Should I start Diablo Mining Company, a 1M BTC startup?

[DiabloD3]

A 5MW turbine generating at least 1.5MW on average would, oh, be about 10 times more power than we need.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2006/02/5-mw-wind-turbines-headed-onshore-and-off-43241

[...]the prototype, with a tower height 120 meters to the hub, rotor diameter at 126 meters, rated power at 5,000 kW[...]

Good luck with that in your backyard...
Also wind power stations are one of the noisiest ways to generate electricity. They are as well no "fire and forget" solutions, even a big array of solar panels would peobably keep you on your toes quite a bit. Your power costs would be the costs for obtaining and keeping a license as well as repairs. It might be the case that in total these costs are higher than what you would pay for industrial electricity off the grid.

Yes I'm aware maintenance is a large issue. This thing will become a full time job for me until the day I die. I have no problems with this.

And yes, I'm aware, multi-MW turbines are extremely tall, need especial licensing, you have to fight the NIMBY crowds, etc. HOWEVER there ARE wind turbines popping up in Maine here and there. Clearly, some people DO like the idea.

Using USD:
Either you hold on to BTC as long as possible (as you say, they will rise in value it makes sense to keep them) --> then you don't start mining fast enough.
Or you sell as many BTC as quickly as possible, then you might loose out on conversion profits later on.

Or I can promise not to dip the value below $5 and split sales across all the USD exchanges by volume.

By issuing 1 million shares you also more or less guarantee there won't be any way to earn through increased stock price for quite some time - only through dividends. To even get started you project a few hundred thousand dollars are needed, so you'd need to sell quite a bit more shares than the current total volume of all trades so far on GLBSE 2.0 (and probably 1.0 too) just to get an empty hall. You are not nobody, but I haven't seen your current mining operation either... being able to write code or having time to moderate these forums won't make you an expert in keeping FPGAs alive and running.

Assembling the farm and keeping it running is the least of my worries. Any competent rack monkey can do this.

I don't disagree with your analysis on initial cost, however.

And I'm not sure if I want to see investors using USD. It sort of defeats the purpose of building this company in the first place.

Can you clearly state the purpose of building this datacenter and why using USD to fund it is defeating it? I actually couldn't really find it from the posts in the other thread.

Because if everyone buys more BTC to invest in this then BTC prices go up which means its easier to sell the BTC to go invest it.

I am, however, hoping I can just buy from ZTEX and BFL as a one time large purchase directly in BTC. This would solve many problems.

[DiabloD3]

If you are serious about this why would you build it on the East coast? Build it in Washington state or Oregon where you have access to cheap hydro power. Just because you are located in Maine doesn't mean Maine is the ideal location for your startup.

Thinking about a 1M BTC funded startup is a fun thought exercise but I don't think the market could fund such a thing at this point. I hate to tell you to aim lower but, without sourcing traditional VC capital AND having a solid business plan, $5M USD is a SERIOUS sum of cash. You might have better luck in the $100k USD to $500k USD, prove the concept works and go for a second round of funding. This isn't like you are pitching a web startup in a VC environment with a proven track record of successful exits. Here, any VCs interested in funding a mining operation has a year or two of experience and no previous examples to judge future performance on..

Property in Maine is cheaper, and moving would be yet another expense that I really don't want to tack on. When you only have $5M, and every dime needs to count, then I will avoid it as long as possible. Washington and Oregon also have wetter weather which means I have to invest more in air conditioning (just to condition it, not cool it flat out for about half of the year give or take).

I agree, $5M is a serious sum of cash. However, if I was an investor on this, I wouldn't care if the guy had a track record of successful startups: none of them were denominated in BTC. In fact, we have NO people like that, no one has ever tried this in the BTC community. There are no BTC startup superstars. Someone has to be first.

[DiabloD3]

If you are serious about this why would you build it on the East coast? Build it in Washington state or Oregon where you have access to cheap hydro power. Just because you are located in Maine doesn't mean Maine is the ideal location for your startup.

