HashFast announces specs for new ASIC: 400GH/s

[dogjunior]

It doesn't matter what your ToS said at the time of purchase, no one is going to be refunded 50-60 BTC.  It's absurd to even wish that could happen.  You're going to get $5600 (or whatever you paid in USD) back and that's it.

Where were you when they were claiming thats exactly what they'd do? I don't recall any posts from you on it then. I suppose you are not actually a HF customer and instead bought from their competition without these "absurd" claims, at 1/5th the price?

Why do you think it absurd?  If they'd collected the coins and sat on them— after all, they say their fabrication was paid for by investors not by spending preorder money— then they could easily return them.

Or do you mean its absurd in that they're now sitting on millions of dollars of other people's coins which they obligated themselves to return but can plausibly escape doing so without consequence because of the cost of a legal fight and the possibility of them spending themselves into bankruptcy first, and so it would be "absurd" to honor their agreement? Is that what you mean?

I doubt they were holding customer BTC. Given the swings that BTC has they would be crazy to play that game. They converted the BTC to USD to pay bills and for R&D. Do you think their employees work for free?

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[minternj]

Really do we need to have the refund in BTC debate every day?

What's really going on over there with the hardware? They said on the 28th they are going into production. They shipped some preproduction boards on new years eve. Now silence again. Did rev2 boards suck too?

[GlapLaw]

Really do we need to have the refund in BTC debate every day?

What's really going on over there with the hardware? They said on the 28th they are going into production. They shipped some preproduction boards on new years eve. Now silence again. Did rev2 boards suck too?

While I have no skin in the game, in some instances, they're allegedly holding hostage nearly $50k in bitcoins. I think that's a good cause for continuing to have this debate!

And it's interesting, and it has yet to be resolved.

[cedivad]

I'm taking the opportunity of you posting to point out a suggestion you gave them:

I dont know if the market can bare another pre-order asic company. Unless you have plans to sell before sep/oct i dont think you'll find many buyers. Good luck.

[pmorici]

For those wondering how many units were shiped on the 31st, a user over in the HashFast Google groups says HashFast customer support told him "2".

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/hashfast-customers/jPxxWX3wWs4/OZFH9hhqp4MJ

Hashfast got back to me on the number of Baby Jets they shipped out on the 31st.    

Ready for this....  They shipped out 2.  Not 2 orders....  2 Baby Jets.  

[minternj]

Really do we need to have the refund in BTC debate every day?

What's really going on over there with the hardware? They said on the 28th they are going into production. They shipped some preproduction boards on new years eve. Now silence again. Did rev2 boards suck too?

While I have no skin in the game, they're holding hostage nearly $50k of bitcoins for some people. I think that's a good cause for continuing to have this debate!

And it's interesting, and it has yet to be resolved.

We've had it for months and they have shown that they have ignored answering anything of importance regarding refunds on this forum. That is why it is useless to discuss anymore. By now we are just repeating opinions on the matter.

[minternj]

I'm taking the opportunity of you posting to point out a suggestion you gave them:

I dont know if the market can bare another pre-order asic company. Unless you have plans to sell before sep/oct i dont think you'll find many buyers. Good luck.

Well the lies such as btc refund and MPP suckered me in. Oh well, thats what you get for believing.

[JWU42]

There was a Sierra shipped as well on Dec 31st....

[Tehfiend]

It doesn't matter what your ToS said at the time of purchase, no one is going to be refunded 50-60 BTC.  It's absurd to even wish that could happen.  You're going to get $5600 (or whatever you paid in USD) back and that's it.

Where were you when they were claiming thats exactly what they'd do? I don't recall any posts from you on it then. I suppose you are not actually a HF customer and instead bought from their competition without these "absurd" claims, at 1/5th the price?

Why do you think it absurd?  If they'd collected the coins and sat on them— after all, they say their fabrication was paid for by investors not by spending preorder money— then they could easily return them.

Or do you mean its absurd in that they're now sitting on millions of dollars of other people's coins which they obligated themselves to return but can plausibly escape doing so without consequence because of the cost of a legal fight and the possibility of them spending themselves into bankruptcy first, and so it would be "absurd" to honor their agreement? Is that what you mean?

