HashFast announces specs for new ASIC: 400GH/s

[fredthedog]

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?

I am not really qualified to do much more than speculate. First off, I'm sure 20 million did not actually come in.  Many of the largest deals had staged payments upon delivery. And where is that number coming from anyways? Someone's linkedin profile?

It's not that hard to blow through millions when you are trying to cram a new 28nm chip through rapid production and buy enough silicon to dominate the market. Substantial cash was spent upfront on securing bulk quantities of components for chassis and board production. I'm sure the court filings will very soon be showing exactly the inventory on hand. I know for a fact it is still there and is fairly substantial. Hashfast had to lock in large quantities for long lead-time parts in order to secure the supply chain. That's a high stakes game with the timeframes in question. As a new company it's all cash upfront.

As I understand it, Ciara was also prepaid a bunch of money to gear up for mass production and cover express shipping around the world, and then ended up sitting idle much of the time because the boards were not ready. There were other issues with changing horses in midstream and the usual technical snafus.

Most of the problems come down to biting off more than they could chew, going too fast, and the fact that the first revisions of boards just didn't work right and all the timing and supply chain logistics depended on that. And ultimately the price of hardware has plummeted and the difficulty has skyrocketed in a matter of months.

When they missed the first delivery date they did indeed pay refunds. I'm not sure how much, but they went out. There were also legal settlements and a lot of money spent on lawyers as soon as this happened.

The situation right now sucks. The EVO technology, chips and firmware now work quite well and if cranked out in a no-frills package could be very competitive. But without some drastic action from the courts and creditors and some kind of cash infusion, it does not look good.   BFL is probably in just as bad shape. I feel like the USA's ASIC technology just launched and already needs a bailout. The Ants are eating everyone's lunch. I guess that's bitcoin time.

[Puppet]

. A post in a forum or verbal statements from a customer service rep does not equal a contract.  

IANAL, but the above Im pretty sure is completely incorrect. Even oral contracts are usually enforceable:
http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2011/10/are-oral-contracts-enforceable.html

And in this case, its written down, and not by a random sales rep, but by one of the company's principle officers and cofounder.

[Minor Miner]

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?

I am not really qualified to do much more than speculate. First off, I'm sure 20 million did not actually come in.  Many of the largest deals had staged payments upon delivery. And where is that number coming from anyways? Someone's linkedin profile?

You do not huh?   Seems strange if you were in the company.
Just in court today were only 30 customers with a total of $9 Million in orders
IceDrill paid $2M
Some kid paid $1.1M and was promised two week delivery by john.

There, we are only up to 33 customers and already at over $12MM.   How much did the other 500 customers order?

20 seems to be pretty easy to get to.

[cedivad]

Hi fredthedog, happy that you joined. You would have been more appreciated in October, when you guys were lying out of your teeths about basically everything to everyone. The fact that the majority of the people listed at hashfast.org are not involved with the company anymore doesn't prove their innocence or good faith, that is the requirement to have their name removed from my point of view.

A "2.5 to 3 times" more efficient chip at 16nm would have been a failure. The same performance at 28nm, so with lower tapeout costs... Now we are talking! Good job. Is there a scrypt asic too? And what is the development stage of both chips?

Unfortunately, the majority of what you say doesn't make any sense, but thank you for having joined the conversation.

[Bicknellski]

Having listened to the recording it seems to look like a move to a voluntary Chapter 11.

It looks like the judge has set that there will be 'protections' put in place until then and the people seeking relief will get relief. Very positive for the creditors and debtor I think.

40,000 chips in hand at HF from the records.

The $ per Gh/s worth less each day on the HF chips. The sharks are circling and it doesn't matter no one is going to pay top dollar now for anything given the competition. You won't get a lot for these without a board, and a team that can build them. You have competition and the longer sales take the LESS everyone is going to get. Find someone that can run production is your only hope to recover anything for creditors.

$1 Gh/s is what AM is selling them there might be a floor you want... but every week you delay the floor will be dropping out from under you. All these parties are going to have to get together and FIX this fast or you are all screwed.

See you on Wednesday.

[cedivad]

So their chapter 11 will be financed by selling chips. "selling chips will enable chapter 11". That sounds like they don't have any external investors, and we are wasting another week at minimum to know a plan that will bring in a tiny amount of liquidity... It's ridiculous, as it is ridiculous to hide their "price lists" (that I'm sure was written yesterday), since that the production costs are public already, and not thanks to me.

