Cloudmining 101

[julian071]

About Genesis-mining, there is one picture of their hardware facilities,

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112329/gavin-andresens-fractional-reserve-mining-cloud-miners-respond

And about no exit strategy, while that is the case with Genesis, they do state that if the fee is higher then the profit for 20 days, the contract automatically ends.

[1713496046]

1713496046

[Puppet]

About Genesis-mining, there is one picture of their hardware facilities,

http://cointelegraph.com/news/112329/gavin-andresens-fractional-reserve-mining-cloud-miners-respond

thx.

And about no exit strategy, while that is the case with Genesis, they do state that if the fee is higher then the profit for 20 days, the contract automatically ends.

Which is to say, there is no exit strategy.
Ended up rating them with 3 points for now.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

About GAW, I don't think their pics/endorsement should count as evidence they are legit.

They claimed to have ~750-1000 GH/s worth of hashlets mining scrypt in Oct 2. At that time the entire litecoin network was 1037 GH/s.

I find it hard to believe the litecoin/altcoin network could sustain such massive dumping, and on top of that GAW found some mysterious way to make their payouts higher than normal the conversion rate from ltc to btc.

All the pics of GAW's hardware combined only account for a few % of what they are claiming. Someone counted ~300 x 40 MH/s units which is only 12 GH/s.

I could be wrong but I think you're considering the new Bitmain 5ph/s order as an endorsement but that is long after GAW claimed to be running several MW worth of hardware.

Yeah, there is no way in hell GAW is not running fractional reserve hashing.

[joust]

More than happy for you to rate Megamine.com if you'd like. Here's our view but of course you are most welcome to form your own.

1) No public mining address
We don't publish it but quite happy for it to be known.

2) No endorsement from any asic vendor
We've a solid relationship with KNC but they don't promote any one customer which we prefer.

3) No pictures of their hardware and datacenter
Nice little thread on here.

4) Open ended IPO
We strictly limit the sellable hash rate to what we physically mine.

5) Referral programs and social networking
We have no open ended referral program as we agree they aren't good news. We do have a few referrals in place but that's when there is some mutual benefit.

6) Anonymous operators
You can find out all about me, and the other directors, at http://www.megamine.com/aboutus.php

7) No exit strategy
We offer CashNow(TM) on our larger contracts for that exact reason. There is posting on the Cloud Mining thread from a customer that used it and was very happy.

Justin
CEO
Megamine.com

[Puppet]

Ha, I just posted in your thread asking some of those questions, our posts crossed
I suggest we continue the discussion here rather than in your thread.

More than happy for you to rate Megamine.com if you'd like. Here's our view but of course you are most welcome to form your own.

1) No public mining address
We don't publish it but quite happy for it to be known.

Now would be a good time. As long as you have not disclosed it, I cant grant you the point.

2) No endorsement from any asic vendor
We've a solid relationship with KNC but they don't promote any one customer which we prefer.

I dont require them to promote anyone, but  Id be surprised if KnC wouldnt be willing to just post that your are a (large) customer. Then again, the pictures do speak for themselves.

4) Open ended IPO
We strictly limit the sellable hash rate to what we physically mine.

Im afraid just saying that, is not good enough.  Where can I compare deployed vs sold hashrate?

[joust]

1) No public mining address
We don't publish it but quite happy for it to be known.

We rotate mining addresses regularly for management reasons, but here's a few

Cold Storage of customer earnings
1239gzuEHnNAn9fEYxcdd5sscgcQ6Ffh48
1F8cb2xiGZLAtV1h6NUJ1qzEdmiHVq115W
19evT519aVF2WUTkQDTDUqMTbinAcwJpGv

External pools earning collectors
1L8ooWcab7EQF82Zh1UMUun4wCXWQsTFQN
1HXV4c8rsW1NE9XMGGmzk8rHBCjVHCReDQ
1BcWShWmYbdPGpGRHkQB84u65FihAyutoW

I dont require them to promote anyone, but  Id be surprised if KnC wouldnt be willing to just post that your are a (large) customer. Then again, the pictures do speak for themselves.

I guess you'll have to ask KNC direct if you want a 'formal' post like that.

4) Open ended IPO
We strictly limit the sellable hash rate to what we physically mine.

Im afraid just saying that, is not good enough.  Where can I compare deployed vs sold hashrate?

