Topic: Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com - page 1709. (Read 3050068 times)

The pre-order model is the kick start from hell, I hate it, too many ASIC chip makers already from this, killing the ROI for all. Most of the ASIC makers will eventually die as moore's law fails to keep up with the difficulty increases. Unless something changes, I see the future of ASIC miners as small backyard low overhead operations, the data center model will come and go quickly. Big farms wont be competitive as the cost of electricity, aircon, staff wages, space rental, kills the ROI, whilst the small backyarder with no-aircon still makes a profit and keeps the net alive.

We'll get there anyway, the market will always seek equilibrium. Mining will eventually be only marginally profitable just as it has been in the past. The reason in hand gear commands a premium is because there's historically been a tightly restricted supply and lots of pent up demand due to non-performance by pre-order vendors. That is changing as more and more pre-order gear is introduced to the secondary market and more vendors emerge.

Agreed. I'd like to see a little less of the fan-boys piling on when someone asks valid questions.

Guys I've never expected to see a chip until 2nd/3rd week of September earliest. They will literally be testing the chip as soon as they have it packaged and sent to them, they have always known the date they will receive it, from the date they settled the NRE with the fab. They will go straight into production from there. I anticipate early 20's this month for chip info. I got that impression from the openday. I will be worried if I still hear no chip info around 27th. I'm not bothered about a bet that ends on the 1st of October, I'm bothered if I see no chip by the 1st of October. That's the point I'll be twitchy and concerned, if you're feeling like that now you clearly have not read anything about what I wrote or what they have written. It's always been end of September in my mind and i'm cool as a cucumber currently. The fact that Scandanavia's largest bank has partnered with them is massive news, SEB aren't about to be made fools of, and will have ultra stringent criteria, so all's gravy in my mind. Whether the chip performs as anticipated, well that's down to margins upon margins, that said this is is the only pessimistic company in the race. True scientists and engineers are, until they have statistically significant data, the rest of the playing field are hyping simulated data and best case scenarios, that's not science, that's marketing, and unachievable.

My background is in science, engineering, finance and adland. I can tell fact from fiction. You don't need to believe me, just know I'm very content. Make your own minds up, but ffs at least read up so we're singing from the same hymn sheet.

as soon as you can buy asics from the shelf there wont be any profit anymore to gather

people are willing to pay to high prices for those asics regarding the future difficulty and that leads to overpriced asic hardware

if you are lucky you will make marginal profits like 5% a year

no preorder = no whining = no gain

edit: investomers is a good term cause its exactly what we are doing. we are basically funding a startup. usually you arent able to do so as a small investor cause its the job of big venture capital firms, but we are in a special situation as bitcoin far from being established and the usual partners like banks and venture capital stay away as soon as they hear "bitcoin". so THATS the reason we are allowed to gather good profits as investomers.

The pre-order model flat out sucks for investors. At best it's a zero interest loan with the purchased gear as collateral. The gear that hasn't been built yet mind you. Yes knc is offering refunds and I wouldn't even have given them a second look otherwise, but we need to move beyond this ridiculous sales model. Just because you can get a refund doesn't mean you don't have losses. Those that are ordering are plainly interested in BTC and as such have numerous investment opportunities. When knc announced their plans to develop this hardware those that invested made their choice. Whether it was the right choice or not remains to be seen, but if they paid with BTC at that time then they're already way behind because they locked in an exchange rate that was most likely lower than it is now. If they paid with fiat then they likely could've purchased BTC directly and been better off. Again, nothing against knc as they've acted in good faith thus far, I'm just disappointed that they've not helped to move us beyond this pre-order model and it's lopsided share of the risks heaped upon investors.

As fr as the pre-order model is concerned, there is nothing wrong with the model. The problem is the abuse of the pre-order model by some actors (ahem) in the bitcoin space.   I remember someone posting about how they saw an option to "pre-order" an Amazon kindle paperwhite and freaked out for a second.

But like I said, KnC is offering refunds at any point in time, and they are allowing people to pay with credit cards.  That's low risk for the customer.  

In fact, it's actually high-risk for KnC because people can order miners, get them and then do charge backs claiming they never got their system, or their CC was stolen, or for that matter  order with a stolen CC or whatever while mining away with ∞% ROI.  I would be... hesitant to go that rout.


KNC will test your unit with those credentials.  So they will be installed at the factory before they send it to you.

