Black Arrow 28nm 100Ghash Bitcoin ASIC from $0.49/GH/s

[blackarrow]

If i order today - when will the units be shipped?

Still end 02/2014?

Yes, you will be in the first batch.

[papamoi]

If i order today - when will the units be shipped?

Still end 02/2014?

Yes, you will be in the first batch.

why don t you answer about the fab?

[darkfriend77]

The above quotes simplify to this for me:   BlackArrow has promised his Prospero ASIC pre-orders (completely paid by Oct sometime) will be 25% cheaper than the market price of currently-shipping non-pre-orders

Correction: 25% cheaper than the market price of the orders that are shipped in February 2014, not today.

So If you sell the Prosperos in Febuary for 100$ all pre-order customers, which would get 25% discount (75$), will get the difference btw. there paid prices and 75$ in Hashpower. And you garantued that you will be cheaper then all other market competitors for each timeframe ... for example if Bitmine delivers conicraft for 1 GH / 0.50 $ in February ... you will sell the prosperos for under 50$?

Sorry, I might have some difficulties to understand your ... pricing model ... as it hasn't been written anything of that on the webpage ...  

[blackarrow]

hi

i m repeating my questions you didn t answered

who s the fab?

We cannot make official announcement regarding who the fab is. We know who the fab is, we work with their libraries for their process node specifications but we are not allowed to say who it is until tape-out. What we suggest you to do is to see in the fabs VeriSilicon is working with. It is one of them.

We are bind by contracts and non-disclosure agreements with the companies we work with. Please understand that there are things that we are not allowed to disclose.

Thank you for your understanding.

It is a High Performance Flip Chip BGA. I noticed you have asked this in your previous message. I am sorry I did not see that one. I looked for it after you mention that this is a repeated question.

[blackarrow]

The above quotes simplify to this for me:   BlackArrow has promised his Prospero ASIC pre-orders (completely paid by Oct sometime) will be 25% cheaper than the market price of currently-shipping non-pre-orders

Correction: 25% cheaper than the market price of the orders that are shipped in February 2014, not today.

So If you sell the Prosperos in Febuary for 100$ all pre-order customers, which would get 25% discount (75$), will get the difference btw. there paid prices and 75$ in Hashpower. And you garantued that you will be cheaper then all other market competitors for each timeframe ... for example if Bitmine delivers conicraft for 1 GH / 0.50 $ in February ... you will sell the prosperos for under 50$?

Sorry, I might have some difficulties to understand your ... pricing model ... as it hasn't been written anything of that on the webpage ...  

You cannot sell 1Gh/0.50$ not in February and not even at the end of next year. You cannot sell a product for a price which not covers manufacturing costs. As we keep saying there is a threshold where you cannot go lower. That threshold it is called cost of sales, overheads and operating loss.

[darkfriend77]

The above quotes simplify to this for me:   BlackArrow has promised his Prospero ASIC pre-orders (completely paid by Oct sometime) will be 25% cheaper than the market price of currently-shipping non-pre-orders

Correction: 25% cheaper than the market price of the orders that are shipped in February 2014, not today.

So If you sell the Prosperos in Febuary for 100$ all pre-order customers, which would get 25% discount (75$), will get the difference btw. there paid prices and 75$ in Hashpower. And you garantued that you will be cheaper then all other market competitors for each timeframe ... for example if Bitmine delivers conicraft for 1 GH / 0.50 $ in February ... you will sell the prosperos for under 50$?

Sorry, I might have some difficulties to understand your ... pricing model ... as it hasn't been written anything of that on the webpage ...  

You cannot sell 1Gh/0.50$ not in February and not even at the end of next year. You cannot sell a product for a price which not covers manufacturing costs. As we keep saying there is a threshold where you cannot go lower. That threshold it is called cost of sales, overheads and operating loss.

Then lets take some other numbers ... 1 GH / 2$ ... 200$ for 100 GH ... from an other competitor ... scheduled and delivered in end of February ... If I got you right, you would then adapt your pricing to be better then your competitor ... less then 1 GH / 2$ ... and also pre-orders would profit from that ... right ..?

[blackarrow]

The above quotes simplify to this for me:   BlackArrow has promised his Prospero ASIC pre-orders (completely paid by Oct sometime) will be 25% cheaper than the market price of currently-shipping non-pre-orders

Correction: 25% cheaper than the market price of the orders that are shipped in February 2014, not today.

