ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[Mabsark]

What are the conditions for a buyback of ASICminer

Here are the only conditions:

If we haven't raised enough money to tape out before August. 28, 2012, we will return 100.5% of the total raised funds to investors of ASICMINER. The 0.5% is for compensating the GLBSE fee.

That's it. Question answered!

So now 2012 has passed...

each ASICMINER share always owns 1/400000 of the company.

...Friedcat's contract with us isn't for life, it's for eternity.

I'm ok with that!

No issues here ^_^
We will grow old together haha

I'm curious about this no buyback clause situation. Does that mean that even if say, a huge company is interested in buying the entirety of ASICMINER's operations that the company controlling ASICMINER, Bitfountain, will not be able to sell, even if the offer were incredibly high for each share? Would this mean the company offering to buy back the shares would need to consult and negotiate with every single holder to buy out all the shares? Or would it simply mean that the majority holding of Bitfountain's shares would shift owners and the new owners would be obligated to continue serving the rest of the shareholders according to the initial IPO conditions?

Pardon me if I sound a little naive, but is this a good or a bad thing?

I think the whole "can ASICMINER ever be sold and under what conditions" is an incredibly high-priority question to ask friedcat. We all need clarification on this from the cat's mouth

I think that question is pretty self explanatory. Who do you think would buy asicminer as a whole ? If you think about what AM is, it only has good value for some lets say 1-2 years (and that is pretty optimistic), after that there will be competitors with better and more efficient ASICs presumably. For what asicminer would be worth in BTCs that would be a huge gamble or even reckless investment to make. The only real possibility in my eyes is that BTC would explode to 1k+/BTC, some big mainstream company would take interest but even after that would such a company need anything from "underground Chinese" operation ?

That is one hell of a presumption. ASICMINER is light-years beyond any of the competition, and they are an extremely forward looking company... their next-generation of ASIC chips will likely be coming online before BFL ships half of thier pre-orders from last september.

The likelihood of any of the so-called competitors with their "pre-orders" actually producing real-world hardware that is more efficient than what ASICMINER is able to produce is extremely unlikely, in my humble opinion.

Also, they are not an "underground Chinese operation"... Bitfountain is a legally registered corporation operating legally in the PRC.

AM are only ahead of the competition in delivery time frames. Both Avalon and BFL have shipped or brought online more hashing power and every ASIC developer apart from Avalon are using more efficient ASICs than AM. Also, AM's next gen chips won't be coming online until November. There's no need to spread such misinformation and it just reflects poorly on AM.

What misinformation are you talking about?

Other companies have brought more hash power online than ASICMINER... are you high? That is simply false.

My opinion is just that... my opinion. Personally I can't imagine that any other company will be able to compete with ASICMINER over the next few months (who else is shipping ASICs??), or in November when their next generation of chips are ready. They have proven that they have the ability to manufacture chips on a large scale, and there is no reason to believe that some other company will gain and advantage on them in that respect.

The misinformation is you claiming that ASICMiner are light years ahead which is demonstrably false. When it comes to ASIC efficiency, AM is second to bottom, with Avalon at the bottom. That is an indisputable fact based on hash rate and and power consumption. When it come hashing power shipped or brought online, we have the following number for AM:

Mining Income: 102,041.82BTC
Blade Sales Income: 29,594.75BTC
USB Sales Income: 37,524.00BTC

According to Friedcat, at least 5,000 USB devices were sold at 2 BTC and some the number was closer to 10,000. If we take 5,000 as the number, then that's 10,000 BTC, and the remainder would be from 27,600 USB sales at 1 BTC. If we take 10,000 as the number, then that's 20,000 BTC and the remainder would come from 17,600 USB sales at 1 BTC. So the number of USB sales at that point was between 27,600 and 32,600. At 336 Mh/s, that works out to a hashing power of between 9.2736 Th/s and 10.9536 Th/s.

Blades cost 50 BTC each for 10GH/s. 29,600 / 50 = 592. At 10 Gh/s, that's a hashing power of 5.920 Th/s.

So AM, have likely sold no more than 20 Th/s worth of hashing power to date. Asicminercharts points to AM's hashrate averaging about that 40 Th/s, giving AM a total of about 60 Th/s brought online.

Avalon batch 1 was 300 units, batch 2 and 3 were 600 units. They're currently shipping batch 3, which means they've shipped about 900 units. At 63 Gh/s per unit, that's 56.7 Th/s.

