Quote from: Stuartuk on September 21, 2013, 03:42:46 PM

I really think a lot of sellers/liquidators should look again at what eASIC bring to the table and have a serious think about where this company will be in 2months time.

There are mature industries that specialize in building hardware. It had always seemed odd to me that three people could design a chip and mount that chip to a custom board in a way that somehow gives an advantage over the efforts of the experienced companies. If you meet Ken you realize that he has an unorthodox genius with a honest determination. Gerald brings a diverse technical understanding that far exceeds normal. It seemed plausible that these guys could somehow grab this opportunity before experienced companies realized the potential.

The experienced competition had enough capital to keep their efforts private. Two companies are showing better delivery odds now. ActM suddenly became a laggard on costs, marketing, and performance. ActM's following comes from it being a company that small investors can easily buy into. ActM investors can buy into both hardware and at-cost mining at the same time. There may be a timing advantage too, but that could easily disappear when difficulties are encountered. Fortunately eASIC's technology can speed ActM though some of the design flaws. ActM still has a chance to come out stronger than the competition, but I judge those as long odds now.

LABCOIN and BFL have soured the market with undelivered promises. I recall Ken anticipating that BFL would repeat their past delivery failures. LABCOIN looked like it would beat ActM on timing but technical difficulties turned into prolonged silence. It is a predictable cultural reaction, but it was a silence that was too similar to that of ActM's after NRE was raised. ActM has not reached the development stage that LABCOIN claimed. Difficulties are to be expected in anything so technical. A concern is that Ken's silence would allow the market price to crumble much as LABCOIN currently leaves investors with undue levels of risk with investments subject to inference from a series of vague updates that each come too late. My intuition tells me that Ken would be more open about delays and flaws than LABCOIN is, but I also perceive he cares enough about investors that trolls affect him personally. He went quiet when attacks and threats became personal, and yet he still allows known trolls to post to his new thread. Ken is a nice guy, and that is being used against him.

Investors don't leave because there are technical difficulties or reasonable delays, they leave when behavior appears unpredictable and better opportunities emerge. Leaving ActM is more about finding a better portfolio balance. I still hope for ActM to succeed, but these are markets with little liquidity and I'm not likely to rebalance to again favor ActM.