Not sure what you want here? The pictures we've posted show over 250TH of capacity (Cam counted 74TH in just one row of our kit that he used @ https://www.camscryptoblog.com/megamine-cloud-mining-review/) and we have posted further images after this of our next delivery.

We don't publish external views of our total pool for our customers, but I'll happily give you a limited account on our portal where you can see directly the total customer pool TH, and you'll see there isn't a big difference between the two. PM me your details (email, name and full postal address) and I'll give you an account.

J

[Puppet]

External pools earning collectors
1L8ooWcab7EQF82Zh1UMUun4wCXWQsTFQN
1HXV4c8rsW1NE9XMGGmzk8rHBCjVHCReDQ
1BcWShWmYbdPGpGRHkQB84u65FihAyutoW

I see 15TH on eligius, ~1 BTC/day worth of hashrate on btcguild, and an insignificant amount on the third one (no idea what pool that is).
Im far more interested in seeing the coinbase / address of your internal pool where I assume the bulk of your hashrate is pointed at.

We don't publish external views of our total pool for our customers, but I'll happily give you a limited account on our portal where you can see directly the total customer pool TH, and you'll see there isn't a big difference between the two. PM me your details (email, name and full postal address) and I'll give you an account.

I appreciate the offer, but it wouldnt solve anything. If Im given privileged information that other people have no access to, I would be asking people to trust me instead of you.

I realize short of publicly trading contracts on an exchange, its difficult to prove deployed hashrate vs sold hashrate , but Im more looking for public disclosure of those (real time) figures, so that anyone can compare what you claim to have deployed with your actual hashrate, and eg,  if someone orders 100TH,  he can see the available amount go down. Is the latter solid proof of anything? Clearly not, but as with all the other criteria, its a step in the right direction.

[joust]

I see 15TH on eligius, ~1 BTC/day worth of hashrate on btcguild, and an insignificant amount on the third one (no idea what pool that is).
Im far more interested in seeing the coinbase / address of your internal pool where I assume the bulk of your hashrate is pointed at.

As I said we rotate addresses regularly (every 15 or 50BTC depending on if it's internal or customer bitcoins being mined) for internal security reasons (it means an employee could only 'ever' run off with 15 or 50BTC before they were found out), and so you aren't going to find an address that ever has more than 15 or 50 because when we get to 15 for customers or 50 for internal we move onto the next address. Different, yes, more secure, yes.

As we offer guaranteed 100% pool luck to our customers you may be surprised that we don't "mainly" run internal pools, as clearly that places the risk of the pool luck squarely on us, and hence we regularly use many other pools, and rotate around them, based on an internal hedging strategy, and so there isn't a single place you can find.

We don't publish external views of our total pool for our customers, but I'll happily give you a limited account on our portal where you can see directly the total customer pool TH, and you'll see there isn't a big difference between the two. PM me your details (email, name and full postal address) and I'll give you an account.

I appreciate the offer, but it wouldnt solve anything. If Im given privileged information that other people have no access to, I would be asking people to trust me instead of you.

I realize short of publicly trading contracts on an exchange, its difficult to prove deployed hashrate vs sold hashrate , but Im more looking for public disclosure of those (real time) figures, so that anyone can compare what you claim to have deployed with your actual hashrate, and eg,  if someone orders 100TH,  he can see the available amount go down. Is the latter solid proof of anything? Clearly not, but as with all the other criteria, its a step in the right direction.

Not sure I follow, as people could put the 'deployed' on the portal at any figure. Surely critical is to see the 'sold' going up over time as customers are added (so you have some sense that it's a real figure) and not getting more than there is photographic proof for, and if you really want to check, buy a small contract and ensure the pool figure goes up by the right amount before/after your contract is enabled?

We've provided the latter, and I was offering you an account so you could check the former. Anything else is just photoshop / a text field generated by PHP (which proves nothing).....

J

[Puppet]

As I said we rotate addresses regularly (every 15 or 50BTC depending on if it's internal or customer bitcoins being mined) for internal security reasons (it means an employee could only 'ever' run off with 15 or 50BTC before they were found out), and so you aren't going to find an address that ever has more than 15 or 50 because when we get to 15 for customers or 50 for internal we move onto the next address. Different, yes, more secure, yes.

Thats fine (though Im not sure I buy the security argument) but then what is the signature you sign the coinbase transactions with in your own pool?

