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Topic: [HAVELOCK] Bliss Devices - Scrypt ASIC, IPO Monday May 22nd 11 AM EST (Read 4157 times)

sr. member
Activity: 328
Merit: 250
Once the Offering has closed at 11 EST. All Units sold during the IPO will be bought back, refunding everyones Bitcoins back 1:1.

This is an open and free market, some companies will be funded and some will not.

We thank everyone that has supported the Bliss Devices team.

Havelock Investments
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 500
Dolphins Finance TRUSTED FINANCE
don't worry - this is a failure, thank God.

newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
Wow, the input from Bliss and Havelock on this seems to have ground to as abrupt a halt as the IPO. I wonder how many of the 890 shares sold were bought by insiders just trying to create the illusion of demand, as NotLambchop has suggested. Really hard to understand in light of what's been shared and what's come out, not to mention everything that *wasn't* said in the Prospectus, how anyone would be buying shares at this point.  Huh
legendary
Activity: 1397
Merit: 1019
I will lighten up when I'll see those crooks in jail. The goverment wants bitcoin regulated, but people had paid with dollars for nonexisting products and there is little to nothing they can do about it.
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 254
Sirs!

Allow me to place this offering in perspective.  Just 880 of the 30k shares have been sold thus far, most on the first day.  To "prime the pump," so to speak.
A harmless prank pulled by our fun-loving Panamanian colleagues at Havelock.

Lighten up, Gentlemen!
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1001
Founders are also equity holders, as with IPO unitholders.  Our business is about equity growth and not purely a cash business like other offerings on Havelock.  The management needs to have the flexibility to determine how much cash get plowed back into the business to maximize equity value.  If you are more interested in dividend payments vs. equity growth, then this is not the right investment for you, nor if you cannot handle any intrinsic risk of investing in early stage startups.

Abram's prior experience with Hashfast although brief has been invaluable with regards to avoiding past mistakes in this industry, implementing proper business practices, and better understanding the market, and nothing to do with his other experiences whatsoever.
I find it hard to believe that people can actually write such an amount of BS in such a restrained amount of space.

I will start with a really simple question: If you are looking to raise $4M, where are you incorporated?
legendary
Activity: 1397
Merit: 1019
        So, you valuate your company at $17,859,500. What, in the world, do you have that could possible worth that much??? Does the company owns any properties that can be sold in case of failure (considering Abram Kottmeier involvment the chances of that are somewere between 99% and 100%). You want to raise money from "investors" and also from preorders. In that case, you can (and you should) acceps escrow with preorders because you fund your company trougth investors and you said yourself that is a high risk  of this business failure! You actually ask for money for a product and after that you say you need more money to produce it. Please people try to see the outrageous scam behind this. How can some people be so greedy??? Thei didn't get enough with HashFast???  Shame on you and shame on the "investors" that will sustain this. You deserve to loose your money and you can quote me on this.

-edit-
    Shame on Havelock for sustaining this, I'm out, never to open their page again. Let's put an end to this and let the bots fight each other.
-edit-
        
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
By Havelock's rules, open trading does not begin until all rounds are closed or the offering deadline is reached.  It would defeat the purpose to even have rounds if we were to start open trading anytime before then.

Founders are also equity holders, as with IPO unitholders.  Our business is about equity growth and not purely a cash business like other offerings on Havelock.  The management needs to have the flexibility to determine how much cash get plowed back into the business to maximize equity value.  If you are more interested in dividend payments vs. equity growth, then this is not the right investment for you, nor if you cannot handle any intrinsic risk of investing in early stage startups.

Abram's prior experience with Hashfast although brief has been invaluable with regards to avoiding past mistakes in this industry, implementing proper business practices, and better understanding the market, and nothing to do with his other experiences whatsoever.

legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1001
Why wasn't this information in the prospectus?  Havelock has to take a look into this.
Because you wouldn't pay them a dime if you knew it.

Abram Kottmeier is not the only ex HF employee adopted by this new "company".

Where is BlissDevices incorporated?
full member
Activity: 144
Merit: 100
Victims of bankrupt bitcoin miner company Hashfast will recognize Abram Kottmeier in Bliss Devices' promotional youtube video.  

Kottmeier is linked to male prostitution in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as to a hardcore pornography company specializing in extreme torture-like abuse porn.

