Nicely done... and needed...
I have to disagree in regards to KNC, they used to be a good company last year, but this years things have changed drastically and it can be seen in the forums.
KNC failed on their word not to miner over 5% of the customers hashing power.
KNC sent used and defective equipment to super jupiter customers and did not honor refunds for them.
KNC has a delay of 2 months or more on something that was guaranteed in the contract when the Batch 0, 1 and 2 where purchased, now the current contract offers no refunds.
KNC posts of their forum seem to get deleted, I had made a post on their forum, and a customer made a link to
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=601855.40 my post was deleted, and a message that person sent me was made unavailable by KNC.
KNC is late on delivery with the Neptunes.
Under those conditions I fail to see how KNC would be B rated, I would personally rate it D-.
At any time refunds could stop, I see no other reason for the delays, since the production on Neptunes was limited to 12000 for each batch, and based on a survey I the number of refund is about 30%, thats about 1080 Neptunes, we could safely assume a ballpark of 1000 Neptunes being refunded, over a 6 month period, thats about 8 Neptunes per day on average, how is it possible that they are not keeping up?
They are late, since on Batch 2 was promised a delivery on Q1/Q2 and a month later than batch 0 and 1, that makes the deadline for Batch 0 and 1 the end of May, and plan B is not taking effect.
My general advice for buying mining equipment:
1. Do not buy from a company that mines themselves, they are either a hardware vendor or a mining company, but not both.
2. Do not purchase on preorders, say no to preorders, that will hurt of all of us and goes against the spirit of Bitcoin.
3. Bitmain seems to be the only honest mining company so far which ships within 48 hours, but the problem is that they do not ROI, the S1 barely ROI's, and when bitcoin price went up and they could ROI, the miners price also went up making them not ROI by definition even with the coupon, it is a matter of using the calculator bitcoinwisdom or any calculator that considers the difficulty increase.
4. When doing mining calculations for ROI, always use a calculator that takes into consideration the difficulty increase in a period of about 10 days, historically the difficulty has increased as much as 30% percent if not more, it is safe to assume 15%, anything less you risk loosing money, nothing wrong with comparing mining calculators, if 2 calculators have the same input they should provide same output, if not, one of them is wrong.
I am very upset at KNC we trusted them and helped them get their business going only to be betrayed by them.
If you go to any mining site and only see preorders, stay away even if they deliver, it is not in our benefit, it is time we organize and support companies that help us, not the ones that betray us. There was a time in which preorders were sort of ok since this companies were starting out, but we all know know that turned out to be, now it is time based on principle to say no to pre-orders even if the deal looks good, principals are first, after all thats what got us to use Bitcoin in the first place for many of us, a matter of principals against currency corruption.
It is a matter of time until some of us get burned again with pre-orders and it will happen.
KNC to improve their rating back to B or better would have to do this:
1. Would have to honor all refunds in an expedite way.
2. provide a solution to super jupiter customers.
3. get rid of their data center if they pretend to be a bitcoin hardware vendor, since that data center was built for them not us, plan B was an evil excuse to justify their actions, after all they offered the guarantee not to mine over 5% of the customers hash rate, well that 5% is so far off, that to compensate only 0% would work.
My prediction is that KNC will be the customers of their own neptunes, and when they are old they will be sold as "super neptunes", be very careful if you ever hear the word "super neptune" from them, the same for "super titans".
