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

[VolanicEruptor]

no price drop for new March batch!  That makes me feel good about the value of my January order for 6k

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[VJLoops]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

surprising, the forums seem pretty full of life, I even came across a happy chap in a suit gushing about how he was 'sooo anxious to get his TerraMiner IV!!' hope he was not employed by marketing firm for that shillage..he should tone down that positivity a few notches to avoid scaring people off.

Maybe you can send a message with subject title  RE: trying to make payment!! and subject body "requesting invoice details" for a swifter response.

My bizz partner rang them again yesterday and someone named John gave a call back.  We got the reassurance on mid feb release.  John said they are swamped with work and apologized for the late response.  For anyone wanting to get in touch by phone,  expect a 48-72 hour response time for call backs.

[VJLoops]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

[Bicknellski]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

The MINION might beat Cointerra to market.

[aerobatic]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

The MINION might beat Cointerra to market.

Since Blackarrow haven't taped out the Minion asic yet, that seems a little unlikely.  they've got $5m+ to raise from pre-sales before they can go into production.  And they'd need to pay a lot more in expedite fees to get it in feb versus march.

-- Jez

[VJLoops]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

The MINION might beat Cointerra to market.

Wait what?  I'm a noob, I didn't even know there was a device called a Minion.  It was merely a Cointerracidence 

But good news!  The email reply came in today.  So for emails expect a 72 hour response delay.

[sharpspoon]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

The MINION might beat Cointerra to market.

Wait what?  I'm a noob, I didn't even know there was a device called a Minion.  It was merely a Cointerracidence 

But good news!  The email reply came in today.  So for emails expect a 72 hour response delay.

I have written cointerra 4 times over the past 2 weeks and no one has responded, not once.  I just posted in their forum about it and that post is now gone.  Cointerra had time to delete it but not respond to it or to my past emails. I am considering legal action if anyone else is being screwed by them, as I am.  I WISH there was only a 72 hour delay...

[cointerra]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

Hello,
We are experiencing an exceptionally high volume of both phone and email support requests. We are actively training additional support staff, but currently we do have a backlog of emails and voice mails. Our support is staffed for phone support during business hours (Central time) but due to high call volume you may still reach our voice mail at times.

The CoinTerra Team

[sharpspoon]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

Hello,
We are experiencing an exceptionally high volume of both phone and email support requests. We are actively training additional support staff, but currently we do have a backlog of emails and voice mails. Our support is staffed for phone support during business hours (Central time) but due to high call volume you may still reach our voice mail at times.

The CoinTerra Team

How long is your backlog?  I was told a supervisor would contact me TWO WEEKS ago and I am still waiting.  You found the time and staff to launch your hosting services in the meantime.  Maybe you should stop launching new things until you can adequately service your existing customers.  You owe me money.  I doubt you would be so patient if our roles were reversed. 

[Carlton Banks]

Anyone had any luck recently with contacting Cointerra by email/forum/PM/telephone?  I've made several attempts and had no luck.  It also appears they are moderating their forum posts on http://forum.cointerra.com/ which is totally fine by me but at least dedicate a person to moderate them.  It's not like they are dealing with thousands of posts.  Being legit in my book means hiring some extra staff to respond to legitimate customer requests during normal working hours.  

they have ignored several emails from me for two weeks now.  prior to my purchase they answered within an hour on several occasions.

Yea, don't know why they don't hire some extra minions

The MINION might beat Cointerra to market.

Since Blackarrow haven't taped out the Minion asic yet, that seems a little unlikely.  they've got $5m+ to raise from pre-sales before they can go into production.  And they'd need to pay a lot more in expedite fees to get it in feb versus march.

-- Jez

They haven't announced it yet, there is a difference. Not everyone feels the need to announce their every breath and toilet break to serve as some kind of "evidence" that their project is on track. Cointerra making the announcement means little, they've had no opportunity so far to demonstrate that anything they've promised is true.

I have this sneaking suspicion that both Cointerra and Hashfast are going to miss their December delivery targets, just a hunch. Too much talk, too much glossy showroom stuff. Will it turn in to ASIC gen I part 2?

Will BlackArrow pip them at the post in mid-February, while the guys who paid for expensive front-page advertisements on shiny paper flounder around with their angry over-bought customers shrieking and wailing? Maybe, but the delivery window is narrowing, and they're all 3 looking like converging on the same timeframe. Tortoise (Avalon) won the last race, the hare (BFL) is still attempting to deliver it's overambitious promises.