Be very careful with this company.  I wouldn't touch anything having to do with Kottmeier with a 10 meter pole.

For more information, read up in the main Hashfast thread in the bitcoin mining hardware section.
Why wasn't this information in the prospectus?  Havelock has to take a look into this.
sr. member
Activity: 392
Merit: 250
Victims of bankrupt bitcoin miner company Hashfast will recognize Abram Kottmeier in Bliss Devices' promotional youtube video.  

Kottmeier is linked to male prostitution in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as to a hardcore pornography company specializing in extreme torture-like abuse porn.

Be very careful with this company.  I wouldn't touch anything having to do with Kottmeier with a 10 meter pole.

For more information, read up in the main Hashfast thread in the bitcoin mining hardware section.
legendary
Activity: 1397
Merit: 1019
This investment reminded me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg.
Happy investing (cheers for joy).
newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
Thanks very much for the follow-up, Paul. This does help to clarify things, though there are a few key questions, for me, still not addressed.

In the event that Round 1 does not fully close, all Round 1 investors will receive a refund on their total investment.

In the event that Round 2 does not fully close, all Round 2 investors will receive a full refund on their investment.  However, Round 1 investors will not receive a refund since this capital will have been used to pay our vendors for services rendered, hence the deeper discount from Round 2.

This is sensible enough, but the obvious question is whether Round 1 investors are locked in for the long haul or have the opportunity to offload this risk to an interested third-party at some point -- i.e., when will open trading on BLISS shares begin?

Clearly it's against your best interests to initiate open trading too soon as that would undercut the IPO market as the sole source of BLISS shares. On the other hand, without any commitment to there being an open unitholder-to-unitholder exchange for shares, the amount of risk increases substantially for every investor. Personally, I was interested in investing but will not purchase units without a written commitment concerning the start of open trading. I understand that this may classify me as something other than a "true investor" in your business model in that I'm looking for a risk mitigation strategy that doesn't tie me in long-term, but I suspect that you're not going to find nearly enough "true investors" here to pony up 1136 BTC, let alone 9318. If you honestly want to raise that kind of money through retail BTC investors, you need to create a more favorable investing environment and provide more of this detail up front.

Also, Founder shares cannot be traded or receive any dividend payments until all previous investors are paid back in full, starting with Round 1, 2, etc.  These terms incentivize us to generate enough profits to fully pay back our investors before we receive any profit distributions.  We are fully committed to building a long-term viable business and hence have structured the terms in such a way for us to do so.

What percentage of profits will be paid back as dividends, as opposed to reinvested in the company? This is crucial information but I cannot find it in the Prospectus or any of your posts. It's wonderful on the surface to make this statement about investor payback, but if you'll indulge the skepticism, it's not worth very much without supporting details: you could easily refrain from making any dividend payments to unitholders at all -- both investors and founder shares -- and still benefit immensely from your Founder holdings and all the revenue raised if you go ahead and just reinvest 100% of profits into the business. That is, dividends mean more to us third-party investors than they do to you, so I'm not convinced that the incentives are as aligned as you suggest.

Again, I have to express disappointment that none of this information is contained in the Prospectus and that it's taking interested and supportive (really!) parties here on a forum to try to extract it. You guys clearly have great expertise and this is an exciting venture but the scarcity of information is raising flags for me. A 9318 BTC IPO should warrant more than a PowerPoint deck framed as a Prospectus. I believe that if you were to devote more effort to rigorously documenting and sharing the business details, you'd find more success than the 33BTC you've raised in the first day of trading.

Thanks again and best regards.
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 500
Dolphins Finance TRUSTED FINANCE
There's also a good chance that we can raise enough capital through large purchase deals that Round 2 does not need to be fully subscribed to be a viable business, in which case, Round 2 will stay open.  We are being conservative by not committing to something unless it's guaranteed.  Again, Round 1 investors will get the benefits of the low equity pricing albeit with higher risks.

So essentially, you are just trying this out. If it works and you get a bunch of BTC, cool, if not, oh well.

