GAW Miners (Scrypt/SHA256 miners and Hashlet cloud) independent feedback thread

[KC6TTR]

Yep...

SO HAPPY I sold and got out a week ago! They are changing the rules yet again! So typical of a Ponzi scheme that must buy time rather than face the piper.

Maybe they are just trying to get more lawyer money ready for some pending SEC and FTC action... If you didn't get your complaints in, here are the links:

http://www.sec.gov/complaint/tipscomplaint.shtml

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#crnt&panel1-1

[KC6TTR]

Well now hold your hats, GAW is now hinting at a crypto coin that can only be mined by Prime hashlets, so a company who states that crypto is what they are about has forgotten one of the main principles of the whole idea of crypto. The ideology behind crypto is that no one central authority controls it, well GAW seems to have forgotten that. I am sure the crypto community will remind them. By the way I am a GAW customer, as well as other companies, however if the GAW team think they can start a coin and control it's eco system, then I am sure they have forgotten what crypto is about.

I have been shadow banned by GAW for making this statement on hashtalk and don't care as I feel that they have truly lost there way and have forgotten that all crypto is meant to be decentralized, funny thing is only 2 months ago the GAW fanboys were crying foul when they thought CEXio was going to have more than 51% of the BTC hashing power, those same fan boys are happy for GAW to have 100% control over the hash coin or what ever he calls it. What a joke and a disgrace. I can only hope that when the coin comes on the market that the wider community dump it like it should be.   

Same here - I was shadow banned (again) for calling Josh out on his comments. He has a lot to learn about business and law. Lucky for me, I screen-grabbed it before it was censored.

 

[galdur]

I very much doubt that it´ll end well.

Someone should download that entire
message board just in case.

[tom14cat14]

Many pissed off people on the hashtalk forum now. But as always everyone has to watch what they say or risk getting banned or sued.

Right now I think most are not caring. Even the mods are pissed off.

[psybits]

I had a heap of referrals and they just deleted my account. Scam worthy!

[bitgeek]

I had a heap of referrals and they just deleted my account. Scam worthy!

Why? What did you do to earn this?

[Slark]

I had a heap of referrals and they just deleted my account. Scam worthy!

Why? What did you do to earn this?

Probably he was polite and was just asking some questions in a friendly manner.

[dooglus]

A friend told me yesterday he had bought some GAW cloudmining thing, so I tried looking into it.

I had previously always thought that cloudmining was a waste of money, and that you'd be unlikely to get your investment back ever.

Now I'm even more confused. I apologise that I've not read this huge thread to see if these points have been brought up before, but figured I should ask before concluding that the operation is a scam.

In the forum ad (quoted above) I see "Never obsolete" and "Always profitable". How can that be? If the difficulty continues to rise, all existing hardware will become unprofitable and hence obsolete. How do GAW ensure that this never happens?

What does "no pool fees" mean, when their site clearly says that pool fees are built in to the price. If pool fees are 0%, why do they need building in anywhere?

And what's this about being the first DIGITAL cloud miner? Were all the previous ones analogue? Isn't all mining digital?

Claims like this make the operation look scammy - but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Have these points been addressed somewhere before?

Thanks.

[geegaw]

And what's this about being the first DIGITAL cloud miner? Were all the previous ones analogue? Isn't all mining digital?

Claims like this make the operation look scammy - but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Have these points been addressed somewhere before?

Thanks.

Read backwards

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=720844.4340

[suchmoon]

A friend told me yesterday he had bought some GAW cloudmining thing, so I tried looking into it.

I had previously always thought that cloudmining was a waste of money, and that you'd be unlikely to get your investment back ever.

Now I'm even more confused. I apologise that I've not read this huge thread to see if these points have been brought up before, but figured I should ask before concluding that the operation is a scam.

In the forum ad (quoted above) I see "Never obsolete" and "Always profitable". How can that be? If the difficulty continues to rise, all existing hardware will become unprofitable and hence obsolete. How do GAW ensure that this never happens?

What does "no pool fees" mean, when their site clearly says that pool fees are built in to the price. If pool fees are 0%, why do they need building in anywhere?

And what's this about being the first DIGITAL cloud miner? Were all the previous ones analogue? Isn't all mining digital?

Claims like this make the operation look scammy - but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Have these points been addressed somewhere before?

Thanks.

There is another thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=720844

I tried to collect all known concerns and GAW's responses in the OP, but it's a bit outdated now because GAW started moving from "cloud mining" into this new coin code-named "hashcoin".  See hashcoin.com for that. The thread itself has degenerated into all sorts of trollery along the way so I wouldn't suggest to waste your time reading all 200 pages, maybe just the last 20 or so.

