ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[Pale Phoenix]

I don't pay for promises. I pay for results and delivery.

Others promise. And promise. And promise.

Friedcat delivers.

That's perfectly logical and valid. Of course, you may miss out on some large returns, but this is all about risk / reward and we all have different risk appetites.

As well, before Friedcat delivered, he made promises, and taking on that risk has been very good for investors.

[Jere.Jones]

It looks like friedcat refunded the 200BTC fee: https://blockchain.info/tx/b18abce37b48a5f434f108ae7ce34f22aa2bfbd9eb9310314029e4b9e3c7cf95

[Rebelution]

Asicminer:
  Currently having difficulty maintaining running blades.  In fact, in friedcat's most recent post he even mentioned that one of the reasons they aren't posting an actual hashing meter is because it would require them to perform more maintenance (leading one to assume they are laxed on the maintenance and letting people see that would be a problem).  This is further exacerbated by mysterious network issues that cause them to be unable to process all available transactions (losing fee's) and leading to orphaned blocks (highest orphaned block count of any mining pool).  These same 'network issues' are frequently friedcat's excuse as to why hashing seems to be going offline.  How hard is it to hire quality sys admins in China anyway?

I don't think the bolded part is a fair conclusion.  I think his meaning is more that it would add an additional responsibility and commitment of resources because if it went down then people on this board would be screaming and going nuts.  So overall its just not worth it and is a waste of resources.  Plus it would allow DDoS's and other malicious attackers a method of determining EXACTLY how effective their attacks were.  In case you haven't notice, friedcat is a very unique cat indeed in the bitcoin mining community (honest, thoughtful, intelligent, takes care of his customers / shareholders, not willing to engage in malicious behavior, etc.).

Also I think it is a bigger issue than just hiring a sys admins.  Since the parent company owns the vast majority of the shares, obviously it is also in friedcat's best interest to fix the issue.  It makes no sense for any party involved to just shrug at the number of orphaned blocks.  I am sure if it was a simple fix that he would do it.  I think its a bigger issue related to China's internet firewalls, weird network issues and other Chinese internet idiosyncrasies.

[dhenson]

Asicminer:
  Currently having difficulty maintaining running blades.  In fact, in friedcat's most recent post he even mentioned that one of the reasons they aren't posting an actual hashing meter is because it would require them to perform more maintenance (leading one to assume they are laxed on the maintenance and letting people see that would be a problem).  This is further exacerbated by mysterious network issues that cause them to be unable to process all available transactions (losing fee's) and leading to orphaned blocks (highest orphaned block count of any mining pool).  These same 'network issues' are frequently friedcat's excuse as to why hashing seems to be going offline.  How hard is it to hire quality sys admins in China anyway?

I don't think the bolded part is a fair conclusion.  I think his meaning is more that it would add an additional responsibility and commitment of resources because if it went down then people on this board would be screaming and going nuts.  So overall its just not worth it and is a waste of resources.  Plus it would allow DDoS's and other malicious attackers a method of determining EXACTLY how effective their attacks were.  In case you haven't notice, friedcat is a very unique cat indeed in the bitcoin mining community (honest, thoughtful, intelligent, takes care of his customers / shareholders, not willing to engage in malicious behavior, etc.).

Also I think it is a bigger issue than just hiring a sys admins.  Since the parent company owns the vast majority of the shares, obviously it is also in friedcat's best interest to fix the issue.  It makes no sense for any party involved to just shrug at the number of orphaned blocks.  I am sure if it was a simple fix that he would do it.  I think its a bigger issue related to China's internet firewalls, weird network issues and other Chinese internet idiosyncrasies.

Except that hosting a private mining pool (just like bitfury) would solve both issues.  The pool could exist outside of the firewall and would not be subject to the orphaned block/transaction issues. It would also give current mining hash rate values to all of the investors.

This isn't difficult.

[keystroke]

It looks like friedcat refunded the 200BTC fee: https://blockchain.info/tx/b18abce37b48a5f434f108ae7ce34f22aa2bfbd9eb9310314029e4b9e3c7cf95

I like investing in companies with ethics.

