Quote from: Carlton Banks on November 22, 2013, 09:49:15 PM

They haven't announced it yet, there is a difference. Not everyone feels the need to announce their every breath and toilet break to serve as some kind of "evidence" that their project is on track. Cointerra making the announcement means little, they've had no opportunity so far to demonstrate that anything they've promised is true.

I have this sneaking suspicion that both Cointerra and Hashfast are going to miss their December delivery targets, just a hunch. Too much talk, too much glossy showroom stuff. Will it turn in to ASIC gen I part 2?

Will BlackArrow pip them at the post in mid-February, while the guys who paid for expensive front-page advertisements on shiny paper flounder around with their angry over-bought customers shrieking and wailing? Maybe, but the delivery window is narrowing, and they're all 3 looking like converging on the same timeframe. Tortoise (Avalon) won the last race, the hare (BFL) is still attempting to deliver it's overambitious promises.

For Hashfast they absolutely can't afford to miss that dec 31st deadline cos they've got a lot of batch 1 customers holding a sales contract that gives them a right to a full refund if they miss the dec 31st date so you can think that this date is set in stone and Hashfast will move mountains to ensure they ship before then. And as for Cointerra, they were originally running two months later than hashfast but events have conspired (hf being very late and cointerra being late but not as late)... so they've done some catching up and are now perhaps are weeks rather than months behind. I still think they will show working systems in december like they promised and probably sneak in the first shipments by the end of december (like they promised) but most of their customers (including me) are in the january batch and they've got a lot more time to deliver that batch on schedule than they have for the Dec batch. and all future orders for both hashfast and cointerra are now feb and march timeframe because their first few batches are completely sold out... so business for both of them mustve been pretty good (especially with bitcoin levels rising so much... everyone wants to be mining now.. and the ROI suddenly makes a lot more sense than it once did)

Black Arrow would certainly have announced their tape-out as soon as they hit that milestone. Its simply not sensible in this marketplace there is any benefit to taping out secretly and not telling anyone... especially because they're trying to take pre-orders as we speak, and they'd get a hell of a lot more pre-orders if people had confidence the chip was coming.. so clearly, by definition, they haven't taped out yet, or they would've said. And look at Cointerra for an example of the pre-tape out and post-tape out frenzy... ok, so bitcoin going up helped a lot... but their sales & support staff are snowed under with the volume of inquiries.. and that may have had a lot to do with announcing tape-out as it significantly reduces the risk profile of the product and its shipping on time.

For Black Arrow to pip Hashfast, Cointerra and BitMine to the post... there'd have to be an awful lot of things go wrong for each and every one of those three, and it has to go swimmingly well for Black Arrow (and they have to raise enough pre-orders - which gets harder all the time - and sell loads of their bitfury clone box.... so that they can hit the $5m in target that allows them to pay the fab and the other contractors to get their 28nm asic into production). Now, this COULD happen without us knowing.. but i'd say its pretty unlikely. These guys, just like almost everyone else.. will announce their tape-out with gusto because it helps them make pre-order sales! Also, we don't know when the next KnCMiner machine is coming out.. but it won't be far behind Black Arrow.. so they will certainly be entering at a time when its hard to compete except on price.