It is safe to assume, however, that the angle of the camera and or lack of proper lighting may have been used to conceal the true scale of the (actual) mining operation.
As someone else mentioned, what is so amazing is how many of the educated guesses, "FUD", and speculation on this thread turned out to be 100% spot on (including the fact you mentioned above).
Eric, prior to the 5 Ph/s (or was it 4.5 Ph/s? whatever ..) order from Bitmain, what was the actual scope of the scrypt and sha256 operation? That is an important question and nowhere in any of the email leaks or elsewhere have I seen any firm numbers. Assuming you are coming clean as you now seem to be, you must have some pretty good idea about the hash rates that were in existence in September/October/November while the whole hashlet thing was getting pumped.
prior to the 5 Ph/s (or was it 4.5 Ph/s? whatever ..) order from Bitmain, what was the actual scope of the scrypt and sha256 operation?
I honestly have no idea. I was never given those numbers nor were they available to me. At this point, it would make no difference to me to share them if I did know so I have no reason to withhold it.
What I do know, from things he said internally, is that JG's "strategy" did not involve a 1:1 ratio of 'hash rate sold' versus 'hash rate in stock'. Fractional Reserve, as it's called.
EDIT: If I had to GUESS, I'd guess about 1 to 1.5 PH at the peak of the operation.* *This is a GUESS and is strictly based on my own indirect observations.