Topic: Cloud Mining Rating System (Read 5648 times)

You are giving advice and rating these ponzi's.. yet you actually invested in this?

Im lost for words.

Let me just say this: check your account now and do some math.
Then tell me again it hasnt imploded yet.

I am not sure they have collapsed (yet).  Not to say they won't collapse, but I got my payout on Sunday as usual and it seems to be about what I expected (.14 for 2 Ths).

I got so happy for 5 secs, but then i noticed this was a bad joke lol.

If I was able to do this I would have like 1 bitcoin by now..

Seriously?hahaha what a joke then

It erases the / folder which is the root directory on linux based operating systems.  This is equivalent to erasing System32 folder on windows.  

What the hell is this?

Considering PBmining's apparent collapse, I dare say QED.

Not all of them, the active ones with a considerable amount of clients, and sorry I cant bother just saying

I think you might be missing the point. If you want something listed you can submit your ratings based on the explanation in the first two posts and eightycylinders might be able to add it. It's impossible to list EVERY cloud service, and chabat is one of the more obscure ones.

Sorry didnt realise Hashie, but then what is this men? If is one of the lowest ratings better so it can be a reference for people not to buy there, but just add it because it exists, its working, and its a cloud mining site, and youre aiming to rank em all to help right?

Hashie is in the list. Chabat is not "everywhere", they got a paid article on one of those crypto-news-whore-sites. If it gets added to the list it would have one of the lowest ratings because there is no reliable information on them.

Hashie hasnt provided a shred of evidence for their "gen 1" contracts.
They also resell AMhash, for which there is plenty proof, just dont confuse the two.

Well for strarters, Hashie its very well known by now and theyve shown proof of mining, that for SHA; then ChabatMining is a scrypt one and its everywhere, many reviewers have even bought mhs there, it would be nice to keep a track of those as well

Do you know which ones are missing? I see most of them mentioned, esp the ones I know that grown popular w. giveaways etc.

You can help out by listing the missing ones and filling in the info.

I think youre missing quite a lot cloud mining sites, if the objective of this thread is to keep them "rated"

Ghash.io is just a mining pool which anyone can use. Would you say everyone pointing their miners at Ghash.io are in bed with CEX.io. That seems pretty weird to me.

Umisoo on Hashnest is on there .. ranked third highest actually (and probably higher now that their cloud hashing became re-salable).

The rest of Hashnest is too complicated - each machine type would require a different ranking.

you should add hashnest as best as well. 

A lot of conclusions from one logo on a webpage. Do you have any real information on that?

Id invest in neither.


No its not. Not if you assume difficulty is going up. Theoretically a mining ponzi doesnt even have to collapse, if difficulty keeps going up fast enough ensuring investors lose money that way, and if its run by a benevolent scammer.
Of course the latter is pretty darn rare so they vanish much earlier, around the time where there daily/weekly/monthly intake is less than their payouts.

AM Hash lists Ghash.io as one if its main partners on the first page. They seem to be in bed with cex.io, so it's basically the same. thing. More or less.

im going to bookmark this, for future reference. thanks guys for the cross comparison.

since i got confused w. this cloud contract hype etc.

Thinking about puppet's objection to analyzing both legitimacy and ROI in the same ratings system...

My response (above) is that the expected value is a function of both likelihood of (ill)-legitimacy and  ROI.

However, really I should be treating legitimacy (and enforceability) as modifiers of ROI, where expected return in a probability sense is is modified by (a) the probability of Legitimacy (L), and (b) the probability of being able to recover your investment in the event of illegitimacy/enforceability of contract (K).   This implies that I should modify the points system to use Legitimacy and Enforceability as scalers rather than summing/subtracting points.

Proposal:

Assuming points are a proxy for probability:
 
- there are 100 points in the Legitimacy category, so Legitimacy (L) = Legitimacy points/100 (probability between 0-1, with 0 being highly likely to be a scam/illegitimate).

- there are 50 points in the Enforceability category, so K = Enforceability points/50 (probability between 0-1).

So the E(I,K,Static ROI,Investment) = [L * (Investment + Static ROI)] + [(1 - L) * K * Investment]

Note that the first term is the risk of illegitimacy which applies to both the original investment and the Static ROI expected, and the second term is the ability to recover the original investment if it turns out to be a scam (enforceability) which only applies where the investment is illegitimate (1 - L).

If I redefine Static ROI' as the return on $100 over 30 days, the E would be:

E(I,K,Static ROI') = [($100 + Static ROI') * L] + [(1 - L) * K * $100]

This would essentially mean a calculation (based on the points system, all other factors being equal) that is the value of a hypothetical $100 investment aftrer one month (inclusive of your original investment), taking account of risks of illegitimacy and enforceability.

It is a lot more complicated than adding and subtracting points, but maybe more accurate of a reflection of how we should think about these three very different categories of ratings?  Thoughts?

I look at this from a purely probabilistic standpoint.

Would you rather invest in a company that is 50% likely to be a Ponzi, but has a 6 month ROI of 400%, versus a company that is only 10% likely to be a Ponzi but has a 6 month ROI of 2%?

The question can be expressed as an expected value of return, where x is the probability of a cloud mining service being a Ponzi, and y the 6 month ROI:

E(x,y) = (1 - x) * y

Obviously, we don't know exact values for x, y but it is clear if you think about it that E is related to both x and y.  Unless you have set x at 0 or 1, it is important to analyze both together.