I really feel for HF customers but I too don't understand why so many people actually think a BTC refund is even possible. Their claim that they would give full BTC refunds actually was one of the reasons I decided not to order from HF because it sounded scammy since there's simply no way they could guarantee it with BTC's volatility. Yes they offered it but the sad fact is that it simply is not possible so begging the issue is just a waste of time. Focus on getting USD refunds or higher hashrate IMO...

[ninjarobot]

It doesn't matter what your ToS said at the time of purchase, no one is going to be refunded 50-60 BTC.  It's absurd to even wish that could happen.  You're going to get $5600 (or whatever you paid in USD) back and that's it.

Where were you when they were claiming thats exactly what they'd do? I don't recall any posts from you on it then. I suppose you are not actually a HF customer and instead bought from their competition without these "absurd" claims, at 1/5th the price?

Why do you think it absurd?  If they'd collected the coins and sat on them— after all, they say their fabrication was paid for by investors not by spending preorder money— then they could easily return them.

Or do you mean its absurd in that they're now sitting on millions of dollars of other people's coins which they obligated themselves to return but can plausibly escape doing so without consequence because of the cost of a legal fight and the possibility of them spending themselves into bankruptcy first, and so it would be "absurd" to honor their agreement? Is that what you mean?

I doubt they were holding customer BTC. Given the swings that BTC has they would be crazy to play that game. They converted the BTC to USD to pay bills and for R&D. Do you think their employees work for free?

According to Cypherdoc who was acting as a 'paid sponsor' and 'advisory board' member with HF:

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected as a paid sponsor for HashFast Technologies LLC.  I have also been asked to join their Board of Advisors.

no, it uses BitPay which will convert your USD to BTC.  

from what i understand, your BTC's are going to be guaranteed as well

Yes - what cypherdoc says is true - we endorse this.

they want only those committed to leaving their BTC with HashFast until the end of the year.  if they fail to deliver, they have said they will give full refunds in BTC.

once you see details of their Miner Protection Plan and refund details all your fears will melt away.

i've been told up, down, left and right that this is what they will promise.  i've even seen it written out in internal docs.  but whether or not they'll have the money to do a refund if the end of year rolls around is the risk you take.

This is what was being promised during the first week of sales. Go read yourself here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270363.0

None of Cypherdoc's claims were refuted (nor confirmed) by 'official' HF respresentatives though. But he was being paid by HF and a board member. So at least it set the tone & expectations HF wanted to set to drum up sales. The ToS and Order Confirmation are pretty clear on this however; The original payment will be fully refunded in the currency and amount it was paid in.

[Luke-Jr]

Sounds like Luke-Jr has his Baby-Jet and is trying to get it going at full speed (30gh/s at last check with cgminer and bfgminer). Check out the Eligius IRC channel for more info.

30gh/s? I don't even know if should i cry or should i laugh.

This is just with unfinished code, and possibly some problems with the unit.
Also, it's 30 Gh/s average. More like 600 Gh/s (haven't measured exactly), but not working 95% of the time.

[gmaxwell]

They converted the BTC to USD to pay bills and for R&D. Do you think their employees work for free?

I believe(d) their employees and R&D were paid by funds from their investors.

HashFast's prices were far too high to have justified participation as a investomer if that had been what they had said they were doing. At announcement the devices were selling at prices below to what you would have expected their lifetime income would have been for an time delivery assuming 2%/day hashrate growth (actual: 2.3%/day since mid august), and they were only redeemed up to break even by the MPP.  For the customer deal had fairly little upside under likely assumptions, and was only worth taking because it also had only moderate little downside potential if they adhered to their contract.

(Worst case assuming they didn't break their agreement would have been delivering on Dec 31st with the high growth, as we had.)

I really feel for HF customers but I too don't understand why so many people actually think a BTC refund is even possible. Their claim that they would give full BTC refunds actually was one of the reasons I decided not to order from HF because it sounded scammy since there's simply no way they could guarantee it with BTC's volatility. Yes they offered it but the sad fact is that it simply is not possible so begging the issue is just a waste of time. Focus on getting USD refunds or higher hashrate IMO...

Sure they could, they just needed a party to guarantee a floor value of their Bitcoin held, and they only needed enough of that to guarantee their parts costs and the minimum necessary margin (e.g. they didn't need to insure the whole amount). This is a service many large Bitcoin traders/holders would have been willing to provide for a fee. Also keep in mind that a refund still leaves them with the hardware and there is a tremendous demand for mining equipment. HashFast has been selling units for later delivery all through December.

