ASIC.guide - Alibaba for ASIC mining community

[jayyoott]

Hi,

I'm Jay and I've been mining Bitcoin since 2017.  I co-founded Cryptodrilling.com and I've been mining in Thailand and Laos.

As a reseller of ASIC hardware and also a hosting operator myself, I understand the friction and the fragmented nature of the whole supply chain.  From talking to manufacturers like Bitmain, Microbt to finding distributors who will sell you the MOQs you wanted to talking to local resellers that cater to specific geography and to hosting companies that will accept your ASIC machines.

So we created ASIC.guide to help reduce the friction and facilitate the whole process.  We want to be the go-to directory for ASIC miners and companies to do research.  We know that we won't be able to solve 100% of the issue of the supply chain, it has got to be an industry-wide effort, but we hope to be part of the solution.

Currently we have 4 live sections (1 currently in the making):

1. Manufacturers (https://asic.guide/manufacturers): Basically all of the ASIC manufacturers.  We also include container manufacturers and cooling technology companies (i.e. immersion cooling, hydro, etc.)

2. Distributors (https://asic.guide/distributors): Distributors who have bought and have inventory of ASIC machines and other hardwares.  We aim for this section to be more for wholesalers (not retail) because their requirements are quite different from retail miners

3. Resellers (https://asic.guide/resellers): Resellers are more for retail buyers and tend to be more localized (i.e. serves one geography)

4. Hosting Companies (https://asic.guide/hosting): Hosting companies are the hosting providers.  I think we need to improve on this particular section and we will add more type specific sections here (i.e. hosting location, pictures, verifications)

5. Repair Centers (https://asic.guide/repair): Coming soon.

I'd like to hear feedbacks from the community and I can't wait to engage to see how we can make this tool more useful for everyone here.  Looking forward to hearing from you all!

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[SFR10]

2. Distributors (https://asic.guide/distributors):

The first one on the list has a minor error ^{[e.g. there's a mention of Jingle Mining on the dedicated page of Easy2Mine]}

Resellers are more for retail buyers and tend to be more localized (i.e. serves one geography)

And this makes the whole situation a bit tricky... Some of them already have negative reviews on various platforms ^{[including here]} so while they might appear legit to some, they could selectively scam other customers!

4. Hosting Companies (https://asic.guide/hosting): Hosting companies are the hosting providers.  I think we need to improve on this particular section and we will add more type specific sections here (i.e. hosting location, pictures, verifications)

It would've been better to do the verification part first, prior to listing any of them!

I'd like to hear feedbacks from the community and I can't wait to engage to see how we can make this tool more useful for everyone here.  Looking forward to hearing from you all!

It has potential, but I'm not sure how you'd be able to maintain it in a way that doesn't have a negative impact on some of the customers.

[jayyoott]

Thank you so much for your feedback!

I have made the edits to the mistake raised. 

All of your concerns are justified and we are aware of them too.  Currently I think my goal is to list companies that are currently operating in the space.  Verification is a bit tricky and we have put a lot of thought into this because one company may be legit to someone and scam to another (i.e. the Compass incident, it would be impossible for us to predict what happened).

So I think the first phase of the website would be a comprehensive directory of all companies and buyers will still have to do more research for themselves.  (We might add a review section so people have feedback.)

In the future we might have escrow service for buying (if that's what the market needs).  Or maybe bulk buying feature.  Let me know what you think.

But I think in the first phase, we just want to be as comprehensive as possible!

Thank you so much for your feedback.  It's very much appreciated!

[SFR10]

So I think the first phase of the website would be a comprehensive directory of all companies and buyers will still have to do more research for themselves.

You might want to add a disclaimer to the footer area of your website and perhaps it'd be better if each of the listings came with verified/unverified labels.

(We might add a review section so people have feedback.)

Only if you can come up with an unexploitable review system ^{[it's extremely difficult to execute such a thing]}.

In the future we might have escrow service for buying (if that's what the market needs).

There's a demand for escrow providers, but the main issue is always going to be trusting new providers who want to handle deals through other platforms.

Thank you so much for your feedback.  It's very much appreciated!

You're very welcome

[jayyoott]

You might want to add a disclaimer to the footer area of your website and perhaps it'd be better if each of the listings came with verified/unverified labels.

1. Yes, we will be adding "Suggest an Edit/ Report Company" so that if there's any mistakes or possible scam, people can report to us so we are aware of the issue

2. Verified badge is something we have been thinking about, but it can be tricky to execute.  As in, what does it mean to be verified (as a whole company)?  I think that's very hard (i.e. Compute North, Minerva, Compass Mining are some of the examples that have some "controversies").  That's why we chose to verify only the website as we launch because it is the most obvious one.

However, we do plan to have some other verified sections for different types of companies.  For example,
- distributors and resellers can have a "verified warehouse" section where they have to provide paperwork to show to us that they own/rent a warehouse for their operations.
- hosting providers can have a "verified hosting operation" where we make sure that they really 'operate' the site, not just being the middleman (being the middleman with no control of the operation usually leads to problems in the future).
- manufacturers => I think this is the juiciest because I fly to China all the time (before covid anyway, lol), so I can just visit their factory and make some content.  The only issue here is how to organize it in a neat way for people to see.  I'm sure people outside of China would love more info from the inside.  One incident came to mind: The D1, L1 Hammer/Hummer ASIC.  Obviously they are a duplicate and it was confusing for me in the beginning too.  I think I want ASIC.guide to be able to help resolve these confusions for the ASIC community.

Only if you can come up with an unexploitable review system [it's extremely difficult to execute such a thing].

Yes, that's why we didn't launch with a review section, we want to be sure first.  I've seen too many abused review system that it has lost its usefulness.

There's a demand for escrow providers, but the main issue is always going to be trusting new providers who want to handle deals through other platforms.

Another thing we have under our radar but will be complicate to execute.  I'd say we need to build authority for the website first.  Currently we are trying to fill out the companies to make it useful enough for people. (hint: we are also launching a search feature so it's easier to browse).  But escrow will be something we will explore in later phases!

Hopefully you find this useful!