Topic: Official CedarTec Topic - New ASIC [Scam?] - page 41. (Read 43068 times)

I asked them via email to send one unit to a trusted forum member for inspection, using John K. as escrow.
They replied:

Let's assume they really have a working CT-80 and they would send one to a trusted forum member who confirms that the device is existing and working. They would literally drown in preorders!

I'm not (yet) calling CedarTec scam as there is no solid evidence so far. But it's really weird that they refuse to take some simple steps to prove their legitimacy.

If this was my company I would even send a free CT-80 to David Perry to make him a review video. I mean we're talking about $999 here. That would be a good marketing investment.

atleast they did not do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPeen7AJA-o&feature=youtu.be

BINGO! Why the need for obfuscation and shady video? If they are REALLY serious about demonstrating a product, it's easy. Make a visible video, name the worker and point it to a pool (although this could be faked if they already have some Avalon equipment, etc), or send a working prototype/unit to an independent party, like a trusted mod here, or a blogger like codinginmysleep... If you have only ONE working prototype, and yet you claim a 2-week ship time, something is off.

You don't go from having only one working prototype, to full-scale production and shipment within 2 weeks time. There needs to be at minimum a small scale run of dev units, one of which would be incredibly simple to send out to an independent 3rd party.

Hell, I'll take a dev unit at that price and do some testing and verification. My only condition would be to use escrow. Send the working test unit and bitcoin gets released.

If they don't have the funding to assemble these things, then something is also DRASTICALLY wrong, as it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a chip forge to tool up a die for wafer production on a chip of this complexity and size.

Where did they get their hundreds of thousands, but no money for a small run of assembly of dev units, a mere 2 weeks before full-scale production.

As I said before, I hope like hell that I am wrong. If a unit actually ships, I'll buy the max (3units) and then have my wife buy the max, and then have each of my siblings buy the max.

However, until a working unit is demonstrated, the product is vaporware, and I won't touch it. Greed can quickly overpower common sense. Tread carefully.

http://vimeo.com/65249930
decide for yourself!  

I see nothing.

EDIT:

it would be so easy to prove.  If it were really desired...

a) a video in which everything can be seen.
b) name the worker clearly and point it to a pool with public stats

I have gotten answers for every questions asked so far. I will say that it is taking MUCH longer for them to get back to me but generally less than 24 hours. Here are a few answers to questions I have gotten that may answer any questions others may have:

March 31st
Dear customer,

sorry, we only accept bitcoins as payment, also we can not take refunds. The reasons are written down.
We have explained, why we have putted our webpage so late online.

You can wait for the pictures or until may and order at this point.

With best regards,

Your CedarTec Team.

April 1st
Dear customer,

the units of the pre-order will be shiped from china, some of our employees will stay
there and control and test everything, before the units will be send.
Our company is located in Tripoli, Lebanon but we use Icelandic server because of
electricity problems in our city. The Icelandic server are solid and works the entire
time.
We can guarantee may 14th as shipment date because we are now at the last phase
in our production.
At shipment date we will be able to deliver every week 100 units,
orientated by order numbers. Until now we have #0074 pre-orders,
your number will be #0075-#0076-#0077. So your order will be delivered in the first
week.

We do not have any problem to answer all your questions. If you have any questions left,
just feel free to ask.

April 11th
Dear customer,

after now it will be possible to be on time.
If a delay should occur, it will be only some days.

Like we said, it is impossible to guarantee it to
100% and it would be wrong to do so, but we are doing our best
and working many hours to reach our goals.

April 15th
Dear customer,

we are on the last steps of
the optimizations, we need to
go sure that everything runs
stable over a long time period
before we start the mass production.

We will announce the mass production,
when it starts, but before we will release
a video of the working prototype.

The shipment date is still scheduled for
the 14th may.

April 26th
Dear customer,

currently the video is not
our number one priority,
please understand the delay.
Like promised we will upload
the video this week,
if there is no other possibility
we will capture it sunday.

More informations will be published
next week on our webpage.

Based on their address information their manufacturer is sinofast www.alpcb.com.cn

Got anything you think would be worth sharing?

Well you guys are lucky because my emails asking for information and guarantees regarding orders have remained unanswered (asked them to confirm ship date, use of escrow, etc)... So it's a no go for me at this time, a legit company usually has no problem answering the questions I sent. I do import/export in my everyday job and deal with this type of purchases, all the companies I have worked for that did not simply and timely answer question such as the one I sent ended up being trouble (no deliveries, late deliveries, defective goods...) - thankfully in my business I deal with companies that are easily identifiable and recoup losses 99%of the time.... which would not be the case here.

