Topic: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] - page 139. (Read 771288 times)

Kens Linkedin has an endorsement from the sales director of Stilwell Baker Inc... I guess we're reasonably confident these were the first PCB engineers then? I thought they were super reliable?

I'd also like to extend my appreciation that someone with a technical understanding is here and sharing in what appears to be an unbiased and impartial way and it's nice to see crumbs have a civil conversation with someone.  

If it was done ages ago, and "It uses standard partially processed wafers on which just one layer is changed, and this can be done using an e-Beam; that would be done in house and could be done very fast (within hours literally I believe, but lets call it days)." why did the respin not happen ages ago?  This is getting a bit forced.


Obviously e-beam is very much slower than traditional lithography, see my comment above.  You are also making unreasonable assumptions about nextreme 3 which, according to you, is still in development.  Do you have any data to substantiate your assumptions?


There is nothing inherently wrong with being a guinea pig if you tell your investors that's what you are doing.  If Ken stated that, I would have no problem with it.
If he made it clear that he was an illiterate with no silicon design skills, handing the money over to a company that would use it to fund an experiment, I doubt this Virtual Identity would have been such a raving success.  He didn't.  Millions were "invested."

My account is about 2 weeks old, which makes it unlikely that I would have been making any predictions back in September.  If you wish to entertain hypotheticals, I would point out that had i been in a contractual relationship with eAsic as Ken allegedly was, I would be able to discuss this particular fail with a bit more verve.  As it stands, the myriads of red flags were enough for most to call this a scam with 99% certainty.  Whether this is a true scam or simply incompetence taken to its pinnacle is an irrelevant technicality.  

And it may have been done ages ago. But when the nextreme 3 wafers (or asics?) came back and proved not working (assuming anything came back), it might have been decided to take the opportunity to tweak the code while waiting for the new spin of nextreme wafers.


e-beam is more expensive, but the difference isnt quite as large as you suggest for low volume productions. In fact for volumes under 100K, its probably cheaper. Moreover, Im assuming that would only be used for the first lot because it can be done so fast. Once the chip and PCB is validated, a photomask can be made for the top layer(s) and the chips produced in a way thats much more comparable to traditional asics, while still allowing a faster turn around since you are only etching one or two metal layers on to prefabricated wafers. There is still a price penalty compared to a full mask asic, but I would expect those chips to be competitive for quite some time.


edit: read this (rather dated) press release by easic, which rhymes completely with my hypothesis:
http://www.easic.com/easic-introduces-a-maskless-customization-approach-for/


There is nothing inherently wrong with being a guinea pig. Especially not if you can't see compelling reasons why it would fail. Frankly, Im stunned eASIC still doesnt seem to have nextreme 3 ready. Where you predicting this back in September? If so, I must have missed that.

Hi hammu,

My understanding is that you are good with your non-tendered shares from BF.  The concept is; you will be contacted via email as soon as shares are ready to go live, very probably from Crypto-Trade, the anticipated centralised exchange based in Hong Kong who will create a trading account for you which will contain your shares.  You will be expected to be able to prove ownership by 'signing a message' using your bitcoin address that you used in BF where you expected to receive dividends from ActM.
Find that address and you are safe, as that is all any of us have to prove ownership as it stands currently.  

Just ask away if you need more info.  

So here's the but (edit).  It is believed by many that it is likely that Ken Slaughter may be opting for a safer and more permanent solution in the form of Coloured Coins, the decentralised solution, although Ken recently stated that both would be an option.  If that turns out to be the case, then  simply monitor this thread for developments as we are all doing.

Edit 2:  My advice is you log in to BF and take a screen grab of all of your transactions as well as the page which displays your bitcoin address.  NEOBEE kindly took charge of that website so that people could retrieve their records.

1.  Well sure.  Every lie has a great deal of truth.  It's the doping of untruth that makes it a lie.
The stage of development you are describing - tweaking FPGA code - is the very *first* stage of ASIC development.  This was assumed done ages ago.  E-beam process, for those who don't know it, is analogous to handwriting a book vs. printing it using a mask.  The expense is analogous.  16GH/sec chips, if 16GH/sec could indeed be produced using this process, would be more expensive than buying competitor's chips retail.

Which brings us to Intellihash.
"We will be introducing our Fast-Hash One Smart Edition and will have an upgrade path for our current customers."
So there are existing customers, who will be able to upgrade to Intellihash technology?  What chips is the Fast-Hash One Dumb Edition using?

2.  We are not talking about the inherent risks of silicon design, but rather Ken's intentional misrepresentation of the risks taken on by Active Mining.
I will outline these risks:
An illiterate CEO who doesn't know a thing about silicon design and is unable to communicate (you pointed this out, we agree).
A non-contract with eAsic to be a "guinea pig," to use your language.

