ALLMINE INC - FPGA Cryptominer

[dragonmike]

Something seems off if you are hosting with Mineority and the product is some place outside of the the EU I do not see how they can get away with charging VAT.  Something is wrong with someones understanding of how this should work.  This needs to be challenged.  If you had the product shipped to you in the EU then certainly you owe VAT, but for a hosting service?  That isn't right!

No it's not right.
But they aren't budging. Which is concerning.

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[senseless]

Something seems off if you are hosting with Mineority and the product is some place outside of the the EU I do not see how they can get away with charging VAT.  Something is wrong with someones understanding of how this should work.  This needs to be challenged.  If you had the product shipped to you in the EU then certainly you owe VAT, but for a hosting service?  That isn't right!

No it's not right.
But they aren't budging. Which is concerning.

I've offered refunds to those EU orders who submitted support tickets regarding the issue. If you'd like your order refunded let me know send an email to sales [at] fpga dot land.

[TheRealCashen]

Haven't been around in a couple weeks.

Any update with when we think they will ship?

[senseless]

Haven't been around in a couple weeks.

Any update with when we think they will ship?

August is still the delivery target / expected delivery time -- We're still waiting for Xilinx to let us know when the first boards will be off the assembly line.

[dazzmore]

I just skimmed through last few pages, and I think people are complaining about non-existence issue here. They are charing VAT because they don't know what your plan is at the end of hosting service; whether you want to continue hosting or you want your cards back (you paid full price for them, remember?). They are doing this to protect themselves, and if it is something you disagree with, I'd just request a refund before it's too late. Maybe they could work something out with you to ensure your cards will always stay in the US (like an agreement to sell at market price or donating them to a data center or something in the event of hosting service going belly up), just something to think about.

[Iamtutut]

I just skimmed through last few pages, and I think people are complaining about non-existence issue here. They are charing VAT because they don't know what your plan is at the end of hosting service; whether you want to continue hosting or you want your cards back (you paid full price for them, remember?). They are doing this to protect themselves, and if it is something you disagree with, I'd just request a refund before it's too late. Maybe they could work something out with you to ensure your cards will always stay in the US (like an agreement to sell at market price or donating them to a data center or something in the event of hosting service going belly up), just something to think about.

That's illegal, period.
They run established buisiness companies, they're not small time DIYers out of a developping country.

[senseless]

I just skimmed through last few pages, and I think people are complaining about non-existence issue here. They are charing VAT because they don't know what your plan is at the end of hosting service; whether you want to continue hosting or you want your cards back (you paid full price for them, remember?). They are doing this to protect themselves, and if it is something you disagree with, I'd just request a refund before it's too late. Maybe they could work something out with you to ensure your cards will always stay in the US (like an agreement to sell at market price or donating them to a data center or something in the event of hosting service going belly up), just something to think about.

That's illegal, period.
They run established buisiness companies, they're not small time DIYers out of a developping country.

Are you even one of the orders?

There are only a handful of orders from the EU. Of those orders, a good percentage are companies with VAT IDs that didn't pay any vat at all to begin with. It seems like the only people who are in an uproar over this are people who aren't customers. I think the number of people who were vat paying EU orders that also had mineority hosting were 2. 3 pages of posts here and endless chatter on discord..... over... 2 orders...

[dazzmore]

I just skimmed through last few pages, and I think people are complaining about non-existence issue here. They are charing VAT because they don't know what your plan is at the end of hosting service; whether you want to continue hosting or you want your cards back (you paid full price for them, remember?). They are doing this to protect themselves, and if it is something you disagree with, I'd just request a refund before it's too late. Maybe they could work something out with you to ensure your cards will always stay in the US (like an agreement to sell at market price or donating them to a data center or something in the event of hosting service going belly up), just something to think about.

That's illegal, period.
They run established buisiness companies, they're not small time DIYers out of a developping country.

I don't see how that is illegal because the cards WILL eventually go to EU (dealing with VAT up front is less hassle for both parties in my opinion). Unless there is an agreement to ensure that cards will stay in the US, only then charging VAT for EU MIGHT be illegal. I don't work for ALLMINE; just my personal view on the whole VAT thing. 

