I've finally had time to take slightly deeper dive into this and typing up some questions, so here's what I've got:
1. Is there really enough time to still be considering a 20 or 28nm design with funding still at least a month away from completing? I see your Gantt chart, but it doesn't take into consideration what happens if you only recieve 1/3rd of your funding, for example.
2. There are a lot of questions about who your people are. As you say "structure" only, it is likely you don't have a payroll yet, but have people lined up, so providing their details would expose them and potentially cause problems in their current jobs if your business does not actually start up. Can you confirm this, or do you actually have the people on staff right now? I noticed also that your subcontractor budget was higher than your labor budget. Is that subcontractor direct labor or subcontractor companies doing work for you?
3. You used the bitcointalk version/definition of ROI in 3.1. I'd recommend staying away from this usage even in an example as it doesn't make sense, and wouldn't make sense to someone reading this document without understanding the bitcointalk slang.
4. Is this a typo: "From Jan 2014 to Jan 2015 (365 days)" If you are going to predict the future, shouldn't it be in the future.
5. The guaranteed supply program doesn't favor the small-time miner. It favors the person with free capital to invest now. This is set up in a way that the big can get bigger but the small or latecomer can never take a big leap (3 times the original hashing power is the limit of growth under discount). This sounds like an investment rather than a purchase and goes against your stated ethos.
6. The whole idea of Jane is that from an investment standpoint. Again, you keep treating this like an investment while saying this is just a hardware commodity purchase. Which is it?
7. Fault tolerance at the level described in the document seems like a wasted effort. Aren't most failures due to heat at these sizes catastrophic? I'm not an expert in this area by any stretch of my imagination, but it seems to me that if you wanted redundancy in the design that doing it at the chip level rather than sub-chip level would be preferable.
8. Its been suggested in another thread that I might work for you, so I'd like my paycheck please.
Topic: Novello Technologies new Mining System Project, prices as low as $0.3/GH - page 7. (Read 40562 times)
June 05, 2014, 01:59:26 PM
June 05, 2014, 01:27:09 PM
No one has as yet commented about some aspects of our proposal, which we find odd, namely:
- The fact that we have designed our chip to be fault tolerant using extra pipelines as 'spares'
- Our Guaranteed Supply Program to support our core customers
- Our metrics for measuring what price should be paid per GH of capacity over time
So it either means that no one has read about them, or has no comment to make. Are they good/bad/informative/deceptive/wrong/right and soon. Instead there's been constant badgering about who we are.
- The fact that we have designed our chip to be fault tolerant using extra pipelines as 'spares'
- Our Guaranteed Supply Program to support our core customers
- Our metrics for measuring what price should be paid per GH of capacity over time
So it either means that no one has read about them, or has no comment to make. Are they good/bad/informative/deceptive/wrong/right and soon. Instead there's been constant badgering about who we are.
No one comments on this because none of it matters. If you were asking for a loan with fixed payments, we would ask about this because it matters. If you were asking for investors\shareholders, we would ask about this because it matters. But your asking for customers for a product that you DO NOT HAVE and are not obligated to ever provide.. We don't care about the specifics of the product because we know that we will never benefit from it. You are SPECIFICALLY choosing to use the one funding method which leaves your "customers\investors" with absolutely no recourse whatsoever or legal claim whatsoever to whatever profits you make, other than what you voluntarily decide to share at some later date. You obviously wouldn't do that if you had any intention of ever sharing. If you were actually interested in sharing any of your profits you wouldn't recoil from creating a legal obligation to share said profits. So yea, short version is we don't give a shit about your product because none of us will ever profit from it (other than *maybe* a few scraps here and there) despite funding the whole thing and taking on ALL the risk.
June 05, 2014, 01:05:48 PM
Why not delete the non-relevant stuff? Keep just the relevant stuff for which you made your notes. It makes it MUCH easier to read/reply.
