Topic: CoinTerra announces its first ASIC - Hash-Rate greater than 500 GH/s - page 80. (Read 231016 times)

^^why not ask her directly? (wild west) 

I have only one question:

are these boobs real?

i think I've given my background plenty of times...   I'm a tech entrepreneur... with a background in computer games.. but also, long ago silicon... (my team designed the Super FX chip)...  I've taken two companies public... and am working on my third (online poker).   Bitcoin isn't my day job, its a hobby but one where I've invested quite heavily into mining gear...   so hopefully I've demonstrated I'm a geek with a biz background who has low tolerance for trolls and for spreading FUD about any company, whether it be kncminer, hashfast or cointerra.. or any of the others.   I just have a huge dislike for fud and untruths and some of the silliness thats said in these forums...

it seems to be de rigeur these days, when someone chooses and orders a miner from company X.. some people seem to feel the need to jump into company Y and company Z's miner forums and spread FUD for no apparent reason other than to make said people think they made the right choice and try to put down everyone else's choice.  for no reason.  just insanity.   also perhaps some of the oldern day bitcoiners perhaps enjoy believing a few too many conspiracy theories.  maybe it goes with the territory.

anyway, who am i?   I'm definitely not one of cointerra's largest customers but i think I'm most likely in their top 20.  perhaps even in their top 10.  I've made a big enough order with them to call them up often and find out whats going on.

And.. i have to stress, i am in the same position with hashfast (i have a big order with them and i call them up regularly to discuss whats going on!)....   and am also a medium customer of KnCMiner.. not because i don't think its a great company.. its awesome and they've done a stellar job.. its just that the price i got from KnCMiner wasn't as good as the prices i got from Hashfast and Cointerra.. so it was simple economics that i ordered more from the ones that were lower cost (taking into account the difficulty forecast).... Sam told me i was definitely in their top 50.

I also ordered some BFL.. which is trickling in now (I've had one Little Single, just arrive this week after ordering it in February!!!!   and 4 Jalapeños are on the way).  All of them are wayyy too late for me to be interested so I'm auctioning them off.    I also own two small BitFury systems.   I have never owned an Avalon, though i was once an AsicMiner shareholder.. and did quite well so i exited happy.

Happy now?

And if you want to google me.. go ahead...   or just click here...   I've no secrets..   https://www.google.co.uk/#q=jez+san

Who are you? You seem to be somewhat emotionally invested in this organisation aside from your financial investment with them. How are you privy to all this insider info from Cointerra? It would be silly FUD if there were actual evidence, as opposed to just yourself constantly insisting that we should take yours and their word for it.

i have placed a big order with cointerra (amongst other big orders with others) and i keep in touch with them regularly and they have definitely taped out when they said they did.  and they wrote an exceedingly large cheque.  it was later than hoped, but it was done on nov 8th as announced.  I've seen enough additional information to know this is a fact so please stop implying they might be not be telling the truth... thats silly FUD.

They are advertising so heavily through adwords that actually i bet they dont really care what we write at this forum and most people outside bitcointalk don't know what tapeout means. I bet they have tapedout as announced. There´s no reason to fake it. I also bet those miners from bitcointalk who are going to buy cointerra have already bought. So it was just a kind announcement to help us sleep better with our pre-orders.

If they lie about tape-out though, this could be seen as illegal since February and march orders were made after (and these customers most likely placed their orders based on the news).  For this reason I think lying about tape-out is unlikely..as there are more legitimate ways to pull a scam

No. There is no actual evidence of either a lie or the truth. Just people making statements.

Yes, greed... I have seen what it´s done for me... I have put all my money on pre-orders.

I am sure they weren't mobsters going into this, but that doesn't mean greed won't make them become mobsters.  Have you seen what money does to people?

This is so fun... I'm sure Oswald killed JFK regardless all conspiracy theories!

Honestly, people behind Cointerra aren't ex-mombsters. For me they seems to be at most pro team compared to any ASIC company. They're not shady unkonwn figure from the streets. But of course we need some enterntainment while waiting!

Just quoting this for posterity so I can laugh really hard at it later.