Here is another smaller thread where many of the same and other concerns are raised: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=835464

You can also visit GAW's official forum hashtalk.org but it's so bloated, not sure where to even start. Maybe in the Announcements section, and also check out user gaw_ceo and his post history to gauge the official position. Keep in mind though that the forum is heavily censored. Dissenting posts tend to vanish along with their authors.

[seedtrue]

I have been a customer of GAW since April. I may be able to help answer some of these questions.
I have recently sold of 98% of my GAW Hashlets for a nice profit that recovered most if not all of the $1000s that I lost buying physical Hardware from them. I do not like the direction the company is going, so I started working on my exit last month.

In the forum ad (quoted above) I see "Never obsolete" and "Always profitable". How can that be? If the difficulty continues to rise, all existing hardware will become unprofitable and hence obsolete. How do GAW ensure that this never happens?

Well for one thing, Hashlets are not specifically tied into one type of hardware. They are interchangeable with new tech AFAIK. "Always profitable" could even mean that a 100 MH Hashlet makes $0.01 profit from mining 1 week after fees. I would hope they have a few rolls of pennies lying around if it comes down to that.    

What does "no pool fees" mean, when their site clearly says that pool fees are built in to the price. If pool fees are 0%, why do they need building in anywhere?

The "maintenance fees" should not be confused with "pool fees". A lot of pools charge 1-2% of all the coins you mine as a fee. GAW charges a flat-rate of $0.08/MH for scrypt no matter what pool you mine at.

And what's this about being the first DIGITAL cloud miner? Were all the previous ones analogue? Isn't all mining digital?

I think this is just a situation where Josh(CEO) was trying to sound more technical than he understood. This happens often at GAW. You should se the "white paper" for the new Gawcoin(Hashcoin). It is ridiculously filled with terms that make it seem more technical than it really is.

Claims like this make the operation look scammy - but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Have these points been addressed somewhere before?

We have a 218 page thread going about GAW. I think most questions have been brought up there, but I do not feel like sorting through them. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=720844.0  



Edit: Final thoughts: I do not trust GAW. But there are a few things in their favor.

• Bitmain confirmed GAW had purchased 5 Petahash of SHA-256 miners the other day.
• Stuart Fraser from Cantor Fitzgerald(a large Bond Trading Platform), is more than likely silent partner in GAW  
• Josh Garza has his face on everything related to GAW and he lives in the United States. With so many different people yelling "Ponzi" from the start, he would have to be one of the dumbest criminals in the world to have his face attached to it.

However, there are many more red-flags than not. It is an interesting situation to say the least.

[dooglus]

There is another thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=720844

I tried to collect all known concerns and GAW's responses in the OP, but it's a bit outdated now because GAW started moving from "cloud mining" into this new coin code-named "hashcoin".

You can also visit GAW's official forum hashtalk.org but it's so bloated, not sure where to even start. Maybe in the Announcements section, and also check out user gaw_ceo and his post history to gauge the official position. Keep in mind though that the forum is heavily censored. Dissenting posts tend to vanish along with their authors.

Thanks for that. I see I'm late to this party.

In the forum ad (quoted above) I see "Never obsolete" and "Always profitable". How can that be? If the difficulty continues to rise, all existing hardware will become unprofitable and hence obsolete. How do GAW ensure that this never happens?

Well for one thing, Hashlets are not specifically tied into one type of hardware. They are interchangeable with new tech AFAIK. "Always profitable" could even mean that a 100 MH Hashlet makes $0.01 profit from mining 1 week after fees.

Profit is what you get when you subtract income from expenses. If the total income is smaller than the initial cost, there's no profit, right? So "always profitable" would be more accurately expressed as "always getting closer to being profitable, but probably never reaching it"?

If the old hardware never mines enough to cover its initial costs, how are they going to afford to buy new hardware to replace it with without charging existing customers more? Do they use money from new customers to pay out the older customers? "Never obsolete" isn't possible in Bitcoin mining, not without spending a whole lot of money to keep replacing old hardware with new.

And what's this about being the first DIGITAL cloud miner? Were all the previous ones analogue? Isn't all mining digital?

I think this is just a situation where Josh(CEO) was trying to sound more technical than he understood.

They should stop using that line. It makes them look dumb.

I understand that there's power in using hyperbole in advertising to get more business. But for something like Bitcoin mining where presumably your target market is tech savvy, doesn't this just turn people off?

[tom14cat14]

A friend told me yesterday he had bought some GAW cloudmining thing, so I tried looking into it.

I had previously always thought that cloudmining was a waste of money, and that you'd be unlikely to get your investment back ever.

Now I'm even more confused. I apologise that I've not read this huge thread to see if these points have been brought up before, but figured I should ask before concluding that the operation is a scam.