I heard somebody say
   Burn baby burn
Disco inferno 0 00  
   Burn baby burn
Burn that motha down 'yall

(Taking dumb risks doesn't magically avail you of a chance at reward.  Some dumb risks are simply dumb risks -- step out in front of speeding trains all you want, it won't make you a billionaire, girlfriend )

ahh, first valid reaction for my post. finally, somebody..thanks a lot dude, going to read it now, I missed the article.

If you caught the article on coindesk from last week, you would know they (KnC) weren't expecting to have the chips this week, so we shouldn't be expecting them to either. How could they have results / tests / photos of a product that doesn't yet exist?

http://www.coindesk.com/kncminer-takes-delivery-of-asic-boards/

There's actually zero risk so long as they stick by their refund policy, and I'm sure at this point they've made way more then enough money to refund every single person who orders for November delivery.  So I don't see much risk.

I also don't see much reward either.  I'm expecting my order to pay off by the end of october, and henceforth barely make anything.  

cm on guys, let´s stay friendly. i think his questions are valid. getting nervous myself. could use some calming lines from knc.

100gh/s was a minimum, and we've since been informed there has been a 30%+ performance increase... Working chips will be inside machines, shipped, and hashing away during the last part of september, as always  stated. Nothing has changed, except good things happening. Get with the program, or quit spreading FUD.

I'm just not so optimistic as you are.) otherwise, we are on the same boat.

ohh, another superclever member of KNC crew;)

please answer me:

any results from testing - I heard something about 100GH/s but without any prove
any information from development/progress - pls check bitfury thread to see, what I mean
any working unit/chip - or we have? please, where?
any photo of complete REAL device - where?
any new video (yes, there were videos before KNC start preordering) - where?
information about shipping date (1st/2nd day explanation) - where?

once you will answer all my questions, I will admit my fault.

yes WE have, YOU just can't read

well, honestly it is becoming little unusual.

after ~5 months we have got:

new forum
credit card payments
ugly alu case
rendered chip picture
PSU recommendation
slogan for PCB
updated store with new prices and shipping promise for November
program for resellers
banners
photo of PCB
hosting possibility
network protection statement
KNC in China
..and closed lottery;)

we don't have:

any results from testing
any information from development/progress
any working unit/chip
any photo of complete REAL device
any new video (yes, there were videos before KNC start preordering)
information about shipping date (1st/2nd day explanation)

so instead of information for geeks (photos, videos, testing results, information about chip, overclocking, linux, interface), we are still flooded with "news", which are usually completely useless for majority of us. weeks and months of waiting for...slogan for PCB? o rly? I really don't want to bitching here and troll KNC crew (Bitcoinorama, Bargraphics..), but now ending first week of September and if they want to fullfill their promise, they have to test and ship hundreds of miners within 14 days - and it seems more and more impossible. I'm not HW designer or SW engineer, but if they don't have working prototype yet, they simply can't fulfill their promise in 14 days. (chip testing, PCB assembly, miner assembly, testing, configuring, SW debugging, packaging, shipping hundreds of boxes, hundreds of unexpected trifles)

We don't have any answers of basic questions, all is answered like: we are on plan, we ship in September. hmm, splendid..but as far as I know, September is even in Sweden.

I love the pre-order model. It is the ONLY way to make money unless you are in the business of designing or building ASIC machines yourself.

No company is going to sell hardware for less they can mine with it, unless they have already sold it via pre-order.

It is a risky, but it is only with risk that you will get any reward.

I would never buy a miner UNLESS it was a pre-order. Any miner that is in stock and available and cheap would be sold so quickly that the difficult would rise to the point until the miner was no longer profitable. Or, more likely, the price on the miner would increase to that point (like ASIC Miner did). There is no such thing as a free lunch. No risk, no return.

It's like say, I'm going to wait until that promising startup is successful before I invest. Well if you wait, you are too late. You need to be an early adopter to make money in bitcoin.

What did You expect after being told "End of September".... special dispensation?   duh.  
Give it another 16-20 days, then you have my permission to be an idiot.  

Because the KnC miner contains an embedded Linux system which is using SDRAM. It would have been sad if the ASIC's arrived but the miners could not be shipped because of insufficient supply of SDRAM. However, it seems like the damage is not as severe as first expected and it appears that OrSoC are using Micron SDRAM (MT48LC16M16A2 by inspecting the photo on their site) so hopefully this will not be a problem other than increased memory prices.

OTOH some claim that the supply/price of graphics cards will be hurt by this accident:

http://olimex.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/hynix-ddr-memory-plants-in-fire-after-chemical-explosion-market-in-panic/