ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[vs3]

Companies that still produce publicly accessible (and shipping) ASIC miners of .28 or better.
Spondoolies; Bitmain.

I would exclude Bitmain as they've said that they currently have no available chips for sale (information as of 4/26).

[cryptojumper]

When I open their website it says everything is out of stock http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/
So nobody produces and ships anything or what? Maybe they are very busy with next gen. I will surely try to mine at home when they launch Antminer S6.

[TheRealSteve]

So nobody produces and ships anything or what? Maybe they are very busy with next gen.

The original poster had a specific set of limitations:
- .28J/Gh chip
- .28J/Gh miner
That eliminates most of them to begin with - if not on the first one (though honestly most developers have only recently been posting fudged numbers on efficiency) then almost certainly on the second one.

But yes, Spondoolies-Tech is out of stock and seems to be in the process of changing their business model - see also the bitcoin shop 'letter of intent' to merge with them.

On the up side, there's other companies trying to fill the void - SFARDS has a new chip coming out, LK Group is planning one, Lightning ASIC may or may not be planning one, 21 Inc may be announcing things, etc.  Unfortunately though, the climate is very much heading towards further consolidation (seem my ranty rant post on that subject), and except for SFARDS none of them have made any positive statements with regard to small scale mining.

[Fordee]

So nobody produces and ships anything or what? Maybe they are very busy with next gen.

The original poster had a specific set of limitations:
- .28J/Gh chip
- .28J/Gh miner
That eliminates most of them to begin with - if not on the first one (though honestly most developers have only recently been posting fudged numbers on efficiency) then almost certainly on the second one.

But yes, Spondoolies-Tech is out of stock and seems to be in the process of changing their business model - see also the bitcoin shop 'letter of intent' to merge with them.

On the up side, there's other companies trying to fill the void - SFARDS has a new chip coming out, LK Group is planning one, Lightning ASIC may or may not be planning one, 21 Inc may be announcing things, etc.  Unfortunately though, the climate is very much heading towards further consolidation (seem my ranty rant post on that subject), and except for SFARDS none of them have made any positive statements with regard to small scale mining.

I was thinking about how the market has condensed..

Essentially if I am correct, within six months the amount of vendors offering ASICs for retail mining sales (consumer availability) will be zero, and power-efficient mining (chips of .28nm or smaller) will be solely in the hands of large centralized parties...

Hash rate will stagnate and rhe major entities will hold status quo until the next halving... Then without major asic breakthroughs in efficiency we will probably see some major players drop out or unplug. 

Power draws don't drop exponentially, but costs of smaller and smaller masks/designs do escalate.. and the halving will alter running costs dramatically.

I envision 2016-17 as a battleground where the 'Bitcoin Network' essentially is owned by 5-6 Large entities who control the majority of the hash rate...and therefore collect most of the mining fees... The new world conglomerates if you will.

Any new entrants who even try to compete will need a competing design and +$10-20Million just to start playing the Asic game...and a lot of coins to capture at 12/block just to break even.

End Game.

This is why I supported AsicMiner....as Friedcat vision was to keep it decentralized... Now that he's gone, and private people can't own a share in a future mining conglomerate, all we can hope for is to buy/hold/use bitcoin itself.

[bones]

Not that it does much good discusing it now, and the only man who could answer is not here to do so.
But why did Friedcat not come clean and seek crowdfunding?
I would have rathered go double or nothing and find some cash to throw in and save the company by making the chips.
We might of had to dilute shares, but anything would be better than this sorry mess.

[BitThink]

So nobody produces and ships anything or what? Maybe they are very busy with next gen.

The original poster had a specific set of limitations:
- .28J/Gh chip
- .28J/Gh miner
That eliminates most of them to begin with - if not on the first one (though honestly most developers have only recently been posting fudged numbers on efficiency) then almost certainly on the second one.

But yes, Spondoolies-Tech is out of stock and seems to be in the process of changing their business model - see also the bitcoin shop 'letter of intent' to merge with them.

On the up side, there's other companies trying to fill the void - SFARDS has a new chip coming out, LK Group is planning one, Lightning ASIC may or may not be planning one, 21 Inc may be announcing things, etc.  Unfortunately though, the climate is very much heading towards further consolidation (seem my ranty rant post on that subject), and except for SFARDS none of them have made any positive statements with regard to small scale mining.

