To add a small bit of levity to the pre-order nightmare that those of us who ordered from the above companies are going through, I thought it would be "fun" to do a dead pool on these companies. The object of the dead pool is the guess which company gives up (dies) first, second, third and fourth with respect to their current pre-orders.
The winner or winners of the pool will share in the pot created by the entrants. I am suggesting a very small entry fee .02 BTC (if this violates some rule on the board, then forget the entry fee and its just for fun). I would like to have someone who is on the trusted escrow list to volunteer to hold the entry fees...
Anyway, the rules:
The official dead pool contestants and their promised hash rates are:
(BA) Black Arrow - Prospero X-3 2 Th/s (composed of two 1 Th/s units) at .75 watts per Gh/s = 1500 watts
(KNC) KNC - Neptune 3 Th/s @ "under" 2100 watts
(BFL) Butterfly Labs - Monarch 600 Gh/s at 350 watts
(AMT) Advanced Mining Technologies - 1.2 Th/s A2-based miner at 1800 watts (my recollection as to power usage; AMT no longer lists any details on power requirements, so if anyone can find a copy of the original 1.2 miner page with power listed, I will update)
A "death" is defined as the first to occur of any one of the following:
- bankruptcy,
- a public official statement that the pre-ordered product will not be manufactured commercially (possibly linked with a new pre-order that you can flush ahem "roll" your old pre-order into)
- the disappearance of the company and its presence in forums and from the web for at least 30 days
- delivery of a product that cannot achieve at least 90% of the advertised hash rate and with no compensation (additional machines) to bring the hash rate up to 90% of the advertised hash rate or a refund for the missing hash rate
- delivery of a product that can meet 90% of its advertised hash rate only by exceeding its pre-sale stated power requirements (in total power required or in watts or Joules per Gh/s)
- no provable commercial shipments of working miners meeting the specs by December 31, 2014
Note that it is possible to have a simultaneous death event, especially if more than one miner is not shipping by December 31! In the case of a simultaneous death, an entrant who specifies simultaneous death will be the winner. However, only if no member has guessed the correct death order by specifying simultaneous death, then the simultaneous death will be deemed commutative (e.g., order of the companies suffering simultaneous death does not matter in that case).
Every "entrant" in the contest who wants to be eligible for the "prize" should pledge .02 BTC to the "winner" or "winners". Once we have an escrow member to hold the purse, the pledge should be transferred to a BTC address specified by the escrow member. Of course anyone can enter without making a pledge, but not be eligible for the pot.
As tie breaker, guess the exact date that Bitmain will deliver the first working miners based on their 28nm or better process (Bitmain Tech does not fund itself with pre-orders, so it is completely ineligible to participate in this contest among so many other prestigious competitors... sorry Bitmain! To be fair to Bitmain, I made them the tie-breaker as I would not want to see them left out lol :-) ). In the event of a tie for the dead pool, the person or persons who are closest to guessing the correct date of Bitmain's first working miners based on a 28nm or better process will be the winner(s).
If more than one member is tied on the dead pool order AND on the tie-breaker date, they share the resulting winnings from the pot equally.
The escrow member (to be determined) will hold the pot and will have the final say in who the winner(s) are. The escrow member cannot enter the contest since he or she will be responsible for judging the winners.
The "pot" will be divided as follows:
FIRST: 10% to the escrow member who agrees to volunteer (of course the escrow member may agree to do this without compensation, or to give all or part of his 10% to the charity contribution)
SECOND: 20% to a not-for-profit charity designated by the escrow member
THIRD: The remaining 70% to the winner or winners if more than one
ADDENDA:
If one of the "contestant" companies actually delivers a working product, they are out of the dead pool from that point forward and ignored UNLESS they later file for bankruptcy. For example, if someone guessed AMT BA BFL KNC, and KNC delivers product before December 31, then a death order of AMT BA BFL is still correct.
After Bitmain Tech releases its 28nm or better chipset and starts shipping miners based on it, my tie-breaker will no longer work. So in that case anyone who guessed the Bitmine ship date ON OR AFTER the ship date will be deemed to lose the tie-breaker (if there is a tie). I am open to adding a second tie-breaker too.
I did not directly take into account whether any of these companies makes good on compensation promises because that would be too complicated. However, note that failure to deliver on compensation could cause a company to have a "death" event even after shipping a miner that otherwise meets specs. For example, if a BA delivers its Prospero X-3 in October, and the price per GH/s at that time has dropped to $1 US, BA's compensation plan would require delivery of about 6 Th/s for each pre-order. If BA cannot meet this obligation and later files for bankruptcy (or is forced into bankruptcy as a result) it is counted as dead upon the filing of a bankruptcy even though it did deliver working product.
