ALLMINE INC - FPGA Cryptominer

[s1gs3gv]

Does the board come with a vivado license ?

[1713298015]

1713298015

[senseless]

Hey Senseless and GPUHoarder,

I forwarded an email with some questions in response to the email I received from order #1179 confirmation of eight boards with modifications and RAM. I took advantage of it and made a new order #1290 with ten cards in the same configuration.

I am waiting for your reply to be able to effect the bank transfer from Brazil.

Thanks for your attention.

It's sunday so I'm being kind of lazy on the support tickets. I've been thinking about doing it but I just end up doing other things instead. I'll probably end up waiting till tomorrow to do the current queue of tickets. We'll get you taken care of, no worries. Hope you understand

[senseless]

Does the board come with a vivado license ?

We're still waiting for confirmation from Xilinx on that point. In a worst case scenario, I will provide the developers with the licenses and environment if necessary. But, they know what I'm planning with the crypto shell and they know (by default) we're going to need licenses for the community developers to use. I would fully expect them to provide us with some sort of licensing situation or agreement.

In a worst case scenario, i'll buy a bunch of floating licenses and figure out some sort of web based system that would allow people to check out a license for on-premises work for a length of time.

[s1gs3gv]

Do you intend to provide warrantee service yourselves (RMA from your own stock) or do you expect Xilinx to provide this ?

What is typical RMA turnaround time in the case where there is an obvious functional defect in the product ?

[senseless]

Do you intend to provide warrantee service yourselves (RMA from your own stock) or do you expect Xilinx to provide this ?

What is typical RMA turnaround time in the case where there is an obvious functional defect in the product ?

Yes, we intend to reserve a percentage of stock to be able to immediately warranty cards. I'm not sure what the specifics of the arrangement are on the Xilinx side. I haven't been briefed on that and even if I was, I'm not sure I'd be allowed to talk about it. I expect that you'll send the card in, we'll check it out to make sure you didn't try to pump a megawatt of power through it, modify it, or otherwise void the warranty. If everything checks out and looks good we'll shoot you a new card out. I'd expect on site turn around time to be just a couple days. Or, that's what I'd shoot for. No promises.

[s1gs3gv]

Do you have a standard terms and conditions document that you can share with us here ?

[2112]

I started this project to get the VCU1525 going once bittware entered the space. After having tried dealing with them as far back as august/september 2017. I already knew they were not going to provide the pricing that was required to really move into the space. I didn't want to see anyone be taken advantage of with high mark ups. I had already been dealing with Xilinx for over a year trying to get them to open up to the crypto markets. They wouldn't deal with me. I had no previous business with them. As far as they knew I was just some crazy guy walking in off the streets asking for 10s of 1000s of units of product and pricing that's hard to get for even their best customers. David had that relationship, he's done business with them, and knows how they operate. After a little 1, 2 action we got a KO and were able to execute on what by industry standards is considered an unheard of deal. There's one caveat to that, we had to lock up the market to do so and required large purchase amounts. It's not unreasonable to get a sense of what market demand will be. Further, this is not a pre-order where you're ordering some imaginary asic a year or 2 out that may not even function correctly after tape-out. This is a proven product with existing supply channels and production lines. The risk on our end offering pre-orders is minimal as Xilinx is contractually obligated to fulfill their role.

Here's where Xilinx is at. They don't know what to make of this market. They don't know what if I've been telling them and others have been telling them is true. But, they've decided to find out for themselves and put their toes in the water. I can say they're watching this space very closely and I have no doubt that multiple people from Xilinx, possibly even C-level, have read the posts from these threads or at least received a summary of what's going on. If we went to them with some letter of credit instead of cold hard cash, it's quite possible this deal would have never happened. They're saying "show me the money" -- not -- "show me a letter of credit".

Again, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to open up pre-orders. I'm excited that Xilinx gets to see what this market looks like and how it operates. Yes, it's fast and loose, wild west, crazy, insane, pick your word. I can imagine even their lawyers being on the edge of their seats watching the space. We're doing the best we can, we've been transparent with everything that's been going on as much as we possibly can be. Yes, we're not perfect, we make mistakes. I was a little snippy to a customer before and I'm not very happy about it. Give us a chance and let's see how this thing goes. Maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised by the end of all this. We have no intention of "going bitmain".

