HashFast announces specs for new ASIC: 400GH/s

[Ytterbium]

Btw, the background image on their page is this: http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/gallery/images/_3000/IDI_018.jpg, a photo of a Google data center that was photo-shopped (the left and right sides are mirrored exactly) from this gallery

Asking for $500,000 up front, without giving any details about either how the chips work or even how many you'll get is kind of insane. I mean, I know a lot of companies that take big orders for things don't list prices - only phone numbers to call (which is annoying), but they usually have people to answer the phones, not just leave a voicemail.

It seems very strange that you would be able to handle $500k orders in escrow without being able to afford to hire a receptionist or even pay for legit clip art for your website.

[1715124588]

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[Bitcoinorama]

They need to detail a LOT more, irrespective of how Simon checks out, anyone handing over that much money in one lump sum right now would be a few waves short of a shipwreck.

For example; you are a distributor, or assembler based in Silicon Valley, California (within the same state as Hashfast); like Terrahash, you even pair with someone with a proven chip technology, like Bitsyncom's Avalon chips, produced in major semiconductor foundaries like TSMC (the same foundry as Hashfast intend to use), enter the figures it all seems to work out on paper, yet you are acutely aware of timescale.

You, as a distributor/assembler raise funds yourself from individuals who have recourse through your payment processors, i.e. your customers, as you wouldn't front such significant funds yourself on such a niche product with no assurance your personal funds would recover such a large sum if invested directly.

You design, order and purchase the parts you need and invest significant time, whilst all the time other chip offerings and alternative conpetiors appear on the market simultaneously.

Deadlines are missed, and that's one thing for a design company producing the chips to irritate individual consumers directly, admittedly inconveniencing them and delaying their ROI, but it's a completely different ball game if someone else's entire business plan, and ability to conduct future business endeavours depends on those chips in hand within a reasonable timeframe.

This example is very real. Terrahash's latest deadline for it's customers is mid-August before all hell breaks loose and there are mass refunds. Even if the chips are delivered in the next week or two, they are now screwed.

Any such big spenders would be crazy to emulate such practice with so many unknowns. This is very irresponsible, and very real. I had a lot of faith in Terrahash, and it's not their fault they are about to fold. Avalon has screwed them. Sure it's upsetting to see Batch #3 buyers possible miss ROI, but that's nothing compared to the time, effort and passion thrown into a business dependant on your side of the bargain.

I'm still scratching my head as to how and why such large amounts of funds are appearing to legitimately be requested in 36 hours. This cannot be a genuine request for blind funding...

[Inaba]

This is getting stranger and stranger.  Has anyone actually contacted these people IRL to verify a set of accounts weren't compromised or something to lend credibility to the offering?  However, asking for $500k seems like a self defeating scam, as no one with that kind of money to throw around would likely do so without some serious investigation into the process.  So why would you try to run a scam like that?

It's a bitcoin Inception scam.  Yeah!

[miter_myles]

nb4bfl_jab

[crumbs]

This is getting stranger and stranger.  Has anyone actually contacted these people IRL to verify a set of accounts weren't compromised or something to lend credibility to the offering?  However, asking for $500k seems like a self defeating scam, as no one with that kind of money to throw around would likely do so without some serious investigation into the process.  So why would you try to run a scam like that?

It's a bitcoin Inception scam.  Yeah!

The answer's in the footnotes:

"*For those interested in orders below USD $500k, send an SMS (text) message to (415) 480-4921 with the approximate USD amount that you would like to contribute to a group buy. We will get back to you if a credible group buy arrangement materializes."

[Bitcoinorama]

"*For those interested in orders below USD $500k, send an SMS (text) message to (415) 480-4921 with the approximate USD amount that you would like to contribute to a group buy. We will get back to you if a credible group buy arrangement materializes."

Have to raise my hand, admittedly I'd totally missed that!

[Ytterbium]

Also, I think it's kind of funny that you're offering to send just one buyer, the one who orders the most, out to San Jose to meet the team.  As if the kind of person who has money to throw around in $500k increments is going to worry about travel expenses, lol. Bitcoinorama traveled to Stolkholm on his own dime to check out KnC, and he only ordered (N?) Jupiters (IDK how many he ordered, it's not listed here)

Plus, let's keep it real - San Jose isn't exactly a top vacation hotspot

My impression is that if you're selling tech items at these kind of prices, you still have to make a big investment w.r.t sales.  Instead of buying ads, you hire sales guys to fly out to meet clients, offer to fly them out to see you - etc. Check out this video on McLaran factory.  They're selling $250k cars, my guess is that one of the reasons they made the factory so carefully designed is that they expected potential customers see it as part of the sales experience.  It wouldn't be surprising at all if someone who could afford that much would want to check out a factory tour. And you guys are charging twice as much!