Thinking about a 1M BTC funded startup is a fun thought exercise but I don't think the market could fund such a thing at this point. I hate to tell you to aim lower but, without sourcing traditional VC capital AND having a solid business plan, $5M USD is a SERIOUS sum of cash. You might have better luck in the $100k USD to $500k USD, prove the concept works and go for a second round of funding. This isn't like you are pitching a web startup in a VC environment with a proven track record of successful exits. Here, any VCs interested in funding a mining operation has a year or two of experience and no previous examples to judge future performance on..

By insisting on BTC for funding, it could very well pump the market up a lot, because then investors would have to invest in BTC in order to invest in this company. The eventual result would be a lot more than $5m, because of the projected market rise. There isn't any reason to cash out right away and build something, it could all be done gradually. Starting with an enclosure (building) and other infrastructure (power, cooling) would take a relatively small portion of the proceeds that needs to be paid in cash, but many other parts could even be bought for BTC instead of converting to USD.

So as the funding comes in, the buildout could continue. If DiabloD3 doesn't raise all 1m BTC right away, that's fine too, the farm would just be smaller.

This.

If I issue multiple sets of assets, then I'm making it harder for early investors to exit, and I'm also not treating both early investors and later investors equally. It WILL cap share price to 1BTC for some time, but once that cap is gone, the share price is free to taxi to the runway and take off.

I don't need all 1M BTC on day one, but I do need it eventually. Buying a building, not dealing with green power until a year or two later (again, to cut down operating costs just in case BTC prices plummet or diff spikes), and putting a single FPGA in it is in no way cost efficient, so obviously there is going to be a minimum funding level before I can do anything of value.

[DiabloD3]

The plan is to issue 1 million shares (no additional shares or bonds forever, although splits might happen if/when GLBSE supports it) at 1 BTC each..

Poll is set to show results after 7 days, poll will only run for 7 days.

Contract: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77469.msg861305#msg861305
Plan: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77469.msg867837#msg867837

You could raise 1K, 2K or 5K BTC first to get your hands on real mining first. Then if you are doing well, it could naturally expand magnitudes by magnitudes. The possibility of its finally growth to the 1M BTC scale is also not deniable.

But why do you have to throw out frightening numbers like 1M BTC on the start? Is the idea of "get big immediately or go home" so attractive? Why are incremental plans so bad for you? For successful businesses like Apple, their yearly income's errors are larger than the current whole Bitcoin economy. They did not start with as much as (1MBTC*5$/BTC=5M$) anyway.

By starting small, you will be:

1. More adaptable to technology change.
2. Having more immediate returns to attract larger investments.
3. proving yourself really qualified for managing more and more funds.

And if you insist your current plan, you will not be taken very seriously by some of the potential investors.

5k is too small to deal with. I wouldn't even consider even starting until the first 100k of the funding rolled in.

Its not that I'm saying go big or go home, but for this to be profitable and worthwhile for the community I have to think of the long term over the short term. Short term thinking is what got the world in trouble over the past 5 years with the banking system and such. I have to plan for every possible outcome, and one of those outcomes involves something happening to make it difficult to profit: even that I must consider a way to keep mining in the face of that.

Its not easy, but I think it can be done. It will just be very expensive up front.

[Sukrim]

I am, however, hoping I can just buy from ZTEX and BFL as a one time large purchase directly in BTC. This would solve many problems.

So either you wait for a long time until you have ~800k BTC or you fix the exchange rate with them to ~5 USD per BTC  (they likely won't agree to a higher rate of let's say 10 USD per BTC) for the whole contract and burn through USD value if the price really rises? Somehow I don't get what this should accomplish.

You won't be able to sell an FPGA you bought for 200 BTC for the same amount of BTC later, if BTC prices double. It BTC prices rise, it makes it more and more attactive to buy in USD instead.

Still you didn't mention what you want to accomplish for the community with an operation like this. What is the purpose and vision of this company?