[aerobatic]

They haven't announced it yet, there is a difference. Not everyone feels the need to announce their every breath and toilet break to serve as some kind of "evidence" that their project is on track. Cointerra making the announcement means little, they've had no opportunity so far to demonstrate that anything they've promised is true.

I have this sneaking suspicion that both Cointerra and Hashfast are going to miss their December delivery targets, just a hunch. Too much talk, too much glossy showroom stuff. Will it turn in to ASIC gen I part 2?

Will BlackArrow pip them at the post in mid-February, while the guys who paid for expensive front-page advertisements on shiny paper flounder around with their angry over-bought customers shrieking and wailing? Maybe, but the delivery window is narrowing, and they're all 3 looking like converging on the same timeframe. Tortoise (Avalon) won the last race, the hare (BFL) is still attempting to deliver it's overambitious promises.

For Hashfast they absolutely can't afford to miss that dec 31st deadline cos they've got a lot of batch 1 customers holding a sales contract that gives them a right to a full refund if they miss the dec 31st date so you can think that this date is set in stone and Hashfast will move mountains to ensure they ship before then.  And as for Cointerra, they were originally running two months later than hashfast but events have conspired (hf being very late and cointerra being late but not as late)... so they've done some catching up and are now perhaps are weeks rather than months behind.  I still think they will show working systems in december like they promised and probably sneak in the first shipments by the end of december (like they promised) but most of their customers (including me) are in the january batch and they've got a lot more time to deliver that batch on schedule than they have for the Dec batch.  and all future orders for both hashfast and cointerra are now feb and march timeframe because their first few batches are completely sold out... so business for both of them mustve been pretty good (especially with bitcoin levels rising so much... everyone wants to be mining now.. and the ROI suddenly makes a lot more sense than it once did)

Black Arrow would certainly have announced their tape-out as soon as they hit that milestone.  Its simply not sensible in this marketplace there is any benefit to taping out secretly and not telling anyone... especially because they're trying to take pre-orders as we speak, and they'd get a hell of a lot more pre-orders if people had confidence the chip was coming.. so clearly, by definition, they haven't taped out yet, or they would've said.  And look at Cointerra for an example of the pre-tape out and post-tape out frenzy... ok, so bitcoin going up helped a lot... but their sales & support staff are snowed under with the volume of inquiries.. and that may have had a lot to do with announcing tape-out as it significantly reduces the risk profile of the product and its shipping on time.

For Black Arrow to pip Hashfast, Cointerra and BitMine to the post... there'd have to be an awful lot of things go wrong for each and every one of those three, and it has to go swimmingly well for Black Arrow (and they have to raise enough pre-orders - which gets harder all the time - and sell loads of their bitfury clone box....  so that they can hit the $5m in target that allows them to pay the fab and the other contractors to get their 28nm asic into production).   Now, this COULD happen without us knowing.. but i'd say its pretty unlikely.  These guys, just like almost everyone else.. will announce their tape-out with gusto because it helps them make pre-order sales!   Also, we don't know when the next KnCMiner machine is coming out.. but it won't be far behind Black Arrow.. so they will certainly be entering at a time when its hard to compete except on price.

[VolanicEruptor]

The last post really made me wonder:

If I sell you a machine for $1000, and bitcoin goes up to $800, I would MUCH RATHER refund your order for $1000 than let you mine precious bitcoins with it.  Could this be what these companies are going to do?  Just refund our orders for fiat?  It would make them 10x as much profit..

[Carlton Banks]

Black Arrow would certainly have announced their tape-out as soon as they hit that milestone.  Its simply not sensible in this marketplace there is any benefit to taping out secretly and not telling anyone... especially because they're trying to take pre-orders as we speak, and they'd get a hell of a lot more pre-orders if people had confidence the chip was coming.. so clearly, by definition, they haven't taped out yet, or they would've said.  And look at Cointerra for an example of the pre-tape out and post-tape out frenzy... ok, so bitcoin going up helped a lot... but their sales & support staff are snowed under with the volume of inquiries.. and that may have had a lot to do with announcing tape-out as it significantly reduces the risk profile of the product and its shipping on time.

No. This is a poor argument, by all accounts. And an argument that revolves entirely around Cointerra's story.

Until Cointerra were drawn into the "have they or haven't they" question surrounding the mask tape-outs, it was never an issue, and never a marketing strategy. For any ASIC company, of which there have been 4 that came before them.