In the forum ad (quoted above) I see "Never obsolete" and "Always profitable". How can that be? If the difficulty continues to rise, all existing hardware will become unprofitable and hence obsolete. How do GAW ensure that this never happens?

What does "no pool fees" mean, when their site clearly says that pool fees are built in to the price. If pool fees are 0%, why do they need building in anywhere?

And what's this about being the first DIGITAL cloud miner? Were all the previous ones analogue? Isn't all mining digital?

Claims like this make the operation look scammy - but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Have these points been addressed somewhere before?

Thanks.

You honestly will pretty much only get one sided issues here. Most of the people that post in these 2 threads are sour towards GAW so will give you their very biased views and how it is a scam. They will not have real evidence but will yell really loud about it being a scam. IMO what you need to know- Payouts suck right now, you have to believe that they will pull off this new coin, They have promised many things and most of them keep getting pushed back or changed because they thing this new coin will be worth it for everyone so the have stopped making the BTC mining part better. They have posted pictures of miners which most people could do however it is more than the scam accusations have posted proof wise. The top people are all in the USA and their faces and names are well known. They have also posted pictures of josh's kids. I highly doubt they would put their family at risk by running a ponzi. Josh has also already run a successful multi million dollar company. Now they are taking a huge risk by making a new coin. So much so that if it fails I could see in tanking the company. To me it feels like GAW has went all in on this new coin. Their main goal is not to get the people on BTC talk to like the coin they want to get all of those people that do not use BTC. The problem I see with this is that I dont think most people want crypto and have no use for it. So good luck and figureing out if you want to invest in GAW. At this point I would not spend money here. But people said that about BTC years ago and look what happened to those who believed in it.

[seedtrue]

In the forum ad (quoted above) I see "Never obsolete" and "Always profitable". How can that be? If the difficulty continues to rise, all existing hardware will become unprofitable and hence obsolete. How do GAW ensure that this never happens?

Well for one thing, Hashlets are not specifically tied into one type of hardware. They are interchangeable with new tech AFAIK. "Always profitable" could even mean that a 100 MH Hashlet makes $0.01 profit from mining 1 week after fees.

Profit is what you get when you subtract income from expenses. If the total income is smaller than the initial cost, there's no profit, right? So "always profitable" would be more accurately expressed as "always getting closer to being profitable, but probably never reaching it"?

If the old hardware never mines enough to cover its initial costs, how are they going to afford to buy new hardware to replace it with without charging existing customers more? Do they use money from new customers to pay out the older customers? "Never obsolete" isn't possible in Bitcoin mining, not without spending a whole lot of money to keep replacing old hardware with new.

One thing I keep forgetting is that the hashlets are not physical. They do not really exsist. When you buy a 1 MH Prime hashlet it is not real hardware. It is more a share of the income that GAW makes from their supposed whole operation(mining coins, renting out hash power, day-trading of the coins that were mined, and so on). At least this is the one of the explanations that the CEO has given as to why the zenpool(GAWS pool) can be so profitable.

They should stop using that line. It makes them look dumb.

I understand that there's power in using hyperbole in advertising to get more business. But for something like Bitcoin mining where presumably your target market is tech savvy, doesn't this just turn people off?

There is an overwhelming majority of kids and people new to Bitcoin on GAW's forums. I think this is more their target market. Most people that have been around Bitcoin for more than a few months would see too many red flags.

[suchmoon]

If the old hardware never mines enough to cover its initial costs, how are they going to afford to buy new hardware to replace it with without charging existing customers more? Do they use money from new customers to pay out the older customers? "Never obsolete" isn't possible in Bitcoin mining, not without spending a whole lot of money to keep replacing old hardware with new.

As seedtrue mentioned above they purchased 5 PH/s from Bitmain and posted pictures of S4/S3 miners in their warehouse but that was 2-3 months after they started selling hashlets. Not to mention that most hashlets are marketed as "Scrypt" miners, not SHA256. They have never posted a mining address that would link them to mined blocks, Scrypt or SHA256. There is very little information about what was going on with customer funds in those 2-3 months. Hashlets were initially claimed to be "proprietary hardware", that claim seems to have been removed now. Also GAW sold preorders for Scrypt hardware ("Vaultbreaker" - see http://bringbackroi.com/ ) back in June-July and didn't ship it, instead offered to convert to hashlets. Lots and lots of red flags like that.

They should stop using that line. It makes them look dumb.

I understand that there's power in using hyperbole in advertising to get more business. But for something like Bitcoin mining where presumably your target market is tech savvy, doesn't this just turn people off?

This is not the only one and probably not the most egregious one. But GAW have stated that they are not going after the "tech savvy", they are trying to bring "new people" into crypto.

