Post
Topic
Board Mining speculation
Re: Another ASIC company[Could be a scam?]
by
jml
on 15/04/2013, 17:56:06 UTC
So roughly $750 for HD cards, a few hundred for mobo, case, power.  Not a lot of profit in if if not a scam.  This is a quick assumption of the GR1 (800MH/s).  Cheaper and more efficient to purchase the parts and skip the $100 shipping.  

This sounds a lot more like a group building rigs for mining based on current available hardware and accepting bitcoins.

Just my opinion.

That is exactly what we are doing with our GPU Rigs.

It is unfortunate that new business in the bitcoin mining industry are being instantly labeled as scam artists based on past experiences individuals have had with other companies but honestly, this was expected. I just hope that over time we can show that we are not here to scam anyone and that we can earn the trust of the mining community.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, however, your company:

Has blatantly ripped off images on both sites (and GXMINING.COM, which seems linked to you also) of Butterfly Labs devices

Has not shown a shred of proof of anything you claim, can you provide a photo or evidence of a prototype? Anything?

Can you provide an explanation for both of these issues?

If not I don't think you will be leaving "It's an obvious scam" world anytime soon.  You are correct in many new companies being labeled a scam, and that is because most of them are. It is very hard to tell at the moment who is real and who is not. I am not targeting your company directly or on purpose, only presenting evidence found so far that makes it seem like it is. If you are legit then I am happy to remove you from my other thread as a scam site: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=176262.msg1835276#msg1835276, but you must provide proof of such or words are just that.

True, a home address as a business address is not uncommon, however for a hardware manufacturer it is.



We have not blatantly ripped off anything thank you. We are building our ASIC systems based on what is currently, considered to be the popular look and feel of them, hence it is showing a mockup of a device similar in size and quality of a BFL mining system with a brushed aluminium look.

A prototype of what? Right now our primary focus is sourcing working ASIC chips that do what they are supposed to, we have not even started the build out process for the final rigs because until we have working chips, anything else we can 'show' will just be that, for show and not actually worth the pixels it would be presented online in.

Again, we are not manufacturing these chips ourselves, we're using a semiconductor company based in the United States (On Semiconductors) to manufacture the chips, once we have access to proven, reliable chips, the manufacturing process will begin... Right now we are not even promoting our ASIC rigs instead we are focusing on promoting our existing GPU building business model or are you saying we are unable to build GPU miners and have those shipped out to customers that order them?

I am personally slightly confused as to what we are actually being accused of scammers for? The fact we are looking for a viable, working source of ASIC chips to produce affordable miners? Or that we are able to produce GPU based mining systems? Or that we have 2 websites that look similar to each other, only one of which we are actually promoting presently? Or that our company is registered to our owners residential address? Or just the fact that hopefully, in a few months time we will be able to start selling and shipping ASIC devices once they are available?

I mean sure, if you can backup your claims we are scammers, by all means do so, until then, as I mentioned in my response above, it just seems like a case of once bitten twice shy, by a community of individuals who may have (or may not if BFL ship) been scammed before, which personally neither I nor the company owner can fault, we haven't solicited any people to pre-order and in fact in a thread yesterday on this very forum, I suggested that someone asking about ordering wait until I knew what the actual shipping date for our ASIC models would be.

To begin, I am not trying to personally attack you or discredit your company, and wish to remain objective.

However, I am not the one who needs to provide the burden of proof.

Your operation looks like a scam because:

1. Priced units available to buy with ZERO evidence they exist in any form, in development or otherwise. This is the big one. You have stated yourself they are not in production at any level, and you are just now sourcing hardware. Why should anyone trust you to deliver? How many pre-orders do you have so far? Did you already have startup capital (let's be real, ASIC is expensive to design and produce en mass), or is it a bootstrap operation based on pre-orders? Do you at least have a picture of a working GPU rig? Anything at all? All we have currently are a few websites and a vague promise backed on nothing but your word.  If you show me something concrete I'm more than happy to leave you alone.

2. Sketchy home-based office. Not an issue on it's own per se for reasons you have stated, but still peculiar for a hardware company. Do you intend to have them produced entirely by outside companies and drop shipped later on? Or get a commercial space later on? Understandably you have no need for a commercial office in the design/sourcing stage.

3. Units depicted look like 'Shopped images of Butterfly Labs machines. This is not a "mockup", its a direct rip off of their design if that is the direction the finished units are going. Even if that is true and you are indeed producing these, it is bull on it's own to steal someone else's work, and an infringement of intellectual property rights. So yes you ARE RIPPING THEM OFF. Considered a "popular look" by whom? Avalons look nothing like BFL gear. Plus I don't think real miners really give a damn about how it looks as long as it functions.

I have no problem with the fact that ASIC must be produced by specialists and sourced out, they all do.

4. A 3rd site called GXMINING.com that looks very similar to the others, I cannot ignore it. It is also a UK registration, uses very similar images, colors, and layout, etc. Can you explain this? Either this is also yours, or someone else is ripping you off which I find hard to believe.


Again it isn't up to me to prove you and your enterprise is real and serious, if it is then I do wish you the best, I really do. However there are too many oddities to overlook, and too many scam sites out there that only hurt the Bitcoin community.

I am conducting a tribunal to find out the truth about these companies before people give scammers their money and are discouraged from further participation in Bitcoin. Every Bitcoin hardware producer is under my eye, so please do not take any of this personally.



I don't, like I mentioned before we were aware we'd have issues such as this entering the marketplace, its just a shame that out of all the 'scam' companies listed, we seem to be the only ones feeling the brute force behind these attacks, sorry I mean tribunal, as others have obviously stayed clear of these types of threads for reasons unknown whilst we are actively trying to clear our company name among a few naysayers (who I honestly believe will never be satisfied no matter what we tell, show or ship out to them once our ASIC devices are ready to ship).

Not true. You are not the only company being grilled in this community Smiley Not everything that we say is negative though I can be very picky because it is in my nature to be highly critical. If you want to take my critiques, fine, if not, then don't. I am not imposing here on what I say, but like I have stated with previous companies, I won't invest any money until I see demonstrable work. Otherwise, I will take it as half baked business proposals.