ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[ensurance982]

Ha, really, FC effectively holding the BTC hostage so we can't cash them out prematurely really is a stretch It's a joke of course, still a funny thought! People who are weak anyways, are going to sell their shares and lose even more

 For the sake of all that is profane!  Investing is not about strength or balls or masculinity!!
Many weak and yes even weak-minded people have invested profitably and many of the world's strongest and brightest have lost more than you can fathom in markets.  GIVE IT A REST!

No, but about perseverance. People who are called 'weak hands' are more likely to panic and sell their shares due to price fluctuations or Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt! While people who made up their minds will ride those waves and wait for good times. Sometimes one has to ignore the rumours.

[jdany]

I don't think I am going to do much of anything until any kind of div gets paid.
Selling would be stupid.
Buying more might tie up BTC for more than I am willing to wait.

Patience.

[arnuschky]

Patience.

Bought AM cheap last November I think. Gen3 was on the horizon and everybody told me "patience", big things to come. Now I can see the 1-year anniversary of my investment coming - and I tell myself "patience". I wonder if this investment is ever going to be anything but a lesson in patience...

The most annoying thing is that it just occupies so much mind-space.

[ensurance982]

I don't think I am going to do much of anything until any kind of div gets paid.
Selling would be stupid.
Buying more might tie up BTC for more than I am willing to wait.

Patience.

Yeah... You effectively have to decide how much exposure you're willing to have. Hedge against the risks involved with this asset and apart from that maybe just don't look at the share price if things get too dire

[Bonam]

For the believers in "patience" here, those saying that AM will eventually deliver a profit, honest question:

What is your criteria for when you will no longer believe this? What evidence would make you cut your losses and run? A length of time that passes with no news or no dividend? A certain point in the share price? The failure of gen 4 to materialize in 2015? Or is it a matter of eternal unquestioning belief unless friedcat comes out and says that he is calling it quits?

[ensurance982]

For the believers in "patience" here, those saying that AM will eventually deliver a profit, honest question:

What is your criteria for when you will no longer believe this? What evidence would make you cut your losses and run? A length of time that passes with no news or no dividend? A certain point in the share price? The failure of gen 4 to materialize in 2015? Or is it a matter of eternal unquestioning belief unless friedcat comes out and says that he is calling it quits?

I guess when gen 4 appears to have failed completely and friedcat can't give us any hopes or plans on how to turn the wagon around anymore. How long a stretch of silence would be acceptable is difficult to say, but maybe he'd even be honest enough to tell us that things have gone awry.

[MilkyLep]

Brief Answers to Shareholder Questions

6) What is the progress on gen4?

It is 28nm and has two major improvements: the first one is to fix the design errors we had with 40nm (which made our silicon data two times worse than simulated data). We believe that 0.35W/G at rated speed of 400MHz would be achievable in 40nm if no mistakes were made before. The second one is the technology improvement from 40nm to 28nm in terms of density, speed and power.

We are on the stage of evaluating the final design choices by running the physical design flow on different settings.

20) What are the future plans and visions of Asicminer?

There will be at least two generations ahead. If future Bitcoin market cap allows there can be more. As we are keeping the chip design capability to grow with state-of-the-art technology as well as good channels with fabrication we can be flexible in terms of business mode be it chip-based or device-based.

Its almost as if everyone forgot about these answers during the panicked shitstorm over waiting on a few hundred satoshis. But I guess theyre just words after all right.

[jimmothy]

For the believers in "patience" here, those saying that AM will eventually deliver a profit, honest question:

What is your criteria for when you will no longer believe this? What evidence would make you cut your losses and run? A length of time that passes with no news or no dividend? A certain point in the share price? The failure of gen 4 to materialize in 2015? Or is it a matter of eternal unquestioning belief unless friedcat comes out and says that he is calling it quits?

There are plenty of reasons I'd no longer believe in AM but those reasons don't include an extended silence or a massive dumping on havelock.

A complete failure of gen4 would be the end of AM (IMO) so I would definitely dump my shares, but a hugely successful gen4 could also mean a return to 1btc/shares.

[RoadStress]

...but a hugely successful gen4 could also mean a return to 1btc/shares.

