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Topic: GAW ZenCloud ZenPool Hashlet - does it really exist? ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :-) - page 96. (Read 262935 times)

legendary
Activity: 1526
Merit: 1000
the grandpa of cryptos
i have 1 prime that i had as usual miner and upgraded Smiley
sr. member
Activity: 394
Merit: 250
Wow people still bitter up on here. Yall making money and you know it! If you sold too early that is your problem but you still made money.

gaw maybe doing crazy things but they still make the most money besides LTC gear...
sr. member
Activity: 434
Merit: 254
For folks who still maintain that zencloud might not be a Ponzi even if it is not actually mining, please consider the following (caveat, I do not think that Josh's statements to the effect of no mining are clear and it is still possible there is mining going one, though as others have pointed out it is hard to imagine how such massive mining would go undetected)...

1) Its a Ponzi if hashlet payouts are funded in any respect from the sales of new hashlets.  If not mining, then where do payouts and profits come from?  If the answer is from sales of other miners, then its a ponzi (or pyramid) scheme by definition.  It does not matter if Josh's/GAW's intent is pure gold.  Maybe he truly believes that by amassing incredible market power he/GAW can turn the hashlets into real miners in the future.  Maybe Josh is willing to fund hashlet payouts out of his own pocket, and he is truly serious about making sure that prime hashlet owners will make money regardless of losses.  It doesn't matter, because its still a ponzi if payouts are being funded - in any respect - from sale of new hashlets.

2) Why does it matter?  Because if its a ponzi or pyramid scheme - even a well intentioned one -  all of the investments made by hashlet owners are subject to a serious risk of a "run on the bank" that will eventually collapse the whole system.  This happens when revenue from new hashlet sales is not sufficient to cover withdrawals (and, if Josh is funding losses out of his own pocket, when Josh runs out of money to do so).  This effect will be greatly magnified under 3 obvious circumstances: (A) GAW repurchases miners to keep the price of new hashlet sales higher than what the market would have otherwise dictated, which creates a massive need for new capital (new hashlet sales), (B) GAW exhausts the market of folks willing to pay the premium prices for hashlets that GAW is asking, and/or (C) old hashlet owners who have received a decent return on investment decide to sell in private sales at a discount to what GAW/resellers are asking (thus depriving GAW of revenue needed to fund hashlet

3) Note that in order to prevent a collapse, would have to keep revenue from new hashlets coming in at an ever increasing rate (because sales of new hashlets create an even greater demand for hashlet payouts) and/or prevent payouts from being withdrawn.  So when you see price pumping, cheerleading for new miner sales, BTC withdrawal freezes, bans of private sales, etc. these are all HUGE red flags that would indicate, assuming that hashlet profits are being funded from something other than mining, that the ponzi/pyramid scheme is collapsing or at least hitting some hard bumps.  As more and more folks get worried about this, withdrawals increase which puts even more pressure on new sales and pumping.

4) It is possible that hashlet payouts are funded from something other than new hashlet sales.  But any answer to this question immediately runs into the same issues as a ponzi (and whether or not regarded as a ponzi, all of these schemes would be illegal FYI especially in light of the lack of disclosure and misleading sales representations about hashlets being the next generation of cloud mining).  Consider:

a) GAW takes the money from hashlet sales to trade BTC/alt-coins, arbitrage, etc.  As long as he can "beat" the index (e.g., the relevant pool profits) payouts are good.  But what happens when, as is inevitable, he ends up on the losing side of trades in a day?  This is exactly what happened with Enron traders who then started doubling down to try to make back what they lost and ended up bankrupting an entire company.  

b) GAW invests money from the hashlet sales in some other investment, like stocks, oil, etc.  Same result - eventually even the best traders have a very bad day and then what?

To be clear I am not saying that GAW is doing any of these things.  But you have to ask where hashlet payouts come from if not mining, and how can those payouts be sustained without relying on sales of new hashlets (which would de facto put GAW into the ponzi category).