Thank you very much for your very thoughtful and well reasoned reply. You don't have to explain yourself to me, I'm fully supporting the general gist of your business model. I've made a comment about your question related to financial side of the deal.

Way too many people in the cryptosphere are getting "some crazy guy walking in off the streets" treatment because they focus on the wrong things: how they dress to the meeting, what car they roll in with, etc. and most importantly: they seem to be proud of not knowing anything about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code . So I really doubt you when you say they asked about "cold hard cash" (do they asked for suitcases or would plain bags be OK?) This isn't some contraband deal, properly drafted letter of credit would be actually better than a suitcase of money, because it is not only a guarantee of payment but also very good promise of the future business.

I've been in this business, met some people both successful (like Xilinx) and failures (like Plus Logic, but search for "Plus Logic Inc", otherwise you'll get overwhelmed with irrelevant stuff). I don't really know what happened at your meeting, but I went through very detailed postmortems of the meetings (and lawsuits) I was then involved. So I have some actual knowledge what led to success and what caused the failures.

It may look like nitpicking, but it starts with really small things:

1) using correct physical units (e.g. kWh and not Kw per hour or similar abominations) and other technological details;
2) using correct semantics (e.g. subject-object distinction) even if the grammar is lacking;
3) not mixing up an agent with a principal in a transaction;

and ends up at really important stuff like:

4) know what you don't know and don't be afraid to admit to it.

Oftentimes the experienced businesspeople will intentionally say something disagreeable or outright stupid just to gauge the reaction of the interlocutor and to see firsthand how they will get corrected or even if they get corrected at all. Many salespeople are so drilled (or self-drilled) into ABC (Always Be Closing) that they will try to agree just about to anything if they think that brings them nearer to closing. Success with retail sales (e.g. fast talking and clever one-liners) doesn't always translate into a success in the high-level transactions.

I don't know who advised you on the financial and legal side of this deal. But if you hire a good lawyer, he will tell you mostly the same things I type in here for free. But the good commercial lawyer will know the details of the UCC and will not be trying to make general statements like I'm doing here for the benefit of readers of an Internet forum. In particular you may want to have an in-person review of what was said in your meetings and conversations with Xilinx & Paypal while your memory is still fresh. You guys are getting prepaid terms probably because you had somehow inadvertently behaved like common scammers despite actually trying to work a legitimate deal.

And that is my "angle" in this thread.

[senseless]

Thank you very much for your very thoughtful and well reasoned reply. You don't have to explain yourself to me, I'm fully supporting the general gist of your business model. I've made a comment about your question related to financial side of the deal.

Way too many people in the cryptosphere are getting "some crazy guy walking in off the streets" treatment because they focus on the wrong things: how they dress to the meeting, what car they roll in with, etc. and most importantly: they seem to be proud of not knowing anything about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code . So I really doubt you when you say they asked about "cold hard cash" (do they asked for suitcases or would plain bags be OK?) This isn't some contraband deal, properly drafted letter of credit would be actually better than a suitcase of money, because it is not only a guarantee of payment but also very good promise of the future business.

I've been in this business, met some people both successful (like Xilinx) and failures (like Plus Logic, but search for "Plus Logic Inc", otherwise you'll get overwhelmed with irrelevant stuff). I don't really know what happened at your meeting, but I went through very detailed postmortems of the meetings (and lawsuits) I was then involved. So I have some actual knowledge what led to success and what caused the failures.

It may look like nitpicking, but it starts with really small things:

1) using correct physical units (e.g. kWh and not Kw per hour or similar abominations) and other technological details;
2) using correct semantics (e.g. subject-object distinction) even if the grammar is lacking;
3) not mixing up an agent with a principal in a transaction;

and ends up at really important stuff like:

4) know what you don't know and don't be afraid to admit to it.

