CoinTerra announces its first ASIC - Hash-Rate greater than 500 GH/s

[mokahless]

Cointerra, please address my concerns so I can put you on my list of companies to consider investing in. If my concerns are not alleviated, I will not consider investing.

• Water cooling. Why are you using it? --> introduces a level of complexity that makes NO sense in devices to be deployed in the manner of Bitcoin miners. No one wants to deal with issues of failing or leaking coolers, which WILL happen over time and if someone deploys a large number of devices. Not to mention the increased complexity and cost on your manufacturing side while not providing a significant advantage in cooling. Interestingly, KNC originally announced water cooling and has since silently removed it.
• Ravi Iyengar. Who are you, can you prove you are who you say you are? Please simply tell us the location you worked at and provide some more details. --> I cannot find any information on you besides those of news articles referencing your site. I am not the only one, see here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=271168.msg2905705#msg2905705 . I have been unable to confirm you ever worked for Samsung. In fact, It seems, from what I have read, Samsung uses "chief CPU architect" as the position name, not "Lead CPU architect."
• [suddenly added Sept. 14]Payment methods. Why do you only accept bankwire and BTC? --> clearly paypal and credit card are the dominating payment methods and provide people with security in the event of fraud. So why do you not accept either? Why is the only way for me, to pay to send you an irreversible transaction? This brings up the question of trust. Why bring trust into the equation?
• For my peace of mind, could you please provide your company registration information?
• Why did you decide to use copyrighted images by other companies (namely intel) to represent your products on your site in lieu of actual mockups or just a blank image saying "TBA" or similar?
• ---break---
• [suddenly added Sept. 14, cert valid from Aug. 28]Why is there no SSL on your site?
• Why does the phone number on your site not work? Why is it a VOIP number?

I am excited about your recent price drops and new products, bringing some of your mining devices into my price range. If my concerns could be put to rest, I would love to purchase a lower end unit or two.


Edit: After doing a bit more research, I have even more concerns, listed after the break in the list.

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[Threader]

"Payment methods. Why do you only accept bankwire and BTC? --> clearly paypal and credit card are the dominating payment methods and provide people with security in the event of fraud. So why do you not accept either? Why is the only way for me, to pay to send you an irreversible transaction? This brings up the question of trust. Why bring trust into the equation?"

I have a suspicion that BFL have put Paypal on alert for doing business with any Pre-Order Asic hardware business.

I would like to hear Cointerra confirm that Paypal would not do business with them instead of Cointerra not wanting to go the Paypal route due to chargebacks.

[Tsukene]

yeah the 1 ths unit at 3499 is tempting, but january is a long way off. if knc delivers, hashrate will explode.

It's not a question of "if" they will deliver, but when.

[Tsukene]

Cointerra:

Where stolen from:


Cointerra:

Where stolen from:


Target demographic:

well this is bad press for them

[cedivad]

• Ravi Iyengar. Who are you, can you prove you are who you say you are? Please simply tell us the location you worked at and provide some more details. --> I cannot find any information on you besides those of news articles referencing your site. I am not the only one, see here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=271168.msg2905705#msg2905705 . I have been unable to confirm you ever worked for Samsung. In fact, It seems, from what I have read, Samsung uses "chief CPU architect" as the position name, not "Lead CPU architect."

Interesting and worrisome, thanks.

[PuertoLibre]

If you were thoroughly disenchanted by BFL's performance vs their promised performance, you can visit this thread to force a refund and get your investment money back:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=291205.0

Please feel free to buy into other companies like CoinTerra, BitFury, Hash Fast, Avalon, or whatever other company that comes to mind. Recoup your cash and reinvest wisely!

[lucita777]

TerraMiner IV – 2TH/s, Networked Miner (December Batch) $13,999
TerraMiner IV – 2TH/s, Networked Miner (January Batch) $5,999

https://cointerra.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
"Price Protection

For any undelivered orders in Batch 1, if CoinTerra changes the price of TerraMiner IV systems or GoldStrike1 ASICs before delivery, CoinTerra will re-price all orders and offer either a cash refund or a larger and more valuable hash power credit"

It looks like the TerraMiner IV now costs much less.

When can we expect the repricing of orders or a valuable hash power credit?
Or are you trying to find your way out of the promise you made by just renaming the same product, and calling it a new thing?

It's not even like the "early January" delivery is any different than December delivery + up to 30 days allowed delay.

[aerobatic]

doesnt seem too confusing to me, if you want one in december you pay X if you want one in January you pay Y.  Where's the confusion?

[lucita777]

There is no confusion.
The problem is that, if you ordered already, you no longer have luxury of choosing between price X or price Y.
And to address that problem, Cointerra promised, that in case of changing pricing they will reprice the orders or provide a credit to existing customers.

So far no such announcement was made.
So this brings the question whether they are going to stand up to their promise?