Your lack of commitment is scary.
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
There's also a good chance that we can raise enough capital through large purchase deals that Round 2 does not need to be fully subscribed to be a viable business, in which case, Round 2 will stay open.  We are being conservative by not committing to something unless it's guaranteed.  Again, Round 1 investors will get the benefits of the low equity pricing albeit with higher risks.
hero member
Activity: 896
Merit: 500
Dolphins Finance TRUSTED FINANCE
so basically ... anyone who invests in Round 1 risks losing all their money if Round 2 is not sold out in full.

Thats crazy! Who would risk that!
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
Yes, of course.  If we complete Round 1, we will aggressively pursue other funding sources.  Typically it's the hardest to close the first round -- investors don't like to feel alone.  There is definitely a risk of not being able to complete the funding to cover NRE, which is built into the price discount, however, remember that Round 1 investors also get highest liquidation preferences if we were to sell our IP assets.
sr. member
Activity: 1064
Merit: 253
Thanks for the clarification Paul.

One more detail; If round 1 sells, but subsequent rounds do not, I assume that you will seek the capital shortfall from other sources?  In other words, in this scenario, what is the risk that round 1 investors will have invested in a non-viable business due to lack of capital?
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
Let me clarify the terms.

In the event that Round 1 does not fully close, all Round 1 investors will receive a refund on their total investment.

In the event that Round 2 does not fully close, all Round 2 investors will receive a full refund on their investment.  However, Round 1 investors will not receive a refund since this capital will have been used to pay our vendors for services rendered, hence the deeper discount from Round 2.

In the event that Round 3 does not fully close, no refund will be offered to any investors, as we will be a viable business.  We are currently working with large clients on product deals that do not involve raising money on Havelock, as well as funded by preorder from our website and bridge loan financing.  Havelock serves as a supplement funding source for non-US investors for our core strategy of pre-selling to large industrial customers.

Also, Founder shares cannot be traded or receive any dividend payments until all previous investors are paid back in full, starting with Round 1, 2, etc.  These terms incentivize us to generate enough profits to fully pay back our investors before we receive any profit distributions.  We are fully committed to building a long-term viable business and hence have structured the terms in such a way for us to do so.

Sorry for the confusion and hope this clarifies things.

-Paul

full member
Activity: 224
Merit: 100
VocalPlatform.com
Funds will be held in escrow and refunded to investors in the event that the first block is not fully sold out. 

When you say the 'first block', are you referring to the first 30,000 batch of shares or the entire 90,000 IPO?

If you mean the first 30,000, does this mean that in the event that all 90,000 shares do not sell, that all batches will be refunded, or is this on a batch by batch basis?

i would like to know this too, currently there are 29,000 remaining.. lets see what happens next.
sr. member
Activity: 1064
Merit: 253
Ok, so if what will happen in the event that the subsequent batches don't fully sell?
sr. member
Activity: 328
Merit: 250
The first 30,000 offer.
sr. member
Activity: 1064
Merit: 253
Funds will be held in escrow and refunded to investors in the event that the first block is not fully sold out. 

When you say the 'first block', are you referring to the first 30,000 batch of shares or the entire 90,000 IPO?

If you mean the first 30,000, does this mean that in the event that all 90,000 shares do not sell, that all batches will be refunded, or is this on a batch by batch basis?
sr. member
Activity: 328
Merit: 250
Funds will be held in escrow and refunded to investors in the event that the first block is not fully sold out. 

The investors will receive dividends before any of the founders receive any dividends up to the amount invested per unit.

Havelock Investments
newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
Bliss and/or Havelock,

Would you be able to answer the questions that have been raised on this board the past couple days? I realize it's a holiday weekend in the US but considering the IPO opens tomorrow and you're hoping to raise over 9000 BTC of investor coin, it surprises me that you're not actively addressing questions posed by parties clearly interested in your venture.

Thanks and kind regards.
sr. member
Activity: 393
Merit: 250

For Scrypt-N, Scryptr mines at 1.6MH/s for N=2048 and degrades about 33% for every step-up in N factor.  The next increase for Vertcoin is not until 2/25/16.

Quote
Scrypt-N uses exponential memory increases to work, so regardless of ASIC, GPU or CPU, it will only work for specific N-values for as much RAM as you have available.
I suspect that an ASIC can be made to work by reducing the number of threads, thus allowing more ram per thread, but that only goes so-far, and the devs for Scrypt-N are free to adjust N to any value they like... Leaves them the option to push the N value higher than the "currently available" ASICs can support.
Working through a HW change to add RAM is much more time consuming than just changing a variable in the Scrypt-N algorithm, so they can easily keep-up with technology and progress.