To iterate:
You buy your stuff in USD (or in USD converted to BTC, in the case of FPGAs)? [ ] Yes [ ] No
BTC prices are going to change (potentially a lot)? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Share holders are going to be paid in BTC, not USD or USD converted to BTC? [ ] Yes [ ] No
You ran and managed a mining operation or datacenter all on your own that consumed 10 kW/h or more? [ ] Yes [ ] No

[DiabloD3]

People arguing that it would be screwed if bitcoins went up a lot in vas you had bought gear priced in dollars do not seem to have thought of how many shares might have been sold by that time. If there are only ever 1 million shares, and they all sell for only one bitcoin each regardless of how much fiat one bitcoin happens to be selling for on markets at that time, then people who buy shares while bitcoins are cheap should be gaining if bitcoins skyrocket due to having gotten shares cheap compared to people who have to buy bitcoins at much higher fiat prices to buy shares with.

Sure the existing hardware would only be worth as much, or less, in fiat than the early buyers paid for their shares, but they are getting one millionth of whatever the end total will end up being come some hypothetical date when the initial one bitcoin each shares have finally, eventually managed to get sold.

So I do not think it is quite as simple as look how much hardware their initial fiat bought; rather, one would look at how impressive the resulting operation is compared to how much bitcoins themselves are worth.

Admittedly one could consider simply buying and holding bitcoins if one expects them to go up in value, but how much does one expect them to go up in value if no efficiencies-of-scale sized mining operations manage to get started? Might this operation itself enhance the value of coins, resulting in their now appreciating as much if this thing is not done?

-MarkM-

You made the case more eloquently than I could. This is exactly what I've been trying to say.

This is also why I did the bulk of the calculations in USD: most of the community still thinks in fiat. I believe a large scale operation like this can increase the value of Bitcoin, otherwise I wouldn't be trying it to begin with. What people should look at is what the proper balance of "raw compute power", "future proofing", and "difficulty spiking/BTC price dropping".

My plan seems to tackle all three equally, I buy a lot of power efficient raw compute power early on, half of the company profits go to increasing the size of the company (which tackles the future proofing aspect since I can just buy more efficient FPGAs or if ASICs come out, those), and green power drives the operating cost down which makes it harder for a difficulty spike or BTC price drop from wiping us out.

If people think buy and hold is superior to this plan, then by all means, vote no and do what you intend to do. I don't personally think that buy and hold is the best plan available, you can't make value out of nothing.

[DiabloD3]

The bitcoin trading price is not influenced by mining - mining is influenced by the bitcoin trading price!

If you hope for later investors to invest 10 USD per share for the same output that you invested 5 USD in earlier, this is not far from one of these pyramid games that were popular on the forums half a year ago. It can by the way even turn upside down - see old GLBSE 1.0 threads, where early investors bought shares @ 1 BTC (@20 USD), the operator didn't sell right away and suddenly had to take loans or dilute shares to even buy another GPU.

Bottom line for my argumentation: The company will spend mostly USD and generate BTC - so it makes sense imho to fund it with USD and get your profits in BTC.

If you look at small scale operations that do less than 1 thash, then yes, what you said is true. However, adding ~4 thash of mining power when the global rate is only ~10 thash, that will cause the difficulty to spike causing a large number of GPU miners to quit.

This will drive BTC value up (as they revert to buy and hold tactics) and increase the value of BTC.

In addition, the news of someone trying a 1m BTC startup will drive BTC prices up as people start taking Bitcoin seriously.

Also, BTC<->USD is a two way road. People can just convert their USD to BTC just so they can invest. I imagine there will be larger investors doing this just to invest in the new generation of companies that (hopefully) Diablo Mining Company is the first of.

[Matthew N. Wright]

In addition, the news of someone trying a 1m BTC startup will drive BTC prices up as people start taking Bitcoin seriously.

Are you sure about that? Vladimir is already doing that, has been covered by a few major news streams, and I don't see the price shooting up.

[DiabloD3]

I am, however, hoping I can just buy from ZTEX and BFL as a one time large purchase directly in BTC. This would solve many problems.

So either you wait for a long time until you have ~800k BTC or you fix the exchange rate with them to ~5 USD per BTC  (they likely won't agree to a higher rate of let's say 10 USD per BTC) for the whole contract and burn through USD value if the price really rises? Somehow I don't get what this should accomplish.

You won't be able to sell an FPGA you bought for 200 BTC for the same amount of BTC later, if BTC prices double. It BTC prices rise, it makes it more and more attactive to buy in USD instead.

Still you didn't mention what you want to accomplish for the community with an operation like this. What is the purpose and vision of this company?