It is also entirely possible (maybe probable) that GAW in fact has SOME cloud miners but not nearly as many as have been sold as hashlets.  Just like with Maddof, some profits are legitimate.  That doesn't change the analysis for the rest of the payouts if funded by new hashlet sales.

The bottom line is that is matters a LOT how GAW is funding hashlet payouts.  Any answer other than actual mining will lead to huge problems eventually.
legendary
Activity: 3654
Merit: 8909
https://bpip.org
Oh look, Primes are back on the zen hash market ($49.95)...

And the thread about the CEO's promise not to sell primes ever again has been deleted.

Unfortunately, google caching didn't get that far:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kOITZ9kGd98J:https://hashtalk.org/topic/11511/prime-question-of-the-community+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk


And an IPO is incoming:

"GAW will have an IPO very soon :grinning: But we will do it in a way that are customers get the upside. Especially Prime owners :grinning:"

GAW is rapidly becoming a source of entertainment to me, that's for sure.

... aaaands it's gone  Grin

Apparently a software error is to blame.

Edit: I mean Primes are gone from the store.

As for the IPO, this is so far up in the shitcoin territory that it's not even funny anymore. Although I don't think any coin yet was so brazen as to have "exclusive" mining. This goes against pretty much everything that crypto currencies stand for. But it is a good way to obscure the massive hashrate, you gotta give them that.

https://hashtalk.org/topic/11623/gaw-ipo-speculation
sr. member
Activity: 756
Merit: 250
Infleum
Suchmoon, they are most likely taking a huge risk.

When will they mine?
I think they were mining the whole time, but with less hash than announced (and sold), while paying the rest from the money they made as resellers and spending the cash from shares on hardware (pre-orders).
They wouldn't have to use funds from purchases to finance the payouts just use money they earned selling hardware.

I read on some other site I think it was Genesis Mining, that people who started it were early adopters, who mined bitcoin for years and invested the money into hardware. If Josh and friends put serious cash into BTC (or Doge) in 2013/14 they have more than enough to keep paying dividends for the next couple years.  

Cloud mining is probably a more profitable business for you than for them  Wink
MOB
hero member
Activity: 493
Merit: 504
I need to find and quote my post from a month or more ago that Prime Hashlet's were actually IPO shares, GAW just did not bother to tell anyone.

Yes, Snipe85, with that much hashpower you can't just keep things secret. If GAW ever gains the amount of power that it claims to have, then everyone would be able to tell as all this data is public.

As of today, it is still not on LTC or Scrypt-N in any meaningful amount. Might it be in the future? Perhaps, but GAW has been playing this shell game for 2 1/2 months now. When will they actually mine?

Lastly, if Josh is paying customers' payouts using funds that come from purchases, then this is a Ponzi or pyramid scheme. What happens when people stop buying and GAW still does not mine?


And really lastly, Suchmoon--I am quite happy that I sold my 100Mh with an average price of ~$35/MH. Between that and mining, I made 104% profit or so (and converted to fiat) in time to have BTC still be in the 525s+. I then bought BTC on the downslide, so the opportunity cost of staying with GAW would have exceeded my gains since then.
legendary
Activity: 3654
Merit: 8909
https://bpip.org
cloud mining pre-order

That still leaves the question of where that cloud is going to mine while it's finally all online (500+ GH/s of Scrypt hashpower is ~50% of LTC). There is also the financial risk - most current hardware is barely profitable even if you have it on hand TODAY, whereas GAW would be taking money, making payouts and getting the hardware sometime later, so that hardware would have to be quite impressive to make up for the lead time when there was no revenue but payouts still had to be made. Not to mention the BTC exchange rate swings. Not impossible but quite crazy.
legendary
Activity: 2002
Merit: 1051
ICO? Not even once.
Oh look, Primes are back on the zen hash market ($49.95)...