The other problem is that as you invest more and more capacity into mining, you actually start to see diminishing returns, as you contribute more and more to the difficulty increases yourself.

And honestly I kind of doubt you'll be able to find many buyers at $500k, KnC hasn't even sold out of their October units yet. I think a lot of people are nervous about where the difficulty is going to be in October or November when KnC and a bunch of other units ship.

If I had $500k to invest in bitcoin mining, I'd be spending the money on my own chip designs, which would allow me to add more capacity for the cost of the wafers and packaging, ala ASICMiner and some of the other companies with that model (BTCGarden, for example). Or, I might consider designing an optimized Litecoin miner chip instead (which would basically be a CPU with some litecoin specific instructions and lots of really fast RAM).

___

There's also the question of, well, if I have $500k, why not just order 62 KnC jupiters? Why should someone buy your product instead?  If someone were to order from them today, they'd get real working units in October, where as with you they would get... what, exactly? Raw chips? Will they need their own PCBs? Will they need to design their own PCBs? What about software?  KnC supplied sample data to CGMiner developers to code against, so CGMiner should support KnC devices when they're released. And their own mining software works with the FPGA prototypes.  Do you guys have FPGA prototypes to test with?

And you guys aren't even giving a hashrate or chip count number for this money, which makes planning impossible.

They need to detail a LOT more, irrespective of how Simon checks out, anyone handing over that much money in one lump sum right now would be a few waves short of a shipwreck.

This example is very real. Terrahash's latest deadline for it's customers is mid-August before all hell breaks loose and there are mass refunds. Even if the chips are delivered in the next week or two, they are now screwed.

I'm still scratching my head as to how and why such large amounts of funds are appearing to legitimately be requested in 36 hours. This cannot be a genuine request for blind funding...

I wonder what's actually going on with these guys. It seems like they funded the design, through tape out themselves, yet now all of a sudden they're working with this new company that just started and all of sudden needs $500k in the next 36 hours for chips, but isn't even telling you how many chips you'll get for that much money, let alone what exactly supposed to even do with them once you get them.

I wonder if there's someone involved here with more money then sense:  Maybe HashFast had the funds to fund a high-end ASIC design, but doesn't have enough money left over for wafers or to design whole systems? That seems strange given they would have spent (based on my understanding) millions on the design.

Or maybe Gridfinity came in, got in contact with HashFast and bought up a bunch of chips and now doesn't know what to do with them, hoping to flip them for a quick profit without doing any work (not even bothering to setup a nice website or hire someone to answer the phone!)

It's also possible they simply licensed the design, and need $500k per order because they're planning on ordering the chips from the fab as the orders come in.

Again, the funds are supposedly going to be put in escrow, which would mean that they supposedly have the money they need.

Either way, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

[noah tall]

Bitcoinorama traveled to Stolkholm on his own dime to check out KnC, and he only ordered (N?) Jupiters

Does this prove anything?

There's also the question of, well, if I have $500k, why not just order 62 KnC jupiters? Why should someone buy your product instead?  If someone were to order from them today, they'd get real working units in October, where as with you they would get... what, exactly? Raw chips? 

"real working units"?  In my opinion the odds of looking at your KnC unit hashing away in your spare bedroom are about equal to looking at your HashFast unit hashing away in your spare bedroom.

They are both theoretical at this point.  Claiming one is real and one is not just seems naive.

[Loredo]

If you go back to the original announcement thread, I asked right up front if at t=7 (today, I think) that pre-orders would start.  The answer was yes.

Here's what might be happening.  In the intervening days, it became clear that a retail pre-order was going to be a very tough run.  They shifted gears, looking at the bitfury model, where you have Dave here in USA running the order book and taking the pre-order risk. 

Whether bitfury or metabank needed money up front from Dave or not, evidently these guys do.  And they probably need it by the end of the month to meet some invoice, deadline, or agreement.  Their new guy doesn't have the money, but he solicits for a big wholesale buyer - someone whose role would be isomorphic to Dave's role in the bitfury topology, including having credibility and trust inside the bitcoin community. 

They're evidently willing to give this "angel" a smokin' deal on the chips, or, rather, they probably are going to have to. 

