ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[ianp]

Hi,

I think this is a great idea, since provides some organization and improves comunication between shareholders and Friedcat.

If somebody compiles it, i would like to add a question:

Q- ¿Had Friedcat considered to start an advertising campaign here in the forum?

I remember BFL campaign.  These guys may dont be great making chips, but they are good at marketing.  Every single person was noticed all the time, about that BFL ASICS.

I have read many shareholders focusing on ASICMINER website development. It could be fine, but i mean that a single advertising campaingn could works quite well improving sales and revenues.

Also, as a shareholder, i would like to include some ASICMINER advertise in my signature space.

Just curious, what benefit would a marketing campaign provide to shareholders? I speculate that there is no shortage of people willing to buy ASICMINER hardware (at this point, at least.)

What is it with bitcoiners not seeing the value in professional communications & marketing? Other than better math skills, this is probably the most deficient aspect of bitcoin business.

I certainly don't think it's a bad idea. I'm just curious what the tangible benefits are with regards to ASICMINER.

With regards to BTC in general -- yes, any professional marketing and communication advances that are made will certainly be of benefit to the community as a whole.

Ian

[jborkl]

I vote for remedial math courses.

[wtfvanity]

Just curious, what benefit would a marketing campaign provide to shareholders? I speculate that there is no shortage of people willing to buy ASICMINER hardware (at this point, at least.)

I think the only thing that a marketing campaign could do, we also include having a store front, where people could buy machines with say, credit cards. I guarantee that if credit cards were accepted, there would be a great deal more ASIC's sold by AM. Purchasing in BTC is a limiting factor for some. But with that of course, comes risk. But still, there is enough word of mouth, that paying for ads still may not benefit because they would probably sell as fast as they could make them at that point.

I agree that a way to convert fiat into mining hardware would be beneficial.

However, ASICMINER would have to then convert fiat to BTC to pay dividends. It feels clunky.

Not saying it's a bad idea, it's just a bit logistically challenging.

Ian

I'm not saying that AM should do it. I'm just saying that's the only market segment I think they are missing.

Anyone with BTC that wants AM, knows damn well about their ASIC's and what is available. People with credit cards would be the larger untapped market, but maybe that is a spot for a reseller.

[Fabrizio89]

Indeed, it doesn't make sense to avoid a different kind of market just because we are already doing fine at the moment. But I'm sure they already thought about this.

[bitfair]

• "Which is ASICMINER's bus factor?"

His post history indicates the answer is: 3.

I've looked over friedcat's history and didn't see anything that indicated that.  Do you have any specific posts that provided that information?

According to this post (July 3, 2012) there are three founders:

"We" the founders are three people at this moment. One of the partner has been working on the hardware section of a general purpose CPU design group. The other one has been working on the software section of a embedded-system-oriented CPU group but is heavily involved in the front-end of hardware design.

So we have the ASIC experience, but in different larger projects, and as smaller roles than, say, "they are made by just us".

My assumption is that having three founders means that the business would be able to continue even in the absence of a single person. Whether or not that satisfies an arbitrary person's request for an explicitly stated "bus factor" is up to them, I am at least happy with this statement together with my assumption.

[nexus 6]

What is it with bitcoiners not seeing the value in professional communications & marketing? Other than better math skills, this is probably the most deficient aspect of bitcoin business.

Thanks, this is exactly my point.

[toffoo]

Lets get back on this topic...

The number of shares held by the public... looking through the blockchain at satoshi transactions I can only account for 64,469 shares... where are the others?  Did I miss some? Are some shares not handled the same way as these? Did friedcat buy back some shares and we have yet to discover this?  Were there never actually more then this many shares sold and we were wrong all along?

Info taken from transactions on 5/29/2013 such as this transaction https://blockchain.info/tx/2f161bac1ef4c5dc09168de36a7c7c80a7d0ac236ec1e29a25c825d5c3a6ed7e and the other 5 like it (total of 6).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Am3MH7b0EM3adG56N1VzZzdtNXRZSkdOOXcxbGx0TXc&usp=sharing

Some basic information... From what I know all public holders of shares are paid one satoshi per share before dividends from 115tTroRo3B9ZDQ6ATJGDCHcNEVbjJoZnF.  By looking at all transactions from that address on a dividend day, I should be able to account for all publicly held shares and figure out what addresses own how many shares and track movement.  PT shares derive through publicly held shares (often called direct shares) so even though some people would not be represented here themselves... the PT should be listed and the pt share holders will be under that.  TAT confirmed his address was already listed here in my sheet.

