[LABCOIN] IPO [BTCT.CO] - Details/FAQ and Discussion (ASIC dev/sales/mining)

[boyohi]

Q: How do you plan to convert 7000 Bitcoin into fiat? No need for full disclosure, but this question is critical.
A: ... I do believe there is still some discussion around if ALL 7k should be sold ASAP or if a portion should be held for dividend payments etc. ...

Please establish and communicate a policy around this ASAP. I do NOT like to see investor funds being used for dividend payments, the money is there to grow your business, not to placate the shareholders.

I'm dumping my shares.  Talks about operating the security as a ponzi scheme should not be taken lightly.  This is exactly the type of publicity we don't need in the BTC security marketplace.

Ok, maybe I should just state it clearly. Obviously Labcoin is by no means a Ponzi-Scheme. Labcoin does NOT intend to pay dividends until the project is profitable. The shares in the IPO has been placed already and Labcoin does NOT intend to raise more capital. I cannot even see how a company without re-investment incentive or a continuous dilution of share capital could even function as a Ponzi scheme.

I will make sure that Labcoin prioritizes having a developer Q/A and for the Founder Fabrizio to hold an open discussion.

 

I am sorry if I made it unclear. Holding a small portion of Bitcoin would NOT be to pay dividends out of 'thin air' of course. This would simply be a small buffer to use for dividends if say Fiat payments are made for bulk chips or miners from customers and BTC is hard to 'come by'. I will pose this question more clearly to the Labcoin team, but rest assured this is NOT a large amount of Bitcoin we are talking about and of course no coin will be held at all if needed to grow the project or pay for Chips/Hardware/Dev etc.

+1

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[Vbs]

I did ask several questions (chip specs & chip delivery) around page 7... Yesterday...

Are you talking about that NVidia graphic that people kept reposting?  That was responded too - the break-even points listed there were for massive orders of the type NVidia and AMD would be making, ignoring the initial R&D costs, which are lower for smaller feature sizes.

People who didn't seem to know much about chip design seemed to be randomly re-posting it with statements like "GIVE US ANSWERS ON THIS!!!!" even though an answer had been given.

Those break-even points have nothing to do with orders, they are just showing where the transistor cost allows for savings by migrating to a newer technology. In fact, the current 28nm fab capacity has grown so much, that most 28nm fabs will have to cut on prices to increase demand.

I would recommend reading from an informed source, to understand the issue I raised: http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1286363

[Bitcycle]

Now the price actually is tanking.

[twentyseventy]

Now the price actually is tanking.

Probably just a bunch of Day 1 Traders taking their profit; I think the demand will pick up soon-

[bobboooiie]

Now the price actually is tanking.

Its not up for trading even for 24 hours yet. WOAH TANKING! WOAH HOW ARE WE NOT MAKIKING 10X of investment in 2nd day???
Just chill give it a few days/weeks/months

[abuelau]

Its not up for trading even for 24 hours yet. WOAH TANKING! WOAH HOW ARE WE NOT MAKIKING 10X of investment in 2nd day???
Just chill give it a few days/weeks/months

+1

[tucenaber]

I'm dumping my shares.  Talks about operating the security as a ponzi scheme should not be taken lightly.  This is exactly the type of publicity we don't need in the BTC security marketplace.

It's far fetched to claim this is a ponzi. All they say is "We have 7000 Bitcoin now and we don't want everything converted to fiat", because they want to keep some coins for liquidity reasons and to avoid fiat to Bitcoin exchanges afterwards. I don't see any problem with that, but if you still do, please elaborate.

As I understood it, they were hoping the IPO to bring in at least 4000BTC. The kind of mania we saw was not a sure thing. I interpret this to mean that 4000BTC is the absolute minimum they need, and anything above that could legitimately be held for later use. On the other hand I'm very interested in hearing more details about this.

[redbeans2012]

I'm dumping my shares.  Talks about operating the security as a ponzi scheme should not be taken lightly.  This is exactly the type of publicity we don't need in the BTC security marketplace.

It's far fetched to claim this is a ponzi. All they say is "We have 7000 Bitcoin now and we don't want everything converted to fiat", because they want to keep some coins for liquidity reasons and to avoid fiat to Bitcoin exchanges afterwards. I don't see any problem with that, but if you still do, please elaborate.