June 05, 2014, 12:58:25 PM
These are ones selected by their companies for various reasons, or those on public registers. IBM will not tell you about every individual they employ.
Then let's look at some mining companies that have actually shipped miners (even if they've had some difficulties).
http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/pages/team
http://cointerra.com/team/
http://hashfast.com/team/
http://butterflylabs.com/management/
You: Nothing but bullshit. Why? Because you don't have what it takes to complete this "project".
June 05, 2014, 12:51:59 PM
and no reputable company willgive out details about former or present employees, or what they worked on.
Boy, do I wholly disagree with that statement. Here are some pretty reputable companies:IBM - http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ginni/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/slt.aspx
Ford - http://corporate.ford.com/our-company/governance-hub/board-of-directors-801p
Virtually EVERY reputable company gives out details. Obviously, it is your choice whether to follow these kinds of examples.
These are ones selected by their companies for various reasons, or those on public registers. IBM will not tell you about every individual they employ.
I don't think people here are asking you to divulge every employee's information; however, they are asking for key personnel. You cite over 120 years of combined experience, but offer nothing to back that statement up. Who is your CEO, and what is his/her background? Who is your Senior Architect? Who are your software/hardware lead designers?
Introduce your potential customers to your team. Provide evidence that you have the knowledge and capabilities to produce the products you've proposed. Even a profile such as, "Our lead hardware designer has over 15 years of experience in chip design. He has worked at Motorola and Intel, contributing to the design of ..." would go a very long way to alleviate some of the concerns being expressed.
June 05, 2014, 12:48:28 PM
June 05, 2014, 12:42:08 PM
Novello, bick made a good suggestion. You may want to approach some more notable and respected members of the community to start gaining the reputation...if you have a prototype show it off...for all intents and purposes this is vaporware until it isn't. I am not knocking on you here, just stating the reality of how many people see this. Get to some trade shows open up booths show off a bit. And as far as your comment on investors trying to make big mining farms for their investment....that is not entirely true.. Spondoolies was founded with investor capital, and they are enjoying quite a nice successful run. Might not hurt to by at least partially funded by investors just to get something that can be shown.
June 05, 2014, 12:32:54 PM
and no reputable company willgive out details about former or present employees, or what they worked on.
Boy, do I wholly disagree with that statement. Here are some pretty reputable companies:IBM - http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ginni/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/slt.aspx
Ford - http://corporate.ford.com/our-company/governance-hub/board-of-directors-801p
Virtually EVERY reputable company gives out details. Obviously, it is your choice whether to follow these kinds of examples.
These are ones selected by their companies for various reasons, or those on public registers. IBM will not tell you about every individual they employ.
June 05, 2014, 12:32:02 PM
http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/pages/team
Some faces with experience sure made pre-ordering at Stech easier for me. Do you not think it would be better to list out your team and their experience?
Remember you came to the forum hat in hand so it is well within the scope to ask before we even consider the proposal who makes up the team? That is a pretty fair question.
Some faces with experience sure made pre-ordering at Stech easier for me. Do you not think it would be better to list out your team and their experience?
Remember you came to the forum hat in hand so it is well within the scope to ask before we even consider the proposal who makes up the team? That is a pretty fair question.
It's a question but again it comes down to brass tacks. Limkedin profiles mean nothing, and no reputable company willgive out details about former or present employees, or what they worked on. So basically you cant trust anything anyone says online about their background or experience. Measure it from what they present.
We came on the forums, as you say, to see if we can raise extra finance. Indiegogo is our primary funding platform. Whether you contribute to the project or not is a personal decision, as is ours to restrict information about our staff.
What we've pitched contains about 5 times as much as all the past proposals put together with a lot more real data. We appreciate people got royally rooked by other companies, but that does'ntmean to say we will do the same.
Thanks for posting, though. Like your work with the WASP project.
Without knowing the team and their capabilities it would be very very hard for anyone to believe you have resources to complete the project you are proposing.