[freedomno1]

It looks like friedcat refunded the 200BTC fee: https://blockchain.info/tx/b18abce37b48a5f434f108ae7ce34f22aa2bfbd9eb9310314029e4b9e3c7cf95

 Friedcat is honorable and has my respect.

[Rebelution]

Asicminer:
  Currently having difficulty maintaining running blades.  In fact, in friedcat's most recent post he even mentioned that one of the reasons they aren't posting an actual hashing meter is because it would require them to perform more maintenance (leading one to assume they are laxed on the maintenance and letting people see that would be a problem).  This is further exacerbated by mysterious network issues that cause them to be unable to process all available transactions (losing fee's) and leading to orphaned blocks (highest orphaned block count of any mining pool).  These same 'network issues' are frequently friedcat's excuse as to why hashing seems to be going offline.  How hard is it to hire quality sys admins in China anyway?

I don't think the bolded part is a fair conclusion.  I think his meaning is more that it would add an additional responsibility and commitment of resources because if it went down then people on this board would be screaming and going nuts.  So overall its just not worth it and is a waste of resources.  Plus it would allow DDoS's and other malicious attackers a method of determining EXACTLY how effective their attacks were.  In case you haven't notice, friedcat is a very unique cat indeed in the bitcoin mining community (honest, thoughtful, intelligent, takes care of his customers / shareholders, not willing to engage in malicious behavior, etc.).

Also I think it is a bigger issue than just hiring a sys admins.  Since the parent company owns the vast majority of the shares, obviously it is also in friedcat's best interest to fix the issue.  It makes no sense for any party involved to just shrug at the number of orphaned blocks.  I am sure if it was a simple fix that he would do it.  I think its a bigger issue related to China's internet firewalls, weird network issues and other Chinese internet idiosyncrasies.

Except that hosting a private mining pool (just like bitfury) would solve both issues.  The pool could exist outside of the firewall and would not be subject to the orphaned block/transaction issues. It would also give current mining hash rate values to all of the investors.

This isn't difficult.

The orphaned blocks are due to a poor network connection to other bitcoin nodes, correct?  If AM is having issues connecting to other bitcoin nodes it will have the same issues with connecting to a pool outside of the firewall, no?

Again I prefer no hash rate meter as it give more info to competitors / malicious attackers.  If shareholders have an issue with that, that is fine.  No one is forcing them to invest.

[tehelsper]

New Blades?! And .2 BTC USBs!


[OPEN] batch #23/24 ASICMiner USB + NEW Blade miners
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283458.0

[101111]

It looks like friedcat refunded the 200BTC fee: https://blockchain.info/tx/b18abce37b48a5f434f108ae7ce34f22aa2bfbd9eb9310314029e4b9e3c7cf95

I like investing in companies with ethics.

+1

Slightly OT, have a quick look through the Avaloan thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269950.msg3032439#msg3032439. What a disaster! Makes our concerns about the hash rate, communications, etc pale into total insignificance.

[David Chen]

Yesterday, Friedcat mined a block that contains 200 BTC transtion fees, which resulted by  somebody mistaken processing.

But today, Friedcat give back the 200 BTC to the guy.

Nice Friedcat !
 

[romerun]

200 gone with some mining karma back

[ninjarobot]

200 gone with some mining karma back

I'll take the karma. Friedcat has integrity and that is worth a *lot* in this climate of scammers, opportunists and fraudsters.

[Vycid]

200 gone with some mining karma back

I'll take the karma. Friedcat has integrity and that is worth a *lot* in this climate of scammers, opportunists and fraudsters.

Frankly, my valuation of AM has increased more than the 200 BTC that Friedcat gave back. Knowing you're investing in a company run by an honest guy is worth a lot.

[FloatesMcgoates]

200 gone with some mining karma back

I'll take the karma. Friedcat has integrity and that is worth a *lot* in this climate of scammers, opportunists and fraudsters.

Frankly, my valuation of AM has increased more than the 200 BTC that Friedcat gave back. Knowing you're investing in a company run by an honest guy is worth a lot.

+1

One of the premier strengths that ASICminer boasts over all other companies currently out there is their unrivaled legitimacy and trust - commodities that are lacking in the are of bitcoin in general.