Quote from a thread in Litecointalk. Care to comment?
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 504
all good points.  Since launching in March, we've revisited and changed our product strategy.

Gridseed, we consider the 1st generation of Scrypt ASIC, as they were 1st to market.  As for InnoSilicon and Zeus, who are both China-based and already in the market with 7 and 12.5 W/MHs chips respectively, they do have a couple months of market lead, but eventually be replaced by more power efficient chips. sub 4W/MHs, as evident in the Bitcoin ASIC space.  

For Scrypt-N, Scryptr mines at 1.6MH/s for N=2048 and degrades about 33% for every step-up in N factor.  The next increase for Vertcoin is not until 2/25/16.

Thanks for answers. SF have prototype and is around 7w, there is room for improvement like you say.  Most interesting was your scrypt-n mention. http://coinmarketcap.com/vtc_7.html
sr. member
Activity: 1064
Merit: 253
...how will these actions be funded should one or more of the [IPO] batches not be sold in full?

+1 on this question!
newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
Thanks for the info, Havelock, and for the posts in this forum, Paul. Having read the full Prospectus a few times, I have a few questions  that I'm hoping one or the both of you can clarify:

  • Page 9 of the Prospectus outlines the use of funds from each batch of the IPO. Is the full sum raised from each batch to be devoted to its corresponding listed use on page 9, or only a portion thereof? On a related note, how will these actions be funded should one or more of the batches not be sold in full?
  • Is the IPO the only source of funding for Bliss operations and coverage for development costs and expenses? More broadly, what is the operations plan and the impact on unit holders if one or more of the batches are not fully sold?
  • When will open market trading of BLISS units on Havelock begin?

•Investor Repayment Priority
–Net company profit will be first distributed to shares sold to investors at this IPO fully recuperated before any dividend is paid to the Founders’ shares

What does this mean? The Prospectus says something similar but less awkwardly phrased: "Investors of preferred units will be paid in full from net company profits before any dividend distributions to Founder shares." Paid in full for what? They are unitholders buying a stake in the entity, not lenders expecting payback of principal, are they not? Is this proposing some sort of market-based share buyback? Apologies if I'm overlooking something obvious, but I'd appreciate clarification.


•Founders’ Shares Lock-Up Period
–Trading of the Founders’ shares will be restricted. These shares will not be able to be traded until both IPO investors have fully recuperated their initial investment

Again, I'm not clear on what's being proposed here: by what mechanism would an IPO investor have "recuperated their initial investment"? A unitholder could gain return on that initial investment either by selling (in which case he would no longer be a unitholder) or via dividend payment. So are you saying Founders' shares will not be tradeable until all IPO investors have been paid back the full sum of their initial outlay in dividends? Surely not. Please clarify. Also, what do you mean by "both" IPO investors?

Much thanks in advance for your responses!
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
all good points.  Since launching in March, we've revisited and changed our product strategy.

Gridseed, we consider the 1st generation of Scrypt ASIC, as they were 1st to market.  As for InnoSilicon and Zeus, who are both China-based and already in the market with 7 and 12.5 W/MHs chips respectively, they do have a couple months of market lead, but eventually be replaced by more power efficient chips. sub 4W/MHs, as evident in the Bitcoin ASIC space. 

For Scrypt-N, Scryptr mines at 1.6MH/s for N=2048 and degrades about 33% for every step-up in N factor.  The next increase for Vertcoin is not until 2/25/16.
hero member
Activity: 588
Merit: 504
Would you guys consider ditching the preorders?

Why would they? Customers can finance their operation that way, and they don't actually have to deliver the product before earning.

last time i checked your site out you have photoshop ethernet card which claim is high speed scrypt miner, to be fair it is just a placeholder like cointerra use shopped cpu, but it's not inspire confidence. Companies which ask for pre-order are raise on silicon valley telemarketer mentality - over promise, collect funds and under deliver, is what's happened consistently in the past

The comparitive analysis in the chart compares between alpha tech..who? those are a few guys in a shed opposite an indian takeaway on the outsourcing tricks.
 knc, who are serious players and a gpu. Where are innosillicon, silverfish etc. these are your serious competitors, their NRE paid off and they are ahead.