So If you sell the Prosperos in Febuary for 100$ all pre-order customers, which would get 25% discount (75$), will get the difference btw. there paid prices and 75$ in Hashpower. And you garantued that you will be cheaper then all other market competitors for each timeframe ... for example if Bitmine delivers conicraft for 1 GH / 0.50 $ in February ... you will sell the prosperos for under 50$?

Sorry, I might have some difficulties to understand your ... pricing model ... as it hasn't been written anything of that on the webpage ...  

You cannot sell 1Gh/0.50$ not in February and not even at the end of next year. You cannot sell a product for a price which not covers manufacturing costs. As we keep saying there is a threshold where you cannot go lower. That threshold it is called cost of sales, overheads and operating loss.

Then lets take some other numbers ... 1 GH / 2$ ... 200$ for 100 GH ... from an other competitor ... scheduled and delivered in end of February ... If I got you right, you would then adapt your pricing to be better then your competitor ... less then 1 GH / 2$ ... and also pre-orders would profit from that ... right ..?

Let's make the statement and avoid numbers at all You will see that it does not change the essence of the message. I will use your help.

I will quote you:

"you would then adapt your pricing to be better then your competitor"
"and also pre-orders would profit from that"

You got it right. This is our statement.

What this statement means from the point of view of numbers:
1. 28nm costs are the same for everybody who makes 28nm.
2. a company needs to make profit in order to run further or it is called bankruptcy.
3. a company may choose to have very low profit margins, lower than other companies.

[Japs2013]

Blackarrow did you receive my email about the Lancelot trade-in, sent 2 days ago? Can you arrange the discount code before the 5th of october?

[blackarrow]

Blackarrow did you receive my email about the Lancelot trade-in, sent 2 days ago? Can you arrange the discount code before the 5th of october?

Please PM and let me know your email address or order number.

[vesperwillow]

Your thoughts echo part of what I brought up earlier. Despite there being a discount, the Cointerra 2TH unit would recoup a couple hundred USD more than the BA 2TH unit, but you'd spend less on the BA unit. So proportionally-speaking you pay less but lose less with BA.

At that point, in my mind, I'd probably lean toward Cointerra because I know more about the individuals who make up the company, and they're based in the US (same as myself).

That's just my thoughts.

[bobitza]

The 2014 Chinese New Year is January, 31st.

Will that interfere with your production/shipment schedule?

[blackarrow]

The 2014 Chinese New Year is January, 31st.

Will that interfere with your production/shipment schedule?

The foundry is not in China but the packaging is in Taiwan. We hope that Chinese New Year not be an issue. We'll check and get back with more data.

[User705]

The above quotes simplify to this for me:   BlackArrow has promised his Prospero ASIC pre-orders (completely paid by Oct sometime) will be 25% cheaper than the market price of currently-shipping non-pre-orders

Correction: 25% cheaper than the market price of the orders that are shipped in February 2014, not today.

So If you sell the Prosperos in Febuary for 100$ all pre-order customers, which would get 25% discount (75$), will get the difference btw. there paid prices and 75$ in Hashpower. And you garantued that you will be cheaper then all other market competitors for each timeframe ... for example if Bitmine delivers conicraft for 1 GH / 0.50 $ in February ... you will sell the prosperos for under 50$?

Sorry, I might have some difficulties to understand your ... pricing model ... as it hasn't been written anything of that on the webpage ...  

You cannot sell 1Gh/0.50$ not in February and not even at the end of next year. You cannot sell a product for a price which not covers manufacturing costs. As we keep saying there is a threshold where you cannot go lower. That threshold it is called cost of sales, overheads and operating loss.

Then lets take some other numbers ... 1 GH / 2$ ... 200$ for 100 GH ... from an other competitor ... scheduled and delivered in end of February ... If I got you right, you would then adapt your pricing to be better then your competitor ... less then 1 GH / 2$ ... and also pre-orders would profit from that ... right ..?

Let's make the statement and avoid numbers at all You will see that it does not change the essence of the message. I will use your help.

I will quote you:

"you would then adapt your pricing to be better then your competitor"
"and also pre-orders would profit from that"

You got it right. This is our statement.

What this statement means from the point of view of numbers:
1. 28nm costs are the same for everybody who makes 28nm.
2. a company needs to make profit in order to run further or it is called bankruptcy.
3. a company may choose to have very low profit margins, lower than other companies.