More than the all-time ~0.60btc/share from the good days of mining when people were spending money recklessly? How did you got the 1btc/share number? How much revenue is needed in $ or BTC for that big big dividends?

[explorer]

...but a hugely successful gen4 could also mean a return to 1btc/shares.

More than the all-time ~0.60btc/share from the good days of mining when people were spending money recklessly? How did you got the 1btc/share number? How much revenue is needed in $ or BTC for that big big dividends?

10% of the network reward is about .0063 per share weekly IIRC, which would generally support a share price around 1.0.  Cost deductions offset by higher network % and/or sales profits could put it in the 1.0 - 1.5 range  if mining works out at all like friedcat has planned.  There's a few 'if's' in there, for sure, but thats my current view.

[Mabsark]

For the believers in "patience" here, those saying that AM will eventually deliver a profit, honest question:

What is your criteria for when you will no longer believe this? What evidence would make you cut your losses and run? A length of time that passes with no news or no dividend? A certain point in the share price? The failure of gen 4 to materialize in 2015? Or is it a matter of eternal unquestioning belief unless friedcat comes out and says that he is calling it quits?

Your questions don't really make much sense because AM delivered a profit long ago. Share price at IPO was 0.1 BTC/share and 0.60289304 BTC/share has been paid out in dividends.

[jdany]

I'm trying to remember back in 2013.

They were still selling Gen1 in July 13.
When did they start development on Gen2?
When did they pull the plug on it?

[Bonam]

Your questions don't really make much sense because AM delivered a profit long ago. Share price at IPO was 0.1 BTC/share and 0.60289304 BTC/share has been paid out in dividends.

And yet not everyone who is a current shareholder in AM bought at IPO. In fact I would guess that the majority of shares held today are not held by the same person who bought them at IPO. Nor does it even matter if they were. The fact that a company was successful in the past says nothing about its future success. Many companies have delivered spectacular profits, only to decline later. The relevant question for those individuals who hold shares today, or those considering buying or selling shares, is not what profits AM delivered in the past, but what profits it will deliver in the future.

[Rival]

The fact that a company was successful in the past says nothing about its future success. Many companies have delivered spectacular profits, only to decline later.

This is not strictly true, and it is regrettable that so many keep repeating this demonstrably untrue position. There are many conclusions that can be drawn from past performance. They guarantee nothing, however, they most certainly can be indicators that can help the investor make more informed decisions. Previous success is an indicator that the company at least has the capability to be successful, unlike a company with no track record which may not be capable of success at all and simply be a scam.

"If history teaches us nothing else, it is that we learn nothing from history"

[Rival]

Additionally, I would like to posit this simple formula for investing in a bitcoin company:

1) Is the management honest? Well over 99% have proven in the end to be scams. It appears FC is honest in that he did shower IPO purchasers with rewards. He has also delivered products, unlike most other IPO offerings. Rate them as you choose on this catagory, but I don't see anyone rating higher at this point.

2) Is the management competent?  Can they deliver on promises? Once again, FC appears to pass this test. While not every expectation is achieved, AM has assuredly produced massive amounts of product and brought them to market. You cannot give them 100% on this, but once again, what company that you can buy shares in did better?

3) What is the growth potential? I suppose the growth potential for any company is pretty high, but AM has bank, distribution channels, name recognition, and a much higher chance of actually achieving that growth than just about anyone else.

From a long term standpoint AM is probably the best game in town. For the short term, there are plenty of opportunities that may offer a higher short-term reward. However, with that short-term reward comes higher risk. AM is not ideal for the short-term pump-and-dump crowd, although many still try to play it that way.

That said, even though AM is in my opinion the best of breed for stocks, simply purchasing and holding bitcoins is probably the superior long-term investment choice at this time.

[Bonam]

Additionally, I would like to posit this simple formula for investing in a bitcoin company:

1) Is the management honest? Well over 99% have proven in the end to be scams. It appears FC is honest in that he did shower IPO purchasers with rewards. He has also delivered products, unlike most other IPO offerings. Rate them as you choose on this catagory, but I don't see anyone rating higher at this point.

2) Is the management competent?  Can they deliver on promises? Once again, FC appears to pass this test. While not every expectation is achieved, AM has assuredly produced massive amounts of product and brought them to market. You cannot give them 100% on this, but once again, what company that you can buy shares in did better?