[melpheos]

I just skimmed through last few pages, and I think people are complaining about non-existence issue here. They are charing VAT because they don't know what your plan is at the end of hosting service; whether you want to continue hosting or you want your cards back (you paid full price for them, remember?). They are doing this to protect themselves, and if it is something you disagree with, I'd just request a refund before it's too late. Maybe they could work something out with you to ensure your cards will always stay in the US (like an agreement to sell at market price or donating them to a data center or something in the event of hosting service going belly up), just something to think about.

Sure at a point the card will be send to EU but only at the point it is legal to charge VAT. Nothing prevents them to charge VAT along with the shipping after the hosting is completed.

[Iamtutut]

I don't see how that is illegal because the cards WILL eventually go to EU (dealing with VAT up front is less hassle for both parties in my opinion). Unless there is an agreement to ensure that cards will stay in the US, only then charging VAT for EU MIGHT be illegal. I don't work for ALLMINE; just my personal view on the whole VAT thing. 

You don't see because you don't know.
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/eu-vat-rules-topic/chargeable-event-chargeability_en#_Imported_goods
"Importation of goods from outside the EU
Basic rule
The chargeable event occurs – and VAT becomes chargeable – when the following types of goods enter the EU"
goods that are not for free circulation in the EU

[Iamtutut]

Are you even one of the orders?

There are only a handful of orders from the EU. Of those orders, a good percentage are companies with VAT IDs that didn't pay any vat at all to begin with. It seems like the only people who are in an uproar over this are people who aren't customers. I think the number of people who were vat paying EU orders that also had mineority hosting were 2. 3 pages of posts here and endless chatter on discord..... over... 2 orders...

I don't have to be one of the orders to tell people what the law is. Because of this VAT charge at a rate that doesn't correspond to the actual VAT of 22 out of 28 EU members, few people ordered from the EU.

[colomine]

guys could anybody update me on the RAM compatibility please, if there is any info out there already. I purchased BCUs without RAM. As far as I understand that shouldbe 4x 4Gb DDR4 blocks.

[dazzmore]

I don't see how that is illegal because the cards WILL eventually go to EU (dealing with VAT up front is less hassle for both parties in my opinion). Unless there is an agreement to ensure that cards will stay in the US, only then charging VAT for EU MIGHT be illegal. I don't work for ALLMINE; just my personal view on the whole VAT thing. 

You don't see because you don't know.
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/eu-vat-rules-topic/chargeable-event-chargeability_en#_Imported_goods
"Importation of goods from outside the EU
Basic rule
The chargeable event occurs – and VAT becomes chargeable – when the following types of goods enter the EU"
goods that are not for free circulation in the EU

Your argument reminds me of a couple complaining at pre-paid buffet restaurant (not sure if you guys have these in EU, but there's a few places that charge up front in my city). Their model is if people don't like it, they can take their business elsewhere. I'm assuming the owner had dine and dash customers prior, and wanted to play it safe. I'm not saying people try to evade VAT here, but you have to understand from the owner's perspective. Also, a dude above you comments on how they could charge VAT prior to shipping, and I think that's a good too. But at the end of the day, businesses operate in the best of their interest, not the customers'. If you disagree, just take your business elsewhere like the buffet example above, and that will show them. Maybe when they saw the sales drop, they would change their policy. Just my $0.02

[melpheos]

Your argument reminds me of a couple complaining at pre-paid buffet restaurant (not sure if you guys have these in EU, but there's a few places that charge up front in my city). Their model is if people don't like it, they can take their business elsewhere. I'm assuming the owner had dine and dash customers prior, and wanted to play it safe. I'm not saying people try to evade VAT here, but you have to understand from the owner's perspective. Also, a dude above you comments on how they could charge VAT prior to shipping, and I think that's a good too. But at the end of the day, businesses operate in the best of their interest, not the customers'. If you disagree, just take your business elsewhere like the buffet example above, and that will show them. Maybe when they saw the sales drop, they would change their policy. Just my $0.02

The problem is not what is the best interest of the business but of the legality of charging TVA on a product which is not shipped to a different country.
Like I said, VAT can absolutely and should be charged at the time of shipping or be dealt by the shipping company with an invoice, not at the time of purchase.
If you host it for 3 years, you will be out of 20% of the price of the item for 3 years. This money could be invested in another field. If you bought 5 cards, you could have bought 6 instead.
In the meantime, the vendor will have 20% of the price of the item in his books. What happens if the company goes bankrupt ? Do you have to pay VAT another time because the money if not there anymore (if you bought via fpgaland and get it hosted on mineority which are two differents companies)
What happen if mineority goes bankrupt and is unable to ship your card back ? You would have paid 20% more for essentialy nothing.
Do you see the issue ?