None of this should be the customers problems.  As I stated before you keep trying to say anything and everything to get pre-order monies but still no actual set pricing model.  Even if one believes your ability to manufacture this everything else is all over the place.  Customers don't need essence they need an actual price but you certainly appear to not want to give a price.  What happens to your "guarantee" if market prices at the time of shipping happen to be below your costs?

[Puppet]

You cannot sell 1Gh/0.50$ not in February and not even at the end of next year.

Are you taking bets on that ?

[wingspan]

I think Black Arrow has provided more pricing detail than any other pre-order ASIC offer - he quoted several prices (depending on % paid in Sept/Oct or if using trade-ins by Oct 5th), and then promised to match-25% essentially in $/GH/s what the best Feb 24th off-the-shelf pricing of a comparable product to the Prospero is.  He also implied he can't go below $0.5/GH/s.  Now my guess is his company will be forced down some, but nobody can  predict the future....and his promise tells me that we who trust him and pre-order will (if all works out) get a relatively great deal for our miners....and our ROI will be as good as any others (positive or negative) at that Feb 24th point in time.  If the difficulty keeps rising at more than 60% per month, then ROI will be negative for us even at the $0.5/GH/s bankrupting level....and I'd assume the same for other ASICs products.  However, I'm figuring in December the difficulty will taper off its rate of climb due to less energy efficient (W/GH/s) miners turning off their mining equipment due to cost of power.  (At 100B difficulty, only systems more efficient than 0.3 W/GH/s at $0.1/KWhr can afford power to run. --ediited this last line from a guess after doing the calculation at the mining dashboard http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/ .)

[topminingcontracts]

I think, BlackArrow is an interesting option, this one and Cointerra at least for me are 2 good ahead from the rest.

BA answer fast and looks like he try his best to clarify and provide information.

But I have one opinion for all the ASIC providers, they say they can’t provide a business proposal that may make them loose money because if they do that they may go bankruptcy, if that is correct some may agree some not, but if is correct should apply for both sides of the deal, what I see in 99% of the recent past deals is the miners can loose money and will loose money but ASIC providers ask us to guarantee their profit.

Sorry if I hurt someone.

Regards

TMC

[madmax_ger]

...if that is correct some may agree some not, but if is correct should apply for both sides of the deal, what I see in 99% of the recent past deals is the miners can loose money and will loose money but ASIC providers ask us to guarantee their profit...

+1, and this really counts for any current ASIC provider. I will state my opinion and some facts in this thread because I believe BA is one of the most serious companys in here and has been a proven business partner to many customers, in contrast to many other, new and even established manufacturers that burned their customers money already:

1. With a growth rate based on the experiences of the last months concerning the upcoming mining devices as well there wont be any positive ROI on these or any other devices sold today for the called prices.

2. I am afraid at costs of 270 USD also a Prospero X1 even delivered on time at the end of february will not break even anymore: http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=0.1&btcusd=129.50&dpowcon=50&btcusd_mincrease=0&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=20&dleadtime=13&action=calc

3. Even without power costs and with mining-friendly decreases in growth rate there is no way to mine back the FIAT invest before 2017 at the current BTC value: http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=3&btcusd=129.50&dpowcon=0&btcusd_mincrease=0&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=99&dleadtime=13&action=calc

4. And next, even if BTC value increases, it would have been safer to buy bitcoins as they are delivered instantly, and the profit would be much bigger too.

I'd like love to invest in bitcoins or in supporting the network, I would also don't mind to pay a company for a mining device that empowers me to do this. But I won't burn more money on mining devices that probably will not get back the paid money valued in any currency calculated with todays prices.

IMO it's not a complete mistake to choose this high pricing because many will simply buy coins instead of mining devices. You are supporting the increase of bitcoin value. If this happens fast enough, it might be also possible to mine back the FIAT value of your mining device:

http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=3&btcusd=129.50&dpowcon=0&btcusd_mincrease=1&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=99&dleadtime=13&action=calc

But obviously this is gambling - on top of some more layers and corners than buying bitcoins right now would be. Buying mining devices in the current market situation at this pricings with a foreseeable loss (because it could end up sooo fine) is like you're dreaming that you are dreaming some dreams - of a imagined profit (btw. need to watch inception again).

