ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[Monster Tent]

I hope friedcat has some serious plans for the summer period.
I'm not sure anybody can compete with 28nm SOI at the moment (as in the first linked thread), but ASICMINER can work together with them!

Agree, in multiple levels (assuming these 28nm guys are legit, and their product is superior):
1) Buying a percentage of their production, would secure our share of the network
2) Making boards our selves would reduce the cost, hedging against those who would buy them assembled (=other miners have to pay profits of the assembly company)
3) Asicminer would be able to sell those assembled boards. Those would secure some of our profit / hashrate out there.
4) Asicminer should sell as much as possible those boards to shareholders, thus generating extra value to them (I'm greedy, I know)
5) Reduced R&D costs

What is stopping ASICminer from ordering 28nm chips ?

[1713509584]

1713509584

[Gabit]

I hope friedcat has some serious plans for the summer period.
I'm not sure anybody can compete with 28nm SOI at the moment (as in the first linked thread), but ASICMINER can work together with them!

Agree, in multiple levels (assuming these 28nm guys are legit, and their product is superior):
1) Buying a percentage of their production, would secure our share of the network
2) Making boards our selves would reduce the cost, hedging against those who would buy them assembled (=other miners have to pay profits of the assembly company)
3) Asicminer would be able to sell those assembled boards. Those would secure some of our profit / hashrate out there.
4) Asicminer should sell as much as possible those boards to shareholders, thus generating extra value to them (I'm greedy, I know)
5) Reduced R&D costs

What is stopping ASICminer from ordering 28nm chips ?

1) R&D costs
2) R&D time
2) Risk of failure, and loss of capital, and loss of hashrate due delay
3) higher chip price (if the guys are so large as the given impression)

I know that friedcat&co are very capable people, but why take risks when one can be without? At least we should diversify (some chips in house, some out sourced). And there is a reason why, Apple for example, uses Intel chips nowadays. We don't have to order them right away, there is 50TH+ still coming. But they are claiming that they will put out 1 PH, with superior hash/joule in the first run. And that would drop our share of the network to around 6% with the 12+50TH, and then there is other competition too. Buying for example 10% of their production would be beneficial, even if the chips never went online.

[lophie]

Thank you. Maybe it's just me kidding, but I still can't help my self saying it's not totally impossible
that the whole return could buy you a bar after several years.

On first page (for reference), Maybe the first "under-estimation" ASICMINER did

[Monster Tent]

I hope friedcat has some serious plans for the summer period.
I'm not sure anybody can compete with 28nm SOI at the moment (as in the first linked thread), but ASICMINER can work together with them!

Agree, in multiple levels (assuming these 28nm guys are legit, and their product is superior):
1) Buying a percentage of their production, would secure our share of the network
2) Making boards our selves would reduce the cost, hedging against those who would buy them assembled (=other miners have to pay profits of the assembly company)
3) Asicminer would be able to sell those assembled boards. Those would secure some of our profit / hashrate out there.
4) Asicminer should sell as much as possible those boards to shareholders, thus generating extra value to them (I'm greedy, I know)
5) Reduced R&D costs

What is stopping ASICminer from ordering 28nm chips ?

1) R&D costs
2) R&D time
2) Risk of failure, and loss of capital, and loss of hashrate due delay
3) higher chip price (if the guys are so large as the given impression)

I know that friedcat&co are very capable people, but why take risks when one can be without? At least we should diversify (some chips in house, some out sourced). And there is a reason why, Apple for example, uses Intel chips nowadays. We don't have to order them right away, there is 50TH+ still coming. But they are claiming that they will put out 1 PH, with superior hash/joule in the first run. And that would drop our share of the network to around 6% with the 12+50TH, and then there is other competition too. Buying for example 10% of their production would be beneficial, even if the chips never went online.

I meant that they could buy the chips from this other company if they are legit.

[ineededausername]

I really hope ASICMINER is the top anonymous miner on ozcoin, because then we'd be sitting at almost 9 TH/s right now... good progress.

[SebastianJu]

I really hope ASICMINER is the top anonymous miner on ozcoin, because then we'd be sitting at almost 9 TH/s right now... good progress.

It would be good. Because in the last days there would have been no real raise in Asicminer/Bitfountain Hashrate otherwise.

[ineededausername]

I really hope ASICMINER is the top anonymous miner on ozcoin, because then we'd be sitting at almost 9 TH/s right now... good progress.

It would be good. Because in the last days there would have been no real raise in Asicminer/Bitfountain Hashrate otherwise.