Our work in the Wasp project is open to anyone to come and talk to the EE team should they be interested so people can actually interact with the people doing the design and testing. Maybe you should ask a few choice members of the community like say Dogie, RoadStress, Zefir, or others of note to review your plans and meet with your team. Barring a working prototype I doubt many are going to be interested in funding this. People should avoid investing in anything like this till they can vet you properly particularly checking out who is behind this venture and who the principal players in management are.
June 05, 2014, 12:30:50 PM
Hi Roadstress, I was asking about your specific question about the J/GH at the chip. I'm sorry, but I missed your other post but I will respond to it later. We are very well aware of what other companies have done
There is nothing to comment on the J/GH at chip level. If you are aware of what other companies have done then you should also know that Bitmine.ch also advertised 0.35J/GH and they ended up with over 0.7J/GH I think. As I said in my reply we had it all in the last year. Promises, lies, scams.
What we've pitched contains about 5 times as much as all the past proposals put together with a lot more real data. We appreciate people got royally rooked by other companies, but that does'ntmean to say we will do the same.
This is the best that you got? Give me all your money and I will give you a 100TH/s miner in december and I promise that I won't scam you. See? I can raise funds too. We had TONS of lies like this in the last year. This gives 0 confidence!
OK, so now we've given you on - die device sizes, power share per device - well, you can work it out from the device specs - so you can evaluate some metrics about what's happening at transistor level.
Please get back to me at your earliest convenience.
June 05, 2014, 12:27:42 PM
and no reputable company willgive out details about former or present employees, or what they worked on.
Boy, do I wholly disagree with that statement. Here are some pretty reputable companies:IBM - http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ginni/
Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/slt.aspx
Ford - http://corporate.ford.com/our-company/governance-hub/board-of-directors-801p
Virtually EVERY reputable company gives out details. Obviously, it is your choice whether to follow these kinds of examples.
June 05, 2014, 12:18:11 PM
Hi Roadstress, I was asking about your specific question about the J/GH at the chip. I'm sorry, but I missed your other post but I will respond to it later. We are very well aware of what other companies have done
There is nothing to comment on the J/GH at chip level. If you are aware of what other companies have done then you should also know that Bitmine.ch also advertised 0.35J/GH and they ended up with over 0.7J/GH I think. As I said in my reply we had it all in the last year. Promises, lies, scams.
What we've pitched contains about 5 times as much as all the past proposals put together with a lot more real data. We appreciate people got royally rooked by other companies, but that does'ntmean to say we will do the same.
This is the best that you got? Give me all your money and I will give you a 100TH/s miner in december and I promise that I won't scam you. See? I can raise funds too. We had TONS of lies like this in the last year. This gives 0 confidence!
June 05, 2014, 12:11:56 PM
http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/pages/team
Some faces with experience sure made pre-ordering at Stech easier for me. Do you not think it would be better to list out your team and their experience?
Remember you came to the forum hat in hand so it is well within the scope to ask before we even consider the proposal who makes up the team? That is a pretty fair question.
Some faces with experience sure made pre-ordering at Stech easier for me. Do you not think it would be better to list out your team and their experience?
Remember you came to the forum hat in hand so it is well within the scope to ask before we even consider the proposal who makes up the team? That is a pretty fair question.
It's a question but again it comes down to brass tacks. Limkedin profiles mean nothing, and no reputable company willgive out details about former or present employees, or what they worked on. So basically you cant trust anything anyone says online about their background or experience. Measure it from what they present.
We came on the forums, as you say, to see if we can raise extra finance. Indiegogo is our primary funding platform. Whether you contribute to the project or not is a personal decision, as is ours to restrict information about our staff.
What we've pitched contains about 5 times as much as all the past proposals put together with a lot more real data. We appreciate people got royally rooked by other companies, but that does'ntmean to say we will do the same.
Thanks for posting, though. Like your work with the WASP project.