At the beginning of the year, the network hash rate was at about 20 Th/s. It's currently at about 315 Th/s. If AM and Avalon have brought online about 60 Th/s each, then where is the other 195 Th/s coming from? BFL is the only other company shipping units. 100TH is bringing units online but it's only at a few Gh/s at the moment.

[velacreations]

Because competition is here now, with prices between 0.6 and 1:
http://thegenesisblock.com/avalon-k1-usb-bitcoin-miner-to-rival-asicminer/

well, not really "now", cause they are still pre-orders...

[binaryFate]

Because competition is here now, with prices between 0.6 and 1:
http://thegenesisblock.com/avalon-k1-usb-bitcoin-miner-to-rival-asicminer/

well, not really "now", cause they are still pre-orders...

Yeah true
But problably some people would buy these pre-orders, or at least just wait a bit to see what happens, rather than buying now an 0.89BTC AM erupter seeing that such lower prices are in the pipe somewhere. Personally I'm happy with this 0.6BTC price, it could mean huge volume of sells, and crunsh competition who cannot lower prices much further due to small volumes.



 

[Lohoris]

Thought experiment:

ASICMiner is valued at 30 million bitcoins and you decide you want to buy the whole company (all of the shares). The board agrees to this and all shareholders are forced to sell their shares at the corresponding price.
(30 million bitcoins divided by 400,000 shares).

How do you actually pay for this since it is impossible to have 30 million bitcoins?

You would need to pay in installments. [...]

It would be called "scam".

[Jutarul]

Thought experiment:

ASICMiner is valued at 30 million bitcoins and you decide you want to buy the whole company (all of the shares). The board agrees to this and all shareholders are forced to sell their shares at the corresponding price.
(30 million bitcoins divided by 400,000 shares).

How do you actually pay for this since it is impossible to have 30 million bitcoins?

You would need to pay in installments. [...]

Unreal. Right now the free-market valuation is somewhere around 1.6 million bitcoin. That's about 1 1/2 years of short-term future network yields. That makes sense from a risk/reward ratio. 30 million would assume something around 50 years of network domination.

If the asset is question is illiquid (bitcoin), the most likely scenario is a swap. I.e. investors get offered other forms of assets at chosen swap rates.

[Pale Phoenix]

Both Avalon and BFL have shipped or brought online more hashing power and every ASIC developer apart from Avalon are using more efficient ASICs than AM.

So AM, have likely sold no more than 20 Th/s worth of hashing power to date. Asicminercharts points to AM's hashrate averaging about that 40 Th/s, giving AM a total of about 60 Th/s brought online.

Avalon batch 1 was 300 units, batch 2 and 3 were 600 units. They're currently shipping batch 3, which means they've shipped about 900 units. At 63 Gh/s per unit, that's 56.7 Th/s.

If AM and Avalon have brought online about 60 Th/s each, then where is the other 195 Th/s coming from? BFL is the only other company shipping units. 100TH is bringing units online but it's only at a few Gh/s at the moment.

In other words, even if we stipulate that all of your assumptions are correct, Avalon has not brought online more hashing power than AM as you initially said (56.7 vs. 60). Not to mention that you counted all Avalon batch 3's, which is generous, considering a great many units have not shipped at all.

Then, after that little tap dance, you are seriously, with a straight face and no fingers crossed, insisting that the rest of the entire network hash rate must be coming from BFL machines. It just must be! Who else is there? It would be funny if there weren't so many actual human beings damaged by BFL's incompetence.

You certainly are a rising star in market analysis.

[bcp19]

Both Avalon and BFL have shipped or brought online more hashing power and every ASIC developer apart from Avalon are using more efficient ASICs than AM.

So AM, have likely sold no more than 20 Th/s worth of hashing power to date. Asicminercharts points to AM's hashrate averaging about that 40 Th/s, giving AM a total of about 60 Th/s brought online.

Avalon batch 1 was 300 units, batch 2 and 3 were 600 units. They're currently shipping batch 3, which means they've shipped about 900 units. At 63 Gh/s per unit, that's 56.7 Th/s.

If AM and Avalon have brought online about 60 Th/s each, then where is the other 195 Th/s coming from? BFL is the only other company shipping units. 100TH is bringing units online but it's only at a few Gh/s at the moment.

