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

[cchan]

I would like to visit your Lab in Shengzhen, if I have a business trip there later.

Are your lab located in ShengZhen University? 

May  be in Shenzhen University City

Here:

Office, pictures:
we’ll be getting an office in the Nanshan high-tech park, shenzhen
we’ll have up to 25 kW electricity link available and plenty of room conditioning, initially we’ll be rolling out our own datacenter
Lab is located in SZ, at the university facility, we’ll be moving shorty to another office

[1713863623]

1713863623

[1713863623]

1713863623

[1713863623]

1713863623

[1713863623]

1713863623

[1713863623]

1713863623

[vlaoou321]

I would like to visit your Lab in Shengzhen, if I have a business trip there later.

Are your lab located in ShengZhen University? 

May  be in Shenzhen University City

Here:

Office, pictures:
we’ll be getting an office in the Nanshan high-tech park, shenzhen
we’ll have up to 25 kW electricity link available and plenty of room conditioning, initially we’ll be rolling out our own datacenter
Lab is located in SZ, at the university facility, we’ll be moving shorty to another office

oh```thanks

[zefyr0s]

Was it a scam when you were trying to buy shares in the IPO as well, or is it some form of new revelation you have had? I guess I am just curious.

it's a scam all along, i was just blinded by greed; same story for you and any others who try and brush the bullshit under the rug

I get the feeling here you haven't tried to brush bullshit under a rug before.

e: Also, I was on IRC and the price only increased during.

I'm not a shareholder, although I'm curious to see what the management and other devs have to say tom.. today.

[funcard2008]

the 3 million shares should either not be tradeable on BTCT until a certain amount of time
OR the shares should be marked/colored in a way so that people know that they are buying the team's shares. this would also indicate for everyone to panic - heh

I agree, there's a reason there's a IPO "lock up" period for insiders in real world IPO. Especially when labcoin is going against the norm on btct (insider shares are not normally tradable)

I would like to point out that the 'Lock in' period for founders/insiders is one of those 'sometimes there is one, sometimes not'. I can also say that the Labcoin team didn't even consider this in the IPO process due to no one being interested in selling out shares in the project. That said, I will talk to Sam this weekend to see about a public solution that will allow share holders to feel secure in that the Labcoin founders and developers are not selling out.

Two ways this can be addressed on BTCT.

- The founders could turn on their public portfolios and publish a list of url's where the shares are held.
- (with Labcoin's consent) if they send us a list of accounts that are holding the shares we can lock the accounts and publicly state the number of shares effectively "in escrow".


WAITING

[burnside]

the 3 million shares should either not be tradeable on BTCT until a certain amount of time
OR the shares should be marked/colored in a way so that people know that they are buying the team's shares. this would also indicate for everyone to panic - heh

I agree, there's a reason there's a IPO "lock up" period for insiders in real world IPO. Especially when labcoin is going against the norm on btct (insider shares are not normally tradable)

I would like to point out that the 'Lock in' period for founders/insiders is one of those 'sometimes there is one, sometimes not'. I can also say that the Labcoin team didn't even consider this in the IPO process due to no one being interested in selling out shares in the project. That said, I will talk to Sam this weekend to see about a public solution that will allow share holders to feel secure in that the Labcoin founders and developers are not selling out.

Two ways this can be addressed on BTCT.

- The founders could turn on their public portfolios and publish a list of url's where the shares are held.
- (with Labcoin's consent) if they send us a list of accounts that are holding the shares we can lock the accounts and publicly state the number of shares effectively "in escrow".

WAITING

I just need a list of accounts to lock.  (feel free to PM or email me.)

Cheers.

[Vbs]

[11:43] <labcoin_dev> Alright,the 130nm IC is designed to work at about 200 Mhz for core, with a total consumption of 0.8W per core, hashing performances of about 200 mhash per core, total speed will depend  on the overall output grade

[11:53] <+labcoin_dev> Chip frequency : 300Mhz, Process : 130nm CMOS, Die size: 4160,0000um2,    VDD : 1.2-1.5 V adjustable

[11:57] <zefy> So you've arranged them to fit more on the same size?
[11:58] <+labcoin_dev> we adopt a "sea-of-hashers" approach
[11:58] <dexX7> from vbs: "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..."
[11:58] <+labcoin_dev> i remind you guys that the bitfury chip has up to 750 cores
[11:59] <+labcoin_dev> they also use the same approach, we chose this design because one of our guys was close to bitfury developments 2 months ago

[12:13] <ThickAsThieves> 6. How is it possible to create chips with a such much better performance than the competitors?
[12:14] <+labcoin_dev> ThickAsThieves, rolled cores instead of unrolled, sea-of-hashers approach
[12:15] <+labcoin_dev> as in sea-of-gates
[12:15] <+labcoin_dev> you can google this term and find out more about what it means technically

So, you guys really have no idea how this will turn out? Incredible gamble. There are so many wholes I dunno where to start.