There is no evidence of Cointerra's tape-out, and even if it were the truth, it is by no means their only challenge whilst trying to complete this project. All sorts of other problems can cause delays, and there is no real way to know which of these problems are real and which are concealing embarrassing oversight of something simple. BFL played that exact same game with their customers; anytime a delay was announced it was attributed to somehting highly technical, and never to something as prosaic as bad contingency planning in their material requirements.

With these ASIC developers, it's always: "We're so ahead of our time, so bleeding edge, that the challenges of technology innovation are unfolding in totally unexpected ways! Even Stephen Hawking and Einstein couldn't have seen this one coming!"

Whereas the reality is we have no proof of these things, all we really know is they goofed something up, and are using excuses that very few people are qualified to comment on, and no-one independent can actually verify.

[aerobatic]

The last post really made me wonder:

If I sell you a machine for $1000, and bitcoin goes up to $800, I would MUCH RATHER refund your order for $1000 than let you mine precious bitcoins with it.  Could this be what these companies are going to do?  Just refund our orders for fiat?  It would make them 10x as much profit..

there are plenty of other models.  i think the picks and shovels people (bitcoin asic companies) will most likely continue making picks and shovels for the foreseeable future.  but in the longer term... instead of selling boxes to people, who have limited space in their homes and limited hvac and power (not to mention skills in keeping the systems running at full efficiency)...  i think that the asic companies of today will end up being bitcoin mining service providers and hosting partners of tomorrow.. and will be selling bitcoin systems to customers, complete with full service hosting contracts.. that way their customers can buy even more systems than fit in their homes, and the asic companies get more of a continual revenue stream.

[aerobatic]

No. This is a poor argument, by all accounts. And an argument that revolves entirely around Cointerra's story.

Until Cointerra were drawn into the "have they or haven't they" question surrounding the mask tape-outs, it was never an issue, and never a marketing strategy. For any ASIC company, of which there have been 4 that came before them.

i don't entirely agree...  ever since 28nm silicon started (with KnCMiner).. and the cost of producing a new bitcoin asic has became astronomical, the biggest hurdle for any new (28nm) asic company has to overcome is selling enough pre-sales orders (or finding investors) to be able to pay the $5m+ that it costs to enter production - previously with 110, 65 or 40nm, a much less expensive proposition.   I agree that after tape-out its not just plain sailing - theres plenty of other execution risk (as hashfast has demonstrated).. but the tape-out hurdle and the associated pre-sales requirement is pretty much the biggest hurdle to overcome in a bitcoin asic company's life - because it means two huge things have been achieved.  1.  that the asic is finished, tested, and meets its target specs (verified by the physical design partner, which is an outside and completely unpartisan team), and 2.  that the company has raised enough cash via pre-sales to enter full production.   This significantly de-risks the delivery timeline once tape-out has passed, both from a technical and financial security point of view.  The company has therefore overcome its the biggest milestone (not that there aren't plenty of other execution hurdles on the way to achieving a successful on-schedule delivery)

There is no evidence of Cointerra's tape-out, and even if it were the truth, it is by no means their only challenge whilst trying to complete this project. All sorts of other problems can cause delays, and there is no real way to know which of these problems are real and which are concealing embarrassing oversight of something simple. BFL played that exact same game with their customers; anytime a delay was announced it was attributed to somehting highly technical, and never to something as prosaic as bad contingency planning in their material requirements.

what the hell does that mean?  no evidence of cointerra's tape-out ?     doing a joint press release with their partner is the evidence.  What more do you need?  What more could you possibly have?   You don't think they could lie do you?  You certainly don't think their physical design partner is going to allow them to mislead about anything, let alone something as massive as a tape-out do you?   a tape-out announcement is pretty definitive and for you to think that it could be misleading is ridiculous fantasy.    after tape-out, the next big milestone is silicon arrival.

With these ASIC developers, it's always: "We're so ahead of our time, so bleeding edge, that the challenges of technology innovation are unfolding in totally unexpected ways! Even Stephen Hawking and Einstein couldn't have seen this one coming!"

Whereas the reality is we have no proof of these things, all we really know is they goofed something up, and are using excuses that very few people are qualified to comment on, and no-one independent can actually verify.

thats pretty much my point.. to some extent at least, more transparency..  more announcements.. more status updates... are useful for us customers knowing whats going on behind the black box that is asic development.   we want to see the updates.  now, once an asic enters the fab, you probably won't get many updates (and certainly not ones for public consumption)... you just have an expected eta that the fab gives you...  and then out pops the silicon... for you to hope it works.

[Carlton Banks]

tape-out = the new chip package bumping

Would they lie? Is it in the fabrication partners interests to lie too? You take those things completely as given, and offer no credible reason as to why not.