BlackArrow, you got a nice product but I think feb 2014 is too late for this pricing from todays perspective. Your current pricing IMO is made for BTC value at 160 USD at least:

http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=3&btcusd=160&dpowcon=50&btcusd_mincrease=1&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=99&dleadtime=13&action=calc

[Foofighter]

...if that is correct some may agree some not, but if is correct should apply for both sides of the deal, what I see in 99% of the recent past deals is the miners can loose money and will loose money but ASIC providers ask us to guarantee their profit...

+1, and this really counts for any current ASIC provider. I will state my opinion and some facts in this thread because I believe BA is one of the most serious companys in here and has been a proven business partner to many customers, in contrast to many other, new and even established manufacturers that burned their customers money already:

1. With a growth rate based on the experiences of the last months concerning the upcoming mining devices as well there wont be any positive ROI on these or any other devices sold today for the called prices.

2. I am afraid at costs of 270 USD also a Prospero X1 even delivered on time at the end of february will not break even anymore: http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=0.1&btcusd=129.50&dpowcon=50&btcusd_mincrease=0&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=20&dleadtime=13&action=calc

3. Even without power costs and with mining-friendly decreases in growth rate there is no way to mine back the FIAT invest before 2017 at the current BTC value: http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=3&btcusd=129.50&dpowcon=0&btcusd_mincrease=0&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=99&dleadtime=13&action=calc

4. And next, even if BTC value increases, it would have been safer to buy bitcoins as they are delivered instantly, and the profit would be much bigger too.

I'd like love to invest in bitcoins or in supporting the network, I would also don't mind to pay a company for a mining device that empowers me to do this. But I won't burn more money on mining devices that probably will not get back the paid money valued in any currency calculated with todays prices.

IMO it's not a complete mistake to choose this high pricing because many will simply buy coins instead of mining devices. You are supporting the increase of bitcoin value. If this happens fast enough, it might be also possible to mine back the FIAT value of your mining device:

http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=3&btcusd=129.50&dpowcon=0&btcusd_mincrease=1&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=99&dleadtime=13&action=calc

But obviously this is gambling - on top of some more layers and corners than buying bitcoins right now would be. Buying mining devices in the current market situation at this pricings with a foreseeable loss (because it could end up sooo fine) is like you're dreaming that you are dreaming some dreams - of a imagined profit (btw. need to watch inception again).

BlackArrow, you got a nice product but I think feb 2014 is too late for this pricing from todays perspective. Your current pricing IMO is made for BTC value at 160 USD at least:

http://btcinvest.net/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=148819199.80509&dcosts=270&diff_mincrease=30&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=100000&diff_mincreasedecrease=3&btcusd=160&dpowcon=50&btcusd_mincrease=1&pcost=0.25&calcweeks=99&dleadtime=13&action=calc

+1

[KS]

Or another company sells, say, 2TH/s for 4000$ and you get 25% back either with more hashing power or a partial refund (I guess more hashing power).

Same thing as BTC @ 160$.

[blackarrow]

After consulting with one of our prospective resellers, who have had more interaction with PayPal than we have, we understood that PayPal’s business model does not fit very well with pre-orders. Because our delivery date is over Paypal’s 90 days delivery threshold, we risk having our PayPal account blocked with all customers’ money in it. If such a thing were to happen this might cause huge delays in deliveries and we want to avoid this at all costs.

Our merchant account with PayPal is currently working but we have decided to suspend all future PayPal transactions for items that are not in stock (pre-orders). We have contacted and are currently talking with PayPal to ensure that they understand our pre-sales agreement and to obtain the guarantee that everything is ok, all security checks are done and our account will remain open.

We will reactivate PayPal payments as soon as we get PayPal’s approval in writing or as soon as we will be able to meet 90 days delivery condition, which means closer to the release date of the Product.

We have also approached various credit card processing vendors. As soon as we find one willing to work with pre-orders, we will be able to process credit/debit cards. However, because this process might take longer than the time required to sell our first ASICs batch, we hope that the absence of the Credit/Debit card process will not stop our customers from placing orders with us.

Orders placed and paid so far with PayPal are safe and we intend to deliver them as promised. However, if any customer changes his mind and wishes to pay with a different payment method or cancel his order, he/she is welcome to do so. Please drop us an email and we will issue a refund as soon as we read your message.