Im with you. I too have been talking with them since April 3rd trying to fish for as much details as possible. I am still on the fence about a pre-order. The greedy me is on one shoulder saying "DO IT DO IT!" While the responsible me is on the other saying "dont do something you will regret!".

Maybe in another 24 hours BTC prices will go back up and I can send them 6.6 coins for a unit, might be worth it then

i asked if their cost was allot less then the absurd prices it was in 2005 for that process.
im not sure if the figure they gave me is what it cost or if it was just a figure as to how much it would cost if i were to order from the same chinese manufacturer.

and yes by email, and i cant possibly be the only one they are corresponding with by email
i have been trying to communicate with them over email since they went public, generally it takes up to a day for them to respond, depending on the time.


if you were ordering something that was potentially a scam, wouldn't you try to get as much information as you can? and initially i was trying to get an edge on everyone else to be able to better determine whether they are a scam or not. so i know so much because i have been doing my research.

edit:

i have more information
such as manufacturing location for their asic chips

^this


I for one consider 3K$ (€) a a truck shitload of money ...

For being just a random customer, you seem to know a lot about the inner workings and costs of the company... You know their die/wafer costs? How can this be" Oh, let me guess. "Email" again. They're spending all their time that could be spent answering basic concerns on a public forum, or making a watchable video, or creating another prototype to send our to a trustworthy 3rd party, and instead taking that time to send private emails to one alleged 'customer' sharing all the intimate details of their production costs, etc, etc.

$3000 is a LOT of money to most people. Most people would not be able to spend the full $3k anyway, so saying "We'll only accept up to $3000." is a cheap and easy way to pretend to be honest folks, without actually having to make any sacrifices. Anybody who wants to get scammed out of more will just do 2-3 separate "orders", but most people will only be spending $1k-$2k anyway.

This whole thing just stinks. And you are seeming more and more like a shill by the moment.

from what i gathered they are testing their market with the pre-orders.

the 400k bitcoins is not theirs, thats bitcoin24 internal account.

i think their intention is more for the long term, not the sale as many as we can and deliver extremly late and slow, if they do it right they could steal the entire asic market by being cost effective and having a low point of sale to delivery wait time.

they dont let you spend more then 3000$

latest details i got from them:
mass production starts as soon as optimization is complete
it cost them 8$/die on a wafer (including unusable ones)

A fool and his money are soon parted. I can't say for certain that this is a scam, but it sure looks, smells, sounds, feels, and tastes like one. This is a HUGE gamble, and they're doing just enough to pretend that they're giving you what you're asking for, but never giving you QUITE what you asked for.

If this is a legitimate business, why would they limit themselves to doing 1000 boards? Why would you put 3 years of time research and effort into a project, only to set a low limit on your potential returns?

Any time somebody says "we're a manufacturer, but we can only deliver x number of units," you need to be very careful, and consider why a manufacturer would tool up to manufacture a limited quantity.

There's no way in hell that they legitimately got 400k bitcoin from this project. Something else is going on; one potential explanation would be that this is a very sophisticated scamming group, who knows how to quickly separate fools from their money, and this is just one of many projects dedicated to that end.

I legitimately hope you get the stuff you've paid for. If you do, let me know and I'll start campaigning to get them to sell more than a measly 1000 units, and buy one myself. I wouldn't touch this under any circumstances until/unless there's a credible independent verification that this is a working product. It would not be at all difficult for them to do this, if they were actually willing or able. And I cannot see one single reason why a legitimate company would be unwilling OR unable.

That clearly makes me throw shitloads of money on them ....

and a PCI-e 1x slot pulled and positioned in the wrong direction? This is not just a basic mini ATX board.

Still on the fence, once BTC prices go back up I may pull the trigger. Right now at sub $100 its not worth it to me

i would not be able to bear waiting past their deadline, id count that as a loss.
im not convinced they are not a scam, so a delay would not give them any more credence in my view, infact that could shift my view completely.

Those BFL customers have already learned their lesson regarding preorders and promises.

You also lose if they take a year to ship you a miner.

I admit my motivations are selfish. The more people fall for scams, the more scams pop up, the longer it takes for bitcoin to develop a legitimate marketplace. I hope I don't hear from you in six months complaining you lost all your money.

Having an awful sense of deja-vu.

Liquid Nitrogen Overclocking @ https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fraudscam-alert-ed-trice-liquid-nitrogen-overclocking-inc-179747