[TheSwede75]

Say what you will about ROI but those new blades are going to sell like hotcakes if they are the model with USB connectors.

[VeeMiner]

Say what you will about ROI but those new blades are going to sell like hotcakes if they are the model with USB connectors.

yeah, they will... just look at the old blades sale - sold out under 24 hours

[gramma]

200 gone with some mining karma back

I'll take the karma. Friedcat has integrity and that is worth a *lot* in this climate of scammers, opportunists and fraudsters.

Frankly, my valuation of AM has increased more than the 200 BTC that Friedcat gave back. Knowing you're investing in a company run by an honest guy is worth a lot.

Same.  You're a pretty analytical guy, so I find it interesting and meaningful that you're assigning importance to something unquantifiable. Honesty doesn't fix datacenter woes, shipping glitches, nor competitors' efforts. But for me, it is another indicator that I can have a decent level of trust in this guy whom I've never met, nor have any "real world" visibility into.  Doing business on a handshake is rare these days. Doing so successfully... well, I'm pleased to count myself among the lucky ones to be a small part of Friedcat's world.

[Vycid]

200 gone with some mining karma back

I'll take the karma. Friedcat has integrity and that is worth a *lot* in this climate of scammers, opportunists and fraudsters.

Frankly, my valuation of AM has increased more than the 200 BTC that Friedcat gave back. Knowing you're investing in a company run by an honest guy is worth a lot.

Same.  You're a pretty analytical guy, so I find it interesting and meaningful that you're assigning importance to something unquantifiable. Honesty doesn't fix datacenter woes, shipping glitches, nor competitors' efforts. But for me, it is another indicator that I can have a decent level of trust in this guy whom I've never met, nor have any "real world" visibility into.  Doing business on a handshake is rare these days. Doing so successfully... well, I'm pleased to count myself among the lucky ones to be a small part of Friedcat's world.

I normally don't consider intangibles (and, as a rule, I avoid companies where intangibles rationally and justifiably make up a significant portion of the value).

This is a special case. There would be little to no repercussions to Friedcat walking off with everyone's money. The counterparty risk is huge and must be considered in any accurate true-value calculation.

This action seems, to me, to have reduced the "effective converted liability" represented by counterparty risk by significantly more than 200 BTC. That's how I reconcile it with the rest of my analysis, at least.

[deltanine]

200 gone with some mining karma back

I'll take the karma. Friedcat has integrity and that is worth a *lot* in this climate of scammers, opportunists and fraudsters.

Frankly, my valuation of AM has increased more than the 200 BTC that Friedcat gave back. Knowing you're investing in a company run by an honest guy is worth a lot.

Same.  You're a pretty analytical guy, so I find it interesting and meaningful that you're assigning importance to something unquantifiable. Honesty doesn't fix datacenter woes, shipping glitches, nor competitors' efforts. But for me, it is another indicator that I can have a decent level of trust in this guy whom I've never met, nor have any "real world" visibility into.  Doing business on a handshake is rare these days. Doing so successfully... well, I'm pleased to count myself among the lucky ones to be a small part of Friedcat's world.

I normally don't consider intangibles (and, as a rule, I avoid companies where intangibles make up a significant portion of the value).

But this is different. There would be little to no repercussions to Friedcat walking off with everyone's money. The counterparty risk is huge and must be considered in any accurate true-value calculation.

This, to me, reduces the "effective converted liability" represented by counterparty risk by significantly more than 200 BTC. That's how I reconcile it with the rest of my analysis, at least.

Friedcat has built a nice track record of trustworthiness.

EDIT:
Just now remembering when you posted this.

You're right that this is not the real concern. If Friedcat was bent on defrauding shareholders, there would be many better options. But that potential IS there, and we've had so many past catastrophes (Bitcoinica, Pirateat40) and failures (BFL, now Avalon) that I'm surprised to see so little discussion of the risk.

Even though I'm sure you still feel AM is overvalued, I'm happy that you now understand why there was so little discussion of risk.

[VeeMiner]

Friedcat has built a nice track record of trustworthiness.

since the beginning of the GLBSE bust friedcat has always proved himself to be trustworthy and reliable. That's one of the reasons why I invested in AM and it has been the best investment I have ever made.