WTB 10k XEL for 2 btc.

Must escrow, PM me, thanks.

WTB 10k XEL at 15k SAT
PM me

Edit: market shifted changing offer

The "debt" that you are referring to is everyone with a valid claim (MPP may be valid or maybe not just depends on how the terms of the MPP were written and what the judge will ultimately decide).  They did not file that they have secured creditors meaning all debt was unsecured, even with their vendors so we are all in the same boat.  There is also more money that can be recovered once everything goes through a fine tooth comb.

So, by doing whatever can be done to make money with existing assets and finding any ill gotten funds will hopefully get more than just the assets.

Humm, even my 27-28th has mined at least 2 blocks that i know of... this is also only been mining for a bit over 3 weeks.

Total BTC received from the pool is just a little over 39 btc.  I know things are suppose to even out and work in our favor eventually but that just makes me think, I could have over 50 btc (if not more) if I took the risk and solo mined.

With that said Multipool has been mining for about the same time with almost 10x my hash power so how can this be right?

In any case is there some post on here detailing exactly how valid hashes can be submitted but never generate a block... I know that people have said it was software or hardware but I don't really get how someone can submit and the pool accepting hash that will never generate a block?  I thought for the most part CgMiner is used for many asics, I would doubt that he would write bad code.. also doesn't a valid hash have to have the correct amount of leading zeros (if that even matters)?  AFIK.

So it would be great if someone point me to how this is done, as far as i know the asics don't care about anything else but generate valid hashes (some of which should generate a block).  I think some very detailed super geek technical information on how this can happen would help us all especially to potentially figure out who is shooting blanks!

I think perhaps if the creditor (you) are not a US citizen or have a US address the online form will not work for you.

Others have been able to file their claim through this online form:
https://ecf.canb.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/autoFilingClaims.pl

If someone knows for sure if everyone needs to send their claim form by mail or only if you are not from/living in the US it would be helpful to clarify for everyone.

Thanks

Here are links to the other documents in case anyone did not get them or want to look at them:

List of top 20 Creditors being considered for the committee, if you are owed 100k or more you should try to sign up... maybe even use the BTC value as your claim, can't hurt...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4g8D3nvEYDzMS1CUHdUcThzcDQ/edit?usp=sharing

Committee instruction sheet
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4g8D3nvEYDzTk1GQ1dqT2xhdFU/edit?usp=sharing

Notice of formation doc
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4g8D3nvEYDzcnZ3SUZXbzFfNEE/edit?usp=sharing

Link to creditor matrix.  Comments allowed on document.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4g8D3nvEYDzajhuTzJTWmZWM3c/edit?usp=sharing

Will this have many monitoring functions like there are with the SW used at NOCs?  So a large, or many screens can show status of large farms, perhaps even on different networks..

Possible to integrate with a CRM and/or Ticket system to make it easier for large farm operators manage clients, issues, invoices, provide client Dashboards and user level management?

I think all the apps that can monitor and configure many devices are really great but because of the difficulty and price of miners as well as power requirements people are more likely going to buy/lease miners from others that have large farms who would be willing to sell miners that they are hosting but would need some powerful software to make management much easier.

So, what I see is sooner than later people are going to need interfaces that are like the ones used at data centers or people who lease powerful machines and create VPS for their clients and use things like this http://www.solusvm.com/ (and of course many others, some that even the data center will provide as part of the lease).

If you guys could create a web based software which can easily be tied into compatible existing software that would be great as then the same information would not have to be replicated many times.  Even integration into a CMS as a start would be good, then the framework for the content is already there, just modules to be built.

So, if MySQL is used as is popular for many other popular and open source CRMs, Ticket systems/Knowledge base, CMS etc, data can all be shared easily between the tables.  The end user will only have to create one login and password, the administrator can see each user/client/support staff.

Connecting to various pools and other sites with APIs could be easily done, with cron or when queried by a user.

I would think that this could be something installed on a server at perhaps the central DC which would hold the largest number of miners, then through IPSec VPN (not at all related to this sw but would allow management at multiple sites which would be the task of the DC operator to implement) could also connect to other miners at different locations.  If IPSec VPN could not be done I'm sure that some creative ways to access information from other locations would be easy enough to figure out.  A backed server could be setup that would feed a front end located at a large DC specifically for web hosting so that users could always connect to the "cloud" even if a connection at one site may not be reachable for what ever reason.

I wish you guys luck in the development of this as it would really take off if the interface is easy to use even if it takes some extra work on the back end.  Then your product could be a service based Open Source fee structure which has been a very successful method of software development.