3) What is the growth potential? I suppose the growth potential for any company is pretty high, but AM has bank, distribution channels, name recognition, and a much higher chance of actually achieving that growth than just about anyone else.

You do make some good points. Let me provide my thoughts on them:

1) Certainly, friedcat has demonstrated honesty over a fairly long term. No one can reasonably accuse AM of being a scam.

2) In regards to delivering on promises... the old standy was that friedcat always underpromises and overdelivers. That was, of course, completely true with his gen1 product and self-mining in 2013. However, it has not been true since then. Gen2 turned out to be a complete write-off and gen 3 came in sufficiently far below promised specifications and sufficiently late so as to not allow AM to make any real profit selling it, forcing them to try to go back into self-mining, a strategy that friedcat had hoped to abandon. For the past year, AM has generally not delivered on its promises. That, in my mind, significantly tarnishes its prior record of overdelivering.

This is further compounded by AM's longstanding failure when it comes to communication, customer service, advertising, online presence, etc. While one could perhaps overlook a deficiency in one area, it is clear that AM's technical team has been underperforming over the past year, just as have been its communication and customer service teams (if such teams even exist at all). Many have commented that friedcat could benefit from better management skills/training. I would suggest that evidence points to management not being very competent.

3) As for the growth potential... this is the bitcoin mining industry, one of the few industries in the world that actually has a very well defined cap to its growth, at least in the medium term (likely next few years) while transaction fees remain a small part of block rewards. Not only does that bound any potential growth, it also makes the competition even more fierce, since competing companies can't simply expand into new and bigger markets or create new demand where demand didn't exist before, rather, they all compete for the same fixed, predetermined, amount of mineable bitcoins.

[RoadStress]

...but a hugely successful gen4 could also mean a return to 1btc/shares.

More than the all-time ~0.60btc/share from the good days of mining when people were spending money recklessly? How did you got the 1btc/share number? How much revenue is needed in $ or BTC for that big big dividends?

10% of the network reward is about .0063 per share weekly IIRC, which would generally support a share price around 1.0.  Cost deductions offset by higher network % and/or sales profits could put it in the 1.0 - 1.5 range  if mining works out at all like friedcat has planned.  There's a few 'if's' in there, for sure, but thats my current view.

You got it wrong. It's not about the cost of 1 share. It's about the dividends! jommothy stated that a successful gen4 chip could bring in 1BTC per share in dividends form. I would like to know how he got to that number so I can see it's not just an attempt to raise the share price.

[dhenson]

You got it wrong. It's not about the cost of 1 share. It's about the dividends! jommothy stated that a successful gen4 chip could bring in 1BTC per share in dividends form. I would like to know how he got to that number so I can see it's not just an attempt to raise the share price.

1btc per share in dividends for Gen3 is ridiculous, admittedly.  However, If Gen3 hits 15% of the network and Gen 4 hits power/Gh estimates then it is entirely possible that 1btc/share market value is possible.

[RoadStress]

You got it wrong. It's not about the cost of 1 share. It's about the dividends! jommothy stated that a successful gen4 chip could bring in 1BTC per share in dividends form. I would like to know how he got to that number so I can see it's not just an attempt to raise the share price.

1btc per share in dividends for Gen3 is ridiculous, admittedly.  However, If Gen3 hits 15% of the network and Gen 4 hits power/Gh estimates then it is entirely possible that 1btc/share market value is possible.

No no. Not for Gen3. For Gen4! Gen3 will never hit 15%. Willing to bet some BTC on it!

I will ask you the same question that I've asked jimmothy: would you like to elaborate on the 1btc/share market value statement?

[dhenson]

No no. Not for Gen3. For Gen4! Gen3 will never hit 15%. Willing to bet some BTC on it!

I will ask you the same question that I've asked jimmothy: would you like to elaborate on the 1btc/share market value statement?

FC claimed that 40nm should have hit .35W/GH if they hadn't made mistakes (that they have now identified and corrected).  AM is the only publicly traded company producing mining chips.  Once 28nm Gen 4 is announced and power estimates are realized, you will wish you had invested at these insanely low prices.

I'm already betting on it.