June 05, 2014, 12:03:16 PM
June 05, 2014, 11:48:08 AM
... get funding ...
You're asking for us to be investors, why not give us the benefits of investors in return ?Hi Ben,
Thanks for your input.
Strictly speaking you're buyers, not investors. We promise you delivery of an item at a future date in return for your payment. I can see why you might think that though, your 'investment' , as it were, is to give you a commercial advantage when your item gets delivered.
As a company we will use virtually all the money we get in orders to fund system development, satisfy those orders and stay afloat while doing so. After that we have to try to solicit more orders to keep the company going and invest in R&D for new products.
In traditional markets such as if we were buying a car or even a computer you would be correct in saying that we are buyers, not investors. However, people who purchase miners are not purchasing hardware so much as they are purchasing an investment. So even with "off the shelf" purchases we are investors who are taking a calculated risk with what we purchase. We aren't buying a miner to be cool (or hot) or because it gives us pleasure to look at or provides any utility to us outside of an investment.
The pre-order scheme takes that investment mindset a step further and asks the customer to take on additional risk beyond their calculated risk. It asks the customer to take risks that can't be calculated as accurately because there is less available information. Strictly speaking, from our perspective, in a pre-order we are not buyers but co-investors. A company who understands that this is the mindset of the small-time bitcoin miner would be a refreshing approach to the market.
You are sending money to the company with the intent of receiving a product. What you then do with that product once you have received it is not relevant to the company. If it so happens that this product makes you some money, then so be it.
Your investment is in BTC. By purchasing a miner, you are making a decision to actively support the BTC network. That's what mining is: supporting and helping secure the network. You are rewarded for your efforts with generated coins.
What Novello is stating is the following (and yes, I'm taking their entire plan and compressing it to a couple of sentences): We are going to build mining hardware that will be competitive and allow the "little guy" to remain in the mining game. We are going to do this by providing great price-to-hash value in the hardware, and by providing relatively inexpensive ways to continuously upgrade your existing hardware. To achieve our goal of great hardware at a great price, we need capital; and, to receive that capital we are looking to the mining community to believe in us and pre-order our hardware.
Whether or not they succeed with their mission remains to be seen. They have a long, tough road ahead of them, both to secure funding and to produce the hardware on time and on budget. As can be seen throughout this post, MANY of the very people they are hoping will invest are extremely skeptical from being burned so many times in the past by other companies.
Hi Johnny,
Thanks for the post. Mind if we use your 'compressed' words in the future? Couldn't have put it better ourselves.
In traditional markets such as if we were buying a car or even a computer you would be correct in saying that we are buyers, not investors. However, people who purchase miners are not purchasing hardware so much as they are purchasing an investment. So even with "off the shelf" purchases we are investors who are taking a calculated risk with what we purchase. We aren't buying a miner to be cool (or hot) or because it gives us pleasure to look at or provides any utility to us outside of an investment.
The pre-order scheme takes that investment mindset a step further and asks the customer to take on additional risk beyond their calculated risk. It asks the customer to take risks that can't be calculated as accurately because there is less available information. Strictly speaking, from our perspective, in a pre-order we are not buyers but co-investors. A company who understands that this is the mindset of the small-time bitcoin miner would be a refreshing approach to the market.
You are sending money to the company with the intent of receiving a product. What you then do with that product once you have received it is not relevant to the company. If it so happens that this product makes you some money, then so be it.
Your investment is in BTC. By purchasing a miner, you are making a decision to actively support the BTC network. That's what mining is: supporting and helping secure the network. You are rewarded for your efforts with generated coins.
What Novello is stating is the following (and yes, I'm taking their entire plan and compressing it to a couple of sentences): We are going to build mining hardware that will be competitive and allow the "little guy" to remain in the mining game. We are going to do this by providing great price-to-hash value in the hardware, and by providing relatively inexpensive ways to continuously upgrade your existing hardware. To achieve our goal of great hardware at a great price, we need capital; and, to receive that capital we are looking to the mining community to believe in us and pre-order our hardware.
