HashFast announces specs for new ASIC: 400GH/s

[fredthedog]

At this point I feel I can address some of what I have read on this forum that is just crazy talk:

There is no 16nm chip. Wow. Now that would be something. New chip designs were in development that  would apparently get more performance out of 28nm.

There is no secret mining bunker. The liquidbits kickback deal was a bit of a surprise to me, but the actual amount of GHS shipped to liquidbits was fairly negligible and I'm sure they never paid anything back to HF considering what they were owed. There was absolutely no HF mining operation beyond burn-in and engineering. There was never a surplus of hardware, and when there was, there was nowhere to plug it in.

There were no "used" boards sold to anyone, including VMC. Every single board was tested, and that test process involved applying thermal paste. Without it the chips overheat in seconds. In the interest of shipping rapidly, the paste was not cleaned off the dies by the contract manufacturer.

There is no money. The company has been completely undercapitalized from the get-go. I am not sure why it took so long for management to realize this. Some sort of cognitive dissonance set in.   Most of the haphazard decisions and erratic behavior can be explained by a lack of money and hardware that only worked perfectly at about 75% yield. There was also a bit of an obsession with setting the performance bar for hardware at near the theoretical maximum at the expense of yield and reliability.

There was no extravagant spending, no gold plated yachts, Caribbean vacations or anything else. If anything they were fairly cheap. The offices were actually a bargain and a short term lease. Many decisions were made, however, with the expectation of rapid growth. Money was thrown at problems under the assumption that sales would keep rolling in.

Building hardware is expensive. Really expensive. Especially in a hurry, and especially when it doesn't work quite right. So are lawyers.

If there are missing millions, it will be because of outright sloppy accounting.  A tremendous amount of orders were taken in a very short time with nowhere near the amount of financial oversight that should have been present. I would not be surprised if they pull a GOX and find something in a wallet that got overlooked. 

 

[perezoso]

At this point I feel I can address some of what I have read on this forum that is just crazy talk:

And you, sir, by what name do you go in the real world?

On "bunkers" there seems to be a misunderstanding.  That's Cedivad's preferred expression for an llc or other corporate entity that might try to hold IP assets out of a BK proceeding.

 

[dhenson]

At this point I feel I can address some of what I have read on this forum that is just crazy talk:

There is no 16nm chip. Wow. Now that would be something. New chip designs were in development that  would apparently get more performance out of 28nm.

There is no secret mining bunker. The liquidbits kickback deal was a bit of a surprise to me, but the actual amount of GHS shipped to liquidbits was fairly negligible and I'm sure they never paid anything back to HF considering what they were owed. There was absolutely no HF mining operation beyond burn-in and engineering. There was never a surplus of hardware, and when there was, there was nowhere to plug it in.

There were no "used" boards sold to anyone, including VMC. Every single board was tested, and that test process involved applying thermal paste. Without it the chips overheat in seconds. In the interest of shipping rapidly, the paste was not cleaned off the dies by the contract manufacturer.

There is no money. There really hasn't been any money for a long time. I am not sure why it took so long for management to realize this. Most of the haphazard decisions and erratic behavior can be explained by a lack of money and hardware that only worked perfectly at about 75% yield. There was also a bit of an obsession with setting the performance bar for hardware at near the theoretical maximum at the expense of yield and reliability.

There was no extravagant spending, no gold plated yachts, Caribbean vacations or anything else. If anything they were fairly cheap. The offices were actually a bargain and a short term lease. Many decisions were made, however, with the expectation of rapid growth. Money was thrown at problems under the assumption that sales would keep rolling in.

Building hardware is expensive. Really expensive. Especially in a hurry, and especially when it doesn't work quite right. So are lawyers.

If there are missing millions, it will be because of outright sloppy accounting.  A tremendous amount of orders were taken in a very short time with nowhere near the amount of financial oversight that should have been present. I would not be surprised if they pull a GOX and find something in a wallet that got overlooked. 

0 Post history... I'm surprised you guys aren't tired of trying to manipulate sentiment yet.  Edwardo, go home already. You've failed at your little attempt at playing to peoples softer side.

[fredthedog]

At this point I feel I can address some of what I have read on this forum that is just crazy talk:

And you, sir, what name do you go by in the real world?

I'm just a dog. 

Up until recently I have been afraid to have my name associated with this company at all because of the ensuing harassment. The bulk of people listed on hashfast.org haven't even been involved with the company for ages.

A lot of people have worked their asses off in good faith trying to fix the situation because there was always hope things would turn around. Management never intended to defraud anyone, but just didn't know when to admit they were in too deep.

Lots of people have personally paid the price for having faith, myself included. Let's just say I am a creditor.

[dhenson]

I'm just a dog. 

Up until recently I have been afraid to have my name associated with this company at all because of the ensuing harassment. The bulk of people listed on hashfast.org haven't even been involved with the company for ages.

A lot of people have worked their asses off in good faith trying to fix the situation because there was always hope things would turn around. Management never intended to defraud anyone, but just didn't know when to admit they were in too deep.

