ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[John (John K.)]

So 2941.66BTC were paid out as dividend and 2000BTC are kept for ICs. That must be really hard to get ones when they are $236000. And the dividend would have been 2/3 higher if that didnt happen. Good news for next week i guess.

The usb sticks are going to be a huge success, but we desperately need something better than bidding in the auction forum here to sell them; the last couple minutes of the last auction were a bit crazy, and many bidders got blocked out with the last second frenzy by the anti-spam settings for the forum.

Problem is, how to set this all up on a solid auction forum?  We can at least have some vetting on the bidders to some extent when they take place on this forum, but as the volume of the auctions ramps up, I fear this will become an unmanageable mess.

I would vote for an 5 min extension of the auction lifetime after the last bid was placed. That should help in the last minutes to solve many problems. And in auction start thread the user are guided to go into forum user settings and auto detect their timezone + setting their like in regards to 12/24 hours view. So that everyone can see the timecode of the last bid and can calculate 5 mins on top to ensure when the auction ends now.

5 might be too long

[SebastianJu]

5 might be too long

I think youre right. Otherwise everyone would wait 5 mins with the "last" bid and it would grow indefinitely. But 1 min might help. Though i dont know if its enough time to get around the trouble of not being allowed to post?

[arklan]

a secret ballot style auction could prove very interesting, i think. not that i'm advocating for it. but it would be interesting to see the result.

[John (John K.)]

5 might be too long

I think youre right. Otherwise everyone would wait 5 mins with the "last" bid and it would grow indefinitely. But 1 min might help. Though i dont know if its enough time to get around the trouble of not being allowed to post?

Hmm... There should be a guide at the OP to disable the warning where if someone posted first. 1 minute should be enough for those who has not done so anyway as the auction is already extended by 1 minutes.

Yeah, the secret ballot style auction might work too as I said above, but I sell prefer the auction extension style.More transparent.

[ineededausername]

Wow, you'd have to be an idiot to sell now

15 TH/s tomorrow... huge (>double!) dividends next week... and it's only going to get better!

[SebastianJu]

5 might be too long

I think youre right. Otherwise everyone would wait 5 mins with the "last" bid and it would grow indefinitely. But 1 min might help. Though i dont know if its enough time to get around the trouble of not being allowed to post?

Hmm... There should be a guide at the OP to disable the warning where if someone posted first. 1 minute should be enough for those who has not done so anyway as the auction is already extended by 1 minutes.

It was only this problem? I thought that shouldnt be a problem if there is a 1min window after a bid. I mean a poster isnt forced to read the new posts before he posts. So when a red line appears one could simply click on send again and most probably it will work.
I guess it only was a problem because everyone wanted to snipe at the last second and couldnt do it because the auction had a strict ending time, no floating one. I wonder how many btc were lost this way.

[organofcorti]

5 might be too long

I think youre right. Otherwise everyone would wait 5 mins with the "last" bid and it would grow indefinitely. But 1 min might help. Though i dont know if its enough time to get around the trouble of not being allowed to post?

Hmm... There should be a guide at the OP to disable the warning where if someone posted first. 1 minute should be enough for those who has not done so anyway as the auction is already extended by 1 minutes.

Yeah, the secret ballot style auction might work too as I said above, but I sell prefer the auction extension style.More transparent.

If you don't want a sealed bid auction, how about a Dutch auction? Start high, and bids are fulfilled until the last item is sold. I reckon a Dutch auction would do well since you already have an indication of how well the ASICs will sell, and people are very keen not to miss out.

[Luke-Jr]

The usb sticks are going to be a huge success, but we desperately need something better than bidding in the auction forum here to sell them; the last couple minutes of the last auction were a bit crazy, and many bidders got blocked out with the last second frenzy by the anti-spam settings for the forum.

Problem is, how to set this all up on a solid auction forum?  We can at least have some vetting on the bidders to some extent when they take place on this forum, but as the volume of the auctions ramps up, I fear this will become an unmanageable mess.

Aren't there already dedicated bitcoin auction sites?
Why not give each of them some quantity to auction off?
And for the next rounds, prefer the one(s) that sell at the highest prices...

[louong]

The usb sticks are going to be a huge success, but we desperately need something better than bidding in the auction forum here to sell them; the last couple minutes of the last auction were a bit crazy, and many bidders got blocked out with the last second frenzy by the anti-spam settings for the forum.

Problem is, how to set this all up on a solid auction forum?  We can at least have some vetting on the bidders to some extent when they take place on this forum, but as the volume of the auctions ramps up, I fear this will become an unmanageable mess.

Probably most bidders should know by now to turn off those settings when they want to bid. Or in the OP for the auction it should be stated as a suggestion.