Whether or not they succeed with their mission remains to be seen. They have a long, tough road ahead of them, both to secure funding and to produce the hardware on time and on budget. As can be seen throughout this post, MANY of the very people they are hoping will invest are extremely skeptical from being burned so many times in the past by other companies.
It's simply fantasy to believe that everyone in bitcoin mining is doing so for altruistic reasons. There may be a few of those people left, but none of those are interested in pre-orders or supporting the arms race in any way. People mine bitcoin for the rewards and no other reason. People will cause 51% dangers because of the perception that rewards are greater by following the crowd.
Your very last sentence negated the whole point you were trying to make by admitting customers were investing.
I will edit my final sentence to state, "... people they are hoping will pre-order their product..." as it better explains the point I was trying to convey. Thanks for pointing that out.
June 05, 2014, 11:46:13 AM
Don't invest until you have more proof about them or about their skills.
It's always good advice to be cautious, but first have a look at my 'update' post put on earlier today. Thanks for reminding me. Any comment on our J/GH figure in light of the info?
I did: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.7147207 but you seem to avoid replying to me.
Quite simply, you are incorrect here. You are, and will remain, a buyer. If you were an investor, you would be sending money to the company, and would expect return on your investment from the company based on performance. People who purchase stock in a company are investors.
You are sending money to the company with the intent of receiving a product. What you then do with that product once you have received it is not relevant to the company. If it so happens that this product makes you some money, then so be it.
Your investment is in BTC. By purchasing a miner, you are making a decision to actively support the BTC network. That's what mining is: supporting and helping secure the network. You are rewarded for your efforts with generated coins.
What Novello is stating is the following (and yes, I'm taking their entire plan and compressing it to a couple of sentences): We are going to build mining hardware that will be competitive and allow the "little guy" to remain in the mining game. We are going to do this by providing great price-to-hash value in the hardware, and by providing relatively inexpensive ways to continuously upgrade your existing hardware. To achieve our goal of great hardware at a great price, we need capital; and, to receive that capital we are looking to the mining community to believe in us and pre-order our hardware.
Whether or not they succeed with their mission remains to be seen. They have a long, tough road ahead of them, both to secure funding and to produce the hardware on time and on budget. As can be seen throughout this post, MANY of the very people they are hoping will invest are extremely skeptical from being burned so many times in the past by other companies.
You are sending money to the company with the intent of receiving a product. What you then do with that product once you have received it is not relevant to the company. If it so happens that this product makes you some money, then so be it.
Your investment is in BTC. By purchasing a miner, you are making a decision to actively support the BTC network. That's what mining is: supporting and helping secure the network. You are rewarded for your efforts with generated coins.
What Novello is stating is the following (and yes, I'm taking their entire plan and compressing it to a couple of sentences): We are going to build mining hardware that will be competitive and allow the "little guy" to remain in the mining game. We are going to do this by providing great price-to-hash value in the hardware, and by providing relatively inexpensive ways to continuously upgrade your existing hardware. To achieve our goal of great hardware at a great price, we need capital; and, to receive that capital we are looking to the mining community to believe in us and pre-order our hardware.
Whether or not they succeed with their mission remains to be seen. They have a long, tough road ahead of them, both to secure funding and to produce the hardware on time and on budget. As can be seen throughout this post, MANY of the very people they are hoping will invest are extremely skeptical from being burned so many times in the past by other companies.
As Majixagi pointed miners don't do it 100% for altruistic purposes. Even if they do miners still need to invest big in mining equipment because technology hasn't leveled off and technology is evolving very very fast. My 110GH rig that I received in August 2013 is good for trash now, but luckily I was able to regain my investment in in and got a Jupiter which allowed me to stay in the mining game. If it didn't then I was out. So miners need their ROI in order to be able to get better equipment which protects the network better.
