ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[jimmothy]

FailFast tried and was not a scam just incompetent.

Is it really possible to be so incompetent/negligent that they went bankrupt before delivering a majority of their preorders which they charged $15/gh while production costs were ~$0.3/gh?

IMO they got fed up with the community backlash after Icebreaker managed to turn EVERYONE against HF so they orchestrated their exit scam. (funneling the money out of the company then declaring bankruptcy)

But then again the all-knowing Icebreaker has informed us all several times that bankruptcy fraud never happens so this can't be the case.

[flyingplows]

How can a single individual be responsible if we gave our investments to AM, not to FC. I would not give a satoshi to any cat or dog. We gave our money to a company and the company has to be responsible, there i no other way. I understand that this company is done after this (well to be true it was done long ago, but...), but the management have to be responsible and have to go to jail and be confiscated the money they stole. Its their fault that their ''business'' was organized it such perverted way that one person was in control of everything and that it was possible to steal anything. Not that I would believe any word of that stupid fairy tale but what I mean to say is that EVEN is their story would be true - still not FC is responsible, I don't know and don't care about no baked cat or roasted cat or dog, AM owes me money, not some personal thief.

[iCEBREAKER]

I think both companies sucked 

But you only described HF as incompetent, which is odd given both made a single good chip but only AM made two miserable failures.

I guess you didn't listen to the court hearing where the judge specifically asked the US Atty for evidence of HF incompetence, and received no satisfactory response.

It's really not fair to expect superhuman competence, sufficient to overcome truly adverse business conditions, when HF had no way to predict nor control the price of BTC and difficulty.  Sometimes, and most often in risky high-tech start-ups, the execs best isn't good enough. 

That's just economics, not incompetence.  Confusing the two is a tautological amateur mistake, as the judge explained to the humiliated and flustered US Atty when she tried to say failure necessarily indicates incompetence.

Sorry to pick on you, but I'm tired of HF being expected to prove their innocence while AM is given far more than reasonable benefit of the doubt.

[iCEBREAKER]

FailFast tried and was not a scam just incompetent.

Is it really possible to be so incompetent/negligent that they went bankrupt before delivering a majority of their preorders which they charged $15/gh while production costs were ~$0.3/gh?

IMO they got fed up with the community backlash after Icebreaker managed to turn EVERYONE against HF so they orchestrated their exit scam. (funneling the money out of the company then declaring bankruptcy)

But then again the all-knowing Icebreaker has informed us all several times that bankruptcy fraud never happens so this can't be the case.

It's more than possible, it actually happened.  Over a dozen professional lawyers (of whom several from major firms charge $500/hr) found zero evidence of incompetence or negligence.

Nobody cares about your ignorant personal opinion, fact-free interpretation, or quest for revenge. 

There was no 'exit scam.'  You were warned getting lawyers involved would not benefit anyone but those lawyers.  You should have already known that bit of common sense from watching TV.

No money was "funneled out" of the company.  That would be illegal and have precluded Chapter 11 status with retained management.

I never said "bankruptcy fraud never happens."  It just so happens that in this case 12+ bankruptcy specialists failed to find so much as a hint of a whiff of fraud.

You are just making stuff up and putting words in my mouth because you are so upset about being wrong, while I was proven correct on every point in dispute.

I ripped your face off and shat on your bruised ego.  Sorry, but that's the way it goes when you engage me impolitely in debate on topics of which I am the master.

You were wrong about the facts in both the HF and AM fiascos.  The longer you wallow in denial, the worse you look and the less healthy it is for you psychologically.

[Window2Wall]

FC has been offline for almost two months now. When someone scams, they almost always will never allow you to hear from them again.

Instead of giving himself a raise prior to the company failing, he simply stole the mining equipment and mining revenue of AMHASH. It is as simple as that

Do you have any proof he stole the hardware and mining revenue?

