Forgot to mention my refund was chips only. Assembly has not been refunded.
I kinda forgot did SB mention anything about refunds for assembly?
He said 25% at some point for assembly and then maybe a little more if he is able to find other uses for the parts.
Other batch providers offered 50% upfront with another 20% (for 70% total) after they used the parts for other assembly services, such as bitfury. Other batch providers also offered 100% chip refund while SB only provided 95%, keeping 5% ($25,000) for his time to manage the group buy, which seems excessive.
SB has provided no updates on the assembly refund. He stated that he put in a lot of time and effort. Personally I think SB is trying to keep his profit on the failed project by charging for unfulfiled services, which is very much plainly illegal and he can not do this.
The cost structure of the assembly servies was:
$35 - Parts
$60 - Assembly of K16 board only
$28.5 - Parts for full unit (i.e. heatsinks, fans, power cables, etc)
$10 - Assembly of full unit / Testing
Everyone agrees that parts can not be fully refunded, but the other aspects of assembly have not been performed and should be largly recoverable, but SB does not seem to be willing to talk about this. It also makes no sense that the 25% refund is the same offered for all assembly services.
Personally, I think SB is hoping that he will be able to do a gen2 or bitfury or other ASIC chip assembly, and he is holding onto everyone's money until he is able to work this out. This is also plainly illegal.