Lots of people have personally paid the price for having faith, myself included. Let's just say I am a creditor.

Alright, I'll bite.

So, explain to me how you can justify the blatant lies about btc refunds in the beginning?  Us first batch customers were highly skeptic... you only got those orders due to that promise.

[perezoso]

I'll bite too.

There were no "used" boards sold to anyone, including VMC. Every single board was tested, and that test process involved applying thermal paste. Without it the chips overheat in seconds. In the interest of shipping rapidly, the paste was not cleaned off the dies by the contract manufacturer.

If the boards were being built by a contract manufacturer for VMC, how did they come - and I've seen pictures of several this way - to have all the different rev stickers on them?

If there are missing millions, it will be because of outright sloppy accounting.  A tremendous amount of orders were taken in a very short time with nowhere near the amount of financial oversight that should have been present. I would not be surprised if they pull a GOX and find something in a wallet that got overlooked.  

You seem to think that all the employees and management acted in good faith, except conceding that the liquidbits deal was "surprising", but those millions have to be somewhere.  A lost wallet is a little too convenient and, to me, implausible given how damn hard Eddie must have been looking for money in the last several months.  

Do you apply the same cheerful outlook on employees' intent to the porn crowd?  And what is the origin of the relationship, and nature of the relationship. with Scrotum and company?

[Entropy-uc]

I can't really share much of substance beyond what has been said already.  But there are a couple points worth mentioning.

- the judge specifically said he expected the Delaware LLC to be put into bankruptcy along with Hahsfast, and in his court.
- Hashfast stipulated that they will wait until the end of the 21 day response period and then attempt a Chapter 11 filing. this essentially derailed Liquidbits application for a trustee, but in practice it just pushes the takeover a few days.

Laughing at the insider who suddenly pops up to share information.  You are right to be worried, we WILL be coming for the money your extracted from this scam, and more.  My eye is on criminal charges for everyone involved.

[Minor Miner]

At this point I feel I can address some of what I have read on this forum that is just crazy talk:

There is no 16nm chip. Wow. Now that would be something. New chip designs were in development that  would apparently get more performance out of 28nm.

There is no secret mining bunker. The liquidbits kickback deal was a bit of a surprise to me, but the actual amount of GHS shipped to liquidbits was fairly negligible and I'm sure they never paid anything back to HF considering what they were owed. There was absolutely no HF mining operation beyond burn-in and engineering. There was never a surplus of hardware, and when there was, there was nowhere to plug it in.

There were no "used" boards sold to anyone, including VMC. Every single board was tested, and that test process involved applying thermal paste. Without it the chips overheat in seconds. In the interest of shipping rapidly, the paste was not cleaned off the dies by the contract manufacturer.

There is no money. The company has been completely undercapitalized from the get-go. I am not sure why it took so long for management to realize this. Some sort of cognitive dissonance set in.   Most of the haphazard decisions and erratic behavior can be explained by a lack of money and hardware that only worked perfectly at about 75% yield. There was also a bit of an obsession with setting the performance bar for hardware at near the theoretical maximum at the expense of yield and reliability.

There was no extravagant spending, no gold plated yachts, Caribbean vacations or anything else. If anything they were fairly cheap. The offices were actually a bargain and a short term lease. Many decisions were made, however, with the expectation of rapid growth. Money was thrown at problems under the assumption that sales would keep rolling in.

Building hardware is expensive. Really expensive. Especially in a hurry, and especially when it doesn't work quite right. So are lawyers.

If there are missing millions, it will be because of outright sloppy accounting.  A tremendous amount of orders were taken in a very short time with nowhere near the amount of financial oversight that should have been present. I would not be surprised if they pull a GOX and find something in a wallet that got overlooked. 

 

Thanks for the update.    What is your position at Hashfast?   Are you senior enough to take seriously.   Try posting under your own name if you want to have credibility.   "or did you just find this forum today and decide to post"
I am tired of idiot people like you trying to play games.

[fredthedog]

Alright, I'll bite.

So, explain to me how you can justify the blatant lies about btc refunds in the beginning?  Us first batch customers were highly skeptic... you only got those orders due to that promise.

Dunno. That stuff was before my time. I will say that even though that lawsuit started the process, I think it has far less merit than the cases with Liquidbits and other creditors. If that case was the only legal trouble and they could afford to fight it, they would have won. A post in a forum or verbal statements from a customer service rep does not equal a contract.  

Common sense would dictate that a prepayment for a purchase in a highly volatile "property" would be converted back to the fiat exchange rate especially if the purpose of that payment is to fund building the product. I'm quite sure that if BTC had crashed to $1, everyone would be demanding their fiat price back. That said, yes, it is certainly facepalm worthy that they didn't foresee this scenario. They should have made it explicitly clear what exactly the refund terms would be. But this horse is dead. Those claims would only pay off if there were deep pockets to go after and lawyers could be paid enough to keep the case going long enough to force a settlement. Now there is a bankruptcy and $USD and paper contracts are all that are going to matter.