Oftentimes the experienced businesspeople will intentionally say something disagreeable or outright stupid just to gauge the reaction of the interlocutor and to see firsthand how they will get corrected or even if they get corrected at all. Many salespeople are so drilled (or self-drilled) into ABC (Always Be Closing) that they will try to agree just about to anything if they think that brings them nearer to closing. Success with retail sales (e.g. fast talking and clever one-liners) doesn't always translate into a success in the high-level transactions.

I don't know who advised you on the financial and legal side of this deal. But if you hire a good lawyer, he will tell you mostly the same things I type in here for free. But the good commercial lawyer will know the details of the UCC and will not be trying to make general statements like I'm doing here for the benefit of readers of an Internet forum. In particular you may want to have an in-person review of what was said in your meetings and conversations with Xilinx & Paypal while your memory is still fresh. You guys are getting prepaid terms probably because you had somehow inadvertently behaved like common scammers despite actually trying to work a legitimate deal.

And that is my "angle" in this thread.

I know exactly what my problem is in these meetings. Personality. I have a very low tolerance for bullshit and I'm not afraid to burn a bridge out of principle. In addition I can be flippant, facetious, condescending, and generally just a giant ass. You do you.

No one can know everything. That's why I've got a team of engineers doing stuff I can't do. Or a lawyer who managed to get PayPal on the phone with me on Saturday at 7pm within just 4 hours of them having received a 5 page letter and being surprisingly amiable -- I couldn't have done that. Everyone has their own skills and it's a team (or as it will be the case for the shell and these fpga, a community) effort. I'm sure you can imagine.

You realize we're not the only ones who've tried to do this right? I've heard about groups out of singapore, germany, china, to name a few all clamoring for these chips. Xilinx has steadfastly refused to do business with ANY of them. In the end, of all these secret groups looking to get their hands on these chips, they ended up doing business with us. They DO NOT trust the market. I'm not sure I can say it to you any clearer. Your beliefs and assumptions are not based in fact.

edit:

btw, you obviously have intimate knowledge of xilinx, fpga, and have been on the forum as long as I have.... Where did you say you were from again? I think I can taste a little salt in the air.

[senseless]

Do you have a standard terms and conditions document that you can share with us here ?

https://fpga.land/840892531/policies/2867003507.html
https://fpga.land/840892531/policies/2866937971.html
https://fpga.land/840892531/policies/2866970739.html

[jstefanop]

btw, you obviously have intimate knowledge of xilinx, fpga, and have been on the forum as long as I have.... Where did you say you were from again? I think I can taste a little salt in the air.

How is poking at your business dealings/model him being salty?

Few of the higher profile members having this discussion here have been here for long enough to know how most of these pre-orders end up. Its more concerning to me that more of these discussions are not happening. I would not touch this with a 10 foot pole if it was not for that fact that is seems like your using xilinx's supply chain/board partner and design to product these, so it at least takes a good portion of the failure risk out of the equation.

Still your collecting a huge sum of money...since they are so un-trusting of the market as you put it, what happens if they get spooked next month and decide not to go through with the deal?

[senseless]

btw, you obviously have intimate knowledge of xilinx, fpga, and have been on the forum as long as I have.... Where did you say you were from again? I think I can taste a little salt in the air.

How is poking at your business dealings/model him being salty?

Few of the higher profile members having this discussion here have been here for long enough to know how most of these pre-orders end up. Its more concerning to me that more of these discussions are not happening. I would not touch this with a 10 foot pole if it was not for that fact that is seems like your using xilinx's supply chain/board partner and design to product these, so it at least takes a good portion of the failure risk out of the equation.

Still your collecting a huge sum of money...since they are so un-trusting of the market as you put it, what happens if they get spooked next month and decide not to go through with the deal?

I'd foresee a lot of refunds in my future. But, with the contract signed, the money changing hands, and the order already given to start production. It would be a little late.

Correct, we're not producing these ourselves which takes a lot of work and problems of supply chain, lead times, etc out of the equation.

That's not why I think he's salty.

[GPUHoarder]

btw, you obviously have intimate knowledge of xilinx, fpga, and have been on the forum as long as I have.... Where did you say you were from again? I think I can taste a little salt in the air.

