units delivered to either DHL or a chinese parcel forwarding company. They make a living out of sending parcels, the escrow wouldn't be involved in the reshipping.

[Kapz786]

EDIT: Why shipping costs would be not protected? Nemo's shipping costs would be released from escrow once machines are ordered directly from Bitmain. So everyone would send Bitmain+shipping to HK payment and another one - shipping from HK to your place, all in one payment to escrow agent address.

I'm not talking about the shipping cost but the actual shipping.

Since everyone think it's smart to have 700 miners sent to an unknown location in HK with Nimo arranging the shipping to us.

You are never going to find an escrow company that will handle everyone's bitcoins transaction, payment to Bitmain and then take delivery of the S9's and ship each one out to the group buy members? That defeats the purpose of Nimo even being involved in it.

I proposed to have all units delivered to either DHL or a chinese parcel forwarding company. They make a living out of sending parcels, the escrow wouldn't be involved in the reshipping.

So under your proposal who will be taking payment from group buy members and then paying Bitmain?

[Amstellodamois]

An escrow takes payment and pays bitmain.
The goods are delivered to a courrier warehouse.
The courrier is paid by us directly or the escrow.

Plain and simple.

[Kapz786]

An escrow takes payment and pays bitmain.
The goods are delivered to a courrier warehouse.
The courrier is paid by us directly or the escrow.

Plain and simple.

Exactly so what part does Nimo play in this arrangement? None so then you are back to square one you may as well start a group buy thread yourself?

[dragospd]

An escrow takes payment and pays bitmain.
The goods are delivered to a courrier warehouse.
The courrier is paid by us directly or the escrow.

Plain and simple.

Exactly so what part does Nimo play in this arrangement? None so then you are back to square one you may as well start a group buy thread yourself?

Then using an escrow company is futile also. You get the payment done and the goods (which honestly after shipping are higher in value than original price) are delivered to an unknown place. The risk is simply too high. Nimo can arrange escrow AND shipping so we are all covered. We pay 50usd per unit x 500 units=25k USD for Nimo to implement the deal this way. If it is not enough (I think it is), we can decide to pay more.

[InvisibleKnight]

Maybe I missed it, but is there a cutoff date for to sign up for this? I already signed up. Im just curious because Bitmain is only going to be able to handle so many units for this order plus units they normally sell to other customers. Should this be capped? If were already over 1000 units and Bitmain is still trying to approve 700 units. Is it first come first serve for filling the orders?

List currently is at 1062 and we're still waiting for the approval of 500 or 700 units.
But yeah, a lot of people will probably drop when we get the final confirmation (hopefully next week) send the contract and ask to make the payments within a short period of time.

So list is still open but that doesn't guarantee that we'll have enough miners to cover everyone.

In case we need more miners than Bitmain has available it's "first come first serve"?

[nemopowertools]

Whoever has a good escrow solution to offer me. Please call ASAP 4153475970

In case it wasn't clear from my previous messages. My factory is in Shenzhen (China). The units will not be sent to China. The units are sent to a wearhouse operated by the shipping company in HK, however my team and/or I will be there to split the batch and send to everyone directly. If you're in HK, you can come pick up your order directly from there (I provided the address of the wearhouse before).
From HK splitting the batch should take 1 day and shipping time is 4~6 days depending on your location.

We don't have enough units for everyone even if 50% of the people who signed up end up not ordering.
We will supply larger orders first and work our way down according to order size.

Escrow or no escrow, the units will have to be shipped to the wearhouse via my company, and you'll have to trust that I won't destroy my reputation, my business and risk law suits and physical harm to me and my family for a few computers.

[A.Delaney]

I take it they wouldn’t commit to more than 500 units.

[stringinator]

Is there a handy URL for the list available?  I signed up using Google forms, but I'm not sure how to check the full list.  A.Delaney PM'ed me, but I'm over my "Newbie" (no pay) limit for the day.

[nemopowertools]

Is there a handy URL for the list available?  I signed up using Google forms, but I'm not sure how to check the full list.  A.Delaney PM'ed me, but I'm over my "Newbie" (no pay) limit for the day.

The list is not public since it includes personal email / phone / addresses.

Here is a version with these columns removed:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U1Oo7w4bAYq6ns5Opxjz2NvKMAZVlVGkvA3nJ3YhHHU/edit?usp=sharing

Updated at Jan 12 17:30 PST
People signed up for 1169 miners so far and we're still waiting for a confirmation on whether we can get 500 or 700.

We will start from the larger orders and work our way down the list, so it's likely that if you ordered 1, we won't be able to supply it.
Hoping to hear some good news from bitmain next week.

[jwpoke]

Nimo, I was wondering if you can use well-known forwarding or drop ship services such as https://www.cnstorm.com/ or https://ex.superbuy.com/? I think some of them have warehouses in HK.

[Scorppro]

Wow.
What about the first few people that signed up? The ones that will actually USE the miner and not try to rip people off on eBay?
Yes... I signed up for 1 miner and was in the top 20 that first signed up. Please don't forget about the little guys that helped boost the sign up.
Thank you.

[Toughit]

Unless you asked for 50, then you can go home.

[nemopowertools]

Unless you asked for 50, then you can go home.

Not necessarily. We still don't know how many will drop from the list and how many Bitmain will actually give us. I assume that some of the larger orders will not go through since when we get the details and send all the information and payment details, they may not be able to or not want to act fast enough, and we won't wait too long since i don't want to lose the entire deal.

[ArtyTheLegend]

Unless you asked for 50, then you can go home.

Not necessarily. We still don't know how many will drop from the list and how many Bitmain will actually give us. I assume that some of the larger orders will not go through since when we get the details and send all the information and payment details, they may not be able to or not want to act fast enough, and we won't wait too long since i don't want to lose the entire deal.

Just emailed and tried to call.

[A.Delaney]

Unless you asked for 50, then you can go home.

Not necessarily. We still don't know how many will drop from the list and how many Bitmain will actually give us. I assume that some of the larger orders will not go through since when we get the details and send all the information and payment details, they may not be able to or not want to act fast enough, and we won't wait too long since i don't want to lose the entire deal.

Maybe it’s a bad idea, but I’ll just throw this out there. You could always limit the quantity per person so everyone gets at least gets something. Limit 20 per person or something like that.  This is the cheapest anyone is going to get an S9 without ordering it directly from Bitmain themselves. I’d rather take a reduced quantity than no quantity.

[coma24]

Nemo, why would you not make it first come, first served? If you're over subscribed then I don't see the need to service the 'big' buys first.

I held off on ordering through other mechanisms as a result of this group buy knowing that my order was on the list before reaching the original cutoff. It's disturbing to hear that the priority is shifting based on order size now.