In his latest e-mail lifeforcepools / Jeff Jennings is suddenly talking about Alcheminer. Not sure where that came from but apparently he thinks that Hashra is "building" Scrypt miners using Alcheminer chips. If that's true (which is still doubtful given the sleazy nature of Mr. Jennings) then it's a good news / bad news kind of deal:
1) Good news is that Hashra actually has a chance to deliver something. Alcheminer is a real company with real products.
2) Bad news is everything else. Alcheminer is selling their own products at ~$5 per MH/s now so you could have just saved the money and purchased it now, delivered within a few business days instead of lending your money to Hashra for 9 months. Power consumption is nowhere near what was promised - Alcheminer is around 10W per MH/s, Hashra promised 6W per MH/s. Alcheminer software is awful, doesn't work with anything other than LTC mining (no multipools, no P2P).
So if all this is true then all these delays would turn out to be just a typical scam strategy of collecting money and waiting for the technology to catch up without actually doing anything. Perhaps the original idea was to use Zeus Volcano, which was cancelled. Now the best case scenario is an overpriced substitute with nearly twice the promised power consumption.
Interesting.. I'm also on the lifeforce email list, and haven't received an email that says anything about alcheminer. Can you post yours?
Now, I also have a thought on whether the Astros thing is actually a scam. Bear with me for a minute, as I've been on the internet for 20 years now, and ran across quite a few scams.
There is a pattern that is typical among scammers. They build on hype, then take the money and run.
Credit cards have a 30 day policy for chargebacks and paypal has a 45 day policy about chargebacks, while bitcoin is still a wild frontier and basically has none. This means that after 45 days, all the pre-purchases for the Astros are basically non-refundable.
If the Astros were a scam, Simon could have run off with all the pre-order money months ago, and just disappeared from the internet, to reappear with a new identity that he could have purchased with the money from the pre-orders. Yet, he still answers emails, even though he shut his website down.
What is his benefit, were he to be a scammer, to keep answering all this time? His website is down, therefore there are no more sales to be made with the exception of them still being listed on lifeforce, and lifeforce is only known to a small part of the mining community. So, there's really no more sales to be made, if a buyer does a google search and finds out about delays.
So, why is he still responding?
Here's my take.. Simon, had a great idea and acted on it, but totally underestimated the complication and difficulties involved in the project.. The problem is, he runs Hashra as a 1 man operation. He got in way over his head, and instead of hiring someone else with the skill and connections to do the stuff he couldn't handle on his own, he just plowed ahead on his own because of the budget he set for himself by pre-selling a new technology miner at such a low price. Adding in the Chinese engineering and construction of these units, which in theory is cheap but in reality is a nightmare, he shot himself in the foot. Actually, both feet, and knees.
That doesn't make him a scammer, just ignorant of the realities of what he got himself involved in.
Poor business management in a very cutthroat society like mining is.
Did he fuck up? ABSOLUTELY!!
Does he deserve to get beat up over the delays? ABSOLUTELY!!
Is he a scammer? I don't think so, as I mentioned above he doesn't fit the profile. But I am pissed about the delays, just like a lot of others.
Just my 2 cents.