I was thinking about how the market has condensed..

Essentially if I am correct, within six months the amount of vendors offering ASICs for retail mining sales (consumer availability) will be zero, and power-efficient mining (chips of .28nm or smaller) will be solely in the hands of large centralized parties...

Hash rate will stagnate and rhe major entities will hold status quo until the next halving... Then without major asic breakthroughs in efficiency we will probably see some major players drop out or unplug. 

Power draws don't drop exponentially, but costs of smaller and smaller masks/designs do escalate.. and the halving will alter running costs dramatically.

I envision 2016-17 as a battleground where the 'Bitcoin Network' essentially is owned by 5-6 Large entities who control the majority of the hash rate...and therefore collect most of the mining fees... The new world conglomerates if you will.

Any new entrants who even try to compete will need a competing design and +$10-20Million just to start playing the Asic game...and a lot of coins to capture at 12/block just to break even.

End Game.

This is why I supported AsicMiner....as Friedcat vision was to keep it decentralized... Now that he's gone, and private people can't own a share in a future mining conglomerate, all we can hope for is to buy/hold/use bitcoin itself.

As long as there's no one entity can control the whole network, it is decentralized.

[bkminer]

I will have to say that AM (Bitquan and the AMHash guys) is not a scam. I went to the AMHash website which is almost gone now and they said they sent all data to AM. I sent another email asking for information and right after I sent it I noticed that the bitcoin address that was associated with AMHash had received the outstanding dividend amount. So I quickly sent another email thanking them.

At least one good note in this mess. And I will say I was sad to sell my AM shares...

EDIT: the date on the transaction was Yesterday so I was a bit embarrassed I missed it before I sent the email. 

[flyingplows]

I will have to say that AM (Bitquan and the AMHash guys) is not a scam. I went to the AMHash website which is almost gone now and they said they sent all data to AM. I sent another email asking for information and right after I sent it I noticed that the bitcoin address that was associated with AMHash had received the outstanding dividend amount. So I quickly sent another email thanking them.

At least one good note in this mess. And I will say I was sad to sell my AM shares...

EDIT: the date on the transaction was Yesterday so I was a bit embarrassed I missed it before I sent the email.  

How does it make them not a scam? If you were able to withdraw your amhash.com balance it's strange because other people, including myself, could not, but don't forget that they stole your hashrate and future dividends. If even your transaction is from them...

[arnuschky]

Does anyone know what address is 3KgtbGgaX2ngstNpvyv7LwpHSweVeqGbpM?

I have hacked coins that went there.

Looks like an Exchange wallet.  Most likely converted to fiat.

Huobi.com according to https://www.walletexplorer.com/

[bkminer]

How does it make them not a scam? If you were able to withdraw your amhash.com balance it's strange because other people, including myself, could not, but don't forget that they stole your hashrate and future dividends. If even your transaction is from them...

Sorry if it was unclear, I emailed support@bitquan.com asking about my un-withdrawn dividends and after AMHash said they sent all the bitcoins and data to AM I received the outstanding dividends. In my experience (hashie.co & others) scammers give you nothing back.  AMHash took my hash rate from hashie.co and the only issue was that the hash rate tokens were bought at a 1/4 of original price value. On that basis I concluded AM wasn't a scam, at least not originally.

So to clarify it's IMHO only that they are not a scam, or at least not like any scam I've been bitten by before.

I also kept a screen shot of my outstanding dividends incase the site went away, but I really didn't need it.

[ninjarobot]

This is why I supported AsicMiner....as Friedcat vision was to keep it decentralized.

Likewise. If Bitcoin is to have any future it will be a decentralized one. The current centralization of mining is dangerous.

I understand that we as investors in AM have drawn the short end of the stick. So be it.

However, AM belonged to all shareholders and we should still have the IP including the ASIC designs.

Can we at the very least open source these designs and give something back to the community for the betterment of the Bitcoin ecosystem?

[EternalWingsofGod]

This is why I supported AsicMiner....as Friedcat vision was to keep it decentralized.

Likewise. If Bitcoin is to have any future it will be a decentralized one. The current centralization of mining is dangerous.

I understand that we as investors in AM have drawn the short end of the stick. So be it.