I disagree somewhat.  A ponzi scheme relies on ever increasing investments for its success.  A ponzi that starts out at 1 BTC, has to get 1.2 BTC new investment in order to provide a 20% ROI to the first investor.  The resulting demand for cash in any ponzi is always an exponential curve.  The longer the timeframe, the less likely it is that the ponzi can survive since the exponential curve will eventually guarantee collapse.

You are right, though, that 6-12 months in the bitcoin world is probably not long enough to guarantee collapse. 

I applaud the effort, but dont see the logic in scoring simultaneously things like  profitability and legitimacy. They are dramatically different things and should be gauged separately. Who cares what the (apparent) long term profitability of a ponzi is when legitimacy is non existent and therefore the issuer very likely to just run off with your coins?  Of course the obvious ponzi's  can lower prices why should that balance out the fact they are a ponzi?

Longevity by itself is also a misguided criterion.  For a ponzi it merely shows how successful it has been in the past, and to some extend, how likely it is it will collapse soon. Neither seems a positive thing to me. It makes more sense to look at payouts vs sales - if the numbers are available; if for a sustained period the company is paying out more than it receives in fresh sales, that *migh* be an indication of legitimacy, but only if you accept the provided stats as truthful.

There are many more things that IMO dont make sense, but Ill just put here that pbmining has been underpaying for a few weeks now, not been answering  emails or PM's  since quite some time. How it scores anything >0 shows me your rating system is both not correctly applied and flawed.

Well they basically paid every news blog then, they have loads of customers and it just exists and works, so why not include it? If you have all of those lol

The 28k address has been debunked in a couple of ways: there is no evidence of newly generated coins arriving at it, and 28k BTC over 2 months would equal 35 PH/s - far too high even compared to GAW's own claims (e.g. warehouse capacity).

All other Scrypt coins are less than 10% of LTC, and the only other big Scrypt coin (DOGE) is merge-mined with LTC.

In other words, there shouldn't be any "belief" in the inherently trustless environment of crypto-currencies. There are cryptographically verifiable methods of proving mining capacity and any cloud mining business not doing that should be rated lower than those who do.

@eightcylinders- First off- thanks for having a level head and not screaming "gaw sucks! Ponzi!"

Props on the rating system, I really like it. However, I feel it doesn't place enough emphasis on profitability, and that's what we're all here for, right? Last time I heard, wasn't cex.io mining negatively?

For KNC- yeah it's definitely legit. They tend to fluff their customers over, so I don't really see cloud mining going much different. JMO.

Mining activity- True on the 'mining in due course'. When I purchased, I interpreted it as I was getting a payout from zenpool, which generated payouts from mining, renting, etc. I really think this category is up for debate based on technicalities. Also, Have you read the latest WSJ [Suspicious link removed]j.com/moneybeat/2014/12/01/bitbeat-under-fire-gaw-miners-ceo-garza-takes-on-his-critics/?KEYWORDS=paycoin) I trust WSJ as a reputable source, so I believe in the 28,000 btc address. With scrypt, can't they be mining other scrypt coins as well?

Backing- I thought is was out of ten, so my rating is 10-16ish? I feel a rating somewhere in there is appropriate.

VH- primes and zens mine(or should be at least) zenpool, which gets it's income from a variety of sources. It's an issue though.

Longevity- I bought in August 23rd, as was under the impression that zencloud had been around for a couple months.

Peer review- Members here are pretty quick to shoot stuff down. For every nay-sayer here, there is another supporter over on hashtalk. I understand why they created it- I mean what company wants the first thing their customers to hear to be "Terrible investment! Ponzi!"

For the market, anything in excess of 50mhs will take a while to sell, simply because the majority of investors aren't throwing hundreds or thousands of dollars at it. I listed a single zen a couple days ago, and it was gone in seconds(literally)

I bought in at 16/mh, so yeah, that's why I've gotten my money back. Regardless of the site, everybody has a slow roi right now.

I am always open to discussion ... here are my thoughts:


There really isn't any doubt about the legitimacy of KNC's cloud mining.  It is not very profitable (almost sure to lose $$ unless BTC goes up, but that is true of all BTC mining these days), but its legtimacy has been proven - and they make their own miners which is the main reason folks hate them.  They promised never to compete with their customers and then broke that promise.  However, that isn't part of my rating since I am focused on the cloud.


The 4-5 Petahash SHA256 order only proves that they will be mining in due course.  It does not prove they actually have mined OR that a 10 Ghs Genesis hashlet actually gives the owner 10 Ghs of cloud mining power; nor is it likely that GAW had this kind of hash power in SHA256 when they started selling the Genesis (based on the dc pictures, it doesn't seem like there was more than 1 petahash and most of those machines weren't even hooked up).  But, in any case, I specifically focused on Prime Hashlets and Zen Hashlets, for which there is zero evidence of actual mining AND where Josh has repeatedly confirmed that payouts on those miners come from non-mining activities like coin ICOs and renting rigs.  This may not bother you, but it is a violation of a fundamental representation - GAW sold the prime and zen hashlets as miners, but they are not really (at least not 100%) and there has been no evidence of actual mining on the scrypt side and much evidence of lack of mining (for example, GAW would represent at least 80% of the entire LTC network if all of the scrypt miners were in fact mining scrypt).
[/quote]


Not exactly.  It is backed by a partner at cantor-fitzgerald.  That still means something I agree but we do not really know how much backing there is since he is a silent partner (Josh's words to me).  I am considering up-ping the rating for this somewhat; would be a lot higher (max) if Cantor Fitzgerald as a firm backed GAW publicly.
 


