Assuming that GAW is legit and not a ponzi, the only realistic possibility is that multi-algos is a business/virtualized solution, not a technology one. What I mean is that the only way to achieve what Josh is proposing is buying buying several different ASICs, each designed for a different algo, and then allowing primes to access each of them. If that is what Josh has in mind, it is not going to work IMHO because it will mean that GAW will need to purchase multiple ASICS for EACH prime customer - and with no new investment since primes are supposedly going off the market! how will that happen? Who will fund those new ASICS targeted to multiple algos?
What makes you think that primes are real hardware? I think it's pretty obvious those are shares and not connected to any hardware.
GAW does all the mining for themselves and pay you out as if you were mining, based on the performance of your virtual hashlet (prime). It doesn't matter what they are mining.
And who knows if they haven't started getting into ASIC's for other algos (individual, not multi algo ASICs) months ago. Who's to say that some newer algos are not much simpler to develop than it is for scrypt? They don't have competition and they don't need to aim for the skies, just beat CPU/GPU mining with a large enough margin. Not likely, but possible.
We are saying the same thing sort of. I mean that either (A) GAW has a datacenter with actual miners somewhere that are mining at the pools as directed by the aggregate of all hashlets (e.g., if there are 1,000,000 mhs in hashlets pointed to Clevermining in the aggregate, then GAW has to have mining hardware at its datacenter that in the aggregate mines at least 1,000,000 mhs at Clevermining at a given point in time), or (B) if (A) is not true, then GAW is merely a fraud/ponzi scheme. Note that you can have a ponzi scheme that engages is real economic activity; the original Ponzi scheme involved arbitraging postage stamps between Europe and the U.S. , but it collapsed because there were not enough stamps to support the number sold through he ponzi scheme which is exactly what I worry about with GAW/Zenwhatever.
If the underlying model is (A) (not ponzi), then somehow GAW has to acquire (on a continuous basis) new ASICS to keep ahead of the market. There are some very large players in this industry where a few million dollars is nothing but a drop in the hat. How would GAW keep ahead of bitmain, KNC, innosilicon, gridseed, etc? How many major ASIC developers have failed to deliver product that is competitive even with millions of dollars in R&D (Black Arrow, KNC, Cointerra, to name just the most recent flameouts). GAW has never purported to be an ASIC developer, and I would never believe that even if they said they were. GAW claims to have *relationships* with ASIC companies and claims to be able to use market power to get the best deals. THAT I believe. However, even the best deals cannot compensate for late deliveries, missed power targets, and/or competitors who get out there with better more efficient ASICS.
What is true is that the next crop of ASICs looks to be coming in December, at a price point of about $5 per mhs (scrypt). At least one manufacturer will have some limited support for Scrypt-N. Assuming GAW has preferred pricing and will be first in queue (a possibility given the number of hashlets they have sold), there is an opportunity for GAW to profit by making large scale ASIC purchases at say $4/mhs delivered in December-January by selling hashlets NOW for $49. Essentially the $49 price subsidizes losses until GAW can take delivery and bring up the new cheaper ASICS.
But how long can that continue? It is really a one or two trick pony. And, the more folks who bail out now at $20-40, the less money GAW has to capitalize on this. E.g., GAW needs capital to make hashlets work. Hence my predictions.
I take most of what I said back as I don't know much about the ASIC scene as you probably guessed it, and I genuinely thought GAW was an ASIC developer company. My bad.
On the other hand I found out that it was confirmed a few weeks ago by the CEO that "The Solos actually don’t mine those pools. They just use their payouts." That
thread also have theories how GAW acquired Scrypt-N ASICs. However I don't know any Scrypt-N coin with a large enough marketcap.
What I'll say though, is that I can't really look at GAW as a ponzi even if their behavior looks like they are walking on the line. I mean it seems they do have a massive mining operation, they do have profit so they don't necessarily need to keep charming waves and waves of investors endlessly. However, they apparently will start selling a new hashlet (via walmart/amazon) which seems to target people new to crypto - or at least the mining part of it.
In hindsight I got lucky getting on early with primes (will hit ROI sometime next week) but I will not invest into GAW any more as I don't like their randomness. I could swallow the lack of transparency but not the goofy random features (boost, double dip, magic zenpool, hash-keepyourBTCwithus-points, etc)
The CEO asked the community today about selling Primes for one more hour, but the HT community was against it as some people spent a lot panicbuying them from other sites and now magically you can buy primes from several sources again for a limited time only. They have so many random elements and feature that it is purely gambling at this point. I mean you can't look at it as a calculated investment and I'm sure that it's not most people was looking for.
I'm not going to sell my primes though, I'm curious about those other algos but I won't invest a satoshi more and I'll withdraw the payouts just in case.