Breaking news! Bitcoin Hardware Giant KFCMiner AB Files for Bankruptcy

Bitcoin Hardware Giant KFCMiner AB Files for Bankruptcy
By Mr A. Venger
04/01/2014

"It went wrong so quickly" laments Samson, CEO of the now bankrupt mining company. "We took over $44 million in pre-orders for Neptune and thought we could do no wrong. As a treat to all our staff who have been working so hard, we decided to have a team away day in Amsterdam. I made the mistake of taking a company credit card. And the rest, as they say, is history".

KFCMiner sprung from nowhere in early 2013, offering high end bitcoin asic miner hardware for sale to an eager community of bitcoin enthusiast. "Once Alex told us he wanted to work for us, we put him on the payroll instantly. It paid off. His open day field report brought in over $7 million dollars worth of orders the next day" Samson wistfully recalls. "That and with him spending at least 11 hours a day on the forum telling everyone we were legit and competent made our job very easy. All we had to do was deliver the hardware".

Sadly, shipping thousand's of faulty boards to customers soon soured the enthusiasm. "What did they expect - fully working machines for the price they paid? We were working day and night and all we got were emails saying 'My rig doesn't work, my rig doesn't work'. We didn't have time for that. We got new customer service team to tell them that we had overdelivered and they would just have to live with whatever faulty boards they had. We were not willing to spend the money to provide them a functional product. It would simply cost too much to keep these whiners happy".

Fast forward to the team away day in January 2014. Samson continued "We all arrive in Amsterdam on Friday afternoon. By Saturday morning, everything had changed, everything was over. We went straight to a coffee shop and I demanded they provide the strongest weed money could buy. The cafe owner asked if we had smoked before and I bluffed and said 'all the time'. He gave us a massive bag and we all sat down at a table and fumbled to make our joints". Samson laughs "None of us were very good at it".

"I insisted the weed was rubbish and having no effect, but Andraes insisted it was good and to just wait. I couldn't stop myself - I rolled larger and larger joints, smoking them back to back. Then it hit me. Soon, my head was spinning like a pig on a roast. The weed was stronger than I could ever imagine. I started to panic and people took me outside to get some air."

The next day, Samson woke up to find the company had placed an order for over $112million of Jupiter boards for a new "datorhall". "I don't speak Swedish, so I didn't even know what that was. It turns out that all us directors got so stoned we figured we could be "as big as Facebook". After 6 hours of smoking Super Dank, anything seemed possible. Unfortunately, we paid the board manufacturers so much money they started the production line first thing on Saturday morning. The train had already left the station and there was no way to stop it".

The story continues to get even stranger. "As a fan of the movie Superman 3, I was always interested in the concept of 'salami slicing' - where you shave off a few insignificant digits that people wouldn't notice and put it into your own account. I always remember that scene where Richard Pryor turns up the next day - after pulling off the salami slicing scam - in a shiny red car. I always wanted that shiny red car. Another one of our masterplan's concocted on that weekend in Amsterdam was to create our own kfcwallet and slice 2% off every transaction. No one would notice, but it would certainly add up for us."

"Although initially shocked at our stupidity, we were optimistic at the start things would turn out alright. Sure, we lied to all our existing customers, but their welfare is not our responsibility. If they are stupid enough to provide us free loans to run our business, we are happy to take it" Samson joked.

As the price of Bitcoin continued to plunge, things took a turn for the worst. "We started to realise that all the money we put into the datorhall could not be mined back. People were losing confidence in our company fast, demanding refunds and our plan of keeping them in the dark did not work so well this year as it did last year."

"Wives will turn a blind eye to business deception and fraud, but they won't to a man's growing interest in a women's handball team. We sponsored the local club in Boden, as they were the only good looking women in town. We thought if we owned them they would be more willing to spend time with us. Our wives did not see it that way."

"They have gone to the Swedish tax authorities with a full account of how much bitcoin we have mined in the past year. As an anonymous currency, we figured no one would ever figure it out which was ours and we would not have to pay tax. Sadly now, the Skat have sent us a bill for 200 million Swedish kronor ($30million) and we do not have the funds to cover it entirely. We can use the Neptune and Titan preorder money to pay off some of it and to avoid jail, but our customers will never see a dime of their money returned."

"It's all over" laments Samson. "As Shakespeare said 'These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triump die, like fire and powder'. I can only apologize to the people who have lost all their money and the women's handball team we promised to sponsor. I was looking forward to seeing them every week in their little outfits".

With that, Samson starts to panic. He says he can see the police coming down Birger Jarlsgatan and they have parked outside. He says he has to go and hangs up the phone.

Hardware from the KFC datorhall will be put on auction via ebay.se in the coming weeks, everything starting at 1 kronor. Perhaps the loyal KFC customers will finally get the hardware they desire, at a reasonable price.

April Fool!