And the thread about the CEO's promise not to sell primes ever again has been deleted.

Unfortunately, google caching didn't get that far:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kOITZ9kGd98J:https://hashtalk.org/topic/11511/prime-question-of-the-community+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk


And an IPO is incoming:

"GAW will have an IPO very soon :grinning: But we will do it in a way that are customers get the upside. Especially Prime owners :grinning:"

GAW is rapidly becoming a source of entertainment to me, that's for sure.
legendary
Activity: 3654
Merit: 8909
https://bpip.org
This whole Prime story is actually pretty cool if you think about it. All throughout since the hashlets were first announced the CEO kept repeating how special and valuable they are and how we should buy more and more of them. And despite some fumbles along the way there has been a steady albeit artificial rise in their value:

$16
$20
$25
$30-40 - buy-back recently
$50 - a little hiccup here with plan A/B
$70 - now
$100 - rumored

It stands to reason that anybody who sold their Primes - when the private sales were still allowed, or as a whole account, or through buy-back - or didn't buy them earlier, or didn't convert their Zeus/VB hardware would be feeling sorry now, and anybody looking at this pattern would be thinking if they should jump on the gravy train while they still can.

Now the question is how far up and for how long can it last. $70 for 1 Mh/s is nuts, but so was $25.
sr. member
Activity: 756
Merit: 250
Infleum
They were and probably are investing the money into hardware. I assume nobody would build a data center and buy miners just to show them as proof.

I see 2 possible options here:
1. They were combining multiple sources of income (mining new coins, speculating on the market and so on). This isn't that hard to do when you have a few millions at your disposal.
2. Reinvesting the money from sales into new data centers and more hardware. In this case they weren't ready with the supply base and decided to sell shares while building it.
Maybe both points are true to some extent and maybe none of them.

Both cases involve some risky operations, but none of them is a ponzi scheme. It's rather a first cloud mining pre-order. You paid for the shares that remain virtual until the hardware behind them gets bought and set up.
 
Just my 2 Satoshis Smiley
newbie
Activity: 3
Merit: 0
I'll just leave this here... don't take my word for it, I've just signed up to post this.
Please go on and educate yourself.

GAW = Great Auk Wireless, among other things, including GAW Miners right now.   www.gaw.com

- Revolutionary ideas that will change the industry forever.   ...check.
- Initial delivery problems.  ...check.
- Promises. Pre-announcements followed by more promises and pre-pre-announcements.   ...check.
- A bunch of customers pissed off at GAW.   ...check.
- Excuses, excuses, excuses, oh and more promises that everything will be gawsome, you're just not seeing it right now, but you will, promised!  ...check.
- Everyone walks away, lawsuits follow and GAW goes tits up.   ...check.

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/canaan-vt/THJFBNV4MIFIR075C

Sounds familiar?

Now, in all fairness, I will say that Josh does not appear to be running a Ponzi here. He's not trying to scam anyone. No, I believe he is truely honest and convinced that he's really on to something.
Unfortunately, he's wrong, as anyone with more than a high-school education could tell him, albeit not explain to him in terms that he would understand.

Josh is a nice guy. But he's also, let's call it... naive? That is, if you want to be nice, otherwise, the term... dumb as f*#! might come to mind.

Anyway, just my analysis of the situation.

legendary
Activity: 2002
Merit: 1051
ICO? Not even once.
Interesting that with double-dip you now make almost exactly what the average payout was with the Zenpool about a month ago. No boosting, no double-dipping, no nonsense required. Of course, BTC is still below where it was 30 days ago =/

Seems like a nice time to sell an account if you can get $50+/Prime for it!

edit:
People are actually buying Primes from Volder and his ilk for $69.95?!?

What kind of person would do that? It is reassuring to see his thread more than half filled with posts saying the price is too high, but who the hell are these people that are dumb enough to buy?