I don't like them lying. Their lawyer is not even funny. Please destroy them. Let's hope the judge to type hashfast on Google and to find the .org, the ars articles, etc.

Find someone that can run production is your only hope to recover anything for creditors.

LB is basically our best hope and our worst enemy. Let's see what happens. I don't think there to be many others with millions to risk. I'm waiting to hear their proposal, and to know how we can invest ourselves.

[Puppet]

Im not sure what Im missing. At $1 per GH, 40K chips x  650GH per chip = $26M, so that chip inventory alone is worth at least $20M (assuming they are chips, not dies).
Just as importantly, there is the maskset and IP that allows a nearly unlimited number of chips to be produced, almost certainly for a cost that is below $100 per chip in volume (my actual estimate is $35), and a market value that of course will drop, but is still >$500 today and will remain well above $100 for quite some time.

Im just a bystander, but chapter 11 makes most sense to me. Perhaps with a forced change of management, but clearly there is potential to turn this around.

[perezoso]

Fredthe(anonymous)dog, you are asking me to offer "professional" respect to a torture porn marketer that sold vapor hardware to the tunes of tens of millions and silently walked away?  Tough shit, some professions don't deserve "professional" courtesy.   (And now you say the same guy lies on his resume?)

But, okay, with so many people "working their asses off" to make things right, as you repeatedly claim, and with a management with no ill intent, as you also repeatedly claim, and even a sales manager sympathetic to the customer, and you now claim, in your saintly scenario, just what did go wrong?  

Are you really saying that we should believe that it was just because Simon was too obsessive about a perfect output, and an overworked accountant who simply "lost" millions of dollars and/or private keys?

Pshaw!   (And by the way, I have a great new solar-powered 10 terahash machine to sell you for only 100 bitcoins.)

Maybe you are disappointed because there was naive commitment and optimism among some of the junior employees, a comraderie and enthusiasm that now seems to have been misplaced, so you are working to rationalize out a 'no fault' narrative for yourself and friends in your own head?  

I'm perfectly able to accept that there were people working at Hashfast that gave it an honest go and worked to try to "turn things around", as you said.  Unfortunately, I find it impossible to extend this cloak of naivete to the people who were making so many false promises and, yes, lies, to their customers - whose interests they actively undermined with liquidbits, VMC, and the like - and who made so much of their money go "poof" in a giant cloud of nothing.

[cedivad]

@Puppet, you seem to be knowledgeable. Thus my question: Why would anyone want to buy them at $1/GH? The price of a complete miner in stock with half the efficiency?  Peppermining, as per allegations, is buying them at $0.38/GH. Unloading 40k chips at that price would make everyone happy, but I don't think it's gonna happen. We need money and to make boards, and we need to make it fast. And we need that trustee, too, fast.  I don't think I will be able to stand to listen to their lawyers lies for long.

[Bicknellski]

@Puppet, you seem to be knowledgeable. Thus my question: Why would anyone want to buy them at $1/GH? The price of a complete miner in stock with half the efficiency?  Peppermining, as per allegations, is buying them at $0.38/GH. Unloading 40k chips at that price would make everyone happy, but I don't think it's gonna happen. We need money and to make boards, and we need to make it fast. And we need that trustee, too, fast.  I don't think I will be able to stand to listen to their lawyers lies for long.

Exactly.

The floor is dropping fast.

ASiCminer is 1$ and they are too pricy when you can get a whole fricken miner for about $1 a Gh/s for the S1 and under $2 gh/s for 6.5Th/s monster in the SP30s in August. It is nuts but if they don't get off their asses here in the next 3 to 4 weeks you are going to have to basically take the IP and produce 100s of thousands of chips and sell them at a few pennies each to fix this come July or August.

As an example I thought my purchase of 2 SP30s for only $0.69 per Gh/s is a solid buy with delivery for 13 Th/s. But you know what... the more I look into August I fear I just spent double what the $ per Gh/s will be then or worse. You have to have $ to make the board or you go with slash and burn policy and dump as many cheaper chips on the market as you can and recoup that way. In fact I suspect if HF in Chapter 11 did that you guys would be fully restored with proper compensation. You would kill off a lot of competitors as well.

[cedivad]

But you know what... the more I look into August I fear I just spent double what the $ per Gh/s will be then or worse.

