[ActiveMining] Official Shareholder Discussion Thread [Moderated]

[drawingthesun]

Can a signed message be sent from a cold wallet without compromising the private key? ie entering it online?

Armory can do this.

[RoadStress]

3.3 How much money did ACTM lose in the 28nm eAsic failure?

This has not be finalized as of this date.  We are working this week a plans which will recover the complete eASIC NRE.

6. Intellihash?? Can you please explain what this is/was and how this factors into everything?

Not any more than what has been explained before.

I would not expect a full refund from eASIC; however, as I have said we have a plan, which with a partial refund from eASIC we could recoup eASIC's NRE.

Can any of the shareholders tell me (if they know, because i bet nobody does) how much money did ActiveMining to eAsic total and what part of that is the NRE which you hope to recoup?

Can any of the shareholders tell me what do they know about Intellihash?

[minerpart]

Can a signed message be sent from a cold wallet without compromising the private key? ie entering it online?

Armory can do this.

Ken hasn't said he is using Armory though I don't think. There is a security issue here we need to be aware of. You are asking Ken to confirm he has a million dollars of BTC on a laptop with Armory on it (for example) and his work address is public knowledge. Do you see the issue? I would think the cold wallet keys are kept in a safety deposit box in a bank in Springfield or Kansas City and there they should stay until they are needed and their safety shouldn't be compromised just to supply a signed message. Surely we want evidence of chips and not just company cash deposits?

[drawingthesun]

Can a signed message be sent from a cold wallet without compromising the private key? ie entering it online?

Armory can do this.

Ken hasn't said he is using Armory though I don't think. There is a security issue here we need to be aware of. You are asking Ken to confirm he has a million dollars of BTC on a laptop with Armory on it (for example) and his work address is public knowledge. Do you see the issue? I would think the cold wallet keys are kept in a safety deposit box in a bank in Springfield or Kansas and there they should stay until they are needed and their safety shouldn't be compromised just to supply a signed message. Surely we want evidence of chips and not just company cash deposits?

I want to know about those coins real bad, but you do make a good point. It is a safety issue.

Perhaps go into the bank and run Armory there?

[minerpart]

Perhaps go into the bank and run Armory there?

Yes that's possible if they allow you to take a Laptop into the secure area to generate the signing code. Being safe is an area I'm sure Ken is highly aware of due to him being a known face and having an open work address. Security is everything both online and in the real world. A lot of people would do almost anything to get their hands on a million untraceable dollars. With the previous VE threats I warned Ken about taking his own personal security seriously and he assured me he had taken steps to increase it and was treating it very seriously.

[bitmoon]

ken, you not answer.

when you listed ukyo share, (you said it was before investigation). why not list us too along ukyo shares?

give a reason, please.

before CT went down, shares have been still traded, while you claimed "investigation ". i dont see how this works.

shouldnt trade be halted?

i dont know why hold the shares, while other customers trading shares in CT, "while so called investigation is claimed"

[runam0k]

[snip]

What I am most concerned with to be addressed promptly is a signed message proving the existence of the coins held.  I do not see this as an unreasonable request and would show good faith on your part.

Does it matter?

We gave Ken 25,000 coins. What makes you think he has <1,500 left? Is it not enough that we've basically spent 23,500 coins and have precisely zero to show for it (literally, no proof of anything)? Will proof of 1,500 coins really set your mind at ease?

[drawingthesun]

[snip]

What I am most concerned with to be addressed promptly is a signed message proving the existence of the coins held.  I do not see this as an unreasonable request and would show good faith on your part.

Does it matter?

We gave Ken 25,000 coins. What makes you think he has <1,500 left? Is it not enough that we've basically spent 23,500 coins and have precisely zero to show for it (literally, no proof of anything)? Will proof of 1,500 coins really set your mind at ease?

Not all shares cost 0.0025 at IPO.

[JoTheKhan]

So what hasn't been paid for, for this illusionary 28nm chip? 1500 Coins ~ $1,000,000. 453 Coins ~ $320,000. That's $680,000. This can't cover 28nm and setting up a farm or anything, there is no way in hell this company is going to be able to sell any preorders either to raise money. ( Do not delete this, I am an investor trying to express my concerns ).