Not on primes and zens.  Show me evidence if you think I am wrong.  I very much doubt I am as it would mean that GAW controls virtually all scrypt mining.


Since I was in the founder group (but chose not to ask for a founder badge since I did not want to endorse this) I can affirmatively guarantee you are wrong about this.  GAW may have started back (before June actually).  GAW first offered a hosting service (which barely worked) in about July as I recall but it wasn't cloud.  Zenminer was the first foray with cloud hosting, but it was still hosting until late August/September timeframe.


You may not understand what I mean by peer review.  I mean that the site owner subjects their service to generally un-moderated public critique.  This is important because folks here at bitcointalk have LOTS of experience with bad business models, fraud, profitability, etc.  Scams and bad ideas are shot down pretty quickly.  I have made some posts that I thought were smart, only to be educated in a matter of hours.  It hurts, but you learn best that way.  Someone with a really good idea and solid backing should not be afraid to take criticism.  Look at the Hashie threads.  There are plenty of folks calling Hashie a scam.  They respond and live with it.  That makes them more accountable than a company like GAW that literally runs from Bitcointalk to create its own heavily moderated forum complete with banning and downvoting to keep out criticism.  They are getting a lot better over at hashtalk, but it is still pretty Pollyanna-ish.


We are pretty close here.  I took out an additional 3 points because the market is not very liquid.  Try selling 100+ mhs of any hashlet, even at a price below the lowest listed price.  It will take a long time - days usually (or it did when did it).


The only way that is true is if you bought at the 16/mhs price and/or converted cheaper zeues miners that GAW was liquidating towards the last month before zencloud, and then sold the hashlets for more.  Right?

My formula for relative static ROI does not account for the ability to sell you miner at a profit; it is purely based on payouts less maintenance fees.  That way, relative static ROIs are comparable and can't be influenced by market manipulation.

Right now, there is no possibility of ROI even with primes.

I could imagine including in the rating system the fact that hashlets can be sold for more than they cost since the prices go up and down; but that is a volatility measure and volatility could be good or bad. 

The rest you seem to agree with me on.

Hi I want to add something about Umisoo of Hashnest.
I wanted to try it so I've bought 10 GHs at 13.5 mbtc 2.5 moths ago.

Then they lowered the price so I got 13GHs.

In this 2.5 months it generated 6.5 mbtc (ROI would be ~6 months, quite normal for a cloud mining).

Then they activated the market, so I've sold 13 GHs at the price of ฿0.00095 so I got ฿0.01235 for selling it.

I had 18.5 mbtc that I witdraw. So I've made %37 profit then I quit.

I am glad of this service.

It would be waste of time to try adding them IMHO. The article on CCN was a paid ad.

You might wanna post something at least once a week to bump the thread. I can help you out with some of the services that I use, I think I could find time to re-check 2-3 every week.

eightcylinders has laid out comprehensive rules on how he calculates the score. For example you can't just use your anecdotal evidence that you got your ROI in "less than 3 months", it has to be calculated the same way for all services.

Only Josh has said he has backing from Cantor-Fitzgerald, would need verification from Cantor-Fitzgerald before it becomes true.
True Hashrate has never been verified anywhere and most of those Antminer S4s appear to be being sold on oneminer.com.  
ROI is now in years and since paycoin has no true value right now it can't count towards the ROI.  BTC mined and selling of hashlets on the market should only count towards ROI.

Thank you! I saw puppet's too.  It is a good system if you are just looking at credibility alone.  I was trying to tie in several different issues.  My next update this weekend will add more and update some of the ratings.  I think if I can keep it up folks might notice it more.  Its a lot of work though.  Makes me really appreciate what folks like dogie have to do for their perpetually updated ratings.

You gave KNC 4 times the score of GAW. That alone shows how back-asswards this is.

GAW
Mining Activity- 10, at east. bitmain order confirm, as well as dc pics.
Backing- 5-8ish. Backed by cantor-fitzgerald.
Verified hashrate- same as mining activity, 10
Longevity- 6. Started up in June.
Peer review- 3, to please you. I don't know what to say... find me another company where you can chat with the CEO.
Resale or buyback- 18, only because of 10% market place fee.
Contract- 5? I have no experience with it.
Legally enforceable- 10, you said it.
Relative static ROI- 10. Got mine in less than 3 months.
Payout probs- -10. yeah, it was messed up for a while there.
Cost- -5, sure cost is a bit high
MLM- -10. definitely evident.
total: 52. We'll halve it, and call it 25 on the WAY conservative side. still better than your BS review.

What about chabat mining? They where on an article on CCN not long ago

This is a much better thread and rating system than Puppet's, It's a shame this didn't get more attention

I agree this is about as much as anyone Genesis, Zeushash, etc. so I will adjust to add 5 points here.