As I understood it, they were hoping the IPO to bring in at least 4000BTC. The kind of mania we saw was not a sure thing. I interpret this to mean that 4000BTC is the absolute minimum they need, and anything above that could legitimately be held for later use. On the other hand I'm very interested in hearing more details about this.

They should have alot of extra to work with since the figure they gave was if bitcoin was priced around $90.

[Ytterbium]

They should have alot of extra to work with since the figure they gave was if bitcoin was priced around $90.

The price is still around $95 on the "real" exchanges. MtGox price is b.s. because you are seriously limited in how much you can withdraw in USD ($1k a day).  It would be kind of difficult to fund a business that requires $100k+ payments by selling BTC there.

Although this "The price is higher in China" thing is certainly interesting to hear...

[freedomno1]

UPDATE:

I have taken the longest nap of my life and will be communicating with the Labcoin team today. Before anything I figured I would to the best of my ability answer a few questions that have come in from PM. So here we go!

Q: Can we expect regular updates on less than weekly basis?
A: Yes and No. I think weekly updates is what can be expected on average. I will attempt to keep up with the thread and answer the questions I can as they come in. Obviously there will be periods (first-run, production start etc.) that will be very update intensive, and other periods (prob the next few days) that will have less 'news' as things happen behind the scenes (BTC - FIAT conversion for first run, management projects etc.)

Q: How do you plan to convert 7000 Bitcoin into fiat? No need for full disclosure, but this question is critical.
A: I am not privy to the exact nature of this but I can say that the BTC will be sold outside of the open market in China. I do believe there is still some discussion around if ALL 7k should be sold ASAP or if a portion should be held for dividend payments etc. I believe the reason for the Chinese sale is that not only would it be somewhat cumbersome to move a large amount of fiat between western exchanges and Chinese accounts, but also the fact that Bitcoin (don't quote me on this) actually is quite a bit more valuable on average in China then on many US exchanges.

Q: Please send a dev over to discuss the technical questions about the chip specifications?
A: This is going to happen shortly (I am guessing after the weekend, early/mid next week). I have already talked to Sam about someone from the Development team doing a Q/A session and also for Founder Fabrizio to visit the forum and take questions.

I will be visiting this thread at least once every day (unless I am without computer. Yes it happens that I go fishing or something 'out of range') to check in on the discussion and answer the questions I can.
Here is to everyone having a great end of the week, and a fantastic weekend.

I love your description of napping since I'm catching up through the pages brings the official reply back to the current page.

I agree right now that dividends are not as important as growth once you have some chips ready to market then dividends start becoming more important as there are no preorders capital is very important so you can maintain your capital base to prevent selling shares.

That said your bitcoin assets can still be used for other purposes if you are willing to earn interest on your bitcoin capital you can either hold it and make sure they are secure or put them in some bonds such as coinlenders or just-dice for a period of time.

Another possibility is to use AM as they are still providing yields on their shares in the inter-min period before your chips are developed and become a shareholder on the Friedcat list which is pretty secure less price risk of course.

Either way this is all pocket advice I would prefer the bitcoin going to development but if there is any bitcoin left sitting around it would be nice to have it doing something 

[tucenaber]

That said your bitcoin assets can still be used for other purposes if you are willing to earn interest on your bitcoin capital you can either hold it and make sure they are secure or put them in some bonds such as coinlenders or just-dice for a period of time.

Another possibility is to use AM as they are still providing yields on their shares in the inter-min period before your chips are developed and become a shareholder on the Friedcat list which is pretty secure less price risk of course.

Either way this is all pocket advice I would prefer the bitcoin going to development but if there is any bitcoin left sitting around it would be nice to have it doing something 

Absolutely not!!

[bbxx]

That said your bitcoin assets can still be used for other purposes if you are willing to earn interest on your bitcoin capital you can either hold it and make sure they are secure or put them in some bonds such as coinlenders or just-dice for a period of time.

Another possibility is to use AM as they are still providing yields on their shares in the inter-min period before your chips are developed and become a shareholder on the Friedcat list which is pretty secure less price risk of course.

Either way this is all pocket advice I would prefer the bitcoin going to development but if there is any bitcoin left sitting around it would be nice to have it doing something 

Absolutely not!!

Covert half to fiat rmb/usd/euro/chf basket would be better idea.

[TheSwede75]

UPDATE:

I just talked to Sam Noi and he is scheduling a Q/A session with chip developer/designer in the next 1-2 days. I will leave it to Sam to comment here with date/time for a developer to log in and take questions, etc.