However, AM belonged to all shareholders and we should still have the IP including the ASIC designs.

Can we at the very least open source these designs and give something back to the community for the betterment of the Bitcoin ecosystem?

Well they did open source the Block Erupter as part of their strategy plan if I recall correctly, not sure on the rest of the designs though.
https://github.com/blockerupter

[primeminer]

from SFARDS website:

The SFARDS team has many years of experience with ASIC technology.

Our microchip team has extensive experience with Intel microelectronics, with our senior management coming from Gridseed and Vimicro electronics’ core research to create the most complete team we possibly could.
Members of the SFARDS team were responsible for designing and mass-producing the world’s first bitcoin mining chip.

Is just me thinking it is about FriedCat?

[TheRealSteve]

Is just me thinking it is about FriedCat?

In the grand scheme of things, why not.

However, as SFARDS spawned from GridSeed (+ WiiBox + etc.), and GridSeed's chip was largely a Gridchip design - who made a chip design independently a while back and also was involved in the first Avalon (A3256) design - it's not like they'd need him.  Plus, can you imagine the sh*tstorm if it turned out they had done so, not to mention potential legal ramifications

[Blazed]

Is just me thinking it is about FriedCat?

In the grand scheme of things, why not.

However, as SFARDS spawned from GridSeed (+ WiiBox + etc.), and GridSeed's chip was largely a Gridchip design - who made a chip design independently a while back and also was involved in the first Avalon (A3256) design - it's not like they'd need him.  Plus, can you imagine the sh*tstorm if it turned out they had done so, not to mention potential legal ramifications

Well if they picked ScamCat to help with that chip then it will probably be a flop/off spec/fire hazard. I hope SFARDS will deliver a quality product and sell to us small miners. We all know that Bitmain will just keep raising prices on us due to no competition.

[bkminer]

We all know that Bitmain will just keep raising prices on us due to no competition.

It's bad for the market that BitFury went commercial cloud only. (and I still can't see how corporate cloud mining is any different, cloud mining is a loss for the customer so why would large companies buy large amounts of cloud mining?) 

(ref:) http://www.coindesk.com/digitalbtc-signs-bitcoin-mining-hardware-deal-bitfury/

[gogxmagog]

from SFARDS website:

The SFARDS team has many years of experience with ASIC technology.

Our microchip team has extensive experience with Intel microelectronics, with our senior management coming from Gridseed and Vimicro electronics’ core research to create the most complete team we possibly could.
Members of the SFARDS team were responsible for designing and mass-producing the world’s first bitcoin mining chip.

Is just me thinking it is about FriedCat?

I for one am waiting for FC to show up somewhere at the competition. I'm sure they'd take him in but at least try to keep it hush-hush. I sp. if they are only doing corporate deals, they're all cut throats so why not

What is his real name again? Anybody got it? If I can find him it's going to be broadcast everywhere. The mfckr

[jdany]

What is his real name again? Anybody got it? If I can find him it's going to be broadcast everywhere. The mfckr

I have him in my contacts as XY Jiang.  Don't know if that's right or not.

[gogxmagog]

here's the most info I can find on the guy.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=974893.90;imode

FC real name appears to be Xinyu Jiang also known as Brandon Lu or Della Lu, accordingly to ninjabot, nubbins and others


And the factory is not located at Mongolia but HuaiAn City, JiangSu Province

but honestly, if I had ... how many millions? ... and wanted to disappear... AND I already was from SE asia area.... youd never see hide nor hair of me again. Lets hope he does something stupid, loses it all gambling, gets sloppy and gives away his location...

and who the hell was holding a lot of AM shares anyway? private shares i will assume? they were all in since IPO? already made a huge profit, so written the whole deal off?

I have to stop obsessing about this. its only money i guess, but geez louise man!

[xstr8guy]

We all know that Bitmain will just keep raising prices on us due to no competition.

It's bad for the market that BitFury went commercial cloud only. (and I still can't see how corporate cloud mining is any different, cloud mining is a loss for the customer so why would large companies buy large amounts of cloud mining?) 

(ref:) http://www.coindesk.com/digitalbtc-signs-bitcoin-mining-hardware-deal-bitfury/

Bitfury (and its partners) haven't sold a retail miner in well over a year.