And you keep trying to maintain that the tape-out has some kind of elevated status in the process, and don't offer any reason other than the investment cost it requires. If any aspect that is necessary to the assembly, correct functioning and chain of customer delivery becomes absent, then no Terraminers, or Sierras, or Prosperos. Why concentrate so heavily on this one aspect of the project development? You're a little obsessed with tape-outs if you ask me, and you're ostensibly a customer like any other on this board.

BlackArrow have another advantage, if I may suggest it. Their operation is located in the manufacturing heartland of the world. Not just electronics, but all manufacturing. They're not going to stuck for choice when it comes to suppliers for just about any part of the project, from fixing screws, to cardboard, to any piece of production line equipment you care to mention. How are Cointerra going to deal with that advantage, what with their location in the long term declining manufacturing heartland of the world?

[aerobatic]

tape-out = the new chip package bumping

Would they lie? Is it in the fabrication partners interests to lie too? You take those things completely as given, and offer no credible reason as to why not.

And you keep trying to maintain that the tape-out has some kind of elevated status in the process, and don't offer any reason other than the investment cost it requires. If any aspect that is necessary to the assembly, correct functioning and chain of customer delivery becomes absent, then no Terraminers, or Sierras, or Prosperos. Why concentrate so heavily on this one aspect of the project development? You're a little obsessed with tape-outs if you ask me, and you're ostensibly a customer like any other on this board.

im not alone in focussing on tape-out as a 'big deal'.  you may well be alone in thinking that asic companies could (or even would) lie - with their physical design partners - about whether they've taped-out.  the reputitional impact of the physical design partner lying would be immense, even if the asic company itself could get away with it, what a silly assertion.

Similarly, i don't think that VeriSilicon (Black Arrow's physical design partner) will allow them to lie about when tape-out happens, so when they achieve it, i am expecting their announcement will be truthful too.

BlackArrow have another advantage, if I may suggest it. Their operation is located in the manufacturing heartland of the world. Not just electronics, but all manufacturing. They're not going to stuck for choice when it comes to suppliers for just about any part of the project, from fixing screws, to cardboard, to any piece of production line equipment you care to mention. How are Cointerra going to deal with that advantage, what with their location in the long term declining manufacturing heartland of the world?

your suggestions are totally valid... but suggesting that cointerra, being in austin, isn't in a pretty ideal place to do high tech r&d... (there's a serious amount of asic engineers there, second only to silicon valley - which is where hashfast are located, so they too, have access to all the design talent they need).   those are pretty good places to be based, when designing state of the art silicon.   now, if you're saying that making the box, the screws, the cardboard (huh?), and everything else can be made cheaper in china.. yes of course it can...   and any american company can also make products in china when it wants to.  hashfast and cointerra chose to make their boxes in north america - most likely for 'time to market' reasons - i.e. build it as close as you can to your customers and also as close as you can to the designers, so they are on hand for when things go wrong.  I'm quite sure, when they get to the subsequent batches that are less time critical (like batch 4 & 5) they will be shifting some or more of their production to china, for when they want things built at a lower cost (and they've got a proven working product and its time to take some cost out of it)...   but time to market in the bitcoin world - both in the design process and in pilot manufacturing - is of more critical importance (for the early batches at least) than cost reduction, which can come later.. when the market is more price sensitive.

[Carlton Banks]

tape-out = the new chip package bumping

Would they lie? Is it in the fabrication partners interests to lie too? You take those things completely as given, and offer no credible reason as to why not.

And you keep trying to maintain that the tape-out has some kind of elevated status in the process, and don't offer any reason other than the investment cost it requires. If any aspect that is necessary to the assembly, correct functioning and chain of customer delivery becomes absent, then no Terraminers, or Sierras, or Prosperos. Why concentrate so heavily on this one aspect of the project development? You're a little obsessed with tape-outs if you ask me, and you're ostensibly a customer like any other on this board.

im not alone in focussing on tape-out as a 'big deal'.  you may well be alone in thinking that asic companies could (or even would) lie - with their physical design partners - about whether they've taped-out.  the reputitional impact of the physical design partner lying would be immense, even if the asic company itself could get away with it, what a silly assertion.

Similarly, i don't think that VeriSilicon (Black Arrow's physical design partner) will allow them to lie about when tape-out happens, so when they achieve it, i am expecting their announcement will be truthful too.

Nonsense. Why not? If it makes sense to do so, any business will behave in any way they see fit. Again, your argument is thick with rhetoric and thin on logic.