If HF really has a 28nm design that is 2 to 3 times more efficient than the previous one, and if they really taped it out already, we are basically safe. When you make such a claim in a contract, you need to have already accounted for the money to pay for it, right? Or were you just hoping on more sales from the very people you screwed? "our customers are mainly returning customers", re their lawyers bs.

If they didn't do the tapeout yet, and we raise enough to pay for it, I would at least consider it. Efficiency will be paramount in a matter of weeks and that design, if viable, could be really valuable.

[Bicknellski]

But you know what... the more I look into August I fear I just spent double what the $ per Gh/s will be then or worse.

If HF really has a 28nm design that is 2 to 3 times more efficient than the previous one, and if they really taped it out already, we are basically safe. When you make such a claim in a contract, you need to have already accounted for the money to pay for it, right? Or were you just hoping on more sales from the very people you screwed? "our customers are mainly returning customers", re their lawyers bs.

If they didn't do the tapeout yet, and we raise enough to pay for it, I would at least consider it. Efficiency will be paramount in a matter of weeks and that design, if viable, could be really valuable.

Yup... so much to know. So little time. I don't envy anyone who is involved in this mess. Creditor or Debtor at this point doesn't matter. You have to kiss and make up so fast that you are going to feel like a whore no matter what happens. But given the push in the courtroom today I think even if the lawyers don't get it the parties do understand there is little time for hate left. You will have to suck it and work out the best solution for everyone. It could be the turd of all turds or you could come out ok.

I think it was a smart move to force this and put, as it was said so well before, the adults in charge. If you have 40,000 working chips then you do have a great resource from which to build something.

[kleeck]

@Puppet, you seem to be knowledgeable. Thus my question: Why would anyone want to buy them at $1/GH? The price of a complete miner in stock with half the efficiency?  Peppermining, as per allegations, is buying them at $0.38/GH. Unloading 40k chips at that price would make everyone happy, but I don't think it's gonna happen. We need money and to make boards, and we need to make it fast. And we need that trustee, too, fast.  I don't think I will be able to stand to listen to their lawyers lies for long.

VMC is already positioned for mass board manufacturing. See below:

http://virtualminingcorp.com/shop1/index.php?id_product=43&controller=product

Also

http://virtualminingcorp.com/shop1/index.php?id_product=44&controller=product

[Puppet]

@Puppet, you seem to be knowledgeable. Thus my question: Why would anyone want to buy them at $1/GH? The price of a complete miner in stock with half the efficiency?

Where can you buy complete miners in stock for $1/GH? Cheapest seems to be antminer S1 at ~$1.25/GH but also at half the efficiency of HF boards. Spoonsomething is a closer comparison, but they are charging $2/GH for their miners. Regardless, even if market price where only $0.5/GH or a little below that, it still seems like the inventory alone would more than cover the outstanding debt, with the company having the potential to produce a lot more for profit.

 Peppermining, as per allegations, is buying them at $0.38/GH. Unloading 40k chips at that price would make everyone happy, but I don't think it's gonna happen. We need money and to make boards, and we need to make it fast. And we need that trustee, too, fast.  I don't think I will be able to stand to listen to their lawyers lies for long.

If you dont have money, but you do have working chips and a working board design, the solution seems rather obvious; go the asicminer route, and supply chips and license your boards. To be fair to hashfast, that seems to be what they are doing lately.

[perezoso]

Peppermining, as per allegations, is buying them at $0.38/GH. Unloading 40k chips at that price would make everyone happy, but I don't think it's gonna happen. We need money and to make boards, and we need to make it fast. And we need that trustee, too, fast.  I don't think I will be able to stand to listen to their lawyers lies for long.

If you dont have money, but you do have working chips and a working board design, the solution seems rather obvious; go the asicminer route, and supply chips and license your boards. To be fair to hashfast, that seems to be what they are doing lately.

If you erased all the debt off the books and screwed everybody here except those looking to profit from the carcass, then that plan would possibly allow Hashfast to go ahead as a viable business.  

The problem is that, well, it screws everybody here.  Except those looking to profit from the carcass (or who are already feeding on the dying beast).

I'm not against turning the chips into boards, I'm just against turning the chips into boards at the expense of the creditor, especially the small ones.  

And anybody that engaged in kickback deals with Hashfast must expect the size of their claim to be reduced by at least the amount of the kickback they agreed to provide Hashfast.

So, ah, say take your liquidbits kind of guy.  He bought 7500 chips (2500 sierras x 3 chips each).  He promised to give 25% of the income to Hashfast.  

