Any information within this post is my speculation on what has happened since December, and is not to be taken as 100% fact.


So this hit me about two weeks ago, and it was when people were discussing taking the shipped asic units as opposed to paying out the maintenance fees. Interestingly enough, it was one little word that triggered a series of events in my head where I had an epiphany, that word was "dusty".


Back in December, there were 3 weeks where some people got paid completely up until no one got paid. Each week less and less people got paid, then the faucet shut off. There were a few emails back and forth between Beekeeper and myself where he explained he was hacked and was continuing to get hacked. If I remember correctly, it started with addresses being changed in the database, then it escalated to fake shares being injected. I personally do not remember if there was ever proof of this, but we all know there were a substantial amount of new accounts trying to dump 1 million shares (or some ridiculous number).

The funds were drying up, but I dont think this is where the issue started. I believe the issue started on the black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. I think it is widely accepted that shares were over sold, and I believe this was purposely done. No, I don't think it was malicious, I believe there was a plan with the extra money. But the hacks and the fake shares, along with potentially poor business planning, dried up funds much earlier than expected (also the time needing to be spent unscrambling the database to ensure the proper people get paid).

We all also suspect that he has been to China quite a number of times. He needs to go somewhere in order to get the asics built, from chips to possible final assembly. I as well as others know that he has shipped hardware in the past and has a number of months of delays with these as well. Building hardware is no easy task, take it from me as a hardware engineer. If you want it done right, sometimes you need to bite the bullet and play by the schedule that is handed to you.


Enter Gen2's


We all know these were rolling out, shortly before payments stopped he was selling shares of these. Shares were being sold and I assume were being paid out (I didnt get any). Generation two....a new asic that needs to be design, tested, and manufactured.

The money that was collected, the oversold shares that were performed, all of it was used to pre-order asics. From Butterfly labs to FT to Alpha to Fib, we have all seen this time and time again, and we all know that anytime anything is pre-ordered means that there is everything from design to final manufacturing to perform. This doesnt happen overnight, and can take a long time to have asics in hand. I believe something happened that was not according to Beekeeper's business plan (cost and schedule) that caused more issues.

Back to the money situation, how to alleviate the situation so there is less financial pressure and resetting back from an oversell of shares to a net gain as a business. For those wanting to continue to mine an additional tax was levied in the form of "maintenance". And for those that just want out and refuse to pay, the offer of non Gen2's can be shipped to them. Two birds with one stone, can't have all those asics in one place so offer the older ones to customers in lieu of payments. Of course, when people will get them they are going to be a little "dusty" from being used.


So thats it, I believe in theory that all of these non payments are because he has used everyones money in order to perform pre-orders on Gen2's. Mix in all the rest of the stuff mentioned above (hacks, production, schedule, costs) and its caused a long time of non payments.


No I don't believe he is a scammer, but then again, not the entire truth was told.