BlackArrow have another advantage, if I may suggest it. Their operation is located in the manufacturing heartland of the world. Not just electronics, but all manufacturing. They're not going to stuck for choice when it comes to suppliers for just about any part of the project, from fixing screws, to cardboard, to any piece of production line equipment you care to mention. How are Cointerra going to deal with that advantage, what with their location in the long term declining manufacturing heartland of the world?

your suggestions are totally valid... but suggesting that cointerra, being in austin, isn't in a pretty ideal place to do high tech r&d... (there's a serious amount of asic engineers there, second only to silicon valley - which is where hashfast are located, so they too, have access to all the design talent they need).   those are pretty good places to be based, when designing state of the art silicon.   now, if you're saying that making the box, the screws, the cardboard (huh?), and everything else can be made cheaper in china.. yes of course it can...   and any american company can also make products in china when it wants to.  hashfast and cointerra chose to make their boxes in north america - most likely for 'time to market' reasons - i.e. build it as close as you can to your customers and also as close as you can to the designers, so they are on hand for when things go wrong.  I'm quite sure, when they get to the subsequent batches that are less time critical (like batch 4 & 5) they will be shifting some or more of their production to china, for when they want things built at a lower cost (and they've got a proven working product and its time to take some cost out of it)...   but time to market in the bitcoin world - both in the design process and in pilot manufacturing - is of more critical importance (for the early batches at least) than cost reduction, which can come later.. when the market is more price sensitive.

I'm not talking about cost reduction, you've seized on that aspect all by yourself. I'm talking about (and it shouldn't need to spelled out so clearly) assembly line and supply chain logistics. Getting the right components in the right place, at the right time, at all. Not the unit cost of doing so.

Oh, and the cardboard would be for the packaging. You know, the box (not the type of box that you clearly aren't thinking outside of). I don't think Cointerra plan to ship their units as is, with a delivery address glued to the side of the bare unit.

[VolanicEruptor]

The last post really made me wonder:

If I sell you a machine for $1000, and bitcoin goes up to $800, I would MUCH RATHER refund your order for $1000 than let you mine precious bitcoins with it.  Could this be what these companies are going to do?  Just refund our orders for fiat?  It would make them 10x as much profit..

there are plenty of other models.  i think the picks and shovels people (bitcoin asic companies) will most likely continue making picks and shovels for the foreseeable future.  but in the longer term... instead of selling boxes to people, who have limited space in their homes and limited hvac and power (not to mention skills in keeping the systems running at full efficiency)...  i think that the asic companies of today will end up being bitcoin mining service providers and hosting partners of tomorrow.. and will be selling bitcoin systems to customers, complete with full service hosting contracts.. that way their customers can buy even more systems than fit in their homes, and the asic companies get more of a continual revenue stream.

It's always more profitable to take the money and run.
Lets say Cointerra sells $10,000,000 worth of preorders, with full intentions of building them for their customers and shipping on time.  Lets assume their profit margin is 200% at that time when Bitcoin is $120.
Fast forward to now when BTC is $800..
$10,000,000 of purchase orders would now be worth ~$80,000,000 if they decided to mine with the machines themselves, assuming they make ROI.  We are expecting them to forfeit a profit margin of 8x profit so that they can satisfy their orders for 2x profit.  This is what scares me.
They will hold onto those machines as long as is necessary to make them as filthy rich as possible, while LEGITIMATELY refunding their customers in the FIAT that their bitcoins were worth at the time.  After all, could we legally be able to go after them if they have given us full refunds?  It would be a better scam than BFL pulled.  It would be the most profitable path for them.

The best way for them to accomplish this would be this:  December is going to pass.  January comes along, and they "admit" they are having technical issues with their chips, while sincerely apologizing for the shipping delays.  February passes, and then March comes and they decide to finally ship their products to the few customers that are left who didn't demand refunds.  

I hope this doesn't happen but I'm sure this scenario has entered the minds of those who started up Cointerra.  It's a more complex version of the BFL scam.

I hope for the best, but fear the worst.  

We can take the option and wait.. or we can start acting now.  Start becoming friends with Cointerra employees, record conversations as I have already been doing, do what we can to protect ourselves.  This may become the biggest scam in bitcoin history if we don't start NOW.

[ralree]

record conversations as I have already been doing,

Unless you asked for their consent to record, you may have violated the law in recording the phone call:

http://lifehacker.com/5491190/is-it-legal-to-record-phone-calls

You're good if you don't live in those states though.