[Syke]

They should have made it explicitly clear what exactly the refund terms would be.

They did. They explicitly claimed refunds would be exactly the same number of BTC as a refund.

[fredthedog]

I'll bite too.

If the boards were being built by a contract manufacturer for VMC, how did they come - and I've seen pictures of several this way - to have all the different rev stickers on them?

The boards were built by a contact manufacturer for VMC. They were not used for any sort of mining by hashfast other than a test of a few minutes per board. The reference design that VMC was building off required multiple sequential reworks, each tracked with a sticker. That doesn't make it a very good reference design, but it was the best working design at the time. Engineering and production were happening way too fast with too much overlap so that's the way it had to happen for the timeframe involved.

You seem to think that all the employees and management acted in good faith, except conceding that the liquidbits deal was "surprising", but those millions have to be somewhere.  A lost wallet is a little too convenient and, to me, implausible given how damn hard Eddie must have been looking for money in the last several months.  

I really don't know, I didn't have access to the finances. I do know it was pretty obvious that things were a mess and the accountant was overwhelmed. There should have been a CFO and strict procedures on dealing with BTC from the start. They did take action to get finances in order and bring in proper controls, but by the time things got rolling the cashflow issues were so bad it sort of didn't matter. It is also possible they might have just overshot the market and were way too optimistic on how much money was allocated to chip production as opposed to board and box production.

Do you apply the same cheerful outlook on employees' intent to the porn crowd?  And what is the origin of the relationship, and nature of the relationship. with Scrotum and company?

Sigh. So professional around here...
Certain individuals bore the brunt of initial flack as they were the most public face of sales for the company. Whatever industry they worked in previously is not particularly relevant. Said individuals have actually not been involved with the company for some time. You might be surprised how sympathetic some of those individuals were to the customer concerns being raised in this forum and it may have been part of the reason they left the company. That's all I can say about that.
 

[aasl]

They should have made it explicitly clear what exactly the refund terms would be.

They did. They explicitly claimed refunds would be exactly the same number of BTC as a refund.

when did they claim such refund?

[aasl]

in fredthedog's world, the company works totally fine, until someday "boom" and found a serious problem. it is not your fault, right?

But in the real world, your "dream" company hide every truth, keeps lying, not updating, not responding, ignoring all the requests, and keeps posting fake news to draw more money!

[Syke]

when did they claim such refund?

Here's one quote:

Now since the only payment option is in BTC Will I get the same ammount of BTC back should you fail to deliver by December 31st?

Orders are taken in BTC, in the unlikely event we get to refunds they will be given in BTC.

[Micky25]

fred sounds credible, like HF-Engineer did https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=234041

Welcome back and thanks for your commitment.

[Minor Miner]

when did they claim such refund?

Here's one quote:

Now since the only payment option is in BTC Will I get the same ammount of BTC back should you fail to deliver by December 31st?

Orders are taken in BTC, in the unlikely event we get to refunds they will be given in BTC.

[fredthedog]

fred sounds credible, like HF-Engineer did https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=234041

Welcome back and thanks for your commitment.

I am not hf-engineer.

But yeah, he's a good guy and representative of the people who have been working their asses off to try and make things right. I'm not sure what his current involvement is, but he certainly has been committed. This company represented a lot to a bunch of good people. We're not happy it came to this either. And we certainly aren't sitting on our piles of paper wallets or overseeing our vast mining farms laughing maniacally. There are a lot of people who took a financial and emotional beating on this side as well.

[fredthedog]

Huh. Well this is interesting.

Apparently the court posted audio of the entire hearing. This is public record:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7804267/hashfast%20hearing%20federal%20bankruptcy%205.23.2014.mp3

Looks like your next hour and a half is occupied:



And the order on what happened today:

Hearing held and continued. The arbitration order issued on 5/8/14 will remain in effect until further order of the court. The Court orally orders that the debtor is not to engage in transactions outside the normal course of business. A continued hearing will be held on 5/28/14 at 9:30 a.m. (related document(s): [8] Motion to Appoint Trustee filed by Liquidbits Corp.) Hearing scheduled for 05/28/2014 at 09:30 AM at San Francisco Courtroom 22 - Montali.



1NuxSAjgTX9yKPiRqjCm68TVPfFZ4mx9R6

[VinceSamios]

Here's a video I did on the VMC produced Yoli Evo - go sticker hunting folks :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr281yTrCVY&feature=youtu.be

[Minor Miner]

fred sounds credible, like HF-Engineer did https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=234041

Welcome back and thanks for your commitment.

I am not hf-engineer.

But yeah, he's a good guy and representative of the people who have been working their asses off to try and make things right. I'm not sure what his current involvement is, but he certainly has been committed. This company represented a lot to a bunch of good people. We're not happy it came to this either. And we certainly aren't sitting on our piles of paper wallets or overseeing our vast mining farms laughing maniacally. There are a lot of people who took a financial and emotional beating on this side as well.

So why don't you detail for us where you think all the money went?   They seem to only have bought chips, so where did the other 20 Million or so go?