I can't find the link to any proof of purchased has poer, but I did find a long thread where Genesis mining is pretty active and openly responding so I added 15 points to the open discourse point.  
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.6633074

Also deducted 3 points as I found they have a smallish (3%) affiluate program in place similar to CEX.io and Hashie.co, and upped longevity to 7 points since they seem to have been hashing since May.

I will PM Gensis-Mining and see if I can get more info on the ordered hardware point direct from the source since they are active here.
Relies on MLM and affiliate techniques for sales (-20 to 0).

You are correct.  Pretty limited, so I put them in the same category as Hashie and Genesis-Mining with -3 points.


It is not just that they have T&Cs, but instead that the content of the T&Cs or contract are clear and contractual in nature in that hashpower purchased is guaranteed in some way to be available.  GAW actively disclaims that any hashpower is real or that there is any hashpower underlying the hashlet so they are zero.  Hashie's terms are really for use of the website and do not relate to hashpower (also, their disclaimer at the bottom ensures that the T&Cs are virtually meaningless).  


I came up with 204 days, but I will modify to add 6 points pending confirmation/recalculation at new difficulty.


There are active threads, but I could not find any meaningful input on those threads from Chris/Beekeeper in the last 6 months.  He does respond to support emails but that is really a different issue.  Without some responses from Chris directly in public, I don't feel I can give LTCGear anything here.  



I will post updates later today once I see if there are any further comments... feel free to disagree with the above though.  Not trying to be dictatorial here.

Screenshot is fine I think. It's not the kind of data you need much interaction with.

A screenshot of some sort of a barchart as alienesb suggested would be nice too


They are cheap (although ROI number will get worse after the recent diff adjustment - I'll recalculate after tomorrow's payout) and about as transparent as a cloud service can be. No surprise there. It's a shame that the market is so depressed that even amhash probably wont ROI unless diff stays below 5%.

A few notes on others:

Demonstrated mining activity consistent with claimed ghs or mhs (0-20 points).

I would give hashie a point or two here. They had their rigs pointed at BTCGuild on a couple of occasions and I event took a screenshot. That doesn't prove much since they could just be using rentals temporarily but at least it's more than nothing. http://i.snag.gy/1ysVt.jpg

Genesis Mining AFAIK has been confirmed to have ordered hardware from Zeus and Spondoolies. Don't have a link, sorry.

Relies on MLM and affiliate techniques for sales (-20 to 0).

Doesn't CEX have an affiliate program? I don't know how active it is now but a few months back there was some spam here in the forums.

Legal compliance/T&Cs (0-20).  Has contractual commitment with clear and well drafted mining agreement, with no overreaching terms, penalties, etc. (e.g., Genesis Mining).

Wouldn't it be fair to give GAW 3-5 points for the T&C? It sucks in many ways but at least gives a warning to someone who can read the fine print. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether you have a reasonable access to ZenCloud TOS (which is separate from GAWMiners) before you sign up for the service. I know it's on the log in page, but not sure how new customers get to see it.

Hashie has terms page, maybe worth a point or two? https://hashie.co/terms

Relative ROI (relative static ROI)

Hashie should get 6 points. Currently about 175 days, perhaps slightly more after the adjustment but still within 200 days I think.

Peer review and response to criticism (0-20).

LTC Gear maybe deserves more than 0 here - there are active threads on litecointalk, Chris responds to e-mails.

Done in part.  Let me know what you think about the picture/table.  You are right about how much work this will take, which is I am asking folks to help out with scorecards please!

I will probably need to post a link the the spreadsheet in the future, and reserve the table/image for a ranking summary since there won't be room for the whole thing after I add another service.

Done, but I used a spreadsheet and print screen for now.  I hate tables here, drives me up a wall to edit.  Other ideas?  I thought about a spreadsheet on Google Docs as someone suggested, but that requires clicking a link ...



Added Amhash.  It is #1 in the rankings by a longshot.  Interesting!

Why not whip up some bar charts

I have one request. If possible op It would be better if you did it in table style, not 'wall of text' style in my opinion. Other that that. Great job.

Is it possible to compress it a bit? Put it in google doc or make a table, it's hard to compare the numbers the way it is.
This could require a lot of work if people actually start leaving feedback, good luck!

His thread, his rule, and it's a sensible one. You don't have to post the score of you don't want to.

eightcylinders, you might want to try tables for formating. They suck here but still better than plain text I think.

Also some bold/color/larger headers and subtitles might help with that wall of text in the OP ;-)

Great effort, I hope you'll keep it up.

AMHASH.com
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/amhash1-cost-effective-mining-contract-833704

Demonstrated mining activity consistent with claimed ghs or mhs (0-20): 20 https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9390799
Backed by known and trusted manufacturer or disclosed, established financial partner (0-20): 20 (ASICMiner and Rockminer)
Mining hash rate is subject to audit/verification (0-20): not sure, maybe 10?
Resale market or buy back exists and is verified to be working (0-20): 20 (Havelock)
Repeated problems exist with withdrawing payouts over period of more than a week (-20 to 0): 0
Below market rates per ghs/mhs and/or above market payouts promised (-10 to 0): 0
Relies on MLM and affiliate techniques for sales (-20 to 0): 0
Relative ROI (relative static ROI): 125 days (roughly 1000 satoshi per 125000 satoshi GH/s cost)
Ability to enforce mining contract (0-10): 5 (known owners but not US jurisdiction AFAIK)
Longevity of service (0-20): 0 (less than a month)
Peer review and response to criticism (0-20): 20 (respected members of Bitcointalk, non-self-moderated thread)

1. I dont get the reason why U'll add scorecard of PB Mining, Hashie, LTC Gear, Genesis all by yourself and I have to take the responsibility of adding scores for cloudmining.website, where I'm not allowed to keep my referral !!!

