First commercial ASIC miner specifications and pre-launch

[asicminer]

We will use epoxy coating sprayed onto the main channels and components. Removing it will destroy the hardware.

So we won't be able to see anything under this coating, but you still won't show a prototype? You really don't make much sense. Anything that the eyes can distinguish is trivial. It's the structure inside the ASIC that would be interesting. And it would take X-rays to see that.

Besides, there are ways of getting that epoxy sh*t off. I've heard a cappucino machine works well.

The prototype obviously isn't coated because it is still needed at it stands at this stage.
We will manage to show some screenshots of the control software in action.

[Xephan]

The prototype obviously isn't coated because it is still needed at it stands at this stage.
We will manage to show some screenshots of the control software in action.

It doesn't take a lot to cook up a convincing looking UI without any actual hardware. USD 2700 isn't that small a sum after all so you'll need to provide a lot more evidence than that.

[JoelKatz]

The reverse engineering risk doesn't exist. After your first unit is deployed, it's open season. I would think it's better to go for complete disclosure, thereby gaining the trust and commerce of dozens or hundreds than to appear shady and turn away thousands.

We will use epoxy coating sprayed onto the main channels and components. Removing it will destroy the hardware.

Why? The only thing that matters is the ASIC. What does it matter if people copy your other hardware if they still need your ASIC to make it work? And the hardest part of the ASIC, the mining itself, already has an FPGA design freely available. It would be more work to reverse engineer your work than to do it from scratch.

[dual6990s]

Fascinating.  I figured it would only be  a matter of time, who would have thought china would step up.....

Not like they are beating the US in production, manufacturing, owning all rare earth metal mines, and building a space station bigger then the ISS solo.

Good thing china is a 3rd world commie country, right republicans?

[asicminer]

The prototype obviously isn't coated because it is still needed at it stands at this stage.
We will manage to show some screenshots of the control software in action.

It doesn't take a lot to cook up a convincing looking UI without any actual hardware. USD 2700 isn't that small a sum after all so you'll need to provide a lot more evidence than that.

We will use Paypal for the final payment, you are risking 5 BTC.

[asicminer]

The reverse engineering risk doesn't exist. After your first unit is deployed, it's open season. I would think it's better to go for complete disclosure, thereby gaining the trust and commerce of dozens or hundreds than to appear shady and turn away thousands.

We will use epoxy coating sprayed onto the main channels and components. Removing it will destroy the hardware.

Why? The only thing that matters is the ASIC. What does it matter if people copy your other hardware if they still need your ASIC to make it work? And the hardest part of the ASIC, the mining itself, already has an FPGA design freely available. It would be more work to reverse engineer your work than to do it from scratch.

The coating is on the ASIC itself, the control unit does not matter much, you are right.

[rethaw]

If this isn't the most complex bitcoin scam I've seen yet...

1) Did they use the existing verilog? Will the original authors be compensated?

2) This nonsense about epoxying the board seems utter nonsense. One only does that when tampering is a security concern, in this case even the completely uninitiated understand this is not an intellectual property issue. The biggest cost of an ASIC are one-time engineering costs, this is NOT something you can gather by looking at components.

3) Wonder how hard it is to make a nice looking "control software"? Check out fakeminer.

Good luck, if this is a scam I'm sure they've already recouped all of their upfront costs!

[haydent]

so why is the website hosted in France ?? (and a crap looking one at that)

[newMeat1]

Are you sure you know what an ASIC is? It wouldn't be hard at all to post a picture but blurr out the interesting parts.

I've said enough against you for one day. Sorry about that. I think you should take JoelKatz up on his offer to ask you a few questions.

[asicminer]

If this isn't the most complex bitcoin scam I've seen yet...

1) Did they use the existing verilog? Will the original authors be compensated?

2) This nonsense about epoxying the board seems utter nonsense. One only does that when tampering is a security concern, in this case even the completely uninitiated understand this is not an intellectual property issue. The biggest cost of an ASIC are one-time engineering costs, this is NOT something you can gather by looking at components.

3) Wonder how hard it is to make a nice looking "control software"? Check out fakeminer.

Good luck, if this is a scam I'm sure they've already recouped all of their upfront costs!

You must not know that it is possible to reverse engineer a pcb board only from a picture, and even a complex one. Determined people could definitely do that. All of the VHDL & Verilog code has been written partially by us and partially by the team we work with.

[asicminer]

Are you sure you know what an ASIC is? It wouldn't be hard at all to post a picture but blurr out the interesting parts.

I've said enough against you for one day. Sorry about that. I think you should take JoelKatz up on his offer to ask you a few questions.

What would you get from a blurred picture? i tell you, nothing. It is only something your mind is asking you to do, you want have a visual proof this is real, it is understandable. Our ASIC sports a very compact design and components&channels are very visible on the board.

[asicminer]

so why is the website hosted in France ?? (and a crap looking one at that)

why does it matter ? the domain was purchased with BTC from exoware.net

[newMeat1]

Basically what we're saying is, "We're willing to be scammed. But you need to work a little harder at it."   

[indio007]

I have an idea , why don't you solve a block with your hardware.

 Should take about 20 minutes with your 5 GH. You need to tell us the bitcoin address first. Then solve a block in a reasonable time  consistent with 5 GH and post the transaction hash of the solve so we can verify the address is the one you said it is.

That's real. simple. Solve a damn block or STFU.

[MiningBuddy]

I have an idea , why don't you solve a block with your hardware.

 Should take about 20 minutes with your 5 GH. You need to tell us the bitcoin address first. Then solve a block in a reasonable time  consistent with 5 GH and post the transaction hash of the solve so we can verify the address is the one you said it is.

That's real. simple. Solve a damn block or STFU.

The average time to generate a block at 5000000 Khps, given current difficulty of 1564057.4508376 , is 2 weeks, 1 day, 13 hours, 11 minutes, and 55 seconds 

[asicminer]

I have an idea , why don't you solve a block with your hardware.

 Should take about 20 minutes with your 5 GH. You need to tell us the bitcoin address first. Then solve a block in a reasonable time  consistent with 5 GH and post the transaction hash of the solve so we can verify the address is the one you said it is.

That's real. simple. Solve a damn block or STFU.

We will see what we can do about this.

[sunny day]

Smells fishy. PRC is the People's Republic of China. Not Popular...WTF. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Republic_of_China you didnt spend 5 mins to google that sh*t??

[asicminer]

Smells fishy. PRC is the People's Republic of China. Not Popular...WTF. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Republic_of_China you didnt spend 5 mins to google that sh*t??

we already addressed that, it was a typo. stop trolling

[indio007]

Basically what we're saying is, "We're willing to be scammed. But you need to work a little harder at it."   

Oooh... your right my bad... either way according to the link he has enough units to solve a block in a reasonable amount of time.

[Xephan]

Basically what we're saying is, "We're willing to be scammed. But you need to work a little harder at it."  

Oooh... your right my bad... either way according to the link he has enough units to solve a block in a reasonable amount of time.

He doesn't. There are solo miners with more GHash than he does.
According to his blog, he's got one single prototype, which may do up to 5GHash with all 10 cards or maybe he's only got one/two prototype cards and so only can do 500Mhash/s

What he's asking for is payment to PREORDER the machines, in order words, they aren't made yet and will only be delivered around August. Which might be long enough to make impossible to get back any money paid in anyway.