It actually seems reasonably likely, as the anonymous miner has huge variance in hashrate, the variance corresponds to bitfountainx workers reasonably well, and I have a gut feeling that Avalons would not have such variance while Bitfountain has had it all along (doing our own racks, wiring, etc).  I'm looking forward to next week's dividend and hoping that it's double what I expect

[luffy]

I really hope ASICMINER is the top anonymous miner on ozcoin, because then we'd be sitting at almost 9 TH/s right now... good progress.

why not be informed about it? as share holders we should be informed about progress, periodically

[Maciek]

Dear friedcat,

Is ASICMINER going to have more TH/s anytime soon? Where we can read about the plans and the timeframe of gaining more HashPower?


Cheers and good luck!

[Transisto]

Dear friedcat,

Is ASICMINER going to have more TH/s anytime soon? Where we can read about the plans and the timeframe of gaining more HashPower?


Cheers and good luck!

Updates are usually on Thursdays , Here's the last one. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1597133#msg1597133

[phr33]

Dear friedcat,

Is ASICMINER going to have more TH/s anytime soon? Where we can read about the plans and the timeframe of gaining more HashPower?


Cheers and good luck!

Updates are usually on Thursdays , Here's the last one. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1597133#msg1597133

First I don't see why updates only can come once a week. Of course we all appreciate that they all spend their time fixing stuff rather than typing in the forums, but 2 minutes each day would not be too much to ask.
Secondly, after waiting a week I think I wasn't alone to think the last update was a bit thin. There are plenty of questions in the thread that is left unanswered.

But then again. This is bitcoin-world Overall this project has delivered well beyond most other and beyond my expectations, so I don't have the guts to complain

[DutchBrat]

My feeling is that the last update wasn't written by Friedcat but by someone else on the Bitfountain team

Thats why it was shorter and without less real info than usual

I could be wrong though....

[ThickAsThieves]

First I don't see why updates only can come once a week. Of course we all appreciate that they all spend their time fixing stuff rather than typing in the forums, but 2 minutes each day would not be too much to ask.
Secondly, after waiting a week I think I wasn't alone to think the last update was a bit thin. There are plenty of questions in the thread that is left unanswered.

Agreed, let's not get all Stockholm syndrome-y about the vacuum of communication here.

But then again. This is bitcoin-world Overall this project has delivered well beyond most other and beyond my expectations, so I don't have the guts to complain

It's not complaining, we're investors and we're being fed tiny morsels of info that are insufficient in helping us make investment decisions related to the company.

[lophie]

It's not complaining, we're investors and we're being fed tiny morsels of info that are insufficient in helping us make investment decisions related to the company.

I totally agree and I am in this position as well. For me investing in a good mining operation means you having the least amount of MH/s.$ (and considering the relative compensations in benefits like dividends from selling ASICs)

So I was thinking of selling some of my shares to buy an Avalon ASIC. So knowing how fast and by how much ASICMINER is planning to grow the hash rate per share is very important for my decision.

Am I wrong guys?

[poly]

It's not complaining, we're investors and we're being fed tiny morsels of info that are insufficient in helping us make investment decisions related to the company.

I totally agree and I am in this position as well. For me investing in a good mining operation means you having the least amount of MH/s.$ (and considering the relative compensations in benefits like dividends from selling ASICs)

So I was thinking of selling some of my shares to buy an Avalon ASIC. So knowing how fast and by how much ASICMINER is planning to grow the hash rate per share is very important for my decision.

Am I wrong guys?

You're not wrong, but don't forget that you have to factor in your electricity rates, the time needed for setup / maintenance, shipping times / delays (avalon batch 2 will be delayed, I bet), and selling equipment to the public can be massive.

We really need to know how many TH/s is online right now through.

[SebastianJu]

Isnt it possible to calculate the hashrate from last week out of the dividends paid? I mean the loans are paid back with first dividend so the second dividend should be the complete mining income. We know how many shares are sold or even could see the paid bitcoins in blockchain.info. So taking that number of bitcoins, calculate the time back to the first dividend should it make possible to find out the average hashingrate that was online between first and second dividend payment. This way maybe we can see if the hashrate is higher than ozcoin 3 times bitfountain + btcguild asicminer or not.

[Akka]

Isnt it possible to calculate the hashrate from last week out of the dividends paid? I mean the loans are paid back with first dividend so the second dividend should be the complete mining income. We know how many shares are sold or even could see the paid bitcoins in blockchain.info. So taking that number of bitcoins, calculate the time back to the first dividend should it make possible to find out the average hashingrate that was online between first and second dividend payment. This way maybe we can see if the hashrate is higher than ozcoin 3 times bitfountain + btcguild asicminer or not.

Why so complicated.

friedcat could really just edit the OP once in a week with "Currently online xTh/s".