Are my assumptions wrong?  Did I fuck up and miss a transaction in this spreadsheet?  Is YOUR dividend address listed? Or.. is something else going on.  If everyone reading this thread just checked to see if they see their address listed in my spreadsheet, we could quickly figure out if the mistake is on my end (which i assume is the case)...  If you do NOT see yours listed... link me to the transaction that includes your satoshies for 5/29.

Here's one for your spreadsheet that you missed:

https://blockchain.info/tx/a277fe830ef6b58d72614055fa53381fd85b6dd1714d21b3d1f6f88838b620eb

[freedomno1]

What is it with bitcoiners not seeing the value in professional communications & marketing? Other than better math skills, this is probably the most deficient aspect of bitcoin business.

Thanks, this is exactly my point.

Think Friedcat said something along the lines that these type of things are less important than working on building a better product for the shareholders.
And let the shareholders decide what to do with their bitcoins when it came to saving them. Since they have the funding they need for their projects (Around the time of the large dividend when friedcat made his reply regarding AM growth)
That said they have enough to run the company so a marketing arm would be nice
Till then just the Facebook Fan page lol

Update

The mass production of Block Erupter USB is to be done today. Busy testing and packaging will start.

About the argument of dividend payments, our view is that we will distribute the net income after necessary costs are excluded and funds for foreseeable future (expansion, gen-2 chips) are reserved. Bitcoin is already an investment itself having a great potential. Any investment, no matter how profitable, based on "turning Bitcoins to fiat first" requires double consideration. We can invest the RMBs to bonds and they are almost bound to be more profitable than just holding the RMBs, but we can never say the same to Bitcoins.

So we feel that it is most responsible to let the shareholders decide how to do with the abundant Bitcoins. We will of course find other investments (which are focused on helping the Bitcoin economy therefore benefit all Bitcoin holders), but they are all involved in different risk and return model than a mining/mining hardware company. The shareholders of ASICMINER are in principle not supposed to bear the new different risks on doing other business than Bitfountain's. So if there are new investments, they will be as new adventures, in new collaboration structures, and after a significant period of time since ASICMINER is always the most important job for us to do before the company could gradually run itself with a little less founder involvement.

[ThickAsThieves]

What is it with bitcoiners not seeing the value in professional communications & marketing? Other than better math skills, this is probably the most deficient aspect of bitcoin business.

Thanks, this is exactly my point.

Think Friedcat said something along the lines that these type of things are less important than working on building a better product for the shareholders.
And let the shareholders decide what to do with their bitcoins when it came to saving them. Since they had the funding they needed for their projects (Around the time of the large dividend when friedcat made his reply regarding AM growth)
That said they have enough to run the company so a marketing arm would be nice
Till then just the Facebook Fan page lol

By that interpretation, maybe we need to be setting up a separate arm of AM to market it. An AM Shareholders Fund or such. Of course this would be totally impractical because even if it got off of the ground, we'd have no knowledge of AM's production capacity or other plans that might relate to its marketing.

EDIT: That said, if AM is looking for marketing and advertising help, I'd be willing to spearhead the effort. Marketing & Branding are what I've spent most of my life doing...

[freedomno1]

What is it with bitcoiners not seeing the value in professional communications & marketing? Other than better math skills, this is probably the most deficient aspect of bitcoin business.

Thanks, this is exactly my point.

Think Friedcat said something along the lines that these type of things are less important than working on building a better product for the shareholders.
And let the shareholders decide what to do with their bitcoins when it came to saving them. Since they had the funding they needed for their projects (Around the time of the large dividend when friedcat made his reply regarding AM growth)
That said they have enough to run the company so a marketing arm would be nice
Till then just the Facebook Fan page lol

By that interpretation, maybe we need to be setting up a separate arm of AM to market it. An AM Shareholders Fund or such. Of course this would be totally impractical because even if it got off of the ground, we'd have no knowledge of AM's production capacity or other plans that might relate to its marketing.

EDIT: That said, if AM is looking for marketing and advertising help, I'd be willing to spearhead the effort. Marketing & Branding are what I've spent most of my life doing...

Well TAT you are diversified enough in AM that you could make their advertising arm and marketing while advertising the pass-thrus and Virtual mine

Aim for the top 50 or bust
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=219416.0;topicseen

Also if your spearheading such a project drop me a line would help out as well to world conquest he-he

[ThickAsThieves]

What is it with bitcoiners not seeing the value in professional communications & marketing? Other than better math skills, this is probably the most deficient aspect of bitcoin business.

Thanks, this is exactly my point.