June 05, 2014, 11:37:34 AM
The one thing I like about this campaign is that I can take a gamble as a hobby miner without risking too much.
I can do my liver a favour and stay in a few weekends and that will of paid for a Nova 1, the alternative is I give the money to the missus and she spends it on flippin online shopping.
Yes the site could be more polished and a bit more clarity on the information, but at the end of the day their delivery date isn't that far away, damn handy since it will be cold and a bit extra heat in the house wont hurt.
If this is a new company sorting VAT can be a bit of a faff on and probably delayed them (I've been there!), so they have obviously decided to go live with what the have and polish the edges along the way.
I really hope they succeed as you have to admit that asic stick does look cool and as a gadget freak I really want one, one of the Nova 1's would do as a nice replacement for my S1 as well.
I can do my liver a favour and stay in a few weekends and that will of paid for a Nova 1, the alternative is I give the money to the missus and she spends it on flippin online shopping.
Yes the site could be more polished and a bit more clarity on the information, but at the end of the day their delivery date isn't that far away, damn handy since it will be cold and a bit extra heat in the house wont hurt.
If this is a new company sorting VAT can be a bit of a faff on and probably delayed them (I've been there!), so they have obviously decided to go live with what the have and polish the edges along the way.
I really hope they succeed as you have to admit that asic stick does look cool and as a gadget freak I really want one, one of the Nova 1's would do as a nice replacement for my S1 as well.
June 05, 2014, 11:21:37 AM
In traditional markets such as if we were buying a car or even a computer you would be correct in saying that we are buyers, not investors. However, people who purchase miners are not purchasing hardware so much as they are purchasing an investment. So even with "off the shelf" purchases we are investors who are taking a calculated risk with what we purchase. We aren't buying a miner to be cool (or hot) or because it gives us pleasure to look at or provides any utility to us outside of an investment.
The pre-order scheme takes that investment mindset a step further and asks the customer to take on additional risk beyond their calculated risk. It asks the customer to take risks that can't be calculated as accurately because there is less available information. Strictly speaking, from our perspective, in a pre-order we are not buyers but co-investors. A company who understands that this is the mindset of the small-time bitcoin miner would be a refreshing approach to the market.
You are sending money to the company with the intent of receiving a product. What you then do with that product once you have received it is not relevant to the company. If it so happens that this product makes you some money, then so be it.
Your investment is in BTC. By purchasing a miner, you are making a decision to actively support the BTC network. That's what mining is: supporting and helping secure the network. You are rewarded for your efforts with generated coins.
What Novello is stating is the following (and yes, I'm taking their entire plan and compressing it to a couple of sentences): We are going to build mining hardware that will be competitive and allow the "little guy" to remain in the mining game. We are going to do this by providing great price-to-hash value in the hardware, and by providing relatively inexpensive ways to continuously upgrade your existing hardware. To achieve our goal of great hardware at a great price, we need capital; and, to receive that capital we are looking to the mining community to believe in us and pre-order our hardware.
Whether or not they succeed with their mission remains to be seen. They have a long, tough road ahead of them, both to secure funding and to produce the hardware on time and on budget. As can be seen throughout this post, MANY of the very people they are hoping will invest are extremely skeptical from being burned so many times in the past by other companies.
It's simply fantasy to believe that everyone in bitcoin mining is doing so for altruistic reasons. There may be a few of those people left, but none of those are interested in pre-orders or supporting the arms race in any way. People mine bitcoin for the rewards and no other reason. People will cause 51% dangers because of the perception that rewards are greater by following the crowd.
Your very last sentence negated the whole point you were trying to make by admitting customers were investing.
June 05, 2014, 11:19:35 AM
Hello,
I am considering funding your project but I would like know what the difference is between the 49' and the 500' options. I went through your website and I would strongly recommend having a more professional website created as it looks..... Well it looks bad is all I can say. I really appreciate the balance your organization is looking to return to the mining market. This is the main reason why I am considering funding you. I feel like you are bringing a business perspective that is not entirely profit driven and I can really get behind something like that.