This isn't really very much to ask.

[SebastianJu]

Isnt it possible to calculate the hashrate from last week out of the dividends paid? I mean the loans are paid back with first dividend so the second dividend should be the complete mining income. We know how many shares are sold or even could see the paid bitcoins in blockchain.info. So taking that number of bitcoins, calculate the time back to the first dividend should it make possible to find out the average hashingrate that was online between first and second dividend payment. This way maybe we can see if the hashrate is higher than ozcoin 3 times bitfountain + btcguild asicminer or not.

Why so complicated.

friedcat could really just edit the OP once in a week with "Currently online xTh/s".

This isn't really very much to ask.

Thats right... he should/could do that. But as long as he doesnt calculating it would be a way to circumvent this lack of information. Or do i miss some facts that make this impossible?

[friedcat]

Update

It has been and will always be me myself who use the forum id friedcat to post updates and replies. If my partners are to announce the news or contact the shareholders instead of me, they will use their own account. Sorry for the sketchy and lack of information of the last update. I was exhausted and using a cellphone to make the reply.

The current running accounts are:

(ID 67117) on btcguild.
bitfountain, bitfountain1, bitfountain2 on ozcoin.

The anonymous user on ozcoin is not us. It might be a user with gradually bulk-purchased ASICs from other vendor, or another pool redirecting to ozcoin. Anyway we are also having not enough information to make the right conjecture. We are only of indirect competition against them. What we are directly chasing, is just the difficulty of the network.

The slow online speed is unexpected. It was caused by the bottleneck of the last stages of assembly several weeks ago, and a major modification of power supply as well as partial migrating to a larger place in the last week. Although we do not sell our devices yet so the vocabulary may be inaccurate, but roughly speaking the solution we are having is still a prototype instead of a product. Troubleshooting and time consuming works such as upgrading the power scheme and getting contracts with the other workshop has been taken up all the last week. But the best part is that most of them are one-time missions and will not be of a regular basis.

Taking as much our first-arriving advantage as we can in the limited time window is very important. All buyers of first batches of ASICs are of course having the same advantage and eating our portion especially when we were facing unstability and delays. However, as mentioned before, our shareholders are in a better place than individual miners, even those early-purchasers of ASICs. Because they share our expansions while we get the devices at the price of NRE+margin cost, instead of the price from any mining device vendors. Here is a rough estimation in the mid-term based on the rough estimation of our timeline:

By early April the next batch of finished devices will be available for deploying. At that time we will have a full team for installing and maintainance. If we get the 60TH/s online (conservative) in late April, and the hashrate of the full network from that time is 200TH/s which linearly increases to 1,000TH/s in late December. (200+1000)/2 = 600. So we will have 10% in average of the full network from late April to late December. That translates to about 88,000 Bitcoins total mined. That is 0.22BTC/share of gross income in eight months.

Also, we will always be mining from now to late April, so the revenue in this period should be counted in. And we will have more income in advance in the next years after we have access to much cheaper power. Some may say that 1,000TH/s in the end of this year is too conservative. But the calculation above about our capability is even more conservative because it does not contain our further expansion with more power efficient next-gen products.

Thats right... he should/could do that. But as long as he doesnt calculating it would be a way to circumvent this lack of information. Or do i miss some facts that make this impossible?

It's possible and will definitely do it. Also in the next days if without special circumstances/announcements, new hashpower will be added to the four existing accounts. And in further future if we solo, switch to new pools, or add new accounts of ours, we will not make them anonymous but make them seen by anyone, the same as the four existing accounts.

...we currently owe the board members more active contact and the community the samples.

WHY? I understand it right that someone will get an asic right? But first its said all shareholders will be treated the same and then a sample should be given to someone? That doesnt make sense to me. Even when it would be to start the selling of asics it wouldnt make sense at this point anymore because everyone knows quite fine now that the asics work.

The reason why we will give a limited number of trial boards out, is that we promised it long before (starting from Aug. 2012, the same time period when we did the fundraising via GLBSE). We did it with the intention of hoping the community could spread positive news and improve our firmware/hardware designs. We haven't predicted that our project has already proved itself to mass and already has the potential of meeting large customers if we are to sell some devices in the future without any real advertisements. We also haven't predicted that we are now way quite satisfied with our firmware and hardware design though they are done in an extreme hurry.

But please give some more informations to the shareholders so they dont have to guess so much fruitlessly... i mean writing a post is a matter of some minutes only...

Of course. And indeed, sorry for the inefficiency of contact these days.

[luffy]

thanks! then 6TH are already here!
good job!
then i guess the anonymous in ozco (if it is with ASICs) is the avalon team, who else?