How is poking at your business dealings/model him being salty?

Few of the higher profile members having this discussion here have been here for long enough to know how most of these pre-orders end up. Its more concerning to me that more of these discussions are not happening. I would not touch this with a 10 foot pole if it was not for that fact that is seems like your using xilinx's supply chain/board partner and design to product these, so it at least takes a good portion of the failure risk out of the equation.

Still your collecting a huge sum of money...since they are so un-trusting of the market as you put it, what happens if they get spooked next month and decide not to go through with the deal?

Deal is binding, but I think the frustration is coming from the fact that we’ve worked (and are working) extremely hard to make all this happen. We have big financial risk here, as well as tons of time hours and logistics. I personally have barely slept over the past week (anyone on the discord can attest to that) to make sure all of this goes smoothly. That tends to make people a little cranky when someone makes a bunch of unsubstantiated statements that you personally know aren’t true attacking the legitimacy of your work.

The focus here should be on the opportunity and what reasonably priced, high end FPGAs combined with the current crypto ecosystem can do for this community. Instead we have arguments over false statements and attacks on us personally because we do business differently (and perhaps more transparently?) than others here.

A good number of people on here have gone to great lengths to verify, and vouch for, this. People have contacted Xilinx and verified that we are reputable and are authorized to make this sale. I’m sure if their legal team would clear it any of the Xilinx team watching this thread would confirm that as well. With all said, we stand by what we are doing here and the long term of everyone who chooses to get involved. I am personally really excited about what is happening here, and I think it is going to be game changing.

[ltxminer]

Can someone post a link to the discord?

[senseless]

Can someone post a link to the discord?

https://discord.gg/Knf6Rv

[jstefanop]

The focus here should be on the opportunity and what reasonably priced, high end FPGAs combined with the current crypto ecosystem can do for this community. Instead we have arguments over false statements and attacks on us personally because we do business differently (and perhaps more transparently?) than others here.

Yes, as long as you are completely transparent about it, especially when large orders of these placed by farms can have and have had the same effect as ASICs on the real GPU mining community. I dont see anyone mentioning anything about the fact that these will most certainly not come anywhere near the profitability you have been advertising once they start shipping.

Thats my one pet peeve of ASIC manufactures and projects like these...why are you telling newbs that have no idea what is going on what the profitability is on them on April 30th?? Or Bitmain releasing a new miner without at the very least saying how many units are in the first batch. People dont understand difficulty, and if you want to help out the community, that should be the main disclaimer at the top of the page for any new project that will add a very substantial hash-rate to current networks.

[deepWebRun]

People seem to forget that this is essentially a group buy allowing the price reduction from ~$5k retail to ~$3.35k.
Now, sensless and GPUHoarder has gone the extra mile and *may* provide supporting platform for other developers to share their bitstreams. That does not mean you cannot use any other public bitstreams available (whitefire990) or program one yourself.
Again, it is essentially a group buy, at below retail price, I doubt these guys are making any significant profits on these, beyond the cost of all the time spent organizing it.

[senseless]

The focus here should be on the opportunity and what reasonably priced, high end FPGAs combined with the current crypto ecosystem can do for this community. Instead we have arguments over false statements and attacks on us personally because we do business differently (and perhaps more transparently?) than others here.

Yes, as long as you are completely transparent about it, especially when large orders of these placed by farms can have and have had the same effect as ASICs on the real GPU mining community. I dont see anyone mentioning anything about the fact that these will most certainly not come anywhere near the profitability you have been advertising once they start shipping.

Thats my one pet peeve of ASIC manufactures and projects like these...why are you telling newbs that have no idea what is going on what the profitability is on them on April 30th?? Or Bitmain releasing a new miner without at the very least saying how many units are in the first batch. People dont understand difficulty, and if you want to help out the community, that should be the main disclaimer at the top of the page for any new project that will add a very substantial hash-rate to current networks.

We have not advertised any profitability. We're saying, 14Kh/s cryptonightv1 (monerov7), 20Mh/s lyra2z. Draw your own conclusions as to future market conditions and if you think this is a good buy or not.  We're also not using numbers from other devs.

