Their "efforts" of decentralization are bullshit. If they really wanted to point hashpower away from Antpool, why were the first few batches set up to go to Antpool directly? Why did Kano from Kano CKPool say that when set up with any other pool than Antpool, S9 machines would send jibberish random code that would cause trouble in the system? At first, it seemed like you had no choice but to mine with Antpool until Kano fixed the issue.

If you really think they care about decentralization then you're kidding yourself.

Here's what's really happening: They already have hundreds of S9 machines set up in China - but not for their cloudmining service Hashnest, no. They have them set up for themselves, mining in the BW pool. BW pool is part of Bitmain just as Antpool is part of Bitmain, they use the different pools to disguise their true hashpower - and to disguise they have already started using S9s themselves. Haven't you noticed the ridiculous increase in BW hashpower over the past months? And FYI, it has been suggested by multiple experts that F2 and BTCC pools are also connected to Bitmain in some way, possibly to further the disguise of how much of the market they really control.

That's just the most profitable thing for them to do. Right now, you can make a decent amount of coins with S9s so why sell them on? They're just waiting for the S7 market to crash so everyone invested loses their money. Once that happens and S9s aren't as profitable anymore, they will just transfer the already used machines to their cloud mining operation and offer them for full price to the customers - and they're none the wiser. It's a win-win for Bitmain: They get to use the machines in the juicy first few months and then sell them on for full price once they've became less profitable. And there's proof for them already selling on used S9 machines to customers. How would a brand new S9 appear to be used if it was just released? How? Obviously because it was used for mining already - just google for this issue or look on the forum, there's hard evidence for this happening right now.

It's no coincidence that more and more S9 batches are being released now that the halving is near - and more will come in the next few weeks, because Bitmain knows the time to sell has almost come. They might continue using some after the halving if it's still profitable then, but why take the risk? They've already got months of mining profits in the bag and can now cash out by selling the machines for a full retail price, making another decent profit.

Bitmain doesn't deliver brand new hardware anymore, they use it themselves first. All of the "batches" being released right now are just sub-par or faulty machines that had already been running in China for months. When you buy at Bitmain, you buy second hand. Getting a machine that actually works, doesn't overheat and delivers hashpower in the realm of what was promised is a fucking gamble. Your chances of getting a decent, working machine are probably higher after the halving because they're keeping the good ones for themselves for now.

Bitmain are just being greedy fucks at this point. They have the machines set up to mine for themselves but withhold them from customers who had previously funded all of their R&D by buying inferior S3, S5 or S7 machines. They're basically going the KnC/Bitfury way, happily taking your money as long as it suits their needs but also withholding any new technologies funded by your money as long as it's profitable for them.

Shame on Bitmain, what they're doing is basically a big scam.

Should you be invested in their cloud mining operation then I personally suggest cashing out all of your GHS shares BEFORE the halving occurs - the S7 hash market will collapse soon after and I don't want to risk losing all of my investment.