[dazzmore]

Your argument reminds me of a couple complaining at pre-paid buffet restaurant (not sure if you guys have these in EU, but there's a few places that charge up front in my city). Their model is if people don't like it, they can take their business elsewhere. I'm assuming the owner had dine and dash customers prior, and wanted to play it safe. I'm not saying people try to evade VAT here, but you have to understand from the owner's perspective. Also, a dude above you comments on how they could charge VAT prior to shipping, and I think that's a good too. But at the end of the day, businesses operate in the best of their interest, not the customers'. If you disagree, just take your business elsewhere like the buffet example above, and that will show them. Maybe when they saw the sales drop, they would change their policy. Just my $0.02

The problem is not what is the best interest of the business but of the legality of charging TVA on a product which is not shipped to a different country.
Like I said, VAT can absolutely and should be charged at the time of shipping or be dealt by the shipping company with an invoice, not at the time of purchase.
If you host it for 3 years, you will be out of 20% of the price of the item for 3 years. This money could be invested in another field. If you bought 5 cards, you could have bought 6 instead.
In the meantime, the vendor will have 20% of the price of the item in his books. What happens if the company goes bankrupt ? Do you have to pay VAT another time because the money if not there anymore (if you bought via fpgaland and get it hosted on mineority which are two differents companies)
What happen if mineority goes bankrupt and is unable to ship your card back ? You would have paid 20% more for essentialy nothing.
Do you see the issue ?

I still do not see how it is illegal since there is no binding contract to keep the cards outside EU. They can always argue because the owner is in EU, so the cards will go there eventually bla...bla..bla...If you think it's illegal, I'd just report them and hear what the authority has to say. In regards to business going bankrupt, you have a good reason there, but the 20% VAT would probably be the last thing I worry about. Anyway, the debate has been going on for longer that I'd like, which was not my intention. If we could shift our focus on legit issues, like productions, software optimizations, ETA and whatnot, that'd be helpful for the community.

[RivAngE]

There was a preorder button that would not do anything every time I'd press it. Now it's turned into an "out of stock", did they become available for just 1 minute or something?

I wasn't expecting anything more than the cards to go to a couple big farms anyway... Decentralization and all that.... But I had a little hope.

[el_cuervo_fc]

Does anyone know when the next batch of these will be available for pre-order?

[xpm-guru_v2]

Your argument reminds me of a couple complaining at pre-paid buffet restaurant (not sure if you guys have these in EU, but there's a few places that charge up front in my city). Their model is if people don't like it, they can take their business elsewhere. I'm assuming the owner had dine and dash customers prior, and wanted to play it safe. I'm not saying people try to evade VAT here, but you have to understand from the owner's perspective. Also, a dude above you comments on how they could charge VAT prior to shipping, and I think that's a good too. But at the end of the day, businesses operate in the best of their interest, not the customers'. If you disagree, just take your business elsewhere like the buffet example above, and that will show them. Maybe when they saw the sales drop, they would change their policy. Just my $0.02

The problem is not what is the best interest of the business but of the legality of charging TVA on a product which is not shipped to a different country.
Like I said, VAT can absolutely and should be charged at the time of shipping or be dealt by the shipping company with an invoice, not at the time of purchase.
If you host it for 3 years, you will be out of 20% of the price of the item for 3 years. This money could be invested in another field. If you bought 5 cards, you could have bought 6 instead.
In the meantime, the vendor will have 20% of the price of the item in his books. What happens if the company goes bankrupt ? Do you have to pay VAT another time because the money if not there anymore (if you bought via fpgaland and get it hosted on mineority which are two differents companies)
What happen if mineority goes bankrupt and is unable to ship your card back ? You would have paid 20% more for essentialy nothing.
Do you see the issue ?

I still do not see how it is illegal since there is no binding contract to keep the cards outside EU. They can always argue because the owner is in EU, so the cards will go there eventually bla...bla..bla...If you think it's illegal, I'd just report them and hear what the authority has to say. In regards to business going bankrupt, you have a good reason there, but the 20% VAT would probably be the last thing I worry about. Anyway, the debate has been going on for longer that I'd like, which was not my intention. If we could shift our focus on legit issues, like productions, software optimizations, ETA and whatnot, that'd be helpful for the community.