Because the refunds were not payable until more than two months after their advertised target date— I'd personally assumed the reason for the mismatch between the target date and the guarantee date was to reduce the risk of revenue loss and a need to refill the order pipeline after a ordinarily late shipment triggered refunds.

[cedivad]

The mood tells me that one "single" lawyer for HashFast won't be enough. Shall we see how many are incoming...

[Bogart]

Sounds like Luke-Jr has his Baby-Jet and is trying to get it going at full speed (30gh/s at last check with cgminer and bfgminer). Check out the Eligius IRC channel for more info.

30gh/s? I don't even know if should i cry or should i laugh.

This is just with unfinished code, and possibly some problems with the unit.
Also, it's 30 Gh/s average. More like 600 Gh/s (haven't measured exactly), but not working 95% of the time.

That being the code that was shipped with the unit?

[Bogart]

I really feel for HF customers but I too don't understand why so many people actually think a BTC refund is even possible. Their claim that they would give full BTC refunds actually was one of the reasons I decided not to order from HF because it sounded scammy since there's simply no way they could guarantee it with BTC's volatility.

Sure they could guarantee it, and in fact they did just that.

All they had to do to make it possible was hold enough BTC to cover all of their BTC-denominated liabilities.  Having guaranteed those refunds in BTC, not doing so would be irresponsible at best, and criminal at worst.

[perezoso]

Sounds like Luke-Jr has his Baby-Jet and is trying to get it going at full speed (30gh/s at last check with cgminer and bfgminer). Check out the Eligius IRC channel for more info.

30gh/s? I don't even know if should i cry or should i laugh.

This is just with unfinished code, and possibly some problems with the unit.
Also, it's 30 Gh/s average. More like 600 Gh/s (haven't measured exactly), but not working 95% of the time.

I know it's not your code, but while you're sleeping, can you fire it up with cgminer and tell us what happens?  

I'm somehow doubting that it's going to churn along happily at 400gh+.

[Tehfiend]

I really feel for HF customers but I too don't understand why so many people actually think a BTC refund is even possible. Their claim that they would give full BTC refunds actually was one of the reasons I decided not to order from HF because it sounded scammy since there's simply no way they could guarantee it with BTC's volatility.

Sure they could guarantee it, and in fact they did just that.

All they had to do to make it possible was hold enough BTC to cover all of their BTC-denominated liabilities.  Having guaranteed those refunds in BTC, not doing so would be irresponsible at best, and criminal at worst.

So you believed that they would be able to design and manufacture everything without touching any of the pre-order funds?

[gmaxwell]

So you believed that they would be able to design and manufacture everything without touching any of the pre-order funds?

Yes, I did— or at least substantially. This is the norm in electronics manufacture, thats what investors are for, normally you don't have the customers funds before your design is done and manufactured. Pre-orders are unusual. Even in custom one off manufacture in the commercial market not only is payment normally provided _at delivery_ but goods are often invoiced net-30, so you won't get paid until sometime after delivery of the product.

Besides, you can factor out the exchange rate noise, just assume that the exchange rate was constant. In (some/most/all) states you are legally obligated to provide full refunds for pre-orders with fairly short notice on late delivery, and— obviously— in all states you are required to refund customers if you don't ship a product.  So they wouldn't have been able to meet even the most conventional of obligations, in the worst case (e.g. their design failed) if they'd been spending the pre-order funds to fund design and manufacturing.

In the mining space pre-order lets a maker lock in outsized prices and deny business to the competition by locking up the customers funds early. It might also be used to fund development and manufacture but if so, thats very risky, and may create all kind of adverse exposure for the business. Better to get investors with clearly established rights and obligations.

[jspielberg]

Gmaxwell's scenario is exactly what was we were led to believe because "the adults" had finally come to bitcoin asic miner manufacturing(and  they were investor backed and didn't need to use the Bitcoin for the first batch... Clearly we grossly misunderstood their statements).

[beavertank]

Gmaxwell's scenario is exactly what was we were led to believe because "the adults" had finally come to bitcoin asic miner manufacturing(and  they were investor backed and didn't need to use the Bitcoin for the first batch... Clearly we grossly misunderstood their statements).

Or they outright lied and fraudulently induced a lot of people into parting with their money. Fraud is an awfully adult crime, after all.