To iterate:
You buy your stuff in USD (or in USD converted to BTC, in the case of FPGAs)? [ ] Yes [ ] No
BTC prices are going to change (potentially a lot)? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Share holders are going to be paid in BTC, not USD or USD converted to BTC? [ ] Yes [ ] No
You ran and managed a mining operation or datacenter all on your own that consumed 10 kW/h or more? [ ] Yes [ ] No

I think you misunderstood. If someone handed me 1m BTC today and I tried to sell them all, this would crash the BTC market and we would never recover. If I put a safety margin in (ie, don't convert to USD below $5), then the market doesn't crash.

Buying FPGAs directly in BTC means that I don't have to deal with the inefficiency of converting BTC back to USD. Since BFL and ZTEX's biggest markets are the Bitcoin community, it makes sense to ALSO accept BTC. Its up to them, however.

Yes, I will never be able to sell an FPGA for what I bought it, but not because of BTC value doubling: its because of depreciation. I do not intend on selling FPGAs that still function unless they become a liability (ie, 45nm node size when 12nm is coming out to replace 28nm, or ASIC comes out, or something along these lines). Running hardware until it dies over a 5-10 year period seems to be the most cost effective.

If BTC value doubles, obviously I'm no longer looking at a $5m USD plan, its a $10m USD plan. Likewise, if it plummets, I can adjust accordingly the same way. I am merely trying to find the most efficient and most fail-proof way of getting things done, my plan seems to be able to adjust to the situation the most.

If someone has what they think is a better plan, please, IPO with it. I would like to see it happen.

[brendio]

I think you misunderstood. If someone handed me 1m BTC today and I tried to sell them all, this would crash the BTC market and we would never recover. If I put a safety margin in (ie, don't convert to USD below $5), then the market doesn't crash.

So, if BTC drops to $4.99 and stays there for a year, you'll never get any USD out and won't ever be able to buy a place to house your hardware.

Likewise, if it plummets, I can adjust accordingly the same way.

I don't see how this fits in with the statement above.

[Sukrim]

In addition, the news of someone trying a 1m BTC startup will drive BTC prices up as people start taking Bitcoin seriously.

Are you sure about that? Vladimir is already doing that, has been covered by a few major news streams, and I don't see the price shooting up.

My thoughts exactly, also somebody announcing a startup valued at 100 billion USD (still far less that 1/21th of all USD in circulation) will be rather seen as delusional than getting the USD on par with let's say the Euro.

I think you misunderstood. If someone handed me 1m BTC today and I tried to sell them all, this would crash the BTC market and we would never recover. If I put a safety margin in (ie, don't convert to USD below $5), then the market doesn't crash.

No, you just put a cap on the market for probably 1 month, I understand that.

Buying FPGAs directly in BTC means that I don't have to deal with the inefficiency of converting BTC back to USD. Since BFL and ZTEX's biggest markets are the Bitcoin community, it makes sense to ALSO accept BTC. Its up to them, however.

Yes, but they will rate the price of their FPGAs in USD (or Renminbi or Carrots or whatever they need to pay to their subcontractors...). Either you say at the beginning "I will buy in total 4000 of your FPGAs in BTC and 1 FPGA shall be worth 200 BTC for this deal" or you say "I'll buy FPGAs from you, please tell me the price each time and I pay in bitcoin". In the first case, you have ~5 USD per Bitcoin fixed rate, as you said you could get one of these FPGAs for ~1000 USD too. In the second case, if BTC prices double over time you might get far more than 4000 FPGAs but you bear the risk of price fluctuations.

Yes, I will never be able to sell an FPGA for what I bought it, but not because of BTC value doubling: its because of depreciation. I do not intend on selling FPGAs that still function unless they become a liability (ie, 45nm node size when 12nm is coming out to replace 28nm, or ASIC comes out, or something along these lines). Running hardware until it dies over a 5-10 year period seems to be the most cost effective.

Depreciation is additional to currency loss, not instead. You could see currency loss as a part of depreciation though.

If someone has what they think is a better plan, please, IPO with it. I would like to see it happen.

Vladimir already did. ~2 years ago.