Not sure how realistic it is to auction all the USB sticks, maybe batches of 100 max each? You could make it a reverse auction, where ASICMINER will set an initial price (presumably high), and everyone who wants in on that price bids x# of units.

If all 100 are spoken for at that price, then an auction will start, with the bidding to start at the initial price, with a specified end date. This should weed out the period of initial low bids (see last ASICMINER auction where a lot of time and thread space was wasted for the bids between 9 to 30 BTC when the 30-50 BTC was what really mattered). At the end date and time, additional bids extend the auction by 5 minutes.

If all 100 are not sold at that initial price, then every hour/pre-determined time period, the price will drop by 0.5BTC, until there are enough unit bids to reach 100, at which point the auction ends, and the first 100 bids will pay the same price.

[John (John K.)]

Hmm... I'm not sure of how a Dutch auction for multiple goods would work. It would confuse some bidders too (heck, I've been getting PM's on how basic auctions work)

[gmouse]

2,000 Bitcoins have been reserved for the re-investment:

1. Deposits for the long-term pre-order of hard-to-get ICs.
2. Costs of mass production of Block Erupter USB sticks.

The projected rising to 15TH/s by tomorrow night is still on track.
The samples of the USB sticks are being tested.

That is approximately the amount of $USD as the IPO raised?  So, this appears to be a substantial re-investment in the company.  Dunno what those ICs might be, but let me know, and I will look under my bed to see if I have a few laying around!

[John (John K.)]

The usb sticks are going to be a huge success, but we desperately need something better than bidding in the auction forum here to sell them; the last couple minutes of the last auction were a bit crazy, and many bidders got blocked out with the last second frenzy by the anti-spam settings for the forum.

Problem is, how to set this all up on a solid auction forum?  We can at least have some vetting on the bidders to some extent when they take place on this forum, but as the volume of the auctions ramps up, I fear this will become an unmanageable mess.

Aren't there already dedicated bitcoin auction sites?
Why not give each of them some quantity to auction off?
And for the next rounds, prefer the one(s) that sell at the highest prices...

How would you prevent shill/joy bidding then? I've seen auctions in bitmit destroyed by shill bids as it's easy to make an account to bid.  In this forum, we have newbie restrictions.

[John (John K.)]

The usb sticks are going to be a huge success, but we desperately need something better than bidding in the auction forum here to sell them; the last couple minutes of the last auction were a bit crazy, and many bidders got blocked out with the last second frenzy by the anti-spam settings for the forum.

Problem is, how to set this all up on a solid auction forum?  We can at least have some vetting on the bidders to some extent when they take place on this forum, but as the volume of the auctions ramps up, I fear this will become an unmanageable mess.

Probably most bidders should know by now to turn off those settings when they want to bid. Or in the OP for the auction it should be stated as a suggestion.

Not sure how realistic it is to auction all the USB sticks, maybe batches of 100 max each? You could make it a reverse auction, where ASICMINER will set an initial price (presumably high), and everyone who wants in on that price bids x# of units.

If all 100 are spoken for at that price, then an auction will start, with the bidding to start at the initial price, with a specified end date. This should weed out the period of initial low bids (see last ASICMINER auction where a lot of time and thread space was wasted for the bids between 9 to 30 BTC when the 30-50 BTC was what really mattered). At the end date and time, additional bids extend the auction by 5 minutes.

If all 100 are not sold at that initial price, then every hour/pre-determined time period, the price will drop by 0.5BTC, until there are enough unit bids to reach 100, at which point the auction ends, and the first 100 bids will pay the same price.

Seems feasible and a lot more easy. 

[arklan]

The usb sticks are going to be a huge success, but we desperately need something better than bidding in the auction forum here to sell them; the last couple minutes of the last auction were a bit crazy, and many bidders got blocked out with the last second frenzy by the anti-spam settings for the forum.

Problem is, how to set this all up on a solid auction forum?  We can at least have some vetting on the bidders to some extent when they take place on this forum, but as the volume of the auctions ramps up, I fear this will become an unmanageable mess.

Probably most bidders should know by now to turn off those settings when they want to bid. Or in the OP for the auction it should be stated as a suggestion.

Not sure how realistic it is to auction all the USB sticks, maybe batches of 100 max each? You could make it a reverse auction, where ASICMINER will set an initial price (presumably high), and everyone who wants in on that price bids x# of units.

If all 100 are spoken for at that price, then an auction will start, with the bidding to start at the initial price, with a specified end date. This should weed out the period of initial low bids (see last ASICMINER auction where a lot of time and thread space was wasted for the bids between 9 to 30 BTC when the 30-50 BTC was what really mattered). At the end date and time, additional bids extend the auction by 5 minutes.