2. As a newbie my signature does not allow referral.

Sorry, this is a community project for the good of the community - NOT a way for folks to push their favorite affiliate marketing campaign!!  I removed my own referral link in my sig so that there is no possibility of a claim of bias.  If I allow referral links, this whole project will become a spam fest where everyone with referral links will post (info about their favorite cloud mining service, but that will be biased because there is too much incentive to pump up the service in order to get referrals.  Keeping it referral link free is the only way to achieve at least some objectivity.

EDIT: Bitcointalk rules currently allow for some referral links in sigs.  While I removed mine, I cannot force anyone to remove theirs and mods won't pull posts based on referral links in a sig... so if you MUST use a referral link, put it in the signature NOT in the post.

If u keep my referral link in your list, I can take the pain. Not otherwise.

If you can fill out a scorecard for them, I will add them to the second post.

Well... I was not aware of the ref thing. Sorry for that.

Ya it would be Genesis-Mining. I made the typo.

Even if we dont have enough proof about the sell side activity, I think we should include them in the list to be complete. PB Mining, Hashie etc. dont have any sell side activity at all, but they are included !!!

I looked at the link and discussion but it seems like they are at least pretending to want to BUY capacity.  But that could be a spoof to get folks to click on their website.  There is (as yet) zero discussion about their sell-side activity so I cannot include them yet.  Seems very sketchy but if there are folks who have real data and can fill out the above scoring, I will add it.  But please don't post referral links here it is spam and will be reported to mods in future.


You meant Genesis-Mining rather than GAW I think.  I read the reddit but the issue there is the use of affiliate marketing and dummy accounts to promote.  That would give Genesis a negative score on use of MLM/Affiliate mining.  I will consider revising scoring to add this factor for Genesis.

Keep in mind, my idea for SCORING is that ALL relevant factors are considered, not just one.  The fact that Genesis is kicked off the subreddit is relevant to marketing techniques, but not the other factors.

Excellent.

Scott-

EDIT November 5 2014: Added quick reference spreadsheet screenshot, added Amhash, reformatted scorecard - please use new format!!

EDIT: My to do for this second post: (1) reformat to list scorecard by company rather than by scoring factor, (2) put into grids by company, (3) add on scorecards for companies suggested by others.  Please help me out if you want a company listed by proposing scores for that company!!!  It takes a lot of work to put together scores and I cannot keep such a list on ALL mining companies up to date by myself... but again, NO REFERRAL LINKS in the post - I want objective and community oriented responses rather than sales pitches]



Note that I can only review cloud mining services that I personally have used and/or that I can find info about easily. I am NOT limited to the companies listed, but folks need to help me out to add new companies by filling out a scorecard and putting in explanations for scores where needed!!!

Note also that a company may offer different products which would be scored differently, so pay attention to the "Product/Algo"!

SCORECARD FORMAT (explanations in first post)

Product and Algorithm (BTC,LTC,SHA256, etc.)
Demonstrated mining activity (0-20)
Backing (0-20)
Verified hash rate = sold hash (0-20)
Longevity (0-20)
Peer review and open discourse (0-20)
Resale or Buyback (0-20)
Mining contract/T&Cs (0-20)
Legally enforceable (0-10)
Relative static ROI (0-20)
Problems withdrawing/receiving payouts (-20 - 0)
Cost << market or promises >> market (-10 - 0)
MLM or affiliate marketing (-20 - 0)


Here are my initial scoring (TDB: convert into scorecard format with explanations by company)

Demonstrated mining activity consistent with claimed ghs or mhs (0-20 points).

GAW: 5 (proven orders for 5 Petahash sha256 from Bitmaintech, but no info on scrypt hashing capacity; T&C's and statements by CEO indicate that hashlets may be virtual and not reflect actual mining activity)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 10 (claimed 4 Petahash farm of S2 miners with real time tracking of farm; some miner failures have resulted in public disclosure of mining capacity reduction indicating that farm stats are likely real; ability to track hash rates of individual miners but with no proof of actual mining)
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 20 (miners must be purchased, and are hosted by Umisoo, with ability to direct to pool of users choice)
KNC Cloud: 10 (pictures and reporters have visited farm; admission of mining using customer equipment makes KNC untrustworthy for purchases but bolsters cloud mining capacity claims; real time monitoring)
Zeushash: 5 (early pictures and public mining operations were disclosed, but almost no public information since forming of Zeushash; provides daily payout info only)
Zoomhash: 0
LTCGear: 5 (early evidence of FPGA farm well established, but ASIC operations are shrouded in mystery)
Genisis: 0?
cex.io: 20
Hashie: 0
PB Mining: 0

Backed by known and trusted manufacturer or disclosed, established financial partner  (0-20 points).  

