If ASICMiner hadn't fallen apart before the BE300 got past engineering samples they'd have been the best thing on the market for several months. Demonstrated efficiency was better than the S5, with bottom clock almost on par with the S7 which rolled out nine months later. Those chips are the reason I started building miners.

ASICMiner's problems were managerial shortcomings, not technical. Bitmain's problems are managerial overreach and greed. Different problems, different people.