[E.Sam]

UPDATE:

I just talked to Sam Noi and he is scheduling a Q/A session with chip developer/designer in the next 1-2 days. I will leave it to Sam to comment here with date/time for a developer to log in and take questions, etc.

Perfect!

[Vbs]

UPDATE:

I just talked to Sam Noi and he is scheduling a Q/A session with chip developer/designer in the next 1-2 days. I will leave it to Sam to comment here with date/time for a developer to log in and take questions, etc.

Great!

Now, can you please comment on the Q4 2013 delivery schedule?

[stslimited]

They should have alot of extra to work with since the figure they gave was if bitcoin was priced around $90.

The price is still around $95 on the "real" exchanges. MtGox price is b.s. because you are seriously limited in how much you can withdraw in USD ($1k a day).  It would be kind of difficult to fund a business that requires $100k+ payments by selling BTC there.

Although this "The price is higher in China" thing is certainly interesting to hear...

you can withdraw $100,000 per day from Mt. Gox  </fact check


there are two levels of additional levels of verification required, and the second level is not published.

[labcoin]

We would like to say thanks all to all the investors for the amount of trust being put in our venture, which led to a very successful IPO; we understand the frustration for the early issue regarding timing and shares distribution, unfortunately it depended on factors beyond our control.
These problems are now left behind and we look forward to give more detailed informations about our products and business model, we only ask to keep the thread relevant and post actual questions to let us track and reply them easily.
A big thanks to burnside and TheSwede75 for all the work done.

Sam Noi

[dexX7]

We would like to say thanks all to all the investors for the amount of trust being put in our venture, which led to a very successful IPO; we understand the frustration for the early issue regarding timing and shares distribution, unfortunately it depended on factors beyond our control.
These problems are now left behind and we look forward to give more detailed informations about our products and business model, we only ask to keep the thread relevant and post actual questions to let us track and reply them easily.
A big thanks to burnside and TheSwede75 for all the work done.

Sam Noi

Hi Sam,

gratulations on this IPO. There are four questions I have in mind right now and I'll start with quotes:


1. Chip specifications

According to the preliminary specs (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=241033.msg2664903#msg2664903) this chip should perform better than the BFL ASIC (65 nm) while occupying even smaller silicon area. I'm a total noob when it comes to chip designing, so can't even guess if it's possible. Any idea?

BFL - 65 nm, 16 cores, 250 MH/s each, 4 GH/s total, die size 7.1 x 7.1 mm, 12.8 W total
Labcoin - 130 nm, 16 cores, 300 MH/s each, 4.8 GH/s total, die size 6.5 x 6.5 mm, 12.8 W total

For that to be possible, not only each Labcoin core would have to be ~42% smaller [65/130*(6.5^2)/(7.1^2)] than each BFL core but also the Labcoin chip would magically operate at a higher frequency (300MHz vs 250MHz) while keeping the same power draw...

How did you achieve to create an allegedly superior chip and can you confirm those specifications?


2. 130 nm vs. newer technology

The cost of a 28nm wafer is more or less the same as a 130nm wafer. The only real difference is NRE cost and having the expertise to develop on 28nm, that's the real bet.

Bitfury went full-custom standard cell and it worked OK for them, but that's the risk of going full-custom at first. You have the same risk, since your 130nm chip has a lot of sketchy specs. I would rather you commented on those, especially on the part where you claim to develop a faster and more power efficient chip than BFL (also standard cell) with transistors that have DOUBLE the size (130nm vs 65nm) and require much higher voltages (power consumption scales with the square of voltage).

The graph above is for ANY ASIC manufacturer, as it compares a Normalized Transistor Cost (wafer cost + packaging + etc) to a timeline, based on yields/wafer, die sizes and wafer cost. The production costs on new die sizes quickly go down after some time.

What are the benefits to stick to 130 nm?


3. ETA

Is your 130 nm chip set to being finished in Q4 2013? Can you give a more precise time?


4. General timeline

What are your plans for the next days and months?


By the way, I would be thrilled to see some pictures from your work and lab.


Thanks.

[yuchuanzhen]

Outstanding 10000000 / 10000000 Issued

what's going on?

[drawingthesun]

Outstanding 10000000 / 10000000 Issued

what's going on?

10,000,000 shares exist, 7,000,000 offered at IPO and founders own the other 3,000,000.