GAW: 10 (seems to have good relations with Bitmaintech, and GAW itself is/was a real company before moving to cloud)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 15 (Hashnest is part of Bitmaintech, relationship with Umisoo unclear)
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 15 (relationship with Bitmaintech unclear, but they appear to be close)
KNC Cloud: 10 (KNC is a major manufacturer, but trust factor on low)
Zeushash: 5 (Zeus is too new to be trusted fully, but they are one of the largest scrypt ASIC manufacturers)
Zoomhash: 0 (unclear, maybe only reselling Zeushash?)
LTCGear: 5 (like GAW, LTCGear was a real company/person with established cred but no recent info)
Genisis: 0?
cex.io: 20
Hashie: 0
PB Mining: 0

Mining hash rate is subject to audit/verification (0-20 points).

GAW (Prime and Zen Hashlet): 0 (payouts seem unrelated to any actual mining model; CEO claims payouts based on other business such as miner rentals, coin IPOs)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 10 (farm stats and individual hash rate within farm disclosed)
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 20 (total control over hashing and pool selection)
KNC Cloud: 10 (pool earning rate and stats disclosed)
Zeushash: 5 (pool earning rate disclosed but no hash rate graph or stats, and earnings rates are below model predictions)
Zoomhash: 0
LTCGear: 5 (earning rates closely match LTC, DRK and VERT coin mining modelling stats, but no disclosure of actual pool mining stats)
Genisis: 0
cex.io: 20
Hashie: 0 (upgrade promised where miner would be able to direct hash to pool of miner's choice, but so far not available)
PB Mining: 0

4.  Resale market or buy back exists and is verified to be working (0-20 points).

GAW: 15 (lots of issues in market, but in general pretty effective way to exit if you don't like; GAW takes 10% commission)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 0 (will open market when round closes, but so far no market)
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 0 (no way to sell, must take delivery of miner)
KNC Cloud: 0
Zeushash: 0
Zoomhash: 0
LTCGear: 10 (ability to transfer shares, and robust private non-LTC sponsored market due to high demand and limited available shares)
Genisis: 0
cex.io: 20
Hashie: 20
PB Mining: 5 (allows and supports private sales but no market and demand is not very high)

Repeated problems exist with withdrawing payouts over period of more than a week (-20 to 0 points, negative adjustment indicates red flag).

GAW: -10 (seems to be improving but issues with withdrawals plagued system for weeks and still pop up)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 0
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 0
KNC Cloud: 0
Zeushash: -10 (withdrawals often require customer service email, but those are usually effective within 24 hours)
Zoomhash: 0
LTCGear: 0 (no applicable since LTCGear does not maintain an online wallet)
Genisis: 0
cex.io: 0
Hashie: -5 (a few reports of problems, but I have never had an issue to date; however, website down a lot so for now they get a negative adjustment until kinks worked out IMHO)
PB Mining: 0 (no wallet, coins seem to come from mixer)

Below market rates per ghs/mhs and/or above market payouts promised (-10 to 0 points, negative adjustment indicates possible ponzi scheme, pyramid or outright fraud).

GAW: -5 (was -10 at start, but now they price hashlets at or above market rates; however, repeated promises of $100 prime prices and hashbase/hashcoin shooting to the moon etc. still troublesome; justification for hashlet pricing seems to be based entirely on promised Hashbase and Hashcoin ICO)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 0
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 0
KNC Cloud: 0
Zeushash: 0
Zoomhash: 0
LTCGear: -10 (while LTCGear/Beekeeper has almost no marketing, resellers and affiliates often make claims of above market payouts and in fact historical payouts are above market; price per mhs is below market)
Genisis: 0
cex.io: 0
Hashie: 0
PB Mining: 0 (historically they were too cheap and had payouts too high, but now they are more in line with market; may have been a loss leader strategy)

Relies on MLM and affiliate techniques for sales (-20 to 0).

GAW: -15 (affiliate program, reseller program; resellers actively engaged in forums and in pumping up values)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 0
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 0
KNC Cloud: 0?
Zeushash: -10 (affiliate program, reseller program)
Zoomhash: 0?
LTCGear: -5 (affiliate program)
Genisis: 0
cex.io: 0
Hashie: -3 (affiliate program but at a very low and unattractive rate)
PB Mining: -10 (affiliate program very lucrative and primary method of marketing)

8.  Legal compliance/T&Cs (0-20).  Has contractual commitment with clear and well drafted mining agreement, with no overreaching terms, penalties, etc. (e.g., Genesis Mining).  

GAW: 0 (T&C's imposed after many customers purchased; new terms are likely unenforceable as users are required to agree in order to access miners; T&C contain clauses making hashlet hash rates unenforceable as unrelated to actual hashing activity)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 10 (detailed T&C)
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 15 (detailed T&C, SLA and ownership of miner)
KNC Cloud: 10 (contract)
Zeushash: 0
Zoomhash: 0
LTCGear: 0
Genisis: 10 (contract)
cex.io: 5 (T&C)
Hashie: 0
PB Mining: 5 (T&C)

9.  Relative ROI (relative static ROI):

GAW Prime Hashlet/Zen Hashlet: 0 (at current fees/rates)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 6
Bitmaintech+Umisoo S4 hosting (Umisoo.com): 0
KNC Cloud: 0
Zeushash: 0 (scrypt only, have not computed sha256)
Zoomhash: ? (not enough data)
LTCGear: 25 (without "mods" assuming anniversary shares at sale price in effect today)
Genisis: 0  (scrypt only - have not computed sha256)
cex.io: ? (probably zero due to high cost/fees but have not computed current static ROI)
Hashie: 0
PB Mining: 12

Ability to enforce mining contract (0-10).  