[chsados]

[snip]

What I am most concerned with to be addressed promptly is a signed message proving the existence of the coins held.  I do not see this as an unreasonable request and would show good faith on your part.

Does it matter?

We gave Ken 25,000 coins. What makes you think he has <1,500 left? Is it not enough that we've basically spent 23,500 coins and have precisely zero to show for it (literally, no proof of anything)? Will proof of 1,500 coins really set your mind at ease?

Yes it absolutely matters.  I want proof that there are even any coins left!

[minerpart]

there is no way in hell this company is going to be able to sell any preorders either to raise money.

You might be a concerned investor but making statements like that is a very very unusual way to support your own investment.

[Ozymandias]

I think it's about time to lay this out bare:

No matter the squabbling, demands, what ifs, etc. there is one of exactly two relevant things that shareholders can do:

1) Wait and hope for the best
Pros: things might turn out ok; ActM could have a mid-grade (i.e. middle of the road with respect to efficiency, probably in the ~1.5W/gh at the wall) chip at cost somewhere in mid-late Q3
Cons: All or most could be lost by whatever means you want to attribute to the loss (bad business, scam, gox, government intervention, or whatever else one wants to think)

2) Give up all hope and sue
Pros: A small number of people may recover a small number of funds; this whole saga will finally begin to end
Cons: For the great majority of shareholders all or most WILL be lost (the cons from part 1 + added legal fees to fight the suit)

well I guess there's option 3 also (Give up all hope and not sue but come on, in our over-litigious society, this option is unlikely) but I digress

None of these options are ideal, but demanding this or that from Ken has historically been grossly ineffective and a general waste of energy for those asking the questions. It has been roughly 9 months since this venture has started with essentially nothing to show for it (be it a series of unfortunate events or whatever other reason one would like to attribute to it).

Frankly, I abhor the legal system where the only real winners are the lawyers and would very much rather not go down that route but I've been doing the wait and hope thing for a while now and it hasn't been treating me as well as I would have liked it to treat me.

I know a lot of you are in the same boat as I am (though perhaps not as reserved as I have been in the few months after my disillusionment) and that the next bit of official news regarding the 28nm chip could very well be the deciding point between option 1 and option 2.

I want to hope, I want to have faith but every week I'm able to convince myself less and less. I wish all of us shareholders luck in the next few weeks/months.

[Komodorpudel]

Hey

so i was wondering, since we will not be able to trade or at least verify our activemining shares in the short term at crypto-trade, how do i know that nobody at amc/vmc (whatever ) "messed up" the process of transfering the shares from bitfunder into direct shares and everybody will still have the same amount of shares when verifying for trading at crypto trade goes on( if this is still planned after the recent events)

Or in short:

How do i know that i will still have all my shares once trading in any form continues?


greets

[Ozymandias]

Hey

so i was wondering, since we will not be able to trade or at least verify our activemining shares in the short term at crypto-trade, how do i know that nobody at amc/vmc (whatever ) "messed up" the process of transfering the shares from bitfunder into direct shares and everybody will still have the same amount of shares when verifying for trading at crypto trade goes on( if this is still planned after the recent events)

Or in short:

How do i know that i will still have all my shares once trading in any form continues?


greets

Unfortunately you do not know, nobody knows, though we'll see if/when we actually get to the point. Fingers crossed!

[chsados]

Perhaps go into the bank and run Armory there?

Yes that's possible if they allow you to take a Laptop into the secure area to generate the signing code. Being safe is an area I'm sure Ken is highly aware of due to him being a known face and having an open work address. Security is everything both online and in the real world. A lot of people would do almost anything to get their hands on a million untraceable dollars. With the previous VE threats I warned Ken about taking his own personal security seriously and he assured me he had taken steps to increase it and was treating it very seriously.

I have PM'd etotheipi asking him to kindly join in the discussion about how to best sign a paper wallet.

Ken this needs to be done ASAP once we get clear and concise information on how to do so.

Ken, how did you create the cold storage wallet?  Is it via a paper wallet or a secure offline computer?  If on a computer what client are you using?
 

[etotheipi]

I have PM'd etotheipi asking him to kindly join in the discussion about how to best sign a paper wallet.