You haven't yet demystified that you took the simulation of one core and just copy/pasted it 15 extra times to make the chip and didn't bother simulating the end result. Where are the power specs being properly simulated? This is not as simple as 0.8W@200MHz equals to 0.8W*16@300MHz! That is really naive! A chip working at 1.5V uses 56% more power than one at 1.2V!

First, it's a "sea-of-hashers", then it's a "sea-of-gates" with rolled cores. Rolled cores means at best the chip produces a bitcoin hash at at half the frequency rate, since each core will need to do SHA256 twice for one hash (2 clock cycles). This means that a 300MHz chip with 16 cores will hash at 2400MH/s. Or is the chip gonna work at 200MHz like you also said? That's 1600MH/s.

A BitFury chip has 756 rolled cores but needs 65 cycles/hash, an equivalent of "normal" ~11.63 unrolled cores computing one hash per clock cycle. They are barely able to get 2GH/s from this design choice from the incredible signal interference inside the chip from skipping the necessary analog simulation but look how they estimated it to have between 2.8 and 10.4GH/s.

Technical Details (Translated from various Bitfury Posts)

• The design is built on the 65nm UMC Process (http://www.umc.com/English/process/a.asp)
• Bitcoin Engines: 756 Rolled cores (65 Cycles per Hash)
• Expected operational frequency: 250Mhz-900Mhz
• Packaging: QFN48
• Conservative design, could be 40% smaller
• Risk interconnect and transistor variations +/- 20%
• Core implemented using full custom design process (some global place & route)
• Number of transistors per "core": 55,000
• Power estimate obtained from hspice simulation
• Design optimised for low power and minimum size rather than high clock rate

Each chip is capable of 2.8-10.4Gh/s using a 756 core design
Estimated Chip Power Consumption: 1.96-7.26W (0.7W per 1Gh/s)
Estimated Power Consumption at Wall: 1.4W per 1Gh/s (<200W per 120Gh/s Device)

In case ppl don't know, a "sea-of-gates" chip is also a type of structured ASIC where only the metal layer needs to be customized.

[Moebius327]

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

[Bitcycle]

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

There's no way to sell 3 million shares any time soon, so I'm not super concerned at this point.

Having said that, this seems like a very simple issue to resolve.  Send the account info to Burnside ASAP.

[Moebius327]

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

There's no way to sell 3 million shares any time soon, so I'm not super concerned at this point.

Having said that, this seems like a very simple issue to resolve.  Send the account info to Burnside ASAP.

Volume without IPO funds = 11472.7 BTC

I am not saying they sold all 3 M. My guess is 25% or 750 000 shares.

[funcard2008]

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

There's no way to sell 3 million shares any time soon, so I'm not super concerned at this point.

Having said that, this seems like a very simple issue to resolve.  Send the account info to Burnside ASAP.

Volume without IPO funds = 11472.7 BTC

I am not saying they sold all 3 M. My guess is 25% or 750 000 shares.

Yes, I also guess is already sold 25%!!

[weaknesswaran]

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

There's no way to sell 3 million shares any time soon, so I'm not super concerned at this point.

Having said that, this seems like a very simple issue to resolve.  Send the account info to Burnside ASAP.

Volume without IPO funds = 11472.7 BTC

I am not saying they sold all 3 M. My guess is 25% or 750 000 shares.

Yes, I also guess is already sold 25%!!

That would mean no major other trades were made.

[Moebius327]

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

There's no way to sell 3 million shares any time soon, so I'm not super concerned at this point.

Having said that, this seems like a very simple issue to resolve.  Send the account info to Burnside ASAP.

Volume without IPO funds = 11472.7 BTC

I am not saying they sold all 3 M. My guess is 25% or 750 000 shares.

Yes, I also guess is already sold 25%!!

That would mean no major other trades were made.

Why is that?

[narayan]

They sold 1.2 million shares.

[oxideNL]

Reading back the last couple of pages.
I'm not getting more confidence in this share after the Q&A, quite the opposite I'm thinking about pulling back my shares.

The reason for me ?
Mostly the vaguely communication from Labcoin and their tendency to dodge tough questions
which i find quite... alarming.

I'll give it another 72 hours before i make my final decision, hope in the meanwhile that labcoin takes the time to reassure us is that everything is kosher up there.

[weaknesswaran]

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

There's no way to sell 3 million shares any time soon, so I'm not super concerned at this point.

Having said that, this seems like a very simple issue to resolve.  Send the account info to Burnside ASAP.

Volume without IPO funds = 11472.7 BTC

I am not saying they sold all 3 M. My guess is 25% or 750 000 shares.

Yes, I also guess is already sold 25%!!

That would mean no major other trades were made.

Why is that?

Mistake of mine, got the deciamal point wrong. Sorry.

