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

[Dallas5]

Just a simple question about the delay: If you've ordered from Minersource will you still be compensated?

Yes, BA and Bobsag have said that orders through MinerSource will also receive the 25% compensation package.

Thanks, do you have a source? I ask because I've emailed both companies but got no reply (yet) from MS and BA couldn't tell me and told me to mail MS.

I'm not looking for a refund just want to make sure we got compensation for the lost money not mining 2 months, seeing difficulty still rises on all SHA-256 coins. Still I would be really happy seeing those little X1's mining away in my house.

[Trongersoll]

I don't know but i get the feeling ASIC mining is not going to be around for long (or not appealing to the general public), especially in regards to SHA256 coins. Now if they bring forward the ASIC miners for scrypt that may be an entirely different story. ASIC is killing off the joy of mining though: Makes technology available to us at high costs and nearly before the technology has become obsolete (they probably mine the hell out of them before the miners reach us). I may be wrong and comments are welcome.

ASIC scrypt miner? how would that work? It is my understanding that scrypt mining isn't really doable on an ASIC. Something about ASICs not having any memory.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355268.0

So? That chip isn't a true ASIC, but rather an hybrid with on chip ram.

[ernie-]

I'm loving BlackArrow's Australian reseller, 'BitMiners'.

Trying to offload BFL 60Gh/s http://bitminers.com.au/refurbished-mining-equipment/ for $2345 AUD ($2097.13 USD).

Flogging the Prospero X-3 (the 'may batch') http://bitminers.com.au/product/product-one/ for $8847 AUD ($7911.87 USD). 25% markup (without 10% import tax/duty).

OR

Prospero X-3 purchased directly from BlackArrow and shipping 'soon,' apparently, (This product will be available on 30 Apr 2014) for $6652.30 AUD ($5949.15 USD) + 10% import duty = $7317.53 AUD ($6544.07 USD).

Their prospero X1 price is a bit high $997 AUD how do they work that out?

[Flying Hellfish]

I'm loving BlackArrow's Australian reseller, 'BitMiners'.

Trying to offload BFL 60Gh/s http://bitminers.com.au/refurbished-mining-equipment/ for $2345 AUD ($2097.13 USD).

Flogging the Prospero X-3 (the 'may batch') http://bitminers.com.au/product/product-one/ for $8847 AUD ($7911.87 USD). 25% markup (without 10% import tax/duty).

OR

Prospero X-3 purchased directly from BlackArrow and shipping 'soon,' apparently, (This product will be available on 30 Apr 2014) for $6652.30 AUD ($5949.15 USD) + 10% import duty = $7317.53 AUD ($6544.07 USD).

Their prospero X1 price is a bit high $997 AUD how do they work that out?

People will pay that price so they sell them for that much...  Pretty simple really.

[yannis7777]

I don't know but i get the feeling ASIC mining is not going to be around for long (or not appealing to the general public), especially in regards to SHA256 coins. Now if they bring forward the ASIC miners for scrypt that may be an entirely different story. ASIC is killing off the joy of mining though: Makes technology available to us at high costs and nearly before the technology has become obsolete (they probably mine the hell out of them before the miners reach us). I may be wrong and comments are welcome.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, armageddon.  None of them have the ability to kill the joy of mining.

Losing thousands to fund a company that's dancing in your money and feeding you a river of bullshit while they're doing it.

THAT kills the joy of mining.

I do not know if it was not for ASICS we could still be mining Bitcoin with our gpu instead of spending 1 k for obsolete and shitty 60gh/s and 180s machines while waiting for 300 and 600 that will be as crap (as profitable that is) as the 60s we have by the time they reach us. Butterflies and the like are prolly already milking them and by the time we have them we will be left with some crust. The way I see it they sell the technology of tomorrow yesterday; only bad thing is that it gets delivered the day after tomorrow (if you are lucky). BUtterfly has been accepting orders from Septemeber, they were supposed to release January and if you are lucky you will have the fucker by March.I have not ordered any of these I just say...

