First commercial ASIC miner specifications and pre-launch

[Xephan]

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

That's still money and you're not even willing to show us a picture of the prototype and the card. And since AFAIK, an ASIC is a chip, it's impossible to tell what customization you did to it purely by looking at a picture of the physical machine and cards.

[Yanz]

Related? http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26973.0 more specifically

im working on it. I think I should take a few days to learn mandarin but i have time while waiting for funding

Anyways I'm actually in China on vacation right now with nothing to do. I think I can fit in a trip to Guangzhou before I leave. Unless this is too secret for me to view of course.

[phillipsjk]

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

I am a Free (as in freedom) and open source software fanatic. I will be using FPGAs if all the ASIC modules are literally epoxied black boxes. What are you trying to hide? Will I be able to write my own miner to make use of the chips?

Note: I don't like FPGAs that much either due to the lack of documentation.

[haydent]

why not accept paypal for the initial reservation payments instead of a non reversible method like btc. or set up an group buy escrow if that exists.

[grid]

The site offers no proof whatsoever, and just attempts to pass itself as credible by posting claims of performance. Or promises of providing proof.

Consider Artforz who made his own ASIC miner - he had no problems sharing quite a few technical details about his design. Nobody managed to replicate his results because of the huge initial investment required.

Epoxy on chips for preventing reverse engineering? There are sites on the net where you mail them your ASIC, and they will sand it down layer by layer taking pictures at high magnification.

Only thing to be hidden here is that the mythical ASIC doesn't exist. I would say that this is an elaborate scam attempt. Even if just a few people fall for it, it will still have paid off. Expect delays, stories of "Paypal problems", requests for additional money wires.

[Raoul Duke]

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

Now, after that "stop trolling" reply you better leave the sock puppet account and use your real one.
You really sound like you are used to be around here lol

<troll>
BTW, you really should be more professional in your scam, because the wordpress post ID's shows that you guys try a lot of times to write the perfect scam post for every published post, but being lazy/dumb as you are you had to trash the posts instead of saving them as a draft and edit them

And damn, couldn't you find a wordpress theme more recent than 2008?   and a lame one  
</troll>

[themike5000]

I am on the fence about this product. I have been following since their first blog post and was surprised (wary) of the speed that they have accomplished these things.

I've done business in China and can understand their IP concerns. It is ruthless over there. At the same time, I do not think that guarded approach sells in this community and they need to find a way to deal with that. There must be some pictures they can take which do not show the entire board.  If they can turn this around in 3 weeks time, they still have first mover's advantage since it takes much longer to copy cat this sort of thing.

I was skeptical of their payment method (obviously) and am impressed that they switched to a smaller deposit + paypal.  Its a tough crowd to please. If they had asked for paypal upfront we would have cried bloody murder and asked them why they wouldn't take payment in bitcoins, etc. 

Ultimately, I do not have $2,700 to risk on this project.  I would risk $270 on it easily and maybe up to $1,000.  I'm sure someone will and we'll all find out that either its a scam or that we got into it too late.

Good luck everyone.

[ribuck]

Asicminer, you have two choices:

1. Insist on payment being made "on faith", and get few if any sales, or

2. Lend an evaluation unit to someone trustworthy in the community, and when they confirm your specifications you will sell all of your stock very quickly.

Your call.

[sirky]

Asicminer, you have two choices:

1. Insist on payment being made "on faith", and get few if any sales, or

2. Lend an evaluation unit to someone trustworthy in the community, and when they confirm your specifications you will sell all of your stock very quickly.

Your call.

This. If you get someone like JoelKatz on your side you will sell all of your units incredibly quickly.

If you don't then you aren't going to sell very much at all.

[makomk]

I wonder if they are just going for the 15 BTC scam, or whether they will also try for the additional $2700. But it's fun to think about mining at 5 Gh/s and only pulling 400 watts or so from the wall.  

In theory that's achievable with FPGAs right now, it's just not cost effective because of the huge up-front cost of the FPGAs.

[Dargo]

JoelKatz's offer still seems like the easiest way to build more trust. Legally binding non-disclosure agreement forms are freely available on the web, and I'm sure there are forms that can be filled out and signed electronically. What could be easier than that?

[Xephan]

JoelKatz's offer still seems like the easiest way to build more trust. Legally binding non-disclosure agreement forms are freely available on the web, and I'm sure there are forms that can be filled out and signed electronically. What could be easier than that?