Unless you asked for their consent to record, you may have violated the law in recording the phone call:

http://lifehacker.com/5491190/is-it-legal-to-record-phone-calls

You're good if you don't live in those states though.

It's always more profitable to take the money and run.
Lets say Cointerra sells $10,000,000 worth of preorders, with full intentions of building them for their customers and shipping on time.  Lets assume their profit margin is 200% at that time when Bitcoin is $120.
Fast forward to now when BTC is $800..
$10,000,000 of purchase orders would now be worth ~$80,000,000 if they decided to mine with the machines themselves, assuming they make ROI.  We are expecting them to forfeit a profit margin of 8x profit so that they can satisfy their orders for 2x profit.  This is what scares me.
They will hold onto those machines as long as is necessary to make them as filthy rich as possible, while LEGITIMATELY refunding their customers in the FIAT that their bitcoins were worth at the time.  After all, could we legally be able to go after them if they have given us full refunds?  It would be a better scam than BFL pulled.  It would be the most profitable path for them.

The best way for them to accomplish this would be this:  December is going to pass.  January comes along, and they "admit" they are having technical issues with their chips, while sincerely apologizing for the shipping delays.  February passes, and then March comes and they decide to finally ship their products to the few customers that are left who didn't demand refunds.  

I hope this doesn't happen but I'm sure this scenario has entered the minds of those who started up Cointerra.  It's a more complex version of the BFL scam.

I hope for the best, but fear the worst.  

We can take the option and wait.. or we can start acting now.  Start becoming friends with Cointerra employees, record conversations as I have already been doing, do what we can to protect ourselves.  This may become the biggest scam in bitcoin history if we don't start NOW.

Nonsense. Why not? If it makes sense to do so, any business will behave in any way they see fit. Again, your argument is thick with rhetoric and thin on logic.


I'm not talking about cost reduction, you've seized on that aspect all by yourself. I'm talking about (and it shouldn't need to spelled out so clearly) assembly line and supply chain logistics. Getting the right components in the right place, at the right time, at all. Not the unit cost of doing so.

Oh, and the cardboard would be for the packaging. You know, the box (not the type of box that you clearly aren't thinking outside of). I don't think Cointerra plan to ship their units as is, with a delivery address glued to the side of the bare unit.

im not alone in focussing on tape-out as a 'big deal'.  you may well be alone in thinking that asic companies could (or even would) lie - with their physical design partners - about whether they've taped-out.  the reputitional impact of the physical design partner lying would be immense, even if the asic company itself could get away with it, what a silly assertion.

Similarly, i don't think that VeriSilicon (Black Arrow's physical design partner) will allow them to lie about when tape-out happens, so when they achieve it, i am expecting their announcement will be truthful too.


your suggestions are totally valid... but suggesting that cointerra, being in austin, isn't in a pretty ideal place to do high tech r&d... (there's a serious amount of asic engineers there, second only to silicon valley - which is where hashfast are located, so they too, have access to all the design talent they need).   those are pretty good places to be based, when designing state of the art silicon.   now, if you're saying that making the box, the screws, the cardboard (huh?), and everything else can be made cheaper in china.. yes of course it can...   and any american company can also make products in china when it wants to.  hashfast and cointerra chose to make their boxes in north america - most likely for 'time to market' reasons - i.e. build it as close as you can to your customers and also as close as you can to the designers, so they are on hand for when things go wrong.  I'm quite sure, when they get to the subsequent batches that are less time critical (like batch 4 & 5) they will be shifting some or more of their production to china, for when they want things built at a lower cost (and they've got a proven working product and its time to take some cost out of it)...   but time to market in the bitcoin world - both in the design process and in pilot manufacturing - is of more critical importance (for the early batches at least) than cost reduction, which can come later.. when the market is more price sensitive.

tape-out = the new chip package bumping

Would they lie? Is it in the fabrication partners interests to lie too? You take those things completely as given, and offer no credible reason as to why not.

