[....] Bunch of scammers selling likely stolen shit to the community that doesn't meet the specification, and fake miners, and preying on rightful concerns about mining centralization to pump their deception the entire way. I feel bad for people like -ck, Adam Back, and slush who got deceived by these guys and helped add legitimacy to them, the coming weeks are going to be... interesting for them.
I've tried to be fair and objective in my criticism of Halong Mining and its unveiling of the DragonMint. I've spent considerable time conducting due diligence on Halong Mining and "MyRig, Inc." I purchased many DragonMints in early January (more than the MOQ). I did so impulsively, being irrationally exuberant when BTC prices were much higher than they are today. I didn't do my usual due diligence on Halong Mining, and that was my mistake. When I became 99% convinced that Halong Mining was a scam and that I'd never receive the miners I bought from them, I immediately wanted to share publicly the results of my research, so I shared my concerns with Unicornflex (a friend, associate, and member of this community), who made the initial post of our concerns. (See
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2443327.1260.) We decided this post would perhaps be better received by this community from his account, since he had been a member here for many years, and my account was just created. My only motivation in voicing the results of my research was to help others
not get scammed, as I certainly feared I would be.
My opinion about Halong Mining and "MyRig, Inc." has not changed much. There is no question they are shady operators. Because their incorporation cannot be verified, the public has no way to hold them accountable, for example, for design defects or theft of intellectual property (yes, perhaps from Innosilicon -- see
https://i.imgur.com/RgI9Eoy.jpg;
please note: the origin of this photo is unknown to me, but was shared today on the DragonMint Telegram Group,
https://t.me/dragonmint), by someone named @swapman.)
Halong Mining and "MyRig, Inc." don't reply to reasonable inquiries for information about their incorporation or registered agents. Halong Mining claims an FCC certification of its hardware (the DM1) exists, but the FCC has no record of it that I can find. Why
wouldn't Halong want to share the details of its FCC certificate if it had one? There are many, many other concerns that I've tried to document in this thread.
Having said that, we know that -ck has done essential, valid work for the community, including, he says, for Halong Mining. He has said he is working remotely on the firmware used by the DragonMint with interesting, positive results. In fact, he has made so many statements in this thread affirming the DragonMint, we have to trust him that this hardware is real, even if it is produced by shadowy figures. It doesn't mean we should place new orders for hardware from Halong Mining.
I don't think we should. I do not recommend purchasing from Halong Mining until it discloses who its operators are and where it is incorporated. I would also like to see an FCC registration number of its claimed FCC certificate or other information on where the public can view it. Until Halong Mining discloses this information, understand that if you buy from Halong Mining,
caveat emptor, you're buying from people who you cannot hold accountable, so don't count on
anything. While I appreciate the confirmations made by -ck, Adam Back, Jan Čapek, and JP La Torre, let's be clear -- they are not warranting anything about the shipment of hardware by Halong Mining. Its operators could disappear at any moment for any reason -- valid or not.