As we offer guaranteed 100% pool luck to our customers you may be surprised that we don't "mainly" run internal pools, as clearly that places the risk of the pool luck squarely on us, and hence we regularly use many other pools, and rotate around them, based on an internal hedging strategy, and so there isn't a single place you can find.

I am indeed surprised, because so far you've not 'proven' more than ~70TH, and I use the word "proven" lightly, as it wouldnt be proven until you sign a message with the key that belongs to the addresses you posted, but for now Ill grant you that, especially considering how many TH still appear to be missing.

Why dont you just disclose all the pools you use, and your userid on those pools? Or why not aggregate your pool revenue to one address that you prove ownership off, and each day you distribute bitcoins from that address to cold storage / customers / whatever ? Thats how eg cryptx does it. I just go here:
https://blockchain.info/address/1PETAmNrgdzx3FwzJPNuhx18JVKdGtwWt6

And can check each day how much they earned, and verify the origin of the funds is indeed some pool that actually mined those coins. That way you still risk no more than 1 day worth of revenue in case there is a security breach, and you have convincing proof of your hashrate.

Not sure I follow, as people could put the 'deployed' on the portal at any figure.

Hence Im looking first for proof that you indeed own the hashrate you would claim. Without that, indeed it doesnt have any value.

Surely critical is to see the 'sold' going up over time as customers are added (so you have some sense that it's a real figure) and not getting more than there is photographic proof for, and if you really want to check, buy a small contract and ensure the pool figure goes up by the right amount before/after your contract is enabled?

We've provided the latter,

Sorry if I missed it. Where exactly can I see how much hashrate you sold?

[acquafredda]

thank you Puppet
 

[EvilPanda]

About GAW, I don't think their pics/endorsement should count as evidence they are legit.

They claimed to have ~750-1000 GH/s worth of hashlets mining scrypt in Oct 2. At that time the entire litecoin network was 1037 GH/s.

I find it hard to believe the litecoin/altcoin network could sustain such massive dumping, and on top of that GAW found some mysterious way to make their payouts higher than normal the conversion rate from ltc to btc.

All the pics of GAW's hardware combined only account for a few % of what they are claiming. Someone counted ~300 x 40 MH/s units which is only 12 GH/s.

I could be wrong but I think you're considering the new Bitmain 5ph/s order as an endorsement but that is long after GAW claimed to be running several MW worth of hardware.

Nobody is saying the pics are the only evidence of legitimacy, but OP rated cloud mining services and gave GAW a negative for "3) No pictures of their hardware and datacenter".

This point should be removed, as the pictures are available.

[BennG]

that's a nice overview.. can't agree to everything but very useful

[joust]

Thats fine (though Im not sure I buy the security argument) but then what is the signature you sign the coinbase transactions with in your own pool?

We don't necessarily run our own pool so there isn't one currently for 'internal' as it's all pointed externally as it's giving better returns.

I am indeed surprised, because so far you've not 'proven' more than ~70TH, and I use the word "proven" lightly, as it wouldnt be proven until you sign a message with the key that belongs to the addresses you posted, but for now Ill grant you that, especially considering how many TH still appear to be missing.

70TH is the original Neptunes. Look back at our initial thread of our Jupiters and you can see over 200TH of Jupiters racked (well, running 'naked'). So that's 270 of your "proof". Take into account another full run of Jupiters behind the Neptunes on the 1st batch of Neptunes post, and you are over 500 just on simple counting, and we have also posted the second drop of Neptunes before we racked them.

I've no desire to show each and every box I am afraid in a panorama of the entire building, primarily because we don't want to show off any of the main security features we have internally in the building, but thanks anyway for granting it to us for now.

Why dont you just disclose all the pools you use, and your userid on those pools? Or why not aggregate your pool revenue to one address that you prove ownership off, and each day you distribute bitcoins from that address to cold storage / customers / whatever ? Thats how eg cryptx does it. I just go here:
https://blockchain.info/address/1PETAmNrgdzx3FwzJPNuhx18JVKdGtwWt6

Because we have come up with our own way of doing things which we know gives us the risk profile we want. If everyone did it the same then there would be no differentiation, and we have no interest in risking 1 days worth of earnings, nor see any benefit of moving BTCs around for the sake of moving them around. Aggregations means a further step which to do at scale you have to automate which creates risk. Cryptx may think it's worth it for some reason, we don't, that's just different people taking different views. If that scores us down in your eyes then that's a shame but we aren't going to change.