The CEO told that he expects the price of primes to double - which it will because a lot of people are drinking the GAW kool-aid and expect that the future price will also reflect the future payouts, whatever new features they are going to call it.
MOB
hero member
Activity: 493
Merit: 504
#payoutwatch even more late today, and withdrawals still b/locked

Edit: sneaky edit Smiley

and everyone's favorite double dip option LTC Pool suddenly turned to crap:



https://hashtalk.org/topic/11516/what-happened-to-the-ltc-pool

That will put a dent into Prime prices. Or not.

Interesting that with double-dip you now make almost exactly what the average payout was with the Zenpool about a month ago. No boosting, no double-dipping, no nonsense required. Of course, BTC is still below where it was 30 days ago =/

Seems like a nice time to sell an account if you can get $50+/Prime for it!

edit:
People are actually buying Primes from Volder and his ilk for $69.95?!?

What kind of person would do that? It is reassuring to see his thread more than half filled with posts saying the price is too high, but who the hell are these people that are dumb enough to buy?
legendary
Activity: 2002
Merit: 1051
ICO? Not even once.
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.
legendary
Activity: 3654
Merit: 8909
https://bpip.org

....

Predictions.  The following is pure speculation.  I will probably get some wrong, but I bet I get the gist of it right.


C) GAW may keep its promise not to create new Prime hashlets, but a large number of prime hashlets will mysteriously become available possibly through resellers or the market.  Since hashlets are virtual anyway, GAW or its resellers could have millions in virtual inventory and still be truthful when saying no new primes will be created.  Now that GAW has cleared out all of the whiners like me who wanted out at a lower price, they may be able to support a higher price in a market for a while and keep selling them directly via the market or indirectly via resellers.

Prediction C - confirmed.

https://hashtalk.org/topic/11566/zighash-has-primes-what/12
https://hashtalk.org/topic/11562/primes-at-hoosierminer/4
https://hashtalk.org/topic/11561/psssssst-primes-back-in-stock-at-hashpros-net/4


Don't forget another mod's site: PrimeHashlets.com

And only at a $20 markup over "retail". This is some seriously messed up shit. If this doesn't cause an uprising on HT then I guess it's guaranteed smooth sailing for GAW in pretty much anything else they can come up with. It would prove that the customer base will do anything they're told to.
sr. member
Activity: 434
Merit: 254

....

Predictions.  The following is pure speculation.  I will probably get some wrong, but I bet I get the gist of it right.


C) GAW may keep its promise not to create new Prime hashlets, but a large number of prime hashlets will mysteriously become available possibly through resellers or the market.  Since hashlets are virtual anyway, GAW or its resellers could have millions in virtual inventory and still be truthful when saying no new primes will be created.  Now that GAW has cleared out all of the whiners like me who wanted out at a lower price, they may be able to support a higher price in a market for a while and keep selling them directly via the market or indirectly via resellers.

Prediction C - confirmed.

https://hashtalk.org/topic/11566/zighash-has-primes-what/12
https://hashtalk.org/topic/11562/primes-at-hoosierminer/4
https://hashtalk.org/topic/11561/psssssst-primes-back-in-stock-at-hashpros-net/4
hero member
Activity: 571
Merit: 507
I doubt they are going to sneak primes in to the market. Obviously they can't just leak a massive amount of them and they do take 10% of every transaction which works better long term.

I would find it more believable if they didn't have their shills and moderators hyping up the prices in their own forum... it's starting to sound uncannily like so many shitcoin pumps right here on bitcointalk.

Well, I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens next, since I still can't get rid of my stupid "fury".

you have a zen/gaw hosted fury or a physical one? i might be interested. currently no miners at home. it's quiet in here Sad

I have a hosted Fury that was given as a gift to ZenCloud customers a couple of months ago. It got converted to a Prime later but it seems it's some kind of special Prime - I can't sell it.