That said, in one or two day's time on-site, someone who brought along his tech talent could probably get satisfaction from the design teams, including Uniquify's, check the fab scheduling, look at the books, make a decision as to how hard it would be to build out the enablements, and give it to the lawyer. 

It's not being pulled off with a lot of aplomb, but it still seems as plausible as many other deals in this crazy bitcoin universe.       

[HashFast]

Hi Everyone,

First, we want to assuage all of the speculation. HashFast did in fact do a limited distribution deal with Daniel Bateman's company Gridfinity.  
While Gridfinity has chosen to focus on large hosted solutions, this will by no means be HashFast's only distribution channel.

We will soon be opening public sales on our website, (a few details are still being worked out for this launch) which will include a smaller mining machine, designed for small 'family' mines, and a more dense machine designed for more aggressive miners. We are also in talks with several potential partners for hosted solutions at much smaller entry points, as has been requested by many members of this forum.

We are sorry if the timing of the deal with GridFinity caused confusion. That was not our intention. HashFast is committed to working with small miners and maintaining network diversity.

Watch this space for more information, coming soon.

John Skrodenis
HashFast.com

[rizzman]

Asking for US$500,000 with a 2 day window just reeks of dodgyness. Interesting that seemingly reputable people would endorse such offers without them even saying what share you get/ total investment sought etc.
I was very keen right up until I saw that post (which is locked it seems so no one can ask questions)

Same... suddenly got a funny feeling about them.  Not sure if it is just the large numbers for purchase, or the "different" sales model than what we are used to. 

For that kind of money, I would think a buyer would want contracts set up with firm deadlines and penalties for missing targets/deadlines... funds to be held by a "real" escrow service etc.  This is real estate pricing, and I would expect all the paper work and legal ramifications to be upto the same.

...And so the decentralized network concept became centralized...

[Ytterbium]

Bitcoinorama traveled to Stolkholm on his own dime to check out KnC, and he only ordered (N?) Jupiters

Does this prove anything?

Yes, it proves that people are willing to spend their own money to travel to check out investments, which was the point I was making.

There's also the question of, well, if I have $500k, why not just order 62 KnC jupiters? Why should someone buy your product instead?  If someone were to order from them today, they'd get real working units in October, where as with you they would get... what, exactly? Raw chips?  

"real working units"?  In my opinion the odds of looking at your KnC unit hashing away in your spare bedroom are about equal to looking at your HashFast unit hashing away in your spare bedroom.

They are both theoretical at this point.  Claiming one is real and one is not just seems naive.

*yawn*.  The "KnC is a scam" people are the ones who seem naive, frankly.

I'm not trying to say that KnC is "real" and that HashFast is a "scam", I am talking about the evidence that they'll actually be able to deliver what they promise when they promise.

Of course, so far Gridfinity isn't promising anything at all, other then maybe to return your voicemail and to take your money in $1/2 million chunks over the next 36 hours.

And the question is, why would anyone with that kind of money to throw around, and willing to take a risk with it, give it to them instead of buying 62 KnC Jupiters? Or developing their own chip, for that matter?

They haven't provided a reason.

Hi Everyone,

First, we want to assuage all of the speculation. HashFast did in fact do a limited distribution deal with Daniel Bateman's company Gridfinity.  
While Gridfinity has chosen to focus on large hosted solutions, this will by no means be HashFast's only distribution channel.

We will soon be opening public sales on our website, (a few details are still being worked out for this launch) which will include a smaller mining machine, designed for small 'family' mines, and a more dense machine designed for more aggressive miners. We are also in talks with several potential partners for hosted solutions at much smaller entry points, as has been requested by many members of this forum.

We are sorry if the timing of the deal with GridFinity caused confusion. That was not our intention. HashFast is committed to working with small miners and maintaining network diversity.

Watch this space for more information, coming soon.

John Skrodenis
HashFast.com

That's good.

[dwdoc]

Basically a venture capitalist is going to have to look at this the same way a customer decides whether to pre-order a miner from a company. What is their pedigree? What is the product? Is the timetable realistic? How will future difficulty affect ROI? etc.

[Loredo]

Okay, now it makes sense.  The new guy wants to do big hosted farms, according to Skrodenis, and he didn't make that clear this morning.

It's apparently a side deal in HashFast's plan, and they are still going to go ahead with retail themselves in some shape or form, including the potential for hosted buy-ins.

Nothing more to see now until the price and specs announcement.