[suchmoon]

You honestly will pretty much only get one sided issues here.

That's why I suggested to take a look at hashtalk. I'm sure dooglus can make up his own mind if he decides to do that.

[dooglus]

You honestly will pretty much only get one sided issues here. Most of the people that post in these 2 threads are sour towards GAW so will give you their very biased views and how it is a scam. They will not have real evidence but will yell really loud about it being a scam. IMO what you need to know- Payouts suck right now, you have to believe that they will pull off this new coin, They have promised many things and most of them keep getting pushed back or changed because they thing this new coin will be worth it for everyone so the have stopped making the BTC mining part better. [...]

If you're trying to present the other side of the coin, you're not making it look very good!

Payouts suck right now, and they're gambling their future on the success of yet another altcoin that nobody will care about?

One thing I keep forgetting is that the hashlets are not physical. They do not really exsist. When you buy a 1 MH Prime hashlet it is not real hardware. It is more a share of the income that GAW makes from their supposed whole operation(mining coins, renting out hash power, day-trading of the coins that were mined, and so on). At least this is the one of the explanations that the CEO has given as to why the zenpool(GAWS pool) can be so profitable.

So it's not "always profitable", it's "profitable as long as we are profitable, which is as long as we can keep attracting new customers to subsidize the unrealistic deal we made with old customers in which we promised to pay for their power bills forever"?

Basically I have a problem with anyone guaranteeing eternal profits for a single up-front payment, especially when said profits depend on factors outside their control, such as the global network difficulty, advances in technology, and power costs.

There is an overwhelming majority of kids and people new to Bitcoin on GAW's forums. I think this is more their target market. Most people that have been around Bitcoin for more than a few months would see too many red flags.

Fair enough. It's bad for Bitcoin when the first contact new people have with it is to get suckered into buying a mining contract that never pays for itself. But I can see why "kids and noobs" would make a good target market.

[tom14cat14]

You honestly will pretty much only get one sided issues here. Most of the people that post in these 2 threads are sour towards GAW so will give you their very biased views and how it is a scam. They will not have real evidence but will yell really loud about it being a scam. IMO what you need to know- Payouts suck right now, you have to believe that they will pull off this new coin, They have promised many things and most of them keep getting pushed back or changed because they thing this new coin will be worth it for everyone so the have stopped making the BTC mining part better. [...]

If you're trying to present the other side of the coin, you're not making it look very good!

Payouts suck right now, and they're gambling their future on the success of yet another altcoin that nobody will care about?

One thing I keep forgetting is that the hashlets are not physical. They do not really exsist. When you buy a 1 MH Prime hashlet it is not real hardware. It is more a share of the income that GAW makes from their supposed whole operation(mining coins, renting out hash power, day-trading of the coins that were mined, and so on). At least this is the one of the explanations that the CEO has given as to why the zenpool(GAWS pool) can be so profitable.

So it's not "always profitable", it's "profitable as long as we are profitable, which is as long as we can keep attracting new customers to subsidize the unrealistic deal we made with old customers in which we promised to pay for their power bills forever"?

Basically I have a problem with anyone guaranteeing eternal profits for a single up-front payment, especially when said profits depend on factors outside their control, such as the global network difficulty, advances in technology, and power costs.

There is an overwhelming majority of kids and people new to Bitcoin on GAW's forums. I think this is more their target market. Most people that have been around Bitcoin for more than a few months would see too many red flags.

Fair enough. It's bad for Bitcoin when the first contact new people have with it is to get suckered into buying a mining contract that never pays for itself. But I can see why "kids and noobs" would make a good target market.

No I am not trying to defend the otherside. They have issues however dont believe everything you see here also. For a few months it was great it may return again. Everything in the industry goes up and down. It could be just a down time for them. Reading your comments it looks like you have already decided against them so why bother asking anything.

[dooglus]

Reading your comments it looks like you have already decided against them so why bother asking anything.

I've not decided, and don't need to. I'm not looking to get into mining in any way. I was worried about my friend buying a contract and wanted to know if they were as dodgy as they sounded.

It's too late - he already bought it - so I guess time will tell.

[KC6TTR]

The only sure thing these days is holding your crypto (BTC, LTC, Doge) and letting its long term growth earn you the $$.

In my opinion, GAW/Zen is likely a long term SCAM. In the end, I truly believe they will either bail on their customers, like has already been demonstrated with the ZenController Pi OS, or the regulators will shut them down. The evidence is there in plain sight, myself and others have submitted our complaints to the proper authorities, and I think the end appears to be coming sooner rather later. So, it is what it is.

People's focus right now should be getting the word out and at least make an attempt to save a few of these newcomers from being sucked in to the GAW/Zen hype.

Scott