I think the strategy of AM is effectively to offer a much cheaper price for the hardware they sell in order to make it impossible for the competition to sell their miners. That way the competition loses their income streams! I believe AM doesn't rely on the profits they make from selling the hardware. I think they're quietly deploying respectable amounts of self- and franchised-hash rate and for now use the revenue to deploy even more. One day FC will come around the corner and say "well, look at our 15% of the hash rate" - is that soo improbable?
I will donate 0.5 BTC to Sean's Outpost when AM will reach 15% of the hashrate!
Ha, quoting you right there! I don't necessarily think they'll achieve 15%, but why not at least 5%? I don't think that's totally unrealistic, maybe even 10%. I'm just saying, who knows what AM is doing, they may very well be putting massive amounts of hash rate online as we speak!
I certainly hope that is the case, along with all the other shareholders. To flip the script for a moment, I have a question for you. At what point in 2014 would you start to lose faith in AM's ability to produce a profit out of Gen3 chips? Hypothetically speaking, if we were to enter October with nothing tangible, does this change your view on the company's ability to compete in the mining industry with force, going forward? It is worth noting that while FC has been more active in the forums of late, the "dividends in August" hope resulted from another shareholders claim of a conversation with FC, not from the Cat himself speaking to his shareholders here on the forum.
The information could be 100% valid, however I see so little coverage of that event and the lack of interviews and other information creates an environment where unless I hear it from the Cat himself, I am not getting my hopes up. The summer is about over, expect things to heat up soon if nothing tangible can be produced over the fall season.