Think Friedcat said something along the lines that these type of things are less important than working on building a better product for the shareholders.
And let the shareholders decide what to do with their bitcoins when it came to saving them. Since they had the funding they needed for their projects (Around the time of the large dividend when friedcat made his reply regarding AM growth)
That said they have enough to run the company so a marketing arm would be nice
Till then just the Facebook Fan page lol

By that interpretation, maybe we need to be setting up a separate arm of AM to market it. An AM Shareholders Fund or such. Of course this would be totally impractical because even if it got off of the ground, we'd have no knowledge of AM's production capacity or other plans that might relate to its marketing.

EDIT: That said, if AM is looking for marketing and advertising help, I'd be willing to spearhead the effort. Marketing & Branding are what I've spent most of my life doing...

Well TAT you are diversified enough in AM that you could make their advertising arm and marketing while advertising the pass-thrus and Virtual mine

Aim for the top 50 or bust
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=219416.0;topicseen

Also if your spearheading such a project drop me a line would help out as well to world conquest he-he

I already dabble

[nexus 6]

I volunteer too.  I Have got website development skills and some other.  If Friedcat agree, im sure we cand do a good job

[binaryFate]

I'd be willing to help too.

[VJain]

Web Developer - primarily frontend (JS/HTML/CSS) - with OCD . Pixel perfection or bust.

[SebastianJu]

Just curious, what benefit would a marketing campaign provide to shareholders? I speculate that there is no shortage of people willing to buy ASICMINER hardware (at this point, at least.)

I think the only thing that a marketing campaign could do, we also include having a store front, where people could buy machines with say, credit cards. I guarantee that if credit cards were accepted, there would be a great deal more ASIC's sold by AM. Purchasing in BTC is a limiting factor for some. But with that of course, comes risk. But still, there is enough word of mouth, that paying for ads still may not benefit because they would probably sell as fast as they could make them at that point.

I wouldnt feel good with AM accepting credit card payments. Thats way too risky. Similar to getting paid with paypal. But there are other payment options that dont have this risk. Those could be used. But more important than this would be a shop. Something official where intereste buyers can inform shortly and then buying. BFL should be a good example how it could work.
But then again... friedcat and team most probably will work hard all day. Spending time on secondary things will most probably draw workpower from things that can raise the dividend even higher.

[sleger]

I wouldnt feel good with AM accepting credit card payments. Thats way too risky. Similar to getting paid with paypal.

So all the websites that accept credit cards are doomed and should immediately stop ? 

[ThickAsThieves]

I wouldnt feel good with AM accepting credit card payments. Thats way too risky. Similar to getting paid with paypal.

So all the websites that accept credit cards are doomed and should immediately stop ? 

No, but this is a BTC business and it is in all of our best interests that they only sell for BTC.

[bitfair]

I wouldnt feel good with AM accepting credit card payments. Thats way too risky. Similar to getting paid with paypal.

So all the websites that accept credit cards are doomed and should immediately stop ? 

No, but this is a BTC business and it is in all of our best interests that they only sell for BTC.

I kind of agree, but kind of disagree too.

Selling mining gear in traditional currencies might engage people who cannot get hold of BTC otherwise. Then again, selling for BTC grows the "bitcoin economy". In my opinion, one doesn't need to necessarily exclude the other, as long as risks are properly considered...

[sleger]

I wouldnt feel good with AM accepting credit card payments. Thats way too risky. Similar to getting paid with paypal.

So all the websites that accept credit cards are doomed and should immediately stop ? 

No, but this is a BTC business and it is in all of our best interests that they only sell for BTC.

I kind of agree, but kind of disagree too.

Selling mining gear in traditional currencies might engage people who cannot get hold of BTC otherwise. Then again, selling for BTC grows the "bitcoin economy". In my opinion, one doesn't need to necessarily exclude the other, as long as risks are properly considered...

+1 was going to reply something along those lines. Best way to get into bitcoins : buy miner for fiat then mine bitcoins

[miTgiB]

I wouldnt feel good with AM accepting credit card payments. Thats way too risky. Similar to getting paid with paypal.

So all the websites that accept credit cards are doomed and should immediately stop ? 

No, but this is a BTC business and it is in all of our best interests that they only sell for BTC.

I kind of agree, but kind of disagree too.

Selling mining gear in traditional currencies might engage people who cannot get hold of BTC otherwise. Then again, selling for BTC grows the "bitcoin economy". In my opinion, one doesn't need to necessarily exclude the other, as long as risks are properly considered...

I tend to agree taking whatever you can to make the sale is the right course, and PayPal is far less risky than credit cards.  These are physical products being shipped via trackable shippers, so no disputes would be lost.