Update from steamboat on our Avalon chips. More bad news with a painted on smiley face, and a side order of understatement.
Update:
The situation regarding communication with Avalon has not changed. We have opened tickets and called Yifu, and have not received a reply. We are continuing to try to reach them, but we do not have any new information as to the status of the batch shipments.
We have received the remaining samples for Batches 5 and 6, and received an update and tracking numbers through the Avalon website one day after the chips arrived. This is disconcerting as it is the second time we have received a package from Avalon without warning, and could cause a one to two day delay in our timeline if they show up unannounced, as we will not have time to prepare our assembly house.
The assembly house has all necessary components at their facilities, inventoried and ready to begin production once the chips arrive.
We are continuing to work to pre assemble and prepare everything we can for each batch prior to arrival of the chips. We have completed everything necessary for Batch 1, and are nearly complete with Batch 2. Both of these Batches will be completely ready for final assembly and shipping prior to the chips arrival should they both arrive at the same time. We are concerned we will receive several batches at once, and are working diligently to do as much prep work as possible while we wait. Pre assembling the units greatly increases the amount of storage space required as each finished unit consumes more space than the raw goods, though this should not be an issue until after batch three. We do have additional staff on hand to expedite the remaining pre assembly should more than 2 batches be delivered at once.
We do not know when or how the chips will arrive, and while we had originally anticipated having roughly a week between orders for prep time, we should be able to hold to our original timeline of three days for each batch should they all arrive at once. All hosted units should be fully integrated two to three days after batch completion.
We are continuing to explore our options regarding the delivery delays, and are evaluating possible solutions. We will not be discussing these options publicly until we have a clear understanding of the situation and how to resolve it. We apologize for the feeling of uncertainty this causes, and ask that you continue to remain patient with us. We will post an update regarding any information we can release once available.
We have a responsibility to all of our customers which we do not take lightly, and cannot take a course of action that would be detrimental to any of them. The Avalon website clearly states refunds for batches are not possible. Even if an entire batch of customers chose to petition for a refund, it is unclear what reaction Avalon would have to the petition, and how it would affect the other 6 batches. This is just one of multiple scenarios we must take into consideration when deciding how best to proceed.
The situation is far from optimal, we are aware, and our customers are not the only ones affected. We have a substantial purchase of chips ourselves, in addition to the significant investment we have made in materials and labor for assembly and hosting. We are not asking for your sympathy, but we do want you to know we are acutely aware of what you are going through. We knew the risks involved when ordering, and we have made every effort from the very beginning to ensure our customers understood these risks as well.
Our stated objective has been to deliver affordable, efficient, reliable miners, and we have strived to be up front during each phase of the process. We invested significant amounts of our own time and capital in order to provide our customers with the best batch order dates and made sure the components necessary to build our units were ready on time or early; purchasing several long lead time items before the design was even finalized. We are not here to make a quick buck, we are here to demonstrate our sincerity and ability to the community. The current situation has damaged our reputation, regardless of the cause, and we are doing everything in our power to rectify it.
tl;dr Patience
TM! Hope for Soon
TM.