You are kidding right? Investors have not been paid in close to two months, and the people behind AMHASH have not received any mining revenue for close to another month before that. This is despite the fact that investors should have been receiving mining revenue for that entire time.

I am really not sure how else you could see that FC is a thief and a scammer

[iCEBREAKER]

FC has been offline for almost two months now. When someone scams, they almost always will never allow you to hear from them again.

Instead of giving himself a raise prior to the company failing, he simply stole the mining equipment and mining revenue of AMHASH. It is as simple as that

Do you have any proof he stole the hardware and mining revenue?

You are kidding right? Investors have not been paid in close to two months, and the people behind AMHASH have not received any mining revenue for close to another month before that. This is despite the fact that investors should have been receiving mining revenue for that entire time.

I am really not sure how else you could see that FC is a thief and a scammer

There is no logic behind jimmothy's skepticism and refusal to see the obvious.  Only confirmation bias amplified by pride and the fear of having to admit being in the denial stage far longer than was reasonable.

[Puppet]

In no case do I think the scam was premeditated or that anyone other than FC was involved.

I know there can not be any proof for this claim, but would you disclose any logic behind this? What makes you  so confident to state above?
 

I dont often agree with jimmothy, but I do here. Its a weird kind of scammer that first returns 6x more to its investors than it ever collected in its IPO. if it was premeditated, it certainly wasnt a few years ago. And its an unbelievably incompetent scam when you pull the plug right at the moment where everyone is holding their wallets expecting the launch of a new product,  that could greatly increase his loot, just by selling (fake) BE300 bulk preorders or hashrate based on it.

Everything points to there being more to this story than FC pulling off a very weird and/or very incompetent scam. I still think its far more likely the discovery by authorities  of 'theft' / misappropriated electricity of their mine is what triggered this collapse. Conjuncture, for sure,  but more plausible than the incompetent scam theory.

[iCEBREAKER]

weird kind of scammer that first returns 6x more to its investors than it ever collected in its IPO. if it was premeditated, it certainly wasnt a few years ago.

Ponzi schemes work precisely because of the high returns provided to early investors:



Madoff made his early investors feel like they were getting rich, in order to attrach 2rd and 3rd waves of investors.

Madoff's scam was premeditated years in advance.  It's called a long con, and they are more profitable than quick ones.

Too bad old Bernie isn't around to get involved with cloud mining and DashCoinDark.   

[Puppet]

Ponzi schemes work precisely because of the high returns provided to early investors:

Ponzi's can not, by definition, return more to  investors collectively than what the ponzi got from them in the first place. Madoff didnt, no ponzi ever did. Oh, and I assume HF didnt either, sucks to be you. AM did, many times over.  You would call Dell a ponzi just because you bought them too high.

[Puppet]

BTW, afaik, all AM hardware customers (so excluding AMhash) also got what they paid for. Which again is more than one can say of HF or any other scam I can think off.

[RoadStress]

Good question.  Here are some differences between the HashFast the unsuccessful business, and AM the scam:

1) HF operated in a transparent manner.  We knew the investors' and executives' identities and backgrounds since the beginning.  AM guys hid behind silly fake names like 'FriedCat' and 'BitFountain.'

Hello scammer! This is my reply to another post where you post tons of LIES.

Transparent manner? According to http://hashfast.org/Main_Page#Batch_1_Preorders there was nothing transparent from HashFail. According to this well documented website " Amy Woodward announced a delay of a critical component 3 days before the promised shipping date".

This is what "transparent" means for retard Icebreaker! You can't find out only with 3 days before the shipping date that you are not able to deliver anything. This is an outrageous LIE!

2) HF operated in the heavily (over)regulated California business climate, and never had any criminal charges brought against it.  OTOH, AM existed in the shadowy world of unregulated BTC securities, in the wild-west environment of China's 'mixed capitalism.'

Did anyone force HF to be incorporated in California? I don't think so.

3) HF's chip did exactly what it it was supposed to.  AM's chips kept failing to meet spec.

