[ActiveMining] Official Shareholder Discussion Thread [Moderated]

[equipoise]

Today's the day, have fun in court Kenny-my-lad.

What's the story? can you elaborate please?

Today is the Missouri Secretary of State Hearing. Ken should be there (or maybe just his attorney(s)?). Is it open to the public? Is someone going to be there?

[tempestb]

Nobody lives in Missouri AFAIK.

Doubtful any of the news sites sent anyone there to report on it.  So, probably just have to wait for posted transcripts or whatever.

[xilatleo]

Nobody lives in Missouri AFAIK.

Doubtful any of the news sites sent anyone there to report on it.  So, probably just have to wait for posted transcripts or whatever.

Didn't read the whole discussion. What's up. They disappear and scam people money? I live in Missouri. Springfield is 15' away from my house.

[MrTeal]

Nobody lives in Missouri AFAIK.

Doubtful any of the news sites sent anyone there to report on it.  So, probably just have to wait for posted transcripts or whatever.

Didn't read the whole discussion. What's up. They disappear and scam people money? I live in Missouri. Springfield is 15' away from my house.

LOL... +1 on the DMS notation for how far a drive you would have. It's probably too late now, but I'm sure people here would appreciate an in-court reporter as Ken has his day before the securities commission.

[tempestb]

Nobody lives in Missouri AFAIK.

Doubtful any of the news sites sent anyone there to report on it.  So, probably just have to wait for posted transcripts or whatever.

Didn't read the whole discussion. What's up. They disappear and scam people money? I live in Missouri. Springfield is 15' away from my house.

It's storied.  Ken Slaughter sold shares of profits for a new chip to be made and sold as an ASIC.  He also sold preorders of the chips/boards to customers.  He then did not produce the chip.  He did purchase some Hashfast chips and got them mounted to hash boards, and delivered some of these (Not many) to people waiting on preorders as well as new orders.   The bulk of investors and people who preordered received no refund, and no income from the shares.   Slaughter apparently purchased resources but revealed no evidence (other than things he said) of where the money went.  Millions of dollars...  Poof.   So the Missouri Trade Commission got involved, and basically is bringing Slaughter into court over his issuance of non-registered securities.  And that ultimately he'll have to refund investors.  However, it is likely there is no money to refund anyone, so not really sure what will happen then.  We wait and see...

[Surf Capital Management]

The wheels of justice are moving EXTREMELY slow....

[Flashman]

Nobody lives in Missouri AFAIK.

Doubtful any of the news sites sent anyone there to report on it.  So, probably just have to wait for posted transcripts or whatever.

Didn't read the whole discussion. What's up. They disappear and scam people money? I live in Missouri. Springfield is 15' away from my house.

It's storied.  Ken Slaughter sold shares of profits for a new chip to be made and sold as an ASIC.  He also sold preorders of the chips/boards to customers.  He then did not produce the chip.  He did purchase some Hashfast chips and got them mounted to hash boards, and delivered some of these (Not many) to people waiting on preorders as well as new orders.   The bulk of investors and people who preordered received no refund, and no income from the shares.   Slaughter apparently purchased resources but revealed no evidence (other than things he said) of where the money went.  Millions of dollars...  Poof.   So the Missouri Trade Commission got involved, and basically is bringing Slaughter into court over his issuance of non-registered securities.  And that ultimately he'll have to refund investors.  However, it is likely there is no money to refund anyone, so not really sure what will happen then.  We wait and see...

IMO, he did pretty well to keep us afloat so long given the storms and tempests of the BTC world. First off, I think was that we IPOed before there was any guidance as to official stance on bitcoin being seen as substitute money, and crypto securities being seen as "real" under law. That came some months later. Secondly, we were originally to mine on Avalon chips, on our own boards. Had these been delivered on schedule, or somewhere near it, bearing in mind that in all evaluations at that time, Avalon was the most capable and on the ball ASIC player, then we would have been doing good, they may have been able to hash profitably up until May or June this year, depending on the electricity deal. Anyway, that went to hell and screwed not just AMC/VMC but a bunch of others, Terrahash etc. Then while he was chasing the refund from that, we had the Bitfunder debacle. However, being kicked in the nuts twice, he still kept us theoretically in the game with a deal for our own chip. Again, had that progressed on schedule and I think it was eASIC selling us 28nm easy copy before it was ready to roll, and mis-representing when it would be available. Had that gone right, we'd have been online with the KNC Jupiters at about same efficiency and got about a year out of those until now... But again, an attempt to deal with what seemed an industry leader blew up in our faces. By early 2014 it became obvious that this deal wasn't good enough, now it was much delayed, and other options were sought, we bought another chip design, that didn't rely on less efficient easy-copy type process. This was also a decent deal at the time, but holding BTC in a merchant account at then "industry leader" MtGox, shot us in the foot again. Limping along I believe we got some return of funds from eASIC, that enabled a last desperate effort with the hashfast boards....

.... and we'd have made it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

Anyway. From what I've been able to put together, Ken seemed like he was making the objective at the time "right choices", and he was rolling with the punches, we took so many fucking hits, it's amazing we were still on our feet so long. Among other companies, one or two of the events above wiped them out of the game completely. It didn't work out, but I don't think it was a scam.

[Phildo]

Yea, he made all the right choices.

Except for leaving coins on Gox, and knowing how to make miners, everything went swimmingly.

[Jasun7211]

Agree...but you never know what he has up his sleeve.  I think some frankenstein like event will happen.  I know it makes no sense and is a total long shot....but thats par for this ozark course

[Jasun7211]

Anyone email Ken......  Just to say hi?