[DiabloD3]

I think you misunderstood. If someone handed me 1m BTC today and I tried to sell them all, this would crash the BTC market and we would never recover. If I put a safety margin in (ie, don't convert to USD below $5), then the market doesn't crash.

So, if BTC drops to $4.99 and stays there for a year, you'll never get any USD out and won't ever be able to buy a place to house your hardware.

Likewise, if it plummets, I can adjust accordingly the same way.

I don't see how this fits in with the statement above.

If BTC drops to $4.99 even though I'm holding 1/8th of all Bitcoins, the alternative I suspect would have been much worse.

As for it not fitting, realize what I'm purchasing: a building and hardware to go in it: I can size how much hardware I have depending on how much money I have left. If I have more than a planned, I buy more than I planned, if I have less than I planned then I buy less than I planned. Scaling it over a magnitude more or less mostly works, but if I go down too far I end up with an empty building.

[DiabloD3]

In addition, the news of someone trying a 1m BTC startup will drive BTC prices up as people start taking Bitcoin seriously.

Are you sure about that? Vladimir is already doing that, has been covered by a few major news streams, and I don't see the price shooting up.

My thoughts exactly, also somebody announcing a startup valued at 100 billion USD (still far less that 1/21th of all USD in circulation) will be rather seen as delusional than getting the USD on par with let's say the Euro.

I think you misunderstood. If someone handed me 1m BTC today and I tried to sell them all, this would crash the BTC market and we would never recover. If I put a safety margin in (ie, don't convert to USD below $5), then the market doesn't crash.

No, you just put a cap on the market for probably 1 month, I understand that.

Buying FPGAs directly in BTC means that I don't have to deal with the inefficiency of converting BTC back to USD. Since BFL and ZTEX's biggest markets are the Bitcoin community, it makes sense to ALSO accept BTC. Its up to them, however.

Yes, but they will rate the price of their FPGAs in USD (or Renminbi or Carrots or whatever they need to pay to their subcontractors...). Either you say at the beginning "I will buy in total 4000 of your FPGAs in BTC and 1 FPGA shall be worth 200 BTC for this deal" or you say "I'll buy FPGAs from you, please tell me the price each time and I pay in bitcoin". In the first case, you have ~5 USD per Bitcoin fixed rate, as you said you could get one of these FPGAs for ~1000 USD too. In the second case, if BTC prices double over time you might get far more than 4000 FPGAs but you bear the risk of price fluctuations.

Yes, I will never be able to sell an FPGA for what I bought it, but not because of BTC value doubling: its because of depreciation. I do not intend on selling FPGAs that still function unless they become a liability (ie, 45nm node size when 12nm is coming out to replace 28nm, or ASIC comes out, or something along these lines). Running hardware until it dies over a 5-10 year period seems to be the most cost effective.

Depreciation is additional to currency loss, not instead. You could see currency loss as a part of depreciation though.

If someone has what they think is a better plan, please, IPO with it. I would like to see it happen.

Vladimir already did. ~2 years ago.

Vladimir isn't trying to launch a $5m company.

Also, I mostly agree with your assessment of the exchange rate of BTC to FPGAs, however that illustrates a much bigger issue than just this: this is why a lot of merchants don't want to accept BTC, because the exchange rate is too volatile. BTC is risk for a merchant that has a low profit margin, thats just the way it is; although I still support ZTEX and BFL doing sales in BTC along with USD.

But yes, if BTC goes up more than I anticipate, I end up with a bigger mining farm. I agree with that assessment 100%.

[brendio]

After you've voted in the poll in the OP, you can head over to the GLBSE prediction market and vote on whether you think this thing will take off:

http://predict.glbse.com/markets/46802

[DiabloD3]

After you've voted in the poll in the OP, you can head over to the GLBSE prediction market and vote on whether you think this thing will take off:

http://predict.glbse.com/markets/46802

I voted, it said most people think probably.

[Smoovious]

ok, I voted for it, but, a couple thoughts...

have you done any research into what kind of breaks you can get putting up the turbine or solar or whichever way you end up going?

With the big push of our gov't for green, it wouldn't suprise me if the incentives for that would be substantial.