If you are looking for a miner I'd suggest something other than Zeus crap, it's unprofitable if you pay $0.15 per kWh or more. Even an old Gridseed blade would be better.

so is that the only thing you have hosted or do you have other stuff?
I'm getting a gridseed from zoomhash, but they are taking forever. getting one of those 23-25Mh scrypt ones

If you mean at GAW/Zen, I also have 30 primes I purchased at $16 (was ~1 BTC at the time). Will probably sell 29 when marketplace opens and will leave one as a test case.

If you mean overall, I have some minor investments in many different places, most of them suck though.



you might as well sell now, when people are desperate to get them. you can probably get $55 or so each. some people are willing to pay $70

There is no way for me to sell now except the full account, which I don't want to do. I'm fine with holding on to it for a while. At $16 cost basis I should be ok no matter what happens.

yup, i was implying you could sell your whole account...
legendary
Activity: 3654
Merit: 8909
https://bpip.org
I doubt they are going to sneak primes in to the market. Obviously they can't just leak a massive amount of them and they do take 10% of every transaction which works better long term.

I would find it more believable if they didn't have their shills and moderators hyping up the prices in their own forum... it's starting to sound uncannily like so many shitcoin pumps right here on bitcointalk.

Well, I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens next, since I still can't get rid of my stupid "fury".

you have a zen/gaw hosted fury or a physical one? i might be interested. currently no miners at home. it's quiet in here Sad

I have a hosted Fury that was given as a gift to ZenCloud customers a couple of months ago. It got converted to a Prime later but it seems it's some kind of special Prime - I can't sell it.

If you are looking for a miner I'd suggest something other than Zeus crap, it's unprofitable if you pay $0.15 per kWh or more. Even an old Gridseed blade would be better.

so is that the only thing you have hosted or do you have other stuff?
I'm getting a gridseed from zoomhash, but they are taking forever. getting one of those 23-25Mh scrypt ones

If you mean at GAW/Zen, I also have 30 primes I purchased at $16 (was ~1 BTC at the time). Will probably sell 29 when marketplace opens and will leave one as a test case.

If you mean overall, I have some minor investments in many different places, most of them suck though.



you might as well sell now, when people are desperate to get them. you can probably get $55 or so each. some people are willing to pay $70

There is no way for me to sell now except the full account, which I don't want to do. I'm fine with holding on to it for a while. At $16 cost basis I should be ok no matter what happens.
hero member
Activity: 571
Merit: 507
I doubt they are going to sneak primes in to the market. Obviously they can't just leak a massive amount of them and they do take 10% of every transaction which works better long term.

I would find it more believable if they didn't have their shills and moderators hyping up the prices in their own forum... it's starting to sound uncannily like so many shitcoin pumps right here on bitcointalk.

Well, I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens next, since I still can't get rid of my stupid "fury".

you have a zen/gaw hosted fury or a physical one? i might be interested. currently no miners at home. it's quiet in here Sad

I have a hosted Fury that was given as a gift to ZenCloud customers a couple of months ago. It got converted to a Prime later but it seems it's some kind of special Prime - I can't sell it.

If you are looking for a miner I'd suggest something other than Zeus crap, it's unprofitable if you pay $0.15 per kWh or more. Even an old Gridseed blade would be better.

so is that the only thing you have hosted or do you have other stuff?
I'm getting a gridseed from zoomhash, but they are taking forever. getting one of those 23-25Mh scrypt ones

If you mean at GAW/Zen, I also have 30 primes I purchased at $16 (was ~1 BTC at the time). Will probably sell 29 when marketplace opens and will leave one as a test case.

If you mean overall, I have some minor investments in many different places, most of them suck though.



you might as well sell now, when people are desperate to get them. you can probably get $55 or so each. some people are willing to pay $70
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
So I bought 2 Zens from the marketplace and now I can't see any of my miners. Nice software, this but was supposed to be fixed but I guess not. I submitted a ticket but I seriously doubt anyone will get to it any time soon.

That LTCpool dip is fucking ridiculous too.
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