[Dallas5]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294197.msg4851331#msg4851331

Thanks! That piece of text should have just been emailed to everyone, no way I'm reading through 100 pages of this thread, including that cage guy conspiracy crap. Anyway that's great to hear! Looking forward to finally mining some bitcoins at a decent hashrate.

[raskul]

My hypothesis - and anyone can disagree - is that they secretly decided to go with 20nm instead of 28nm

if that is the case, i reckon you'll be waiting 'til 2015 q2/q3.

[drewage]

My hypothesis - and anyone can disagree - is that they secretly decided to go with 20nm instead of 28nm because they couldn't reach their targets with 28nm. That's why bobsag3 said that stuff under NDA are "specifics" for tapeout, etc.
That's the "surprise" and they don't want KNC/Cointerra/etc to know about it until they've successfully produced it.

Oh, that would be nice! But I'll just sit here and wait patiently.  No point getting my hopes up.

[ChuckBuck]

My hypothesis - and anyone can disagree - is that they secretly decided to go with 20nm instead of 28nm because they couldn't reach their targets with 28nm. That's why bobsag3 said that stuff under NDA are "specifics" for tapeout, etc.
That's the "surprise" and they don't want KNC/Cointerra/etc to know about it until they've successfully produced it.

Oh, that would be nice! But I'll just sit here and wait patiently.  No point getting my hopes up.

That kinda makes sense, since they ran a poll not too long ago asking if they should run with 28nm or 20nm process.

[jimmothy]

Why is everyone pretending they know the difficulty in 2 months? I have checked my crystal ball and it turns out difficulty only increases ~20% per change as opposed to the pessimistic 30% rate which most calculators have adopted. This means everyone will still reach positive roi even with the delays.

In all seriousness you can't hold BA accountable for not guaranteeing a profit (according to your calculations which are 99% wrong).

You can however hold them accountable to deliver hardware that meets advertised specs. Delays are unfortunate but not uncommon (Historically just about every asic manufacturer has experienced delays).

[drewage]

if they make this new deadline and the UPS man shows up by May 1 I'll be just as surprised as if Ed McMahon rang my doorbell and threw confetti at me while bobsag, matt et. al. walked it up the driveway while singing 'working in the coal mine'

^^^This would be well worth the wait.  

EDIT:  Well maybe I'd rather have it on the 28th but....

[jimmothy]

In all seriousness you can't hold BA accountable for not guaranteeing a profit (according to your calculations which are 99% wrong).

You can however hold them accountable to deliver hardware that meets advertised specs. Delays are unfortunate but not uncommon (Historically just about every asic manufacturer has experienced delays).

they can be held accountable for not delivering on time.  people made their buying decisions based on the timetable set out.  it was as much a factor, if not more, as the price of the unit. 

Who buys this thing in November/December for batch 1 if they're going to get it in May, or later, but could instead order from Cointerra, who is already shipping, and get their unit in Feb/March?  Pretty much no-one is my guess.

the fact that others have been late is irrelevant.  manufacturers need to keep up their end of the bargain, and that includes on time delivery for a time critical application, or be held accountable for losses suffered as a result of their own failure.

There is a huge difference between guaranteeing a shipment date and an estimate. Obviously for any company to maximize orders they would give the most optimistic estimation.

The problem is not accounting for delays in calculation. If you think you can preorder an asic then cancel your order when its no longer profitable(you think) then you should NOT be preordering an asic in the first place.

[TinkerTom]

Tapeout is on 20 Feb 2014.

Weekly update will be on Wednesday / Thursday when our new "press officer" arrives here.

There we go, that's a great start. It really doesn't have to be a lot more complicated than that. People wanting answers about bizarre business relationships don't need to be addressed every week, just a short blurb like that and then some pics once you have something to take pics of.

I would suggest picking one authoritative location for your updates and referencing it from here and ecointalk. (Is there a Black Arrow blog?) Make a new thread and restrict posts to yourself so we can easily keep up. We can discuss them elsewhere (ad nauseum).