Sorry if I missed it. Where exactly can I see how much hashrate you sold?

As I said it's on our portal, and there is an offer of giving you an account. We have no desire to publicly publish our sales on an on-going basis any more than the next person.

I'm quite cool with you giving an assessment of a number you feel is appropriate.

[Puppet]

if you are unwilling and/or unable to prove your hashrate using the public blockchain, then  yeah, obviously it does cost you points and its a major issue IMO. Pictures are nice, but there is no telling who owns it or even if you still possess that hardware.
So much for 100% transparency.

[joust]

if you are unwilling and/or unable to prove your hashrate using the public blockchain, then  yeah, obviously it does cost you points and its a major issue IMO.
So much for 100% transparency.

We are 100% transparent about why we do things when asked.

Whilst you think that is a major issue, and this is your thread and you can score it the way you see it, we have we believe very valid reasons we don't do what you say you want to see. As that is now explained on this thread as well I'm quite comfortable with that as people can make their own mind up.

I'll leave this thread now to others that may want to add their service to them.

Justin
CEO
www.megamine.com

[Puppet]

Thats a shame; "probably legit" is by far the most generous a rating I can give, absent real cryptographic proof of (current) hashrate.  Given you are mining on a public blockchain, I honestly dont see how its difficult to provide such proof.  Im even thinking "probably legit" may be too mild.

Do keep in mind its not me you want to convince, my rating is just that, its your potential customers that you want to convince.Saying you are 100% transparent but unable to show your mining revenue isnt going to cut it with all that many I think.

[armedmilitia]

About GAW, I don't think their pics/endorsement should count as evidence they are legit.

They claimed to have ~750-1000 GH/s worth of hashlets mining scrypt in Oct 2. At that time the entire litecoin network was 1037 GH/s.

I find it hard to believe the litecoin/altcoin network could sustain such massive dumping, and on top of that GAW found some mysterious way to make their payouts higher than normal the conversion rate from ltc to btc.

All the pics of GAW's hardware combined only account for a few % of what they are claiming. Someone counted ~300 x 40 MH/s units which is only 12 GH/s.

I could be wrong but I think you're considering the new Bitmain 5ph/s order as an endorsement but that is long after GAW claimed to be running several MW worth of hardware.

Nobody is saying the pics are the only evidence of legitimacy, but OP rated cloud mining services and gave GAW a negative for "3) No pictures of their hardware and datacenter".

This point should be removed, as the pictures are available.

If they only provide pictures of a small fraction of their hardware (12GH out of 750), then its really not satisfying condition 3.

If I took a picture of my antminer s1, then claimed I had 10TH worth of hardware, I'd hope that would not nearly be enough to constitute "photographic evidence" of my mining farm.

Likewise, if I took a picture of 12GH worth of scrypt hardware, then claimed I had at least 50x that hashrate, I'm sure that first pic wouldn't constitute adequate photographic evidence of my mining farm.

[joust]

Thats a shame; "probably legit" is by far the most generous a rating I can give, absent real cryptographic proof of (current) hashrate.  Given you are mining on a public blockchain, I honestly dont see how its difficult to provide such proof.  Im even thinking "probably legit" may be too mild.
Do keep in mind its not me you want to convince, my rating is just that, its your potential customers that you want to convince.Saying you are 100% transparent but unable to show your mining revenue isnt going to cut it with all that many I think.

All valid points, but as I explained because of our operational model there is no way to provide an easy 'proof' you want as our wallets are all in different stages of earning from different pools so if you just 'added up' all of them you'd get an skewed view. Actually a positive skewed view, but given those wallets (as you've seen) are used for a very short period of time and then never used again, what would it prove for someone reading this in a months time? Nothing.

It's also not really a proof that you own the miners, just that you own (well, actually 'say' you own) the wallets that are receiving the fractional earnings from the awards from mining. The two aren't actually the same, especially if you've just bought wholesale mining that you control and are reselling it, or that you just happen to know the crypto chain of someone else's miners. Unlikely, but not impossible if you were a 'clever' fake miner.

