People need to stop thinking of business as if one person wins, and everyone else loses. I see it all the time on this forum. With that mindset, observers try to figure out "who profits the most" and then label everyone else a loser or victim of a scam. In reality, there can be multiple winners, and in any good business deal, there is.

HashFast is the firm inventing the new chips. So yes, they probably will make the most money from sale of chips, as everything else is derivative and not as value-adding as the creation of those chips. But that doesn't mean other steps in the supply chain don't also profit. And it doesn't mean that other steps in the supply chain aren't valid business propositions (such as IceDrill).

Carve away all the puffery that's gone on in this thread, and look at the numbers. Investors are paying about $14-$15 for ghs to be delivered in late oct/early nov. Estimate the difficulty at that point, and then decide if it's a reasonable risk/return ratio. Consider then that the entire mine is going to pay .0016 per public share before the subsequent revenue is split equitably, meaning the mine will pay off for public holders before it pays of for the operators. This makes it additionally attractive... in reality the investors are, at launch, getting more than a ghs for their $14 (they're also getting the operators' share of the mine proceeds until 0.0016 btc per share in dividends is paid!).

Further, whether the operators are getting some of the IPO money is absolutely irrelevant. Let's assume they are getting 99% of the IPO money and will spend it on hookers and blow, does that make the deal worse? No, because the promise is to deliver X ghs per $ invested by Y time. Unless they break that promise, it matters not at all where the IPO money goes. Maybe IceDrill got the entire mine from HashFast for $100... and thus they'll keep all the IPO money for themselves. So what? Or, maybe IceDrill is paying $14 per ghs from HashFash, and thus not earning a penny from the IPO money. So what?

All that matters is the ghs delivered to shareholders, by what date, and at what price.

How much hashfast and the operators of icedrill make, and whether one gets kickbacks from another, or whether they're the same person, and what kind of clothes they're wearing or car they're driving is completely irrelevant. They are offering a price, for a product. If you trust them to deliver, then buy shares, otherwise ignore.