I neither endorse nor discourage signing like this.  There's a lot of ways that this kind of signing could be abused, such as Ken simply knowing someone who has 1,500 BTC+ who would be willing to sign such a message for him (it doesn't really hurt the person who signs on his behalf).   

Ideally, your message would be something like:
("Ken Slaugher and ActiveMining have full control over this address which, at the time of signing, has 1,500+ BTC.")<signed by Address X, which has 1,783 BTC>

However, this is most effective if you know a particular address in advance.  i.e. You are already aware of a specific address holding 1,500+ BTC, and you want Ken to prove he has control of it.  Though it's still not fail-proof, if somehow Ken knows who owns that address and gets them to sign for it (but better than Ken simply needing to find anyone with 1,500 BTC and sign it).

With all that in mind, if you don't have a particular address in mind, the best you can do is:

Someone with at least 1,500 BTC was willing to sign the following message:
"Ken Slaugher and ActiveMining have full control over this address which, at the time of signing, has 1,500+ BTC."

The address associated with the signature can be looked up on something like Blockchain.info to verify the money held by it.

You can do this easily with Armory, even if it's not an Armory wallet.  You can create a wallet on an offline Armory instance (such as in a live session), and import the private key to the wallet.  Then you can go to "Tools"-->"Message Signing" from the main window and use that private key.  I don't recommend doing this with versions of Armory older than 0.90-beta.  The old message signing interface was garbage, but was updated in 0.90-beta, and you can now make signed message blocks.  The signed message block could be copied to USB key or exported somehow, then the offline/live session destroyed. 

As said above though, given the circumstances, I'm not sure how useful this will be.

[MrTeal]

Perhaps go into the bank and run Armory there?

Yes that's possible if they allow you to take a Laptop into the secure area to generate the signing code. Being safe is an area I'm sure Ken is highly aware of due to him being a known face and having an open work address. Security is everything both online and in the real world. A lot of people would do almost anything to get their hands on a million untraceable dollars. With the previous VE threats I warned Ken about taking his own personal security seriously and he assured me he had taken steps to increase it and was treating it very seriously.

Given how everything else here has been handled and with the level of professionalism demonstrated thus far, do you really think it's likely Ken has some complicated security measures with an offline encrypted wallet or paper wallet stored in a lockbox in a bank vault? At this point it wouldn't surprise me if he was just running a stock QT client unencrypted on his laptop.

[knybe]

Perhaps go into the bank and run Armory there?

Yes that's possible if they allow you to take a Laptop into the secure area to generate the signing code. Being safe is an area I'm sure Ken is highly aware of due to him being a known face and having an open work address. Security is everything both online and in the real world. A lot of people would do almost anything to get their hands on a million untraceable dollars. With the previous VE threats I warned Ken about taking his own personal security seriously and he assured me he had taken steps to increase it and was treating it very seriously.

Given how everything else here has been handled and with the level of professionalism demonstrated thus far, do you really think it's likely Ken has some complicated security measures with an offline encrypted wallet or paper wallet stored in a lockbox in a bank vault? At this point it wouldn't surprise me if he was just running a stock QT client unencrypted on his laptop.

I'd agree with this. I highly doubt the level of Ken's professional expertise just as much as I've doubted Mark Karpeles' since 2011.

[Mabsark]

Can a signed message be sent from a cold wallet without compromising the private key? ie entering it online?

Armory can do this.

Ken hasn't said he is using Armory though I don't think. There is a security issue here we need to be aware of. You are asking Ken to confirm he has a million dollars of BTC on a laptop with Armory on it (for example) and his work address is public knowledge. Do you see the issue? I would think the cold wallet keys are kept in a safety deposit box in a bank in Springfield or Kansas City and there they should stay until they are needed and their safety shouldn't be compromised just to supply a signed message. Surely we want evidence of chips and not just company cash deposits?

There is no issue. Ken just needs to use the private key on a clean, offline computer to create a signed message and copy it to external storage then an online computer.

[tempestb]

At this point it wouldn't surprise me if he was just running a stock QT client unencrypted on his laptop.

You mean the wallet with the one satoshi in it?