In other words, even if we stipulate that all of your assumptions are correct, Avalon has not brought online more hashing power than AM as you initially said (56.7 vs. 60). Not to mention that you counted all Avalon batch 3's, which is generous, considering a great many units have not shipped at all.

Then, after that little tap dance, you are seriously, with a straight face and no fingers crossed, insisting that the rest of the entire network hash rate must be coming from BFL machines. It just must be! Who else is there? It would be funny if there weren't so many actual human beings damaged by BFL's incompetence.

You certainly are a rising star in market analysis.

Count again, he didn't include ANY of batch 3:

300 from batch 1, 600 from batch 2, 600 from batch 3, equal 1500, he said only 900. 

[Mabsark]

Both Avalon and BFL have shipped or brought online more hashing power and every ASIC developer apart from Avalon are using more efficient ASICs than AM.

So AM, have likely sold no more than 20 Th/s worth of hashing power to date. Asicminercharts points to AM's hashrate averaging about that 40 Th/s, giving AM a total of about 60 Th/s brought online.

Avalon batch 1 was 300 units, batch 2 and 3 were 600 units. They're currently shipping batch 3, which means they've shipped about 900 units. At 63 Gh/s per unit, that's 56.7 Th/s.

If AM and Avalon have brought online about 60 Th/s each, then where is the other 195 Th/s coming from? BFL is the only other company shipping units. 100TH is bringing units online but it's only at a few Gh/s at the moment.

In other words, even if we stipulate that all of your assumptions are correct, Avalon has not brought online more hashing power than AM as you initially said (56.7 vs. 60). Not to mention that you counted all Avalon batch 3's, which is generous, considering a great many units have not shipped at all.

Then, after that little tap dance, you are seriously, with a straight face and no fingers crossed, insisting that the rest of the entire network hash rate must be coming from BFL machines. It just must be! Who else is there? It would be funny if there weren't so many actual human beings damaged by BFL's incompetence.

You certainly are a rising star in market analysis.

Actually, the Avalon numbers don't include any 3rd batch shipments at all. By assuming 3rd batch shipments had all been delivered, Avalon will have shipped at least 100 Th/s.

BFL might be extremely late in shipping and have lots of back orders, but they are capable of shipping huge amounts of hashing power in the form of Mini Rigs. 1 Mini Rig is equivalent to about 1500 USB BEs or 50 Blades.

The extra hashing power has to be accounted for. If Avalon batch 3 had all shipped, that would account for 30-40 Th/s. We could say AM is responsible for another 10-20 Th/s due to the data being a few days old and maybe attribute 30 Th/s to variance. That would still leave about 100 Th/s unaccounted for and the obvious and logical conclusion is that the majority of that hashing power must be down to BFL or there are players in the game we know nothing about.

[binaryFate]

Will blades go on sale next week?

+1

ETA anyone?

[Franktank]

Will blades go on sale next week?

+1

ETA anyone?

Soon^TM

[Mausini]

Both Avalon and BFL have shipped or brought online more hashing power and every ASIC developer apart from Avalon are using more efficient ASICs than AM.

So AM, have likely sold no more than 20 Th/s worth of hashing power to date. Asicminercharts points to AM's hashrate averaging about that 40 Th/s, giving AM a total of about 60 Th/s brought online.

Avalon batch 1 was 300 units, batch 2 and 3 were 600 units. They're currently shipping batch 3, which means they've shipped about 900 units. At 63 Gh/s per unit, that's 56.7 Th/s.

If AM and Avalon have brought online about 60 Th/s each, then where is the other 195 Th/s coming from? BFL is the only other company shipping units. 100TH is bringing units online but it's only at a few Gh/s at the moment.

In other words, even if we stipulate that all of your assumptions are correct, Avalon has not brought online more hashing power than AM as you initially said (56.7 vs. 60). Not to mention that you counted all Avalon batch 3's, which is generous, considering a great many units have not shipped at all.

Then, after that little tap dance, you are seriously, with a straight face and no fingers crossed, insisting that the rest of the entire network hash rate must be coming from BFL machines. It just must be! Who else is there? It would be funny if there weren't so many actual human beings damaged by BFL's incompetence.

You certainly are a rising star in market analysis.

Actually, the Avalon numbers don't include any 3rd batch shipments at all. By assuming 3rd batch shipments had all been delivered, Avalon will have shipped at least 100 Th/s.

BFL might be extremely late in shipping and have lots of back orders, but they are capable of shipping huge amounts of hashing power in the form of Mini Rigs. 1 Mini Rig is equivalent to about 1500 USB BEs or 50 Blades.