I think your investors will be people like me so focus on what your strengths are and don't let the naysayers discourage your efforts; though I do think you still fall short as far as passing the smells test. There have been good suggestions made previously about increasing your credibility. Maybe some more specific engineering data that can be verified by forum members. (Wish it would mean something to me, other than independent verification)
Good luck!
-cheers
I am considering funding your project but I would like know what the difference is between the 49' and the 500' options. I went through your website and I would strongly recommend having a more professional website created as it looks..... Well it looks bad is all I can say. I really appreciate the balance your organization is looking to return to the mining market. This is the main reason why I am considering funding you. I feel like you are bringing a business perspective that is not entirely profit driven and I can really get behind something like that.
I think your investors will be people like me so focus on what your strengths are and don't let the naysayers discourage your efforts; though I do think you still fall short as far as passing the smells test. There have been good suggestions made previously about increasing your credibility. Maybe some more specific engineering data that can be verified by forum members. (Wish it would mean something to me, other than independent verification)
Good luck!
-cheers
Don't invest until you have more proof about them or about their skills.
It's always good advice to be cautious, but first have a look at my 'update' post put on earlier today. Thanks for reminding me. Any comment on our J/GH figure in light of the info?
June 05, 2014, 11:16:41 AM
... get funding ...
You're asking for us to be investors, why not give us the benefits of investors in return ?Hi Ben,
Thanks for your input.
Strictly speaking you're buyers, not investors. We promise you delivery of an item at a future date in return for your payment. I can see why you might think that though, your 'investment' , as it were, is to give you a commercial advantage when your item gets delivered.
As a company we will use virtually all the money we get in orders to fund system development, satisfy those orders and stay afloat while doing so. After that we have to try to solicit more orders to keep the company going and invest in R&D for new products.
In traditional markets such as if we were buying a car or even a computer you would be correct in saying that we are buyers, not investors. However, people who purchase miners are not purchasing hardware so much as they are purchasing an investment. So even with "off the shelf" purchases we are investors who are taking a calculated risk with what we purchase. We aren't buying a miner to be cool (or hot) or because it gives us pleasure to look at or provides any utility to us outside of an investment.
The pre-order scheme takes that investment mindset a step further and asks the customer to take on additional risk beyond their calculated risk. It asks the customer to take risks that can't be calculated as accurately because there is less available information. Strictly speaking, from our perspective, in a pre-order we are not buyers but co-investors. A company who understands that this is the mindset of the small-time bitcoin miner would be a refreshing approach to the market.
You are sending money to the company with the intent of receiving a product. What you then do with that product once you have received it is not relevant to the company. If it so happens that this product makes you some money, then so be it.
Your investment is in BTC. By purchasing a miner, you are making a decision to actively support the BTC network. That's what mining is: supporting and helping secure the network. You are rewarded for your efforts with generated coins.
What Novello is stating is the following (and yes, I'm taking their entire plan and compressing it to a couple of sentences): We are going to build mining hardware that will be competitive and allow the "little guy" to remain in the mining game. We are going to do this by providing great price-to-hash value in the hardware, and by providing relatively inexpensive ways to continuously upgrade your existing hardware. To achieve our goal of great hardware at a great price, we need capital; and, to receive that capital we are looking to the mining community to believe in us and pre-order our hardware.
Whether or not they succeed with their mission remains to be seen. They have a long, tough road ahead of them, both to secure funding and to produce the hardware on time and on budget. As can be seen throughout this post, MANY of the very people they are hoping will invest are extremely skeptical from being burned so many times in the past by other companies.
Hi Johnny,
Thanks for the post. Mind if we use your 'compressed' words in the future? Couldn't have put it better ourselves.
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