The difference is that AM never took any pre-order money on some advertised specs which never turn out to be true like HF did.

4) HF told us when and why they suffered delays.  AM was/is nearly completely opaque.

HF announced only 3 days before the shipping date that they can't make it This is useless!

5) HF went to bankruptcy court, in the normal manner for unsuccessful businesses.  AM is on the run from the law and its customers/investors/wives.

After delivering only ONE batch of miners while they took money for 4 batches! It's a new record in the Bitcoin world and nobody will be able to replicate it.

6) HF Batch One customers eventually got their ASICs, or refunds.  AMHASH customers are holding empty bags, with no recourse via normal legal means.

This is AM thread, not AMHASH.

7) When everything went wrong, HF execs stayed around and went to court while the process ran its course.  AM's CEO is hiding on a beach in Thailand or something.

That's because they were smart enough to leak 40-50 millions of $ out of the company while being untouchable.

Funny how you insisted HF was a scam despite having no proof, but make excuses for AM despite overwhelming evidence.

You are a retard! HF WAS A SCAM from day 1 while AM made over 6 time profit for IPO. HF was only able to deliver ONE batch of miners, while AM successfully operated for a couple of years and many investors saw a nice profit from AM shares.

[Blazed]

BTW, afaik, all AM hardware customers (so excluding AMhash) also got what they paid for. Which again is more than one can say of HF or any other scam I can think off.

True they even refunded those garbage Prisma miners. The only Ponzi was AMHash after the gear went MIA. It is funny comparing FailFast to them...FailFast couldn't even ship gen 1 after massive pre orders.

[RoadStress]

Ponzi schemes work precisely because of the high returns provided to early investors:

You must be an ultra retard to think that AM was a ponzi scheme. AM only took money from shareholders on IPO while maintaining a higher percentage of shares for themselves. Afterwards AM didn't need any outside money and they were able to operate independently of the share price. How can it be a ponzi if it's not needing new people to pour money into the company?

Can you be more retard than this?

[Tigggger]

Speaking of shares, has anyone looked into the trading history.

Announcing a succesfull chip (BE300) and making everyone think that everything was proceeding to production, on top of the failure to mention anything about the mining farm going *cough* missing are both things that would keep the share price higher than it should have been.

[Window2Wall]

In no case do I think the scam was premeditated or that anyone other than FC was involved.

I know there can not be any proof for this claim, but would you disclose any logic behind this? What makes you  so confident to state above?
 

I dont often agree with jimmothy, but I do here. Its a weird kind of scammer that first returns 6x more to its investors than it ever collected in its IPO. if it was premeditated, it certainly wasnt a few years ago. And its an unbelievably incompetent scam when you pull the plug right at the moment where everyone is holding their wallets expecting the launch of a new product,  that could greatly increase his loot, just by selling (fake) BE300 bulk preorders or hashrate based on it.

Everything points to there being more to this story than FC pulling off a very weird and/or very incompetent scam. I still think its far more likely the discovery by authorities  of 'theft' / misappropriated electricity of their mine is what triggered this collapse. Conjuncture, for sure,  but more plausible than the incompetent scam theory.

They were able to return additional funds to investors because they were not a ponzi in a sense that there was no real hardware actually mining. The fact that they actually had hardware mining meant that they were able to payout whatever it earned (minus their fees) to shareholders/investors).

There were posts that had mentioned that either ASICMINER or AMHASH was having difficulty selling all of their mining power that AMHASH1 was supposed to be backed by. So it is possible that he decided that it would not be financially viable to continue running his company so he just stole everything that he could from his customers.

This goes to show why it is not good to ever own miners that you do not physically control as it will always be trivial for whoever physically controls your miners to steal them and to steal whatever mining revenue that your miners should generate

[Fordee]

 
  REALITY CHECK - Food for thought.