The extra hashing power has to be accounted for. If Avalon batch 3 had all shipped, that would account for 30-40 Th/s. We could say AM is responsible for another 10-20 Th/s due to the data being a few days old and maybe attribute 30 Th/s to variance. That would still leave about 100 Th/s unaccounted for and the obvious and logical conclusion is that the majority of that hashing power must be down to BFL or there are players in the game we know nothing about.

bla bli blu... asicminer constantly holds more than 20% of the network. go analyze, rising star!

[twmz]

bla bli blu... asicminer constantly holds more than 20% of the network. go analyze, rising star!

No it doesn't:

http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/top.php


Edit: nevermind that link, as it is wrong.

[SmiGueL]

bla bli blu... asicminer constantly holds more than 20% of the network. go analyze, rising star!

No it doesn't:

http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/top.php

That website fails pretty hard at showing blocks mined by ASICMINER..

I've tried that souce before, it just lists some a lot of  ASICMINER blocks as Unknown...
And that's going on for months now..


Example:
Just check the mined blocks from ASICMINER at blockchain.info below the 248810th block here:
https://blockchain.info/blocks/ASICMiner
In the list at blockorigin.pfoe.be almost ALL those blocks are shown as 'Unknown'
http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/blocklist.php

[neilol]

Do we see any of the Chinese distributors actually shipping blades yet? Seems like people are leaving ASIC to buy into the AMC rage thats going on. Could pick up some shares on the cheap. Likely to see a few weeks of huge divs.

[yuchuanzhen]

Do we see any of the Chinese distributors actually shipping blades yet? Seems like people are leaving ASIC to buy into the AMC rage thats going on. Could pick up some shares on the cheap. Likely to see a few weeks of huge divs.

Not yet.

[BlackLilac Jordan]

Do we see any of the Chinese distributors actually shipping blades yet? Seems like people are leaving ASIC to buy into the AMC rage thats going on. Could pick up some shares on the cheap. Likely to see a few weeks of huge divs.

No, the Chinese distributors do not have the new blades yet, they are just pre-selling them.

[velacreations]

Do we see any of the Chinese distributors actually shipping blades yet? Seems like people are leaving ASIC to buy into the AMC rage thats going on. Could pick up some shares on the cheap. Likely to see a few weeks of huge divs.

here comes the friedcat bounce...

[freedomno1]

Do we see any of the Chinese distributors actually shipping blades yet? Seems like people are leaving ASIC to buy into the AMC rage thats going on. Could pick up some shares on the cheap. Likely to see a few weeks of huge divs.

here comes the friedcat bounce...

Well it will be interesting if their EASIC contract appears and exists then they get a promotion from their current status to speculative investment grade although I don't think the price will be linear he-he makes for fun speculation on an otherwise peaceful after Friedcat ANN week

[Jutarul]

...
If AM and Avalon have brought online about 60 Th/s each, then where is the other 195 Th/s coming from?

...
You certainly are a rising star in market analysis.

Actually,...Avalon will have shipped at least 100 Th/s.

BFL might be extremely late in shipping and have lots of back orders, but they are capable of shipping huge amounts of hashing power .. the obvious and logical conclusion is that the majority of that hashing power must be down to BFL or there are players in the game we know nothing about.

I'd like to remind everyone that ASICMINER is the only operation (first movers) who "openly" admitted that they intent to use the hardware for self mining. This is one of the reasons why I started trusting them in the first place (!), because it's the natural outcome of a greedy environment. We don't have any data on what hidden orders or mining operations are fed by Avalon or BFL. I don't want to speculate here, but the picture which I would paint would not look nice.

[canth]

I'd like to remind everyone that ASICMINER is the only operation (first movers) who "openly" admitted that they intent to use the hardware for self mining. This is one of the reasons why I started trusting them in the first place (!), because it's the natural outcome of a greedy environment. We don't have any data on what hidden orders or mining operations are fed by Avalon or BFL. I don't want to speculate here, but the picture which I would paint would not look nice.

Indeed, KnC has admitted that they will use (purchase) their own miners for personal mining use. They have not disclosed how many will be sold to employees/owners, nor what their hashrate intentions are so it makes for a somewhat competitive nature. I don't hold it against them and they have been honest about it, but I prefer the AM model where investors have the option of sharing in the profits or buying the hardware or both.