Also, Where are the details about how you will mine scrypt-n coins?



newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
jimmothy,

Currently, our business is focused on the industrial-scale miners, hence we only offer chips and boards.  Because we offer boards with many different interfaces, the PCIe card is also suitable for the consumer market, where we believe preorders give us a way to allow those interested to get early access to the hardware and also gauge market demand for our products in the consumer space.  We understand the sensitivity around pre-orders in the consumer market and hence are not actively promoting any pre-sales.

-Paul
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1000
I am going to throw some BTC at this IPO. I am very impressed.
hero member
Activity: 770
Merit: 509
Would you guys consider ditching the preorders?
sr. member
Activity: 1064
Merit: 253
Just to confirm, the IPO date / time is definitely EST vs EDT?
full member
Activity: 144
Merit: 100
This is an exciting addition to the line of companies you offer on the exchange, i'll be ready with the buy button on monday. Congratulations on adding a mining equipment manufacturer.   Smiley
sr. member
Activity: 328
Merit: 250

Havelock Investments is pleased to announce the addition of the Bliss Devices Fund.


Company name: Bliss Devices
Company website:http://blissdevices.com/
Fund Symbol: BLISS
Units offered: 90,000  (30% Stake)
IPO date: May 26nd, 2014 11:00 AM EST


Structure of the offer:

Batch#          # of units          % equity          Price/Unit          Discount % from next batch          Total batch (BTC)
1                  30,000                  10%            0.038  BTC                     58%                                  1,136
2                  30,000                  10%            0.091  BTC                     40%                                  2,727
3                  18,000                   6%             0.152  BTC                     33%                                  2,727
4                  12,000                   4%             0.227  BTC                     --                                     2,727
Total             90,000                  30%                                                                                       9,318


CEO - Paul Chen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pchen408
  • Managed $65M Display Systems product line at Maxim Integrated
  • Lead designer at Fortinet for 3 key security-­‐based ASIC projects
  • MSEE from Columbia University, BS in Computer Science from Brown University, MBA in Entrepreneurship from MIT Sloan

CTO - Steve Zhang
https://www.linkedin.com/in/guansongzhang
  • 10+ years designing network security ASICs at Fortinet
  • Proven track record of successful first-­‐time-­‐right tape outs – 8 projects over 10+ years with 5 different process nodes
  • MS in computer engineering from NYU Polytechnic, BS in Computer Science from Tsinghua University, Beijing


Investor Protections

•Escrowed IPO Funds
–IPO funds will be held in escrow by Havelock Investments and will be released to Bliss for actual expenditures.

•Investor Repayment Priority
–Net company profit will be first distributed to shares sold to investors at this IPO fully recuperated before any dividend is paid to the Founders’ shares

•Founders’ Shares Lock-Up Period
–Trading of the Founders’ shares will be restricted. These shares will not be able to be traded until both IPO investors have fully recuperated their initial investment

•Quarterly Financial Reports

Please take the time to read our full prospectus before investing at the following link:
https://www.havelockinvestments.com/reports.php

BLISS is a provider of high-performance Scrypt ASIC mining hardware based in Silicon Valley.

The founding team, including Paul Chen and Steve Zhang, have over 20+ years of experience in the semiconductor, network security, and cryptocurrency industries combined and a proven track record of first-time-right ASIC design and production, operational management, on-time customer deliveries, as well as mining hardware sales.  Having taped out 8 highly-complex ASICs at Fortinet, a leading network security provider, both have a history in successfully bringing high-performance, next-generation chip designs to market.

Our products include the advanced Scrypt ASIC, Scryptr, boasts a hashing performance of 4.8MH/s at only 16W, or at the industry lowest 3.33W per MH, along with the Neon product line starting with the Neon Mining Cards that come in various interfaces such as PCIe, SPI, and USB.

Our initial focus is on the industrial mining market but we will launch consumer products closer to the August delivery date.  We also plan to roll out service-oriented offerings such as hosted mining and optimized mining pools.

Our chip design has been fully verified and include a FPGA demo here.  Tape out is scheduled for early June, with an August 2014 delivery date.

http://youtu.be/LLrQ40qUegg

For more technical info and news updates, please visit our website at www.blissdevices.com

Thank you for your consideration,

The Bliss Devices Team
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