[noah tall]

*yawn*.  The "KnC is a scam" people are the ones who seem naive, frankly.

I'm not trying to say that KnC is "real" and that HashFast is a "scam", I am talking about the evidence that they'll actually be able to deliver what they promise when they promise.

I never said KnC is a scam.  My claim was that KnC and HashFast share several potential problems delivering a bitcoin hashing machine to your doorstep.  Neither one has shown

"evidence that they'll actually be able to deliver what they promise when they promise."

[rizzman]

http://www.gridfinity.com/forums (and here's what the 404 page for gridfinity.com, multimillion dollar company, tells us ):
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Thanks for the link, killer  Next time, put a bit more effort into it.
http://s7.postimg.org/k8ih5bfbf/Capture.jpg

Right... because spending days (or weeks) on web design/dev instead of working on business plan or hardware or distribution channels makes more sense....

If you expect anyone to take you seriously, yes.
If you have $$$ to toss at a web developer, for sure.
If you just want to scam a couple of marks with no common sense, and don't even have the money to pay for hosting, NO.

Edit:  Business plan?
1.  Announce a 28nm chip
2.  Don't ask Ask for pre-order money
3  ? ? ?
4.  PROFIT!!!

I would say a good quality website is only needed to be ready if/when they have something ready for retail.
So far I personally have an agnostic opinion of them, but having a full fledged website does not factor in.

Just think about it, if their intention was to really scam people, they would put all their time and effort in making a buzzword loaded marketing scam.

Are you kidding me?! Scamming aside, when you come on to any form of advertisement, asking for HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars, in less than 48 hours, you damn sure better have done your homework. If I had that much money to throw around, I would definitely look at this as an indicator, these aren't $150 Jalapeno's these guys are trying to sell, these are the equivalent of purchasing a McMansion... FastHash, you guys are losing major street cred by supporting these guys on such short notice...

[Ytterbium]

I never said KnC is a scam.  My claim was that KnC and HashFast share several potential problems delivering a bitcoin hashing machine to your doorstep.  Neither one has shown

"evidence that they'll actually be able to deliver what they promise when they promise."

Uh, what you said was this:

"real working units"?  In my opinion the odds of looking at your KnC unit hashing away in your spare bedroom are about equal to looking at your HashFast unit hashing away in your spare bedroom.

They are both theoretical at this point.  Claiming one is real and one is not just seems naive.

You said the odds were equal. But just because two things are not 100% certain does not make them equivalent. Usain Bolt and Rosanne Barr can both claim they'll win an Olympic medal in 2016.  The fact that neither is 100% certain doesn't mean that the two claims have equal weight.

Before HashFast clarified the situation, the Gridfinity announcement made it seem like they didn't know what they were doing.

[erschiessen]

Notice was short to bitcointalk, but I doubt that they were hasty decisions by Hashfast or GridInfinity.

[Ytterbium]

Notice was short to bitcointalk, but I doubt that they were hasty decisions by Hashfast or GridInfinity.

Well, let's hope they were - because if Gridfinity's business model is sound and there are lots of people looking to spend $500k on bitcoin mining hardware then we may be completely screwed as far as future difficulty  

I also think Gridfinity would have put more thought into their announcement and built a better website - the just asked for money, and didn't even mention they were selling hosting as opposed to raw chips, complete units, or whatever.

[noah tall]

I never said KnC is a scam.  My claim was that KnC and HashFast share several potential problems delivering a bitcoin hashing machine to your doorstep.  Neither one has shown

"evidence that they'll actually be able to deliver what they promise when they promise."

Uh, what you said was this:

"real working units"?  In my opinion the odds of looking at your KnC unit hashing away in your spare bedroom are about equal to looking at your HashFast unit hashing away in your spare bedroom.

They are both theoretical at this point.  Claiming one is real and one is not just seems naive.

You said the odds were equal. But just because two things are not 100% certain does not make them equivalent. Usain Bolt and Rosanne Barr can both claim they'll win an Olympic medal in 2016.  The fact that neither is 100% certain doesn't mean that the two claims have equal weight.

Before HashFast clarified the situation, the Gridfinity announcement made it seem like they didn't know what they were doing.

Milestone                    KnC Miner      HashFast
-----------                 -----------    ----------
Announcement             Yes               Yes
Details of Chip              No                No
Working Chip                No                No
Video of unit hashing     No                No
Delivery of units           No                 No
Percentage of network   0%                0%


My post above said "about equal".  I stand by that appraisal.