We are selling 5000 units in this batch. There will be no more batches for the rest of 2018. Of the 5000 units, about 1500 have gone to small/medium farms, about 1000 have gone to the community. 2000 units have been reserved by a large farm. They will not be able to pay until friday and we're continuing to sell from their stock to the community until they are able to pay. We've already sold somewhere between 500-1000 depending on how many of these bank deposits actually pay for those units meant for that large farm. Everyone has until friday to place their order. On friday, the farm will get whatever remaining units are available. I realize there's a discrepancy of 500 units, those are warranty stock.
 

People seem to forget that this is essentially a group buy allowing the price reduction from ~$5k retail to ~$3.35k.
Now, sensless and GPUHoarder has gone the extra mile and *may* provide supporting platform for other developers to share their bitstreams. That does not mean you cannot use any other public bitstreams available (whitefire990) or program one yourself.
Again, it is essentially a group buy, at below retail price, I doubt these guys are making any significant profits on these, beyond the cost of all the time spent organizing it.

It's not a may, It's definitely happening.

[GPUHoarder]

The focus here should be on the opportunity and what reasonably priced, high end FPGAs combined with the current crypto ecosystem can do for this community. Instead we have arguments over false statements and attacks on us personally because we do business differently (and perhaps more transparently?) than others here.

Yes, as long as you are completely transparent about it, especially when large orders of these placed by farms can have and have had the same effect as ASICs on the real GPU mining community. I dont see anyone mentioning anything about the fact that these will most certainly not come anywhere near the profitability you have been advertising once they start shipping.

Thats my one pet peeve of ASIC manufactures and projects like these...why are you telling newbs that have no idea what is going on what the profitability is on them on April 30th?? Or Bitmain releasing a new miner without at the very least saying how many units are in the first batch. People dont understand difficulty, and if you want to help out the community, that should be the main disclaimer at the top of the page for any new project that will add a very substantial hash-rate to current networks.

I don’t have much to add to Senseless’ statement, other than to reiterate that we have never made any claims regarding profitability of these cards. To that end all I can say is I wouldn’t have done this if I wasn’t convinced that they would be, and that we have significant resources devotated to ensuring they are.

[jmigdlc99]

We have not advertised any profitability. We're saying, 14Kh/s cryptonightv1 (monerov7), 20Mh/s lyra2z. Draw your own conclusions as to future market conditions and if you think this is a good buy or not.  We're also not using numbers from other devs.

We are selling 5000 units in this batch. There will be no more batches for the rest of 2018. Of the 5000 units, about 1500 have gone to small/medium farms, about 1000 have gone to the community. 2000 units have been reserved by a large farm. They will not be able to pay until friday and we're continuing to sell from their stock to the community until they are able to pay. We've already sold somewhere between 500-1000 depending on how many of these bank deposits actually pay for those units meant for that large farm. Everyone has until friday to place their order. On friday, the farm will get whatever remaining units are available. I realize there's a discrepancy of 500 units, those are warranty stock.

I didn't realize the scale of your venture until now. That's a lot of money. $17.5 million dollars at 3.5k each unit.

If this doesn't push through you'll probably be hunted and killed anyway, so i guess this must be legit. Now i wish i put in an order. Is it really too late? But then again, 5000 units also means potential 70 MH/s will be spread across cryptonight difficulty (current total for Monero is 400 MH/s). Profitability wise, everything really seems downhill.

[dave447]

People seem to forget that this is essentially a group buy allowing the price reduction from ~$5k retail to ~$3.35k.
Now, sensless and GPUHoarder has gone the extra mile and *may* provide supporting platform for other developers to share their bitstreams. That does not mean you cannot use any other public bitstreams available (whitefire990) or program one yourself.
Again, it is essentially a group buy, at below retail price, I doubt these guys are making any significant profits on these, beyond the cost of all the time spent organizing it.

It's not a may, It's definitely happening.

senseless / GPUHoarder - On the topic of remote development hardware, will you be enabling the FPGA's bitstream protection features (encryption key) on shipped units? I remember reading something about encryption keys earlier in this thread.