Why are you still arguing here?  All cards are sold out, please deal it with mineority or fpga.land directly! If they are going to change pricing then everyone gets notified by email or smth.
I expect all further posts to be product related as dazzmore pointed out.

[senseless]

What are the hardware requirements for FPGA mining?

Currently there are no known specific hardware requirements for FPGA mining beyond basic requirements for GPUs. That is, a basic CPU, minimal ram, minimal disk, and x1 PCI-E 3.0 connectivity. There may be other hardware needs in the future for specific bitstreams. Some developers may opt to use the PCI-E bandwidth to communicate between cards or offload some processing from the FPGA to the CPU. In these instances, those developers will make known these hardware requirements. You may opt to upgrade or change your infrastructure then to support those bitstreams. The FPGA present a new way of doing things and there are countless possibilities for how various resources could be used in mining. Because this is an open but new development environment it will take some time for things to mature and the most efficient way of doing things to become evident.

What operating systems are supported for FPGA operations?

At launch we are planning only Linux support. When you're mining, even in windows, all that's really necessary is for you to be able to edit a file and run a command line interface application. We do not see using linux as a blocking point for the operation for miners. Detailed setup and installation instructions will be provided. We're also planning integration into some mining-specific linux distributions which will allow easy web interface management. However, even without the web management it should not be difficult for someone who's operated a GPU miner or ASIC miner to also operate a FPGA miner.

Can the FPGA multi-mine?

Yes! The FPGA can use resources however is needed for the developer to achieve their goal. It would be possible to mine several different algorithms at the same time on these devices. There are situations where some resources are more optimally used for one thing than another. Using the FPGA it's possible to mix and match algorithms and designs to achieve the best mix of resource utilization for profitability. An example of this, CN7 has a better hashrate using blockram. It would be possible to use CN7 on blockram, Lyra2z on the ultraram and using the rest of the logic space for a small tribus or other logic algo mix. Going forward with future generations of devices as they become larger I'd expect even greater variation of mining. It's becoming clear that the most profitable bitstreams will be multi-algo bitstreams.

What is "the shell" and why do I need it?

"The Shell" fundamentally is a wrapper around any mining bitstream that will run on your FPGA. The wrapper provides a common set of communication and programming functionality to allow anyone's bitstream or design to operate on your FPGA without re-programming the FPGA using the USB cable. We're able to provide this because we've burned an encryption key onto every FPGA shipped. This encryption key is what enables the creation of our secure shell environment. Some examples of functionality that the shell provides are:

    Hardware Management (Temperature, Power (Voltage/Amperage), Clock sources, PCI-E, Programming / Reprogramming)
    Bitstream Management (Bitstream distribution, developer fee collection)
    Mining Software (Bitstream management, Algo management, common communications platform for all bitstreams)

For Developers:

It allows developers an easier time to get started without needing to build their own software, communications, or worry about secure their development fee. They can focus solely on producing the best possible bitstream designs for maximum profitability. Due to the secure nature of the bitstreams it will enable developers who previously may have not released their designs, to release their designs, as they won't fear people attempting to cut out the developer fee and diminish their work.

For Miners:

Miners will get a wider selection of bitstreams, an easier and faster way to switch between them (over pci-e instead of USB), and easier management of their miners with our online config builder and management system. As of now, if you want to switch from one bitstream to another it would take possibly hours of reprogramming depending on the number of FPGA you have. Using our shell it will take seconds to switch bitstreams and starting mining a new one. This creates a better environment for profit switching and increased gains.

In addition, the shell and software provide user side control of clocking and overclocking. The user can define their own parameters for what they find to be desirable for voltage, clock, temperature, etc. Or, if desired, tell the software to overclock to the maximum of the safety limits.

[senseless]

What are the hardware requirements for FPGA mining?

Currently there are no known specific hardware requirements for FPGA mining beyond basic requirements for GPUs. That is, a basic CPU, minimal ram, minimal disk, and x1 PCI-E 3.0 connectivity.

Is using a 2.0 PCI-E out of the question or can we get by with one? Would this reduce the cards overall effectiveness and by how much?

One of our engineers is testing on PCI-E 2.0, but we have no idea how it will behave in mass deployment or with variations of motherboards.