GAW: 10 (US based GAW and principals known)
Umisoo (Hashnest): 0 (China)
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 0 (China)
KNC Cloud: 10 (known entity, western European laws)
Zeushash: 0 (China)
Zoomhash: 0 (unknown entities and principals)
LTCGear: 2 (known individual but location and ability to enforce against individual unknown)
Genisis: 5 (entity and Bermuda law disclosed in contract)
cex.io: 10 (entity in UK)
Hashie: 0
PB Mining: 0?

11.  Longevity of service (0-20).  

GAW: 3
Umisoo (Hashnest): 3
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 1
KNC Cloud: 6?
Zeushash: 2
Zoomhash: 1
LTCGear: 12
Genisis: 3?
cex.io: 20 (first cloud hashing service)
Hashie: 0
PB Mining: 12?

12.  Peer review and response to criticism (0-20).
 
GAW: 0
Umisoo (Hashnest): 20
Bitmaintech+Umisoo (Umisoo.com): 0? (have not seen any public posting of Umisoo service, but I suspect Umisoo will do so eventually)
KNC Cloud: 0 (used to participate in public but not since launching cloud)
Zeushash: 0 (same as KNC)
Zoomhash: 0
LTCGear: 0 (public posts but no response from beekeeper at least in past year)
Genisis: 0?
cex.io: 0?
Hashie: 20 (so far... very new; hoping they keep to this forum and continue to stay open)
PB Mining: 10 (active on bitcointalk and provides responses in public, takes criticism and charges of ponzi scheme in stride, but not very forthcoming with detailed responses to charges such as use of mixer service for coins)

***PLEASE DO NOT POST REFERRAL LINKS ON THIS THREAD, THEY WILL BE REPORTED TO MODS AND REMOVED AS SPAM**
*** IN CASE YOU HAVE ADD AND CANNOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT ***
*** REFERRAL LINKS ARE INDICATORS OF FRAUD/PONZI/MLM AND ARE A NEGATIVE FACTOR IN RATING ***

EDIT: Decided to add top 3 and bottom 3 rankings up front for those who just want the bottom line.  NOTE that this is not a ranking based on ROI solely.  Please read full explanation before making any decisions with your money/BTC.  In fact, 2 of the 3 best cloud services by my ranking will not ROI under current market conditions, but that is NOT the purpose of this ranking.

BEST:
AMhash - score 142
CEX.io - score 115  
Umisoo on hashnest - score 74

WORST:
Zeushash - score -3
Zoomhash - score 1
GAW Prime/Zen Hashlet - score 13

EXPLANATION BELOW:

I am developing a scoring system for cloud mining companies.  My intent is to make this a community based system with discussion here about the right scoring methods, and scores for each cloud mining company to be determined and posted here.  Feel free to add, criticize, or propose additional components.  My second post in this thread will be my scoring of the companies that I am familiar with as a customer and that will change over time obviously so I will do my best to keep the grid in the second post up to date.  This first post is purely explanatory.

I am convinced that cloud mining is the future - for better or more likely for worse - of bitcoin, litecoin and any future coin that can be hashed at high rates using ASICs.  The reasons for this are the ability to scale massive farms and reduce investment in both capital (cost of miners) and operations (hosting and electricity) far more than any solo miner can achieve.  Pools were just one early form of collective action, then came hosted group buys, and now cloud mining.   All paths seem to lead inexorably to collective action to keep costs low and achieve economies of scale.

On the flip side, cloud mining in bitcoin and scrypt is a perfect setup for ponzis, pyramid schemes and outright fraud.  Anyone can make a pretty web site and run a simulation showing virtual mining activity while having no miners or fewer miners than the hashrate sold... Given the long ROIs now even for high end miners, payouts can be easily made from new investors (ponzi scheme), and with extensive use of affiliate and reseller programs (pyramid scheme) a good huckster can ensure a long term inflow of capital even while making larger than market payout returns - at least until the scheme collapses and the last round of investors are left with nothing more than a bankruptcy claim!

Mt.Gox also proved that even established cloud services (not even mining in the case) can start out legit and end up as massive frauds when there is no transparency and only a few people in charge.

Unfortunately, with difficulty skyrocketing, and coin prices in the toilet right now, cloud mining is the only viable alternative if you want even a chance at ROI.

So, in sum, cloud mining seems to me to be here to stay, but the fraudsters and hucksters will have their bloody romp through the flocks of sheep before the legit operators actually shake out and/or some kind of monitoring system gets put in place to prevent bad people from taking advantage.

With all that in mind, I have put together a little system that I find useful in "scoring" cloud mining companies.  The scoring features are broadly grouped into 3 categories: Legitimacy and Transparancy (100 points), Remedies (50 points), Relative (Static) ROI (50 points), and Red Flags (-50 points).

So the score can range from -50 to +200 points.

Here is my description of how I score each component:

(a) Legitimacy and Transparency: 100 possible points.  The most important category, as ROI and remedies don't matter if the whole thing is a scam.