[gogxmagog]

True I believe Ken to be largly incompetant, not a scammer, at least at the outset, but I think he was acting stupidly and started doing more and more dishonest things as everything started to fall apart. basically desperation leading a more or less honest guy to try and bullshit himself some more time. This alone is a crime IMHO, the crime of "misleading practices" to be exact.

I have no idea if he was playing the market with activemining shares, but after hearing his little gems like "when BTC is 10 000 we will all be great!" makes me think he was robbing Peter to make it look like he might pay Paul the whole time.

[zumzero]

IMO, he did pretty well to keep us afloat so long given the storms and tempests of the BTC world. First off, I think was that we IPOed before there was any guidance as to official stance on bitcoin being seen as substitute money, and crypto securities being seen as "real" under law. That came some months later. Secondly, we were originally to mine on Avalon chips, on our own boards. Had these been delivered on schedule, or somewhere near it, bearing in mind that in all evaluations at that time, Avalon was the most capable and on the ball ASIC player, then we would have been doing good, they may have been able to hash profitably up until May or June this year, depending on the electricity deal. Anyway, that went to hell and screwed not just AMC/VMC but a bunch of others, Terrahash etc. Then while he was chasing the refund from that, we had the Bitfunder debacle. However, being kicked in the nuts twice, he still kept us theoretically in the game with a deal for our own chip. Again, had that progressed on schedule and I think it was eASIC selling us 28nm easy copy before it was ready to roll, and mis-representing when it would be available. Had that gone right, we'd have been online with the KNC Jupiters at about same efficiency and got about a year out of those until now... But again, an attempt to deal with what seemed an industry leader blew up in our faces. By early 2014 it became obvious that this deal wasn't good enough, now it was much delayed, and other options were sought, we bought another chip design, that didn't rely on less efficient easy-copy type process. This was also a decent deal at the time, but holding BTC in a merchant account at then "industry leader" MtGox, shot us in the foot again. Limping along I believe we got some return of funds from eASIC, that enabled a last desperate effort with the hashfast boards....

.... and we'd have made it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

Anyway. From what I've been able to put together, Ken seemed like he was making the objective at the time "right choices", and he was rolling with the punches, we took so many fucking hits, it's amazing we were still on our feet so long. Among other companies, one or two of the events above wiped them out of the game completely. It didn't work out, but I don't think it was a scam.

This is the clearest representation of the truth I've read in a long time and is why I have always maintained that this was not a scam, merely a failed business.

[runam0k]

It didn't work out, but I don't think it was a scam.

True I believe Ken to be largly incompetant, not a scammer

The truly successful scams end this way.

[NotLambchop]

It didn't work out, but I don't think it was a scam.

True I believe Ken to be largly incompetant, not a scammer

The truly successful scams end this way.

Successful scams are indistinguishable from failed businesses.  They're structured that way.
This has been pointed out more than once.

  ~Happy Investing!

[Bargraphics]

It didn't work out, but I don't think it was a scam.

True I believe Ken to be largly incompetant, not a scammer

The truly successful scams end this way.

Successful scams are indistinguishable from failed businesses.  They're structured that way.
This has been pointed out more than once.

  ~Happy Investing!

Failed businesses become scams the moment they do not liquidate when they know they have failed. *As Flashman noted the abundant failures of this company with Bitcoin Price rising giving it the ability to fail as much as it did.

When you sit on your failed business drawing salaries for you and your loved ones for as long as you can, knowing that you will never become profitable to be able to pay back shareholders is when it becomes a scam.

If the above isn't the case (and it will likely come out in court) then we can label him as solely incompetent and not a scammer which might make everyone feel a tad warm inside but doesn't save Ken from blatant securities violations  

[Phildo]

I'm sorry guys, but if you write this off as a "failure" you are dumb, and deserve to have your money gone.

He did not come close to accomplishing anything he set out to do. He couldn't even ship out completed miners (that of course he didn't make) that he had in hand to people that ordered them. that's not a failure, that's fraud.

[tempestb]

We have very little proof that he did half of what he said he did, and only ancillary proof of the things he said he did do.  What we do know is that he had a lot of money and produced nothing from it for share holders, and many people who preordered.  He never allowed anyone to see the books.  Likely because there were no books. 

[HardwareReviewer]

It didn't work out, but I don't think it was a scam.

True I believe Ken to be largly incompetant, not a scammer

The truly successful scams end this way.

Successful scams are indistinguishable from failed businesses.  They're structured that way.
This has been pointed out more than once.

  ~Happy Investing!

Indeed: HashFast was successful too, scam-wise.

[Flashman]

Though objectively, I can see that lack of proof as a symptom of running the biz on a forum that is investor facing as well as customer facing, as well as competitor facing. But personally I would have preferred greater transparency.

However, he was presented with numerous "golden opportunities" to claim complete or almost complete loss of funds, the insolvency of we-exchange, the Post SR 1 flash crash, 100% loss on gox etc. I believe there were even some claims of never getting refunded from avalon chip orders. I don't see how he avoided such temptations if he had intent to be dishonest.

[Phildo]

Though objectively, I can see that lack of proof as a symptom of running the biz on a forum that is investor facing as well as customer facing, as well as competitor facing. But personally I would have preferred greater transparency.

However, he was presented with numerous "golden opportunities" to claim complete or almost complete loss of funds, the insolvency of we-exchange, the Post SR 1 flash crash, 100% loss on gox etc. I believe there were even some claims of never getting refunded from avalon chip orders. I don't see how he avoided such temptations if he had intent to be dishonest.

Because just bailing at the first chance would cause more people to report him earlier which would end up with him and his family getting less money than they got by dragging this out for as long as he did.

how can you think he was honest when he couldn't do something simple like shipping something he had to people that paid for it?