 Easy quick question that perhaps the Board, or AMHash could answer:

  My understanding is that there were initially 5PH of Miners,  selling 1 PH at a time..   (the actual selling varies a bit in the amounts/timing) ..
  This was done for two reasons.. 1) To prove a stable board/component design with the BE300 in mind..    2) To help fund BE300 rollout costs.

  Where were the miners pointing?   My guess is initially (5PH) to an AM wallet, with other parties hired to manage/run the physical farm... At the end of each difficulty period, regardless of the amount of block found, a amount of 'dividends' plus fee for managing it where transferred to the 'managing entity'... who then dispersed the funds to the 'investors' of AMHASH... either via havelock, or other parties.

   My Belief:   Friedcat was using this as an opportunity to fund the BE300 chip costs, and eventually saving running expenses by redeploying BE300 Miners into the same environment.

   My Question:  With the millions gained from the AMHASH farm, (with or without electrical costs), Why hasn't anyone traced it?  either To/From Havelock, or To/From AM & Mining managers?  IS IT MULTISIG?
  
   2nd Question: If Friedcat is as intelligent and honourable as he has shown in the past 3 Years by his actions and posts,  what if he was travelling and is in a hospital somewhere as a John Doe?

   What would happen to the share prices if he resurfaced, with a legitimate story, funded the chip and continued onward?

  Hell of a gamble, but really ...  after you all lost so much, might as well scoop up whats left for pennies on the 'what if'..

  After all..   With no funds and no future... WHY IS DAVID CONTINUING TO KEEP AN OFFICE AND EMPLOYEES AROUND?

  Yeah.. scam of course...  only 1/10 of the shares are on Havelock..  David has a bigger interest as a partial Bitfountain partner..   So WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON?

  


  

[muyuu]

Here's my guesses as to what happen in order of plausibility:

1. Their story is legit and the hardware was stolen by some shady datacenter operator and FC was kidnapped or something.

2. FC was stealing electricity and he along with the hardware was taken by the police.

3. FC decided to pull an exit scam after Prisma 2.0's and BE300 turned out to be failures.

In no case do I think the scam was premeditated or that anyone other than FC was involved.

Do you honestly put 1. "James Bond-esque kidnapping operation" above 2 and 3 "trivial scams that have happened time and again in the Bitcoin ecosystem"?

What is the logic that leads you to think that 1 is more likely than 3 or 2?? Other than blind faith, I mean.

[iCEBREAKER]

BTW, afaik, all AM hardware customers (so excluding AMhash) also got what they paid for.

It it true?

We've heard all kinds of horror stories about DOA Tubes/Prizmas with no recourse to tech support or customer service.

If even one customer didn't get "what they paid for" your claim would be disproven.

Which is why most people tend to avoid making 'always and never' type claims, unless they are exaggerating for hyperbolic emphasis:

“Always” and “Never” statements are also very frequently used by individuals who suffer from personality disorders, because they fit neatly into the split, black and white world of their thinking. They are most often used in an accusatory, argumentative or self-pitying way.

I know of at least two AM shareholders whose requests for share transfers have been blown off for months, since before FC took the money and ran: my own and the MiningCo ETF's.

[RoadStress]

I know of at least two AM shareholders whose requests for share transfers have been blown off for months, since before FC took the money and ran: my own and the MiningCo ETF's.

Unless they were IPO shareholders then they brought the shares from someone else, not from FC. Are you really that dumb?

[Chris_Sabian]

BTW, afaik, all AM hardware customers (so excluding AMhash) also got what they paid for. Which again is more than one can say of HF or any other scam I can think off.

True they even refunded those garbage Prisma miners. The only Ponzi was AMHash after the gear went MIA. It is funny comparing FailFast to them...FailFast couldn't even ship gen 1 after massive pre orders.

No they didn't.  I'm still waiting for my refund.  The arrangement was to ship defective / unwanted miners to CrazyGuy (per AM) and refund of bitcoins would come from AM.  Still waiting on those bitcoins...