Topic: 150k USD startup budget. Help needed! - page 2. (Read 3761 times)

Cool buddy, as I said, no disrespect, keen to see a UK player on board, but the forum need transparency as to who they are dealing with. You made some grand claims before...

These concerns have already been addressed on the thread linked below.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/xcrowd-dot-co-dot-uk-192519

FYI it's my clothing line, but that doesn't matter anyways since I'm no longer involved with it.

Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence and we'd be happy to
provide it once we're ready. Not that we plan to take on customers pre-order funds.

Quote from their page: "Expected delivery date is early August, but not later that October".
Batch #1 preorder is closed, and there is no info about batch #2.
They promised to deliver full device specification in early June. There is almost July already, but no specifications provided. Only thing they can demonstrate are chip prototypes, which they have promised to ship to anybody interested. But I have not heard any feedback about them yet. Basically, they now are developing electronic board for these chips, software, run into overheat problems, etc. Like a BFL last year. So, in half a year they probably will provide something.
Its a something like Russian KNCminer, but with unknown info about next batch order date and problems with delivery (they do not ship outside Russia, you have to find somebody who will pass your order to them and ship it to you). Now I would just stick with KNC.

No disrespect to XCrowd, we'll have to see what they have on offer, but last time they surfaced they were making some wild claims, which may well be proven, but had snatched a logo from XCrowd.com (not affiliated to them) and were using it as their own, which set alarm bells off in my mind at the time...site is totally different now though, with an original logo (presumably).

Also the owner checked out as a Muslim Lady's fashion store owner based in Birmingham, UK (definitely not a tech hub by any means), with no relevant tech experience to be seen, though he said he had Silicon Valley contacts...

New players with better offerings will be joining the party in July.  

My advice... a little bit of patients might uncover a lot more options.

I certainly wouldn't go anywhere near BTCGarden/Aiwill/BTCMan, the guy is a xenophobic ars*hole.

I don't think he is looking to gamble (relatively) on preorders. I wouldn't with that amount of money.

There is no difference in the logic behind investing $15,000 or $150,000 in bitcoin.

I would invest 1/4 in BTC.

I would spend 1/4 on a mining stock (e.g. ASICminer).

I would spend 1/4 on the most promising pre-order (probably currently KNCminer unless you live in Russia-then consider Bitfury/Metabank).

I would keep 1/4 in fiat and wait for the next best new opportunity to appear (bitgarden? labcoins?).

And what about bitfury? Arent they expected to deliver in July?

Agreed. Each bitcoin was only worth 10$ at the beginning of the year, so it's not impossible for it to go back to $10 in the near term which would destroy the profitability of ASIC pre-orders paid for in USD. The $100 BTC is the main reason for the insane ASIC ROI at the moment.

1) Invest into CPU/GPU/FPGA mining is not an option anymore, you will not earn you invested money back.

2) Only option left is to buy ASIC. There are few companies that produce them, but:
    - Avalon. There are rumors that batch 4 of their devices is coming for sell. This might be profitable, it depends on price they will ask for ASICs). But, they fail to ship ordered batch 2 and 3 devices for few months now. I would invest in batch #4 only after confirmations here on forum that batch #2 and #3 devices are delivered.
    - Butterfly Labs. Only few people recently have received orders from last year. And it is unknown when everybody else will receive them. Anyway, it will take months for BFL to ship current orders after they will start, and few more months to process new orders. If you will order ASICs from them now - you can expect to wait at least 4 months before delivery. Good news is that even in this case you should get some profit, but expect at least another 4 months for roi.
    - KNCminer. They seems to be legit, but no working device prototype is shown yet. Good news is that they promise to start delivering products in autumn, with instant delivery of new orders.
    - ASICminer. They sell ASICs with instant delivery, but roi for them is smth like a year in a best case, do not mess with this.
    - Custom created mining devices from chips (Avalon and BFL produce and sell chips with btc calculation logic, but electronic boards are not sold for them). It's kinda tricky. Companies with certified engineers spend months trying to create working boards that will work with these chips. And some people promise to do the same in their garage. I can't believe they can do this so easily. Anyway, you can search this forum for topics where people sell complete clones of Avalon devices and order, I think these devices will be worth it.
    - everything else is a scam, if will not be proven else.

So, I would do smth like this:
1) Buy all custom created Avalon copies from this forum
2) Invest half of money left into Butterfly Labs (50%)
3) Wait for Avalon actions. If Avalon will ship devices from batches #2 and #3, and will start to sell batch #4 - I would invest half of money left (25%)
4) Wait for KNCminer actions. If they will start to ship existing orders, with minimal delay before shipping new orders - I would invest all money thet left (25%)

I wouldn't at all, not for the short term. Lot's of idiots have ignored repeated advice not to use debt to finance mining.

Do you realise what this means when companies start to deliver and the hashrate is a lot greater?

A lot of coins being sold to recoup ROI, and cover debt.

This equals a likely fall in BTC price, unless mainstream adoption causes more parties to buy.

I would be bricking myself right now if I'd got into debt for ASIC development and pre-orders.

Of course this scenario may not happen like this, but market pricing is dependant on sellers vs. buyers, and blatantly there will be a sudden rush of sellers.

There is nothing courageous about using debt in this situation, or more than one can afford to lose. Only a total idiot would be buying ASIC pre-orders with borrowed money!

$100 is a very psychological number, a milestone, it's the reason we are bouncing around it now.

+1

But do not buy at any price. Maximum $ 100

150k is nothing in this business right now. This is the main point. It was a lot of money 6 months ago, but what is it now? 10 avalon farting?

You can't have a direct contract with Avalon or BFL for this amount.

It's a market designed to be as competitive as possible and I only see revenue streams selling your hardware to others. The problem is that we don't have the hardware, and we are late in the game to develop ours. How late? It it worth trying? I often asked that to myself.

Essentially this will function to test our infrastructure and location. I will be looking to spend a lot more once this proves successful.

When can I expect delivery from the following? I understand its all speculation.

KNCminer - Sept
Bitfury - ?
BFL - June 2018
Terrahash - ?

Thank you.

Opportunity cost?

True, but if funds are held in escrow contingent upon delivery, where is the risk to the OP? Either they deliver in August, or they don't and she still has her money and can re-evaluate the situation in September.

150k If a company is able to skip the delivery order. That does not tell you what if a customer comes back 300k to do the same.

With that large of an investment, I would be talking directly to AsicMiner, Terrahash, BFL, and KncMiner to see what they could do and perhaps arrange a deal where funds are held in escrow with very specific target delivery dates (i.e. deliver by August or else the deal is off, and no payment prior to delivery).

Companies may be willing to bend over backwards for a 150k order, and if they don't, I agree with others that waiting is probably your best option.

Any offer that make you via PM. Make it published in the forum. Avoid defraud you. Expect to September is good advice.
Another option buy BTC for under $ 100 and wait for it to rise.