At least to me, TerraMiner IV - 2TH shipping in December 31st is same product as TerraMiner IV - 2TH shipping in January 1st.

[aerobatic]

There is no confusion.
The problem is that, if you ordered already, you no longer have luxury of choosing between price X or price Y.
And to address that problem, Cointerra promised, that in case of changing pricing they will reprice the orders or provide a credit to existing customers.

So far no such announcement was made.
So this brings the question whether they are going to stand up to their promise?

At least to me, TerraMiner IV - 2TH shipping in December 31st is same product as TerraMiner IV - 2TH shipping in January 1st.

if cointerra decides to reprice their december batch then i think you have a good case for getting their promised rebate.  but i dont think you can hold them for batch 2 prices delivered in january, to give you the same price on batch 1 deliveries in december.  thats just wishful thinking.  no other mining hardware company would do that either.  their price is for the delivery date.  e.g., bitfury had $20,000 pricing for august delivery (later dropped to $16,000), and $12,000 for october pricing, later dropped to $8,000.  And those are for their 400 GH box.  these cointerra boxes are 2000 GH boxes, so do the math

for the month that theyre promising to deliver, both batch prices seem appropriately priced when taking into account that the network hashrate is on a steep rise and the december delivered boxes will be mining earlier than the january boxes, and theyve probably chosen those prices deliberately to match their forecasts of the hashrate, as well as perhaps lower costs of manufacturing the 2nd batch

[lucita777]

Why would anyone order today a December batch for $14,000 if they can get it month later for just $6000?

Do you honestly believe that a 2TH miner running for the whole December (assuming that they deliver December batch on Dec 1st) would earn $8000?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283820.0 (6,000 to 8,000 TH/s by end of 2013)

Assuming BTC = 130USD, 7PH total network hashing power (1G difficulty),
2 TH would produce $3,930 in one month.
(http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/48447b86ed)

Given this putting a price tag of $8000 on 1 month earlier delivery is not exactly appropriate.
Also, the Delivery Time was not part of the product until today. If Cointerra is trying to include the Delivery Date as part of the product, then when ordering a product, it should have exact delivery date, not a month.
The current state is, that order from December batch may be shipped on Dec 31 and order from January batch shipped on Jan 1st - and in this case the "difference" between those 2 products is really none.

I'm not really expecting them to drop December price to $6000 as we all agree that Time=Money. But $8000 difference is not really reasonable.

Unfortunately, the current message they are sending to existing customers is more or less:
"Thanks you for being valuable customer and donating to our Research&Development.
We no longer need you and we can drop prices as much as we want.
And also we are renaming our product just in case so you don't ask for anything with respect to the Price Protection"

[2112]

• Ravi Iyengar. Who are you, can you prove you are who you say you are? Please simply tell us the location you worked at and provide some more details. --> I cannot find any information on you besides those of news articles referencing your site. I am not the only one, see here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=271168.msg2905705#msg2905705 . I have been unable to confirm you ever worked for Samsung. In fact, It seems, from what I have read, Samsung uses "chief CPU architect" as the position name, not "Lead CPU architect."

Interesting and worrisome, thanks.

I'm also curious whether Ravi Iyengar is a relative of Arun Iyengar (a high-level executive at AMD).

[geofflosophy]

Why would anyone order today a December batch for $14,000 if they can get it month later for just $6000?

Do you honestly believe that a 2TH miner running for the whole December (assuming that they deliver December batch on Dec 1st) would earn $8000?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283820.0 (6,000 to 8,000 TH/s by end of 2013)

Assuming BTC = 130USD, 7PH total network hashing power (1G difficulty),
2 TH would produce $3,930 in one month.
(http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/48447b86ed)

Given this putting a price tag of $8000 on 1 month earlier delivery is not exactly appropriate.
Also, the Delivery Time was not part of the product until today. If Cointerra is trying to include the Delivery Date as part of the product, then when ordering a product, it should have exact delivery date, not a month.
The current state is, that order from December batch may be shipped on Dec 31 and order from January batch shipped on Jan 1st - and in this case the "difference" between those 2 products is really none.

I'm not really expecting them to drop December price to $6000 as we all agree that Time=Money. But $8000 difference is not really reasonable.

Unfortunately, the current message they are sending to existing customers is more or less:
"Thanks you for being valuable customer and donating to our Research&Development.
We no longer need you and we can drop prices as much as we want.
And also we are renaming our product just in case so you don't ask for anything with respect to the Price Protection"

+1

Don't forget that you can transfer your order to the lower price point batch 2 unit "for a small fee!"

[lucita777]

Don't forget that you can transfer your order to the lower price point batch 2 unit "for a small fee!"

Where did you get that from?

When we contacted info@cointerra.com with our concerns regarding the price strategy, we only got:

Thanks for the feedback, XYZ.
Have an Awesome Day!
CoinTerra support

which, maybe not intentional, but it didn't sound very good, and wasn't much more usefull either.