[E.Sam]

Shareholders are loosing trust here. Please respond to the two points below ASAP!

[11:43] <labcoin_dev> Alright,the 130nm IC is designed to work at about 200 Mhz for core, with a total consumption of 0.8W per core, hashing performances of about 200 mhash per core, total speed will depend  on the overall output grade

[11:53] <+labcoin_dev> Chip frequency : 300Mhz, Process : 130nm CMOS, Die size: 4160,0000um2,    VDD : 1.2-1.5 V adjustable

[11:57] <zefy> So you've arranged them to fit more on the same size?
[11:58] <+labcoin_dev> we adopt a "sea-of-hashers" approach
[11:58] <dexX7> from vbs: "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..."
[11:58] <+labcoin_dev> i remind you guys that the bitfury chip has up to 750 cores
[11:59] <+labcoin_dev> they also use the same approach, we chose this design because one of our guys was close to bitfury developments 2 months ago

[12:13] <ThickAsThieves> 6. How is it possible to create chips with a such much better performance than the competitors?
[12:14] <+labcoin_dev> ThickAsThieves, rolled cores instead of unrolled, sea-of-hashers approach
[12:15] <+labcoin_dev> as in sea-of-gates
[12:15] <+labcoin_dev> you can google this term and find out more about what it means technically

So, you guys really have no idea how this will turn out? Incredible gamble. There are so many wholes I dunno where to start.

You haven't yet demystified that you took the simulation of one core and just copy/pasted it 15 extra times to make the chip and didn't bother simulating the end result. Where are the power specs being properly simulated? This is not as simple as 0.8W@200MHz equals to 0.8W*16@300MHz! That is really naive! A chip working at 1.5V uses 56% more power than one at 1.2V!

First, it's a "sea-of-hashers", then it's a "sea-of-gates" with rolled cores. Rolled cores means at best the chip produces a bitcoin hash at at half the frequency rate, since each core will need to do SHA256 twice for one hash (2 clock cycles). This means that a 300MHz chip with 16 cores will hash at 2400MH/s. Or is the chip gonna work at 200MHz like you also said? That's 1600MH/s.

A BitFury chip has 756 rolled cores but needs 65 cycles/hash, an equivalent of "normal" ~11.63 unrolled cores computing one hash per clock cycle. They are barely able to get 2GH/s from this design choice from the incredible signal interference inside the chip from skipping the necessary analog simulation but look how they estimated it to have between 2.8 and 10.4GH/s.

Technical Details (Translated from various Bitfury Posts)

• The design is built on the 65nm UMC Process (http://www.umc.com/English/process/a.asp)
• Bitcoin Engines: 756 Rolled cores (65 Cycles per Hash)
• Expected operational frequency: 250Mhz-900Mhz
• Packaging: QFN48
• Conservative design, could be 40% smaller
• Risk interconnect and transistor variations +/- 20%
• Core implemented using full custom design process (some global place & route)
• Number of transistors per "core": 55,000
• Power estimate obtained from hspice simulation
• Design optimised for low power and minimum size rather than high clock rate

Each chip is capable of 2.8-10.4Gh/s using a 756 core design
Estimated Chip Power Consumption: 1.96-7.26W (0.7W per 1Gh/s)
Estimated Power Consumption at Wall: 1.4W per 1Gh/s (<200W per 120Gh/s Device)

In case ppl don't know, a "sea-of-gates" chip is also a type of structured ASIC where only the metal layer needs to be customized.

Until I see where the 3 million shares are, I consider this a scam. Why aren't you showing us your portfolios?

Concerning the shares, it's not difficult:

I just need a list of accounts to lock.  (feel free to PM or email me.)

Cheers.

[tucenaber]

The questions are piling up. Let's get this straightened out.

Labcoin, please

a) publicize the holdings of the major shareholder(s). If you want to keep out the developers, that's ok, but Farizio and Samuel is a must.

b) give proof of what has happened to the income from the IPO. How much is still in the IPO account? How much is still in Bitcoins? What bitcoin addresses?

Thank you.

[E.Sam]

Shareholders are loosing trust here.

But how did shareholders gain trust before?

Following posts on their research & development, people believed in this project (wrongly or not is to be seen). Hence sold out IPO before its start (some of this *might* have been due to speculation, but still).
Lack of communication on important points make investors uneasy, lose confidence and sell off.

I have the feeling I m stating the obvious here.

[tucenaber]

Shareholders are loosing trust here.

But how did shareholders gain trust before?

I don't know what others did, but for me it was because of the involvement of one of the developers. After a chat on IRC I decided it was probably not a scam. Maybe incompetence, but not an outright scam. That's no proof but, I did the best I could.

[twentyseventy]

I really think that LC knows what they're doing with the development side, but didn't consider the constant contact they'd need to keep with the BTCtalk community. They were smart to engage TheSwede to be their forum liaison, but he can only do so much if they provide him with limited information.