Neither is a scam. They're both stalling because they have nada at this time. ActM is at least being transparent about it.
ActM has said they'll have nada as far as eASIC chips go, for a long time, so I don't see that as 'stalling for time'. More like just running the course. The biggest hiccup seems to be the Avalon debacle, which can hardly be blamed on ActM.
It's called Activemining. If management wished to actively mine between now and November they presumably have the resources to do so. No the Avalon disaster is not the fault of management, what they've done(& not done) since is.