ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[e21]

I've never bought shares of a company on GLBSE before, or used stocks, however I would like to support ASICMINER. I have created an account on GLBSE, and am currently waiting for bitcoins to appear in my account, I had one question though:

The page states that "if the total money raised from ASICMINER and the real-world is not enough to cover the cost required by the foundry to tape out the ASIC chips before August 28, 2011, 100.5% of the total Bitcoins raised from ASICMINER will be returned".. since it is now almost Aug 28 2012 I am assuming that the chip is in production already? Is there anything that might stop this from coming to market at this point?

I am 100.5% sure that's a typo ASICs are a 2012 topic.

  I was wondering about that, I thought that maybe development started back then or something. So do all the shares available on GLBSE need to be purchased in order for this to be produced?

[novusordo]

...new shares of ASICMINER aren't being sold on GLBSE anymore? The price just jumped to 250% of what it was.

[Jutarul]

wow. news got through to the majority of the community I think.

I guess the next buy opportunity is when shares from the private bulk are offered to the public.

EDIT: I see a lot of asks with huge volumes. I think someone is trying to make a profit from the IPO assuming the companys offering is too low...

[DeaDTerra]

I am selling ASICMINER shares, if you want some then PM me!
//DeaDTerra

[Tachikoma]

I am selling ASICMINER shares, if you want some then PM me!
//DeaDTerra

At market price or IPO price 

[DeaDTerra]

I am selling ASICMINER shares, if you want some then PM me!
//DeaDTerra

At market price or IPO price 

Price depends on volume, PM me and we can discuss the price
It won't be 2x the IPO price like the market

[Lethos]

I'm just glad I got to buy some before they all went at a decent price.

[Stephen Gornick]

I am selling ASICMINER shares, if you want some then PM me!
//DeaDTerra

So, 24 hour volume was 1414.129 btc. I don't remember the quantity that was offered at 0.1 but it was more than 1414 btc worth.  Is that normal for issued shares to trade privately, off the exchange, *after* the IPO?

[DeaDTerra]

I am selling ASICMINER shares, if you want some then PM me!
//DeaDTerra

So, 24 hour volume was 1414.129 btc. I don't remember the quantity that was offered at 0.1 but it was more than 1414 btc worth.  Is that normal for issued shares to trade privately, off the exchange, *after* the IPO?

That is not normal indeed, usually a minority of the shares are traded publically while in this case a majority was traded in private. I have got no idea why for once I am not actually in charge of this IPO xD
//DeaDTerra

[Stephen Gornick]

That is not normal indeed,

I see what I was overlooking.  I forgot that there are inter-account transfers allowed on GLBSE, so the logistics for doing this are to simply cancel the sell order with the remaining shares and then manually transfer over whatever amount was sold privately:
 
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75890.0

[Bitcoin Oz]

That is not normal indeed,

I see what I was overlooking.  I forgot that there are inter-account transfers allowed on GLBSE, so the logistics for doing this are to simply cancel the sell order with the remaining shares and then manually transfer over whatever amount was sold privately:
 
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75890.0

Thats the way to do it

[friedcat]

Update

Just to mention, since the IPO hasn't finished and bulk purchase at 0.1BTC/share with extra shares offering is still going on, it is not suggested to buy them at a very high price at this moment. Thanks.

[friedcat]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but profitability outlined in this spreadsheet shows return rates prior to ASICMINER share principle being fully returned.  Post principle repayment these return figures reduce by 50%.

In fact it's after ASICMINER investors' principle are paid back. Since it will almost definitely that the IPO will stop before 200,000 shares, prior return will be higher than 200% of what in the spreadsheet.

[friedcat]

Regarding the die size update to 17mm²

My research, which might not be definitive, shows that large die are incompatible with the MLM process.  Can you comment?

Will you be providing investors with documentation of your arrangements with the foundry?

According to our foundry, the rate of mask-set success with large die with MLM is the same with a standard full mask.

Larger die will indeed have less fault-tolerate rate, but 17mm^2 is not classified as the largest type processed by our foundry.

Our foundry is located in Shanghai, China. We have provided the confidential agreement between the agent of the foundry and us to some investors, and we will definitely provide our final contract to investors when it's made. Thanks.

[nedbert9]

Very good clarifications.  Thank you.

[Lethos]

Update

Just to mention, since the IPO hasn't finished and bulk purchase at 0.1BTC/share with extra shares offering is still going on, it is not suggested to buy them at a very high price at this moment. Thanks.

I'm still seeing 0.12 BTC/share to buy. When are you selling more shares at 0.1BTC?

[friedcat]

I'm still seeing 0.12 BTC/share to buy. When are you selling more shares at 0.1BTC?

As said in the OP, only 30,000 shares are put on the public market. Although and they are all gone, The bulk sales haven't been closed. Investors could buy from us before then instead of buying them from the public market.

[zefir]

I have two practical questions for your initial mining phase.

Assume one chip is consuming 5-10 Watts (per GHps), your 12THps rig would pull 60-120kW from the wall. Now that's a fat power plug for those used to limit their mining rigs to 1.5kW Are you prepared to facilitate according needs?

Second, are you prepared to secure the proper continuous operation of that 12TH rig in terms of immunity to external impacts? We see how the large pools have been under DDoS attacks every now and then and needed to gradually implement counter measures to provide their services. Now if you pop up with a hashing power worth the largest three pools have combined, you inevitably become a target. Are you aware of those risks, and prepared?


Thanks for your answer and the transparency you provided so far.

[friedcat]

Thanks for your questions.

Assume one chip is consuming 5-10 Watts (per GHps), your 12THps rig would pull 60-120kW from the wall. Now that's a fat power plug for those used to limit their mining rigs to 1.5kW Are you prepared to facilitate according needs?

Yes. For a 60-120kW operating, the most similar places are local net-cafes. Larger ones have different electricity cables more close to those of industrial uses than family ones. This is why we have taken the place rent into consideration, it also contains the effort of (industrial-level) power supply.

Second, are you prepared to secure the proper continuous operation of that 12TH rig in terms of immunity to external impacts? We see how the large pools have been under DDoS attacks every now and then and needed to gradually implement counter measures to provide their services. Now if you pop up with a hashing power worth the largest three pools have combined, you inevitably become a target. Are you aware of those risks, and prepared?

Yes, we are aware of those risks, but we haven't immediately began to work on it because currently the highest priority is making our IPO succeed, our design reliable, and our production on time.

In fact there might be more "real-world" attacks like theft. All of them should be finally taken account. We feel that, solving them in parallel with the mask-set production as well as PCB production, are a good idea.

Thanks for your answer and the transparency you provided so far.

You are welcome. More questions and suggestions are always welcome.

[tucenaber]

Could you give us the results of your chat with friedcat?  Inquiring minds want to know.  Thanks

I have received some documents, and from what I can tell the company Bitfountain, is registered july 12 in Shenzhen China. I have also received the names of the partners where only two is actually officially shareholders but the third (the hardware wizkid) will be added later on I am told. The names are the same as the owners of Bitfountain, so that's good. There seems to be an agreement with a manufacturer, but I cannot say if that's legit or not.

I have not (yet) been able to make up my mind about the viability of the project, or gotten any assurances. But Friedcat seems trustworthy and he's a Haskell* programmer, and what scammer would be a Haskell programmer? That's like a contradiction in terms, lol.

We'll see.





*)  Haskell=obscure programming language, of which I am a fan.