And you keep trying to maintain that the tape-out has some kind of elevated status in the process, and don't offer any reason other than the investment cost it requires. If any aspect that is necessary to the assembly, correct functioning and chain of customer delivery becomes absent, then no Terraminers, or Sierras, or Prosperos. Why concentrate so heavily on this one aspect of the project development? You're a little obsessed with tape-outs if you ask me, and you're ostensibly a customer like any other on this board.

BlackArrow have another advantage, if I may suggest it. Their operation is located in the manufacturing heartland of the world. Not just electronics, but all manufacturing. They're not going to stuck for choice when it comes to suppliers for just about any part of the project, from fixing screws, to cardboard, to any piece of production line equipment you care to mention. How are Cointerra going to deal with that advantage, what with their location in the long term declining manufacturing heartland of the world?

i don't entirely agree...  ever since 28nm silicon started (with KnCMiner).. and the cost of producing a new bitcoin asic has became astronomical, the biggest hurdle for any new (28nm) asic company has to overcome is selling enough pre-sales orders (or finding investors) to be able to pay the $5m+ that it costs to enter production - previously with 110, 65 or 40nm, a much less expensive proposition.   I agree that after tape-out its not just plain sailing - theres plenty of other execution risk (as hashfast has demonstrated).. but the tape-out hurdle and the associated pre-sales requirement is pretty much the biggest hurdle to overcome in a bitcoin asic company's life - because it means two huge things have been achieved.  1.  that the asic is finished, tested, and meets its target specs (verified by the physical design partner, which is an outside and completely unpartisan team), and 2.  that the company has raised enough cash via pre-sales to enter full production.   This significantly de-risks the delivery timeline once tape-out has passed, both from a technical and financial security point of view.  The company has therefore overcome its the biggest milestone (not that there aren't plenty of other execution hurdles on the way to achieving a successful on-schedule delivery)

what the hell does that mean?  no evidence of cointerra's tape-out ?     doing a joint press release with their partner is the evidence.  What more do you need?  What more could you possibly have?   You don't think they could lie do you?  You certainly don't think their physical design partner is going to allow them to mislead about anything, let alone something as massive as a tape-out do you?   a tape-out announcement is pretty definitive and for you to think that it could be misleading is ridiculous fantasy.    after tape-out, the next big milestone is silicon arrival.


thats pretty much my point.. to some extent at least, more transparency..  more announcements.. more status updates... are useful for us customers knowing whats going on behind the black box that is asic development.   we want to see the updates.  now, once an asic enters the fab, you probably won't get many updates (and certainly not ones for public consumption)... you just have an expected eta that the fab gives you...  and then out pops the silicon... for you to hope it works.

there are plenty of other models.  i think the picks and shovels people (bitcoin asic companies) will most likely continue making picks and shovels for the foreseeable future.  but in the longer term... instead of selling boxes to people, who have limited space in their homes and limited hvac and power (not to mention skills in keeping the systems running at full efficiency)...  i think that the asic companies of today will end up being bitcoin mining service providers and hosting partners of tomorrow.. and will be selling bitcoin systems to customers, complete with full service hosting contracts.. that way their customers can buy even more systems than fit in their homes, and the asic companies get more of a continual revenue stream.

No. This is a poor argument, by all accounts. And an argument that revolves entirely around Cointerra's story.

Until Cointerra were drawn into the "have they or haven't they" question surrounding the mask tape-outs, it was never an issue, and never a marketing strategy. For any ASIC company, of which there have been 4 that came before them.

There is no evidence of Cointerra's tape-out, and even if it were the truth, it is by no means their only challenge whilst trying to complete this project. All sorts of other problems can cause delays, and there is no real way to know which of these problems are real and which are concealing embarrassing oversight of something simple. BFL played that exact same game with their customers; anytime a delay was announced it was attributed to somehting highly technical, and never to something as prosaic as bad contingency planning in their material requirements.

With these ASIC developers, it's always: "We're so ahead of our time, so bleeding edge, that the challenges of technology innovation are unfolding in totally unexpected ways! Even Stephen Hawking and Einstein couldn't have seen this one coming!"

Whereas the reality is we have no proof of these things, all we really know is they goofed something up, and are using excuses that very few people are qualified to comment on, and no-one independent can actually verify.