[Unacceptable]

In all seriousness you can't hold BA accountable for not guaranteeing a profit (according to your calculations which are 99% wrong).

You can however hold them accountable to deliver hardware that meets advertised specs. Delays are unfortunate but not uncommon (Historically just about every asic manufacturer has experienced delays).

they can be held accountable for not delivering on time.  people made their buying decisions based on the timetable set out.  it was as much a factor, if not more, as the price of the unit. 

Who buys this thing in November/December for batch 1 if they're going to get it in May, or later, but could instead order from Cointerra, who is already shipping, and get their unit in Feb/March?  Pretty much no-one is my guess.

the fact that others have been late is irrelevant.  manufacturers need to keep up their end of the bargain, and that includes on time delivery for a time critical application, or be held accountable for losses suffered as a result of their own failure.

There is a huge difference between guaranteeing a shipment date and an estimate. Obviously for any company to maximize orders they would give the most optimistic estimation.

The problem is not accounting for delays in calculation. If you think you can preorder an asic then cancel your order when its no longer profitable(you think) then you should NOT be preordering an asic in the first place.

You would make a FANTASTIC BFL customer 

[Syke]

The problem is not accounting for delays in calculation. If you think you can preorder an asic then cancel your order when its no longer profitable(you think) then you should NOT be preordering an asic in the first place.

WRONG. A pre-order purchase is a contract. BA made a commitment to deliver on a specified date. If they cannot meet that date, their customers deserve the right to cancel that contract due to BA's failure to deliver. Especially in the US, it is the law.

[jimmothy]

The problem is not accounting for delays in calculation. If you think you can preorder an asic then cancel your order when its no longer profitable(you think) then you should NOT be preordering an asic in the first place.

WRONG. A pre-order purchase is a contract. BA made a commitment to deliver on a specified date. If they cannot meet that date, their customers deserve the right to cancel that contract due to BA's failure to deliver. Especially in the US, it is the law.

You mean this contract?

Delivery Terms9.1 The Products are delivered to the delivery address specified by the Purchaser, unless otherwise agreed. The delivery date is provided for information purposes only and shall not be binding on Us. The Purchaser is not entitled to refuse acceptance of the Products, withdraw, cancel or revoke the order or make claims for compensation due to any delayed delivery. 9.2 Where delivery is delayed due to any of the circumstances constituting force majeure in accordance with "Force Majeure" below or due to any act or omission by the Purchaser, the delivery period shall be extended by such a period as is reasonable in light of the circumstances. The delivery period shall also be extended where the cause of the delay arises after the expiry of the originally agreed delivery period.9.3 If the delivery is prevented due to the Purchaser’s negligent acts or omissions, the risk for the Products shall pass to the Purchaser on the date when the Products were ready for delivery.

[tokona]

Yeah, Everything is calm at my end. No great panic was reported at the meeting last week.  Quite the contrary in fact.
Then I come on here, and it's all panic from a few individuals, like in OleOle's avatar.

The X1 & X3 are going to be fantastic.  And that's just the beginning.  I have a warehouse near Heathrow lined up for UK & EU distribution.  I think we are going to see some great things from Black Arrow.

Okie dokie! have ordered 4 X1 from you to Sweden, you were only in on batch 2 on your webshop?

[FlappySocks]

Okie dokie! have ordered 4 X1 from you to Sweden, you were only in on batch 2 on your webshop?

We had batch 1 open for about 4 days, then we had notification it was closed.

[tokona]

Okie dokie! have ordered 4 X1 from you to Sweden, you were only in on batch 2 on your webshop?

We had batch 1 open for about 4 days, then we had notification it was closed.

Ok thanx, then i missed that.. But if batch 2 will be late, will we also get the 25% ?

[FlappySocks]

Ok thanx, then i missed that.. But if batch 2 will be late, will we also get the 25% ?

Batch 1 are getting 25%. I'm not aware of batch 2 being late.