If all 100 are not sold at that initial price, then every hour/pre-determined time period, the price will drop by 0.5BTC, until there are enough unit bids to reach 100, at which point the auction ends, and the first 100 bids will pay the same price.

Seems feasible and a lot more easy. 

the concern then, for me anyway, is the whole "lots of 100" part. i am absolutely looking to get my hands on some of these usb miners, but there's no way i can afford ten, let alone 100. would we see those who win the 100 then reselling them for a higher price, and that would be the only way for small fries like me to get one?

[Newar]

the concern then, for me anyway, is the whole "lots of 100" part. i am absolutely looking to get my hands on some of these usb miners, but there's no way i can afford ten, let alone 100. would we see those who win the 100 then reselling them for a higher price, and that would be the only way for small fries like me to get one?

I think they meant one auction per 100. Instead of one auction for 1000. Easier to keep track.
 

[Newar]

Looking like 0.00735415/share this week

Confirmed 0.00735415

[Rodyland]

Surely there has to be a way to use bitcoin itself, or the blockchain, to bid and avoid dummy bids?

http://www.bitescrow.org/

How about if to bid you need to get the auctioneer (one of several maybe) to set up an escrow transaction and send out a payment invite to the bidder.   The bidder pays bitcoin to the escrow account, and then publishes the address and amount to the thread.  The bid is deemed valid when the address hits the thread, and the bid amount can be verified by anyone.

If someone is outbid, the auctioneer sends them the other half of the escrow key.

For the winning bids, the escrow keys are sent to friedcat instead.

No dummy bids, no welching on payments.  Anyone buying to flip needs to front the bitcoin first.

[louong]

Not sure how realistic it is to auction all the USB sticks, maybe batches of 100 max each? You could make it a reverse auction, where ASICMINER will set an initial price (presumably high), and everyone who wants in on that price bids x# of units.

If all 100 are spoken for at that price, then an auction will start, with the bidding to start at the initial price, with a specified end date. This should weed out the period of initial low bids (see last ASICMINER auction where a lot of time and thread space was wasted for the bids between 9 to 30 BTC when the 30-50 BTC was what really mattered). At the end date and time, additional bids extend the auction by 5 minutes.

If all 100 are not sold at that initial price, then every hour/pre-determined time period, the price will drop by 0.5BTC, until there are enough unit bids to reach 100, at which point the auction ends, and the first 100 bids will pay the same price.

Seems feasible and a lot more easy.  

the concern then, for me anyway, is the whole "lots of 100" part. i am absolutely looking to get my hands on some of these usb miners, but there's no way i can afford ten, let alone 100. would we see those who win the 100 then reselling them for a higher price, and that would be the only way for small fries like me to get one?

Sorry, meant an auction of 100 USB miners where bidders can bid on any amount of them (as opposed to say 300 or however many total that ASICMINER have ready). Each auction can happen once a week or something to prevent oversaturation.

I don't think resale should be an issue if we set a high initial price and then either sell all 100 by going down in price until there is enough demand to sell all 100. Or if for some reason there is enough demand from bidders to take all 100 units at the initial price, start the auction from that price so it saves time and work for John K. (or whoever is handling the auction).

[louong]

Surely there has to be a way to use bitcoin itself, or the blockchain, to bid and avoid dummy bids?

http://www.bitescrow.org/

How about if to bid you need to get the auctioneer (one of several maybe) to set up an escrow transaction and send out a payment invite to the bidder.   The bidder pays bitcoin to the escrow account, and then publishes the address and amount to the thread.  The bid is deemed valid when the address hits the thread, and the bid amount can be verified by anyone.

If someone is outbid, the auctioneer sends them the other half of the escrow key.

For the winning bids, the escrow keys are sent to friedcat instead.

No dummy bids, no welching on payments.  Anyone buying to flip needs to front the bitcoin first.

I like this - basically a "cash up front" auction to weed out non-serious people.

[John (John K.)]

Surely there has to be a way to use bitcoin itself, or the blockchain, to bid and avoid dummy bids?

http://www.bitescrow.org/

How about if to bid you need to get the auctioneer (one of several maybe) to set up an escrow transaction and send out a payment invite to the bidder.   The bidder pays bitcoin to the escrow account, and then publishes the address and amount to the thread.  The bid is deemed valid when the address hits the thread, and the bid amount can be verified by anyone.

If someone is outbid, the auctioneer sends them the other half of the escrow key.

For the winning bids, the escrow keys are sent to friedcat instead.

No dummy bids, no welching on payments.  Anyone buying to flip needs to front the bitcoin first.

Sorry, wouldn't work. You overestimate the general public's willingness to learn. Also, most buyers I know do not have the coins on hand, and transfer them via Gox or otherwise after the auction.