So if we're divvying up the chips like this, in my estimation his legitimate claim is to around 5625 chips (7500x.75), less whatever he received.

[BitCoin Operated Boy]

@Puppet, you seem to be knowledgeable. Thus my question: Why would anyone want to buy them at $1/GH? The price of a complete miner in stock with half the efficiency?

Where can you buy complete miners in stock for $1/GH? Cheapest seems to be antminer S1 at ~$1.25/GH but also at half the efficiency of HF boards. Spoonsomething is a closer comparison, but they are charging $2/GH for their miners. Regardless, even if market price where only $0.5/GH or a little below that, it still seems like the inventory alone would more than cover the outstanding debt, with the company having the potential to produce a lot more for profit.

Peppermining, as per allegations, is buying them at $0.38/GH. Unloading 40k chips at that price would make everyone happy, but I don't think it's gonna happen. We need money and to make boards, and we need to make it fast. And we need that trustee, too, fast.  I don't think I will be able to stand to listen to their lawyers lies for long.

If you dont have money, but you do have working chips and a working board design, the solution seems rather obvious; go the asicminer route, and supply chips and license your boards. To be fair to hashfast, that seems to be what they are doing lately.

Spoondoolies-Tech has SP30 August 2nd Batch for $1/GH

or SP10 May Batch for $2/GH

[cedivad]

Come on perezoso, you are acting like Edward now, "you bought a full miner, now take this useless chip". I understand that we are all gonna fight each one another for every penny (and bit), but let's try to postpone that to when we will have to do that, and let's all work together for now, no?

If LB's deals is to build (say) 20k boards asap, with half of the revenue back to us (instead of only 25%), that's probably something we should take, imho. You then focus on the other half of the chips, some cash will come in, we will invest something ourselves, we will find a way to capitalise it.

@Puppet, I don't think that we can make the "AM model" scale for HF in our strict timeframe and conditions. Sure, you will sell some, but you will find yourself with 90% of the stock unsold. That's also why it's almost impossible to sell chips; sure, you might sell some for $250-400, but you will be a long way off from depleting your stock, that will be useless in way less than 90 days as LB claims, imho. We need a load of cash, full point. (as always, imho).

[Puppet]

If you erased all the debt off the books and screwed everybody here except those looking to profit from the carcass, then that plan would possibly allow Hashfast to go ahead as a viable business.  

Im not sure I see that. I never suggested wiping all the debt of the books (which is not what chapter 11 does, thats what chapter 7 does), but it appears to me that HF's assets are worth more than its debt, and it has potential to produce a lot more than that through its IP. Protecting it from its creditors for some time, seems to me precisely what is needed for HF to realize their potential, allowing them to eventually make good on their debts. Well, there is the little issue of less than trustworthy management, but the basis for a solution seems to be there.  Ill leave it to the "adults" to find a way to actually implement it, but my point is basically that bankruptcy would be worse than chapter 11. If they are declared bankrupt, it would constitute an enormous loss of potential revenue from their IP. You'd be slaughtering the chicken for its meat, while it lays golden eggs.

[perezoso]

VMC is already positioned for mass board manufacturing. See below:

http://virtualminingcorp.com/shop1/index.php?id_product=43&controller=product

No fan of VMC, but if they're real, well then, why not just form a small miners coop, take the chips, and collectively negotiate assembly by VMC (or other bidders, if any) onto boards?

Put them into Ch 11 with a trustee. Distribute chips:

Unpaid BJ MPP = 5 chips.
Unpaid Upgrade board = 1 chip.
Unpaid Sierra = 3 chips.
Etc.

If you agreed to kick money back to Hashfast, the chips you receive are discounted accordingly.

If there are chips left over, these are distributed on a curve according to who has been waiting the longest.

Yoli design, suppliers, etc is published, or available to any customer (really, available to any legit assembler).

HF ceases to exist.  Some of them hopefully go to jail.

Small guys band together and collectively negotiate assembly for all of their chips with VMC and any other offerors, which might include Liquidbits or its contractor, if it has really tooled up for the job.

[cedivad]

No fan of VMC, but if they're real, well then, why not just form a small miners coop, take the chips, and collectively negotiate assembly by VMC (or other bidders, if any) onto boards?

You are failing on me... You don't need VMC, you don't want to have anything to do with VMC, and you probably want to sue the hell out of VMC.
VMC adds exactly zero value to our case. It subtracts it.