[btc_uzr]

let me visualize the whole picture of this fishy story combined with the well known red flag


src: http://huntersforluck.com/vidy-ryby/red-carp

[Puppet]

Cointerra, please address my concerns so I can put you on my list of companies to consider investing in. If my concerns are not alleviated, I will not consider investing.

• Ravi Iyengar. Who are you, can you prove you are who you say you are? Please simply tell us the location you worked at and provide some more details. --> I cannot find any information on you besides those of news articles referencing your site. I am not the only one, see here:
  

You must not be good at searching

Code:

Ravi Iyengar
Founder and CEO at Cointerra, Inc
Austin, TexasSemiconductors
Current	
Cointerra, Inc.
Previous	
SARC (Samsung Austin Research Center), Qualcomm, NVIDIA
Education	
Wright State University
440
connections
Send InMailMore options 
www.linkedin.com/in/ravidiyengar
Background
Summary
Currently the Founder and CEO of Cointerra, Inc.

15 years of industry experience in Micro-Architecture, Architecture, RTL Design, Verification, in CPU, GPU, Desktop & Server Chipsets, and ASIC Cores. Has several years of technical leadership experience. Has submitted several patents and presented papers in international forums.
Experience

Founder and CEO
Cointerra, Inc.
May 2013 – Present (5 months)Austin, Texas Area
http://cointerra.com/
CPU Lead Architect
SARC (Samsung Austin Research Center)
January 2011 – April 2013 (2 years 4 months)Austin
Leading the Architecture, Micro-Architecture & RTL Design of the CPU Mid-Core (Decode, Rename, Dispatch, Retirement, Exception Handling, AGU, Integer & Branch Execution, Virtualization, and Special Purpose Registers). Wrote a 250 page micro-architecture specification and submitted half a dozen patents.
(Open)4 recommendations, including:
Sandeep Dubey
Sandeep Dubey
CPU Design at Samsung Austin R&D Center
View
Eric Chambers
Eric Chambers
Staff Engineer at Samsung Semiconductor
View
2 more recommendations
QualcommSenior Staff, Manager
Qualcomm
2009 – 2010 (1 year)Greater San Diego Area
Design Lead and Manager for the Vector Processing Engine of the Modem Core.
(Open)1 recommendation
Ron Shalev
Ron Shalev
SMTS at wave semi
View
NVIDIASenior Hardware Engineer
NVIDIA
2006 – 2009 (3 years)Santa Clara, CA
Owned the AGU & Loadstore Subsystem on the Streaming Microprocessor Module of the Fermi GPGPU.
Staff Engineer
Stexar
2005 – 2006 (1 year)Portland, Oregon Area
Owned the AGU, Loadstore, L1 Cache subsystem of an x86 CPU core for a DTV SOC.
Intel CorporationStaff Engineer
Intel Corporation
2000 – 2005 (5 years)Dupont, WA
Had numerous roles and responsibilities in the Southbridge and Northbridge Chipset teams for Server and Desktop platforms. Worked on PCI-E, PCI-X, Hublink and AGP.
Logic Designer
ATI
1998 – 2000 (2 years)Newton, PA
Built the Register Backbone Manager for the RAGE5 GPU.

www.linkedin.com/in/ravidiyengar

ANd here is their VP of engineering:
www.linkedin.com/in/jgoconnor/

Good luck faking those credentials.

[crumbs]

...
www.linkedin.com/in/ravidiyengar
...

Orly? Linkedin?  That is awful hard to fake   Uncommon name, too... what are the odds there's another phud by the same name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Iyengar

[Puppet]

Orly? Linkedin?  That is awful hard to fake  

It is, if you want to have many 100s of connections and dozens of recommendations/endorserments of people who themselves have many 100's of connections and recommendations.
Do the math.

[Sitarow]

Orly? Linkedin?  That is awful hard to fake  

It is, if you want to have many 100s of connections and dozens of recommendations/endorserments of people who themselves have many 100's of connections and recommendations.
Do the math.

Has anyone met with him and talked with him about his project related with Bitcoin mining hardware?

[Puppet]

Has anyone met with him and talked with him about his project related with Bitcoin mining hardware?

Anandtech did.
But seriously, check the VPs linkedin page. He is also founder of a company called solid oak technologies, and referenced by that companies linkedin page:
http://www.linkedin.com/company/solid-oak-technologies-llc
And their website links to that same linkedin page.
Solid Oak is not a huge multinational, but it does exist has been around for a few years, even made it to eda digests's "top 20 companies to watch" last year:
http://digital.edadigest.com/2012/2012/0/0#&pageSet=11

You really think thats all fakable? That they planned this 3+ years ago, made a fake startup, somehow fooled EDA Digest, only to be able to pull off a bitcoin con now ?