Great points! I overlooked/forgot about the PayPal promise.
Yeah, us miners: Once you f up with us, you have to do *a lot* to get back in our good graces. I think most of all you need to admit you screwed up & be humble for the business you do/did get.
If I had to list the top 3 or 4 ASIC manufacturers by reputation it would be:
1. ASIC Miner - yes, they were/are the most expensive but at least you get it! [Disclaimer: AM shareholder 1.14 shares currently held by John K. as collateral ATM]
2. Bitfury - shipping in Europe. Hooray!
3. HashFast - That Miner Protection Plan made me go from: "Hmm, what should I do" to Full GB Coordinator mode even though I never tried to operate a BTC mining co-op before. [Disclaimer: 1/4th owner and primary remote admin of a HF Baby Jet]
4. KnC - Sorry Bitcoinorama, they may move to #3 IMHO if they meet that Sept. delivery date & unveil some new price points and/or Miner Protection Plan to match HF & CT.
Hey that's cool, you are welcome to whatever opinion you want, but in my mind Hashfast have done nothing to appear on that list, and this has nothing to do with my choice in KnC. I for myself continue to research future companies to back, but;
Hashfast have constantly changed terms and remove any accountability AFTER inviting funding.
They have no real refund option. They have very likely lied about delivery dates, knowing full well they cannot honour them to acquire cash and lock your funds to a more realistic January (they have, according to themselves, only just taped out, over two weeks past their original promised date! in that time delivery of 20-30th Oct changed to 'anticipated' AFTER they secured funds, refund window changed to Jan 1st-14th AFTER they secured funds (also after they will have spent them, and NO third party honouring them). You can only receive tape out as and when you have the funds together to pay for production, TSMC won't release it prior. We know it's taken them that long to sell their inventory. Even hotlot runs likely place them beyond October. If they have wantonly claimed otherwise to acquire funds knowing full well they cannot deliver in that time, easily provable at a later date, that is fraud.
You do realise MPP may well 1). Be illegal as you cannot legally mention 'investment/ROI' if you are not a regulated financial services company, I'm sure FinCEN would have something to say about this, again note the difference in Cointerra's wording, there is a significant reason behind this, 2) you do realise chips are graded in terms of quality, they are not all uniform, no where does the MPP promise you any degree of certainty there, just a physical chip, irrespective of usefulness, not to mention the time taken to assemble that chip into something useful is out of their hands, but directly affects any miners renumeration, let alone the additional costs involved in further assembly. Anyone purchasing needs to factor in additional costs will likely be required and time will very much be a factor.
Both Cointerra and Hashfast's estimates are based in best case simulations, KnC's are based on pessimistic worst case. KnC's 400gh/s for Jupiter is worst case. Hashfast, and Cointerra's 400 and 500 Gh/s are best case. You need to be able to read between the lines of marketing. Hashfast and Cointerra cannot afford to state pessimistic values and under promise, over deliver as they are late to the party and need to encourage you to open rightfully sceptical wallets, also presumably they don't understand the value in this as a real marketing tool, over marketing BS.
Here is something else to consider, at least Cointerra are making less power intensive chips. The theoretical limit of 28nm chips exceed far beyond 500gh/s. You could have a 2 Th/s chip if you could control the heat generated by the silicon, fact is you can't affordably do so. Hashfast's chips are going to be running hot, v.hot. They claim you can overclock their chips, you have to understand they are overclocking and water cooling them themselves, hence a meagre 10 day warranty. Err no thanks, if that's how much confidence they have in their open product. Blaming people wanting to OC is BS you can easily design in temp regulators and means of determining whether chips have been abused to offer a worthwhile warranty, but the reason their warranty is 10 days is they are abusing their chip themselves to meet the marketing they have spun. MPP does not cover dead chips outside a 10 day warranty, only whether you ROI within 90 days, which again, I don't think they can legally promise. KnC has a year long warranty and real payment protection if they do not deliver in an acceptable timeframe for a reason. They have refused no one a refund, and few have requested one, despite the trolls attempts to force their hand. Why do you think Hashfast have ignored all calls for Paypal. In 45 days alone you'd know if Hashfast were delivering in time. Coincidence?
Finally, I think, honestly, no fanboy crap, KnC are aiming well and truly for the top spot. They really want to over deliver and keep promises. They want repeat long term business, they want customers to be happy, and they do get Bitcoin. They are über geeks. My background is in disruptive finance and venture capital amongst other things professionally, and engineering by education from one of the UK's most renowned engineering universities (a top 6 when I studied there), and a direct competitor to Simon Barber's. I know how to research and spot a legitimate business and engineering firm. I've not really pushed that on this forum before, as part of me wants to remain modest as to my own background in case there are unexpected delays no one could foresee in June, i'd rather not personally deal with fallout i'd have no direct hand in, but with all due respect I know my shit when it comes to what I look for in Engineering Design which is why I can stomach that shill and fanboy nonsense. KnC's development team is far more than one guy, perhaps I didn't give true credit beyond Marcus at the Openday, they have a lot more bodies involved and they are very well connected in the industry. There's been a lot I cannot talk about, no NDA's were signed, those are worthless anyway unless it's between two people, you'll rarely be able to prove an NDA was broken, just integrity on my part, and an understanding that this is someones business and passion, but KnC went out of their way to prove public ally they are legit and exist, and even further in private to me. They will reveal more for sure after they ship.
KnC have chosen massively over engineered surrounding components to limit any issues regarding power and heat, and taken a very safety orientated approach to the IC design to ensure speed to market and fingers crossed minimal issues regarding chip once in hand, and remained tight lipped and totally pessimistic with regards to true specs on purpose so as not to let anyone down, and moreso reveal a welcome set of true specs on the day, all because they understand timing is everything. Again we will have to wait and see what that delivers with regards to true performance, but people focusing on the w/Gh/s and overall Gh/s of competing companies have to understand the competing companies quote best case, and KnC are quoting worst case.
On top of which they have gone out of their way to tick all boxes legally with respect to tax laws in each EU country and choose payment methods with real payment protection with respect to pre-orders.
Really don't think you've considered any of that above, but I'm happy for you to have a welcome surprise, just bare in mind true engineering is based on facts not marketing, and I think you need to read between the lines of claims.
For what it's worth I'll happily change my tune if proven otherwise, but there's so far only one of those three companies that's gone out of their way to err on the side of caution, provide achievable targets and honestly protect their customers funds by bending over backwards to appease Paypal, and that's KnC, by a country mile. Furthermore if they deliver on time their customers will likely profit considerably more, as time to market is the only thing that matters between the three, pricing will undoubtedly become more competitive from November onwards.