If I offered you a spaceship to take you to Mars, took your money, and made an earnest effort to build one from my trash bin and some Home Depot lumber, that's called a scam, not incompetence.
A well-structured scam could never be proven a scam with mathematical certainty - that's what allows scams to exist.  A scam that could be proven instantly becomes a *failed* scam.  This one's clumsy, but surprisingly successful.

Anybody knows what the fate of non-tendered shares stored on BF is? Thx.

Im hardly an expert, but Ive considered the structured asic approach for a long time myself. It made complete sense a year ago, since it allows close to asic performance with comparatively low NRE, much lower risk and in theory (on an established process), much faster time to market. However, if its true ActM collected $10M, that choice becomes more questionable. And for sure the clock is ticking, the disadvantages of a structured asic cant be ignored in the face of mounting competition; they are less power efficient (color me skeptical about the claims made in that regard) and they cost a lot more per chip. IF its going to happen it had better happen soon, because obsolesce is looming around the corner.

Haha that guy is probably me. At least I have a few years before retirement to make it back.

Wow Puppet, thank you so much for chiming in. Finally someone who brings both chip knowledge and common sense to this thread.

Please don't exhaust yourself answering the brats here, I'd rather you comment when necessary instead of fighting with fools and then turning your back in frustration.

So thanks again.

Like I said, wouldnt count on Ken using the correct terminology .

But there could be some truth to this apparently nonsensical statement; FPGA's do run microcode ('software'). 'our chips' would then have to be referring to FPGA's still. That may sound disastrous that at that point they would still be working on the FPGA prototype, but do keep in mind eASIC nextreme works differently than traditional asics. It uses standard partially processed wafers on which just one layer is changed, and this can be done using an e-Beam; that would be done in house and could be done very fast (within hours literally I believe, but lets call it days).

So here is one hypothesis:
- Nextreme 3 preprocessed wafers are not ready yet or are having issues and they need a respin. Ken may not be allowed to say this publicly.
- meanwhile work is continuing on the ActM FPGA code, changes are made to implement whatever "intellihash" means

The bringing together of those 2 can be done very much faster than with traditional asics, at least for low volume production; its pretty much impossible to guess their timeline, but once working nextreme 3 wafers get delivered, it could be only a matter of days to implement the FPGA code and get working ActM chips (well, wafers) based on them.


I dont quite see how anyone could have thought a startup company producing bitcoin specific hardware could be risk free. FWIW, KnC is also not telling its Neptune customers its using a brand new, barely tested 20nm process, the equipment for which is still being ordered by TSMC. That may or may not pan out, but TBH, I would rate that higher risk than I would have rated eASIC's ability to bring a well understood structured asic migration process to a well understood mature silicon production process. If I were Ken, I would probably have made that same bet.

How about you give me nothing and I'll show you via this post how your opinion also means nothing?  Have you ever asked yourself why you surf threads and post rubbish for no good reason other than to fulfil your quest to get to either 20,000 posts or an activity of 1000 first?  Let me explain.  You think it adds to your misguided belief that your hero status makes you important. Wrong.  It's not the quantity of your posts but the quality that define you.  Here is my very favourite post of yours on the 9th of January and believe me there were many, lol.  


Now hurry back to Hashfast as I'm sure they are missing you already.  

Pay me $10K USD via BTC, and I'll show you via Google (a search engine, for those who have more money than brains) that there is no fuckin' way one satoshi should have gone to any entity that has Kenneth Slaughter's, et al. name on it.

Indeed.

Hashfast just barely shipped and the were suppose to ship back in October.

This is Ken's thread.  For him to "program" a poll here would take... oh, a couple of months?
Sit tight, buddy

thanks for link. Sorry if I have been going off the handle last few days, I got caught up in the hysteria. Have taken deep breath and am looking with fresh eyes now. Things aren't great, but they aren't a total disaster either. Delays in engineering and production. Part of the game.

Now, when I look at these divs I see the results of hashing with ~ 5500 GHs, am I correct? More detailed specs of the mining operation would be good, is there a stasts page for this?

anyway, onward and upward. This pony ain't finished the race yet!

Like I said, I dont feel too comfortable defending Ken. There is no excuse for stuff like that. That doesnt mean eASIC doesnt bear any responsibility.


Id like to see the exact wording of the original statement if you have it at hand. You can do a respin without having any chips, a respin just means you are redesigning one or more metal interconnect layers (not that I would count on Ken to use the correct terminology).  Did he really have chips and if so, did they even work? Who knows, but I think its highly doubtful. Fact is, there is no record of any 28nm nextreme 3 chip working, easic doesnt even promote it or solicit projects for them. IF the process is healthy, how come?


eASIC would have been suicidal to give iron clad guarantees with large late fees for an unreleased process. More likely is that they cut ActM a sweet deal to be a guinea pig for their new process. A bitcoin asic is pretty much a perfect test chip for a new process, so this could have been a win-win.

VE how is your inquiry at eASIC into their relationship with Ken going?

This is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. I have wondered a few times why the 'wraps' are still on eASIC's 28nm product line.