NDA could be and had been ignored in some cases. But given that Joel has his face there, and if I'm not mistaken, him being the same JoelKatz active in other projects, I don't think he would want to his name and reputation just to steal a machine. So asicminer really has no reason to fear letting Joel Katz know just a bit of information, unless he knows there isn't a working prototype of any sorts.

[Dargo]

JoelKatz's offer still seems like the easiest way to build more trust. Legally binding non-disclosure agreement forms are freely available on the web, and I'm sure there are forms that can be filled out and signed electronically. What could be easier than that?

NDA could be and had been ignored in some cases. But given that Joel has his face there, and if I'm not mistaken, him being the same JoelKatz active in other projects, I don't think he would want to his name and reputation just to steal a machine. So asicminer really has no reason to fear letting Joel Katz know just a bit of information, unless he knows there isn't a working prototype of any sorts.

Right, and JoelKatz is only asking to verify information that he *already* knows and which is entirely public at this point. If there is anything about this asic machine that is truly a secret, it probably doesn't need to be disclosed in the exchange. He is merely asking to confirm that this group has the relevant know-how to manufacture such a machine (or even build a prototype). If this isn't a scam, his offer is really a no-brainer to help verify its legitimacy, and skepticism is warranted so long as they don't take him up on it (or offer some suitable alternative). It's a little hard to believe that asicminer didn't forsee the skeptical reaction. We are expected to hand over $3k on the basis of a website with very sketchy details? Really?   

[haploid23]

if these ASIC machines are real it would be very interesting. but why take down payment in BTC? why can't you take it in paypal or a more reliable type of payment? pictures of this prototype would mean a lot, and you can't reverse engineer everything from just pictures, especially with 10 boards stacked on each other.

[JoelKatz]

Right, and JoelKatz is only asking to verify information that he *already* knows and which is entirely public at this point.

That's not quite true. I would be asking them questions whose answer I know within a range but don't know for sure.

If there is anything about this asic machine that is truly a secret, it probably doesn't need to be disclosed in the exchange. He is merely asking to confirm that this group has the relevant know-how to manufacture such a machine (or even build a prototype).

That is essentially correct. There are certain thing you have to do in the process of designing, building, and testing an ASIC. The questions I would ask would be things they would definitely know. An example question might be "how many gates or equivalent does the ASIC have?" Or "what is the die size?"

Now, I don't know how many gates their ASIC has, but I can calculate how many it would have based on other information (such as the number of hashes and the clock speed). I can then check my gate count against theirs. Similarly, I can calculate the die size based on other information and check its consistency.

The value of their project is almost entirely in the fact that they have (assuming they're telling the truth) actually made masks and spun up a production process. The design is not secret -- we all know how it would be done. That is assuming their design is based on the FPGA miner. My first question would be to ensure we're on the same page as far as what I'm assuming about their design.

[newMeat1]

This guy is way out in left field. At first he replied to me

Our ASIC sports a very open design

Since then it's been edited to say "compact design". Either way, if he knew what an ASIC was, he wouldn't have said that

[Xephan]

if these ASIC machines are real it would be very interesting. but why take down payment in BTC? why can't you take it in paypal or a more reliable type of payment? pictures of this prototype would mean a lot, and you can't reverse engineer everything from just pictures, especially with 10 boards stacked on each other.

Well, I could answer the Paypal question... for the same reason we don't normally accept Paypal for purchasing Bitcoin. If the machine was real, just imagine after they send a US$2.7K machine out and the guy disputes the charge "Goods not delivered" or "Product does not perform as claimed (4.8GHs per 300W instead of 5GHs per 300W)"

[joulesbeef]

If the machine was real, just imagine after they send a US$2.7K machine out and the guy disputes the charge "Goods not delivered" or "Product does not perform as claimed (4.8GHs per 300W instead of 5GHs per 300W)"

Physical goods dont have the paypal problem that virtual goods do. They simply dont. If he has a delivery confirmation than paypal will tell the customer to f-off.

[Xephan]

Physical goods dont have the paypal problem that virtual goods do. They simply dont. If he has a delivery confirmation than paypal will tell the customer to f-off.

So the buyer could not even raise a dispute about product not fit for purpose or does not fit description?

[MiningBuddy]

Physical goods dont have the paypal problem that virtual goods do. They simply dont. If he has a delivery confirmation than paypal will tell the customer to f-off.

So the buyer could not even raise a dispute about product not fit for purpose or does not fit description?

He could raise a dispute, which will result in the buyer having to send the item back to the seller for a refund.