--> Demonstrated mining activity consistent with claimed ghs or mhs (0-20 points).  Pictures of a few racks of miners don't count.  Proof of mining can be in several ways: disclosure of mining addresses, disclosure of mining pools and workers on those pools subject to public monitoring, proof of ownership of mining capacity, or ability of the customer to control pool selection/mining.  A perfect score can only be achieved if the mining company can demonstrate capacity/hashrates equal to or greater than the hashrate sold.

--> Backed by known and trusted manufacturer or disclosed, established, major financial partner (0-20 points). While not a perfect guarantee, an established manufacturing partner or major financial backer means that there are likely to be internal controls, and even if not public, audits to prevent fraud.  

--> Mining hash rate is subject to audit/verification (0-20 points).  Ideally, a mining service that claims to provide 1 Th/s of hashing should be able to prove that the customer is getting at least 1 Th/s.  For example, a score of "20" would given if customer could direct mining to specific pool and/or enter mining BTC/LTC address directly and monitor hash rate of purchased cloud mining.  A service that mines directly into the customer's wallet is much less likely to be a scam versus a service that sends out coins from a mixer and/or coins from other customers who purchased miners.  A farm that discloses and published real time "farm" hash rate and discloses total hash rate should get at least a 10 as there is some ability to audit hash rate as a percentage of the farm at least, though the audit trail in that case requires trust in the rates being disclosed so it is not entitled to a full score of 20.

--> Longevity of service (0-20).  1 points for each month of public operation up to a maximum of 20 total points (operation for 20 or more months).  Most scammers want to get out while the money is good, so a 1+ year record is a decent (though definitely not 100%) indicator of legitimacy.

--> Peer review and response to criticism (0-20).  Subjects its service to peer review on Bitcointalk, cryptocointalk and actively participates in a generally respectful and customer-oriented manner in a generally unmoderated public discussion of its service on one or both public forums.  Answers questions raised with detailed responses, etc.  Private and/or heavily moderated forum posts do not count.  A legitimate operation should not be defensive or opaque when asked questions about its legitimacy - it should understand that cloud mining is a trap for the unwary and any legitimate operation should go out of its way to prove itself legit.

(b) REMEDIES: Ability of Miner to take Legal Action in case of fraud and/or easily exit the purchase (refund or market): 50 points

--> Resale market or buy back exists and is verified to be working with net sale prices close to cost of purchase (0-20 points).

--> Legal compliance/T&Cs (0-20).  Has enforceable contractual commitment with clear and well drafted mining agreement, with no overreaching terms, penalties, etc. (best example would be Genesis Mining).

--> Ability to enforce mining contract (0-10).  Requires disclosure of legal entity or person(s) responsible under contract, place of incorporation and legal entity name, governing law in a jurisdiction like the United States of Western Europe where a lawsuit by a consumer has a chance in hell of success).  Companies in China or other jurisdictions with virtually inaccessible court systems (to foreigners at least) would get a low or zero score.

(c) Relative ROI/Static ROI (relative to others in same grouping): Up to 50 points

To calculate relative ROI, I first compute STATIC ROI: the number of days it would take to break even on the purchase of mining hash power, at the current rate of return (minus applicable fees), assuming no change in difficulty and no change in bitcoin/litecoin exchange rates.  This is ONLY a **static** ROI and can only be used to compare LIKE SERVICES.  In other words, if static ROI is 190 days for an SHA256 coin, it is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to ROI in 190 days because difficulty will rise exponentially in that time and further reduce ROI.  However, comparing apples to apples (e.g., SHA256 mining services compared to each other, and scrypt services compared to each other), a static ROI is a good way to compare ROI possibility among competing services.  

After computing static ROI, I assign points as follows based on the number of days to static ROI, halving the points each 50 days due to increased uncertainty from longer time periods:

0-50 days: 50 points
50-100 days: 25 points
100-150 days: 12 points
150-200 days: 6 points
200+ days: 0 points

(d) Red Flags: established indicators of fraud, ponzi or pyramid scheme according to Federal Trade Commission criteria: Down 0 to -50 points (adjustment down). NOTE that merely because a service meets the Red Flags does NOT prove that it is a ponzi or pyramid scheme.  It only signals heightened caution, possibly greatly heightened caution. That is why I decided to make the red flags a negative adjustment - they take down a score but do not necessarily determine the score.   Also note that several of the "Legitimacy" items could be in the red flag category but I did not include them here because that would double count the adjustment.  These criteria are adapted from the FTC's guidance on avoiding ponzi and pyramid schemes.

--> Repeated problems exist with withdrawing payouts over period of more than a week (-20 to 0 points, negative adjustment indicates possible ponzi scheme).

--> Below market rates per ghs/mhs and/or above market payouts promised (-10 to 0 points, negative adjustment indicates possible ponzi scheme, pyramid or outright fraud).

--> Extensive reliance on MLM, resellers and affiliate marketing techniques for sales (-20 to 0, negative adjustment indicates possible pyramid scheme).  Especially problematic for affiliate programs where payouts are MLM (lifetime purchases of a customer and/or referrals of referrals would all be -20) or where there are substantial referral fees or substantial reseller programs (a legit operation should not need resellers since the "product" is a cloud service and there is little need for after sale customer service) which would be at least a -10.