Also, it may be a better idea to just do an initial IPO for just the first round of costs you'd incur, and instead of holding onto the remaining BTC for so long, then do an SPO later on to bring in more funding later.

Could be a gamble either way. Full IPO now, hold onto the excess, and BTC goes up, netting youmore buying power later... or, IPO and later SPO, only to find that the BTC price has gone down instead...

Oh, and one more thing... have you put any thought into where you are going to be trading at yet? Got it down to a few choices? A big part of my decision to invest my meager amount of BTC would be based in a large part, of what exchange is involved too.

Anyways, wish ya lukc, and if you do this, I'll toss in a few BTC out of my 12 total

-- Smoov

[DiabloD3]

ok, I voted for it, but, a couple thoughts...

have you done any research into what kind of breaks you can get putting up the turbine or solar or whichever way you end up going?

With the big push of our gov't for green, it wouldn't suprise me if the incentives for that would be substantial.

Also, it may be a better idea to just do an initial IPO for just the first round of costs you'd incur, and instead of holding onto the remaining BTC for so long, then do an SPO later on to bring in more funding later.

Could be a gamble either way. Full IPO now, hold onto the excess, and BTC goes up, netting youmore buying power later... or, IPO and later SPO, only to find that the BTC price has gone down instead...

Oh, and one more thing... have you put any thought into where you are going to be trading at yet? Got it down to a few choices? A big part of my decision to invest my meager amount of BTC would be based in a large part, of what exchange is involved too.

Anyways, wish ya luck, and if you do this, I'll toss in a few BTC out of my 12 total

-- Smoov

There are Federal and State rebates for various green power setups for both residential and commercial setups.

http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/pubs/incentives.htm click on Maine

Efficiency Maine (our local program) will pay up to $4000 for qualifying new installations, in addition to loaning at 1% APR up to $35,000 for energy conservation setups (although I doubt that would apply to DMC since we're going as green as possible from the get go), and other program incentives.

There are probably even more grants and other things depending on how this unfolds, however I have not included them in the original plan because they can disappear at any moment or the government can just refuse to pay out citing some badly interpreted rule in the process and it will cost too much to fight them in court.

If I can use them, fine, if I can't, its not a huge loss. Also, a lot of programs ended before 2012 due to budget cuts and other government idiocy, so probably by the time DMC gets sorted out many of these programs will also have ended.

As for BTC prices going up or down, that is just something I'll have to deal with when I get there.

As for which exchange, I don't know. GLBSE is the largest exchange, and this is where I was originally going to IPO, however there is at least two other exchanges that will be opening soon that have also both shown interest in my IPO.

I'm afraid GLBSE just won't be able to handle doubling or tripling its daily volume, and I know the GLBSE owner is subscribed to this thread, so it'd be nice if he chimed in on this

[rjk]

One "green" program that is designed for new installations and not retrofits is LEED certification. I don't know whether they offer incentives of any kind though, or whether it is just a sticker or a plaque saying that you meet the guidelines.

[DiabloD3]

I've updated the plan to further cover green cooling and power generation further.

tl;dr: Reducing operating costs is good, alternate income sources are also good, state and federal incentive programs are good as well.

[phungus]

Have you considered utilizing the heat output for something useful? I realize we're talking about FPGAs, but there still must be some useable heat by-product, especially if you have complete control over your building designs. We're not talking more than a concrete pad (maybe, concrete loses a lot of heat...) and a metal building with specially designed ductwork.

I have been brainstorming phase-change subterranean heating systems for greenhouse, poultry-house and barns using excess heat output from bitcoin mining. For half the cost of one of your proposed buildings, you should be able to incorporate a more sustainable business by raising local food products. Maine is a hotbed of such activity with Eliot Coleman being based there. You may find someone local willing to take over the growing and marketing operations.

You might consider the trifecta that integrated Poultry Aquaponics can bring: Fish, garden produce and chicken products and fertilizer.

Food prices, especially for healthy, locally produced items are only going up correspondingly with demand. Food feeds humans, and good food helps people. With an operation of the size you're talking about, you should have a leg up on everyone.

I want to do exactly this here as I already have the property but no capital, buildings, mining gear, etc. :-)

-p