You are of course entitled to be judge and jury as this is your thread and you are making the assessments, and the point about trust is a valid one. Our customer's do post on here, but as we start at the $1000+ price point generally they will do their own assessments and our strategy of managing risk, especially on customer earned coins. It's why I'm quite happy about this thread, it gives the complete story for us and indeed, as you say, they will make their own mind up. Throw in that for our large MegaMiner customers can physically come and see the kit we run (as well as mucking around on skidoos, visiting the ice hotel and many other benefits of being in the Arctic) it seems to be working given our customer base.

Thanks again for creating the thread as discussion is always important, and as I said I'm quite happy with anything you decide given you've given me the opportunity to put our side on here.

Justin
CEO
www.megamine.com

[EvilPanda]

About GAW, I don't think their pics/endorsement should count as evidence they are legit.

They claimed to have ~750-1000 GH/s worth of hashlets mining scrypt in Oct 2. At that time the entire litecoin network was 1037 GH/s.

I find it hard to believe the litecoin/altcoin network could sustain such massive dumping, and on top of that GAW found some mysterious way to make their payouts higher than normal the conversion rate from ltc to btc.

All the pics of GAW's hardware combined only account for a few % of what they are claiming. Someone counted ~300 x 40 MH/s units which is only 12 GH/s.

I could be wrong but I think you're considering the new Bitmain 5ph/s order as an endorsement but that is long after GAW claimed to be running several MW worth of hardware.

Nobody is saying the pics are the only evidence of legitimacy, but OP rated cloud mining services and gave GAW a negative for "3) No pictures of their hardware and datacenter".

This point should be removed, as the pictures are available.

If they only provide pictures of a small fraction of their hardware (12GH out of 750), then its really not satisfying condition 3.

If I took a picture of my antminer s1, then claimed I had 10TH worth of hardware, I'd hope that would not nearly be enough to constitute "photographic evidence" of my mining farm.

Likewise, if I took a picture of 12GH worth of scrypt hardware, then claimed I had at least 50x that hashrate, I'm sure that first pic wouldn't constitute adequate photographic evidence of my mining farm.

How did you come up with 12 GH?
Their data center is supposedly hosting 5Ph of antminers. IMO they don't have to show all 5PH in hardware for the condition of "showing the data center" to be confirmed.

The point clearly states that there are no photos, which is not true. It doesn't say that there have to be several pictures, showing every single miner in their posession.
I believe other cloud companies, the ones that aren't marked with "3" haven't showed 100% of their hardware.

I'd like to hear the OP's opinion in this matter.

[armedmilitia]

About GAW, I don't think their pics/endorsement should count as evidence they are legit.

They claimed to have ~750-1000 GH/s worth of hashlets mining scrypt in Oct 2. At that time the entire litecoin network was 1037 GH/s.

I find it hard to believe the litecoin/altcoin network could sustain such massive dumping, and on top of that GAW found some mysterious way to make their payouts higher than normal the conversion rate from ltc to btc.

All the pics of GAW's hardware combined only account for a few % of what they are claiming. Someone counted ~300 x 40 MH/s units which is only 12 GH/s.

I could be wrong but I think you're considering the new Bitmain 5ph/s order as an endorsement but that is long after GAW claimed to be running several MW worth of hardware.

Nobody is saying the pics are the only evidence of legitimacy, but OP rated cloud mining services and gave GAW a negative for "3) No pictures of their hardware and datacenter".

This point should be removed, as the pictures are available.

If they only provide pictures of a small fraction of their hardware (12GH out of 750), then its really not satisfying condition 3.

If I took a picture of my antminer s1, then claimed I had 10TH worth of hardware, I'd hope that would not nearly be enough to constitute "photographic evidence" of my mining farm.

Likewise, if I took a picture of 12GH worth of scrypt hardware, then claimed I had at least 50x that hashrate, I'm sure that first pic wouldn't constitute adequate photographic evidence of my mining farm.

How did you come up with 12 GH?
Their data center is supposedly hosting 5Ph of antminers. IMO they don't have to show all 5PH in hardware for the condition of "showing the data center" to be confirmed.

The point clearly states that there are no photos, which is not true. It doesn't say that there have to be several pictures, showing every single miner in their posession.
I believe other cloud companies, the ones that aren't marked with "3" haven't showed 100% of their hardware.

I'd like to hear the OP's opinion in this matter.

It is the OP's choice, and I'd also be interested to hear his opinion on this--whether he agrees with me or not.