I think a retail channel would be a good idea as it would free Bitfountain from the hassle of dealing with hundreds of retail buyers. Surely if there is stock on hand or stock committed to be produced now is the time to start shipping it, not in three months when its value has fallen by 2/3rds. Also better to sell stock in bulk than have to worry about deploying it to the farm with its attendant admin and operations costs.

There are risks involved in being a reseller of any mining product in an era where generations of tech are measured in months - you don't want stock sitting in your warehouse for more than a couple of weeks, tops. The blades are currently priced at a premium as well, which would make it hard to make a margin on top of that. Perhaps the distribution channel should get blades at say BTC25 each in volume and then be looking to sell them to retail customers for BTC35 each (still a good business when each blade only costs about BTC1 to manufacture). AM would sell an absolute boatload of blades and would have a bulging war chest to pay for the next generation of hardware.