Thanks!

If assigning static IP from the miner WebUI and it has the firmware with experimental Wifi, it updates the eth0 cfg file incorrectly and puts the Gateway IP under the wifi IP settings, where it should put the static gateway address  under both eth0 and wifi. 

I don't know if that was an issue for setting static IPs for you or others but with the Wifi firmware but some of my May batch miners had that firmware by default and it had to be updated to the non Wifi firmware to set the static correctly via webui.  Otherwise it did not have the route to connect "out".

The file could also have been manually edited by using SSH but if the WebUI of that firmware is used and the static address are changed again from there it will overwrite the settings changed through SSH.

I'm sure they fixed that little glitch in the latest firmwares as it is literally just one single line that has to be added in the code to correct that.

I suggest looking into water cooling, you can place a small car radiator from Amazon and a thermal pad on the bottom of the miner and with a relatively cheap pump (you can get a good USED "Little Giant" impeller pump on ebay for under $100) to move enough water through to keep the miner plenty cool at least on the bottom, you will also need a thermostat to control the pump which is on amazon new for like $15 (even better if you have amazon prime) it is model STC-1000, 110v, you need to get some wires and plugs and sockets for the timer but that is cheap and some fittings and tubing for the radiators and pump.  Then you can get some 12v large radiator fans from 90w (14") to 200w (16") with another larger radiator(s) that you can pipe out a window and evacuate all that heat outside.  Since these radiators are made for cars they can exhaust a lot of heat so for 1-2 miners you may only need 1 radiator per miner then 1 with the fan to cool the water/water solvent mix.  This is all without a chiller, you can get chillers on ebay that should work too but you may not need that for 1-2 miners.

All in all, the cost of this will most likely be cheaper than power for the AC in the heat of summer, cheaper than hosting as at least you will be spending your money on the hardware that you will own.

Just a thought...

Just for me with shipments from DHL they asked for a detailed description of the product, this is what I told them:


There should be no import taxes or fees for tech equipment in the US unlike just about every other country which is good for us and honestly I think it was the big box stores like Walmart, Best Buy, Frys, etc that have enough money to lobby to keep tech imports tax free.  IMHO I honestly think that it is also the great leverage that China has with US with them holding many of our bonds and also being the main tech exporter to USA that also keeps the tech imports tax free.

Try importing anything else... there is as much of a pain and taxes as any other country.  In fact there are many things that have import restrictions and quotas, for something as simple as importing candy for example, if it may have Almonds (or any other agricultural product) in them and it is being imported in a large enough volume to compete with local agriculture they will pose a restriction, even if they are not even whole and just as a part of the candy.  Lots of PIA paperwork, taxes, regulations, etc.  Our fine bureaucracy at work, if this was the case with tech no one but large companies would be able to get any foreign technology so in a way this "relationship" with China and other tech producing countries in Asia is still good for the little guy, hope it stays that way.

What are you using to seal the plates?

Thanks for the tip, I can't wait to get the parts to try this out especially if it is efficient enough to take out some fans or lower them quite a bit more!  It's great that the new FW allows that to be done too!

Oh and on the cold plate price, it's a lot cheaper than it sounds, the cold plate does not need to be the exact size of the ASIC board just large enough to dissipate the heat that the miner generates, so some pricing for one that is a stock size which would work to dissipate all the heat from the bottom is about $100 as technically since it is pretty much the only place where the heatsinks touch the case and the board above it would still have to be air cooled unless the board can be flipped to touch the top of the case and I don't think that is a possibility.

So until someone makes custom sized cold plates for the boards to be swapped out with the heatsinks then we are stuck with cooling the bottom as much as possible...

Here is a list of some of my parts:

14" Fan for about $22 Shipped http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008FBTM6Y

or even bigger

16" Fan for about $33 Shipped http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002X1QV70

Radiator http://www.amazon.com/Hayden-Automotive-512-Performance-Transmission/dp/B000C3DDEA
OR
http://www.amazon.com/Hayden-Automotive-405-Ultra-Cool-Transmission/dp/B000C3F3HK
Both just under $40 especially if you have Amazon Prime. 

Thermal pad for the one radiator going under the unit $13 (Prime):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007PPEW52

Get a small pump on ebay, they have some that can move about 2.5 GPM for under $20 shipped.  If you choose a submersible one then they are even cheaper.

Some tubing and fittings etc should be $30 or less as each radiator comes with some tubing too but it looks a bit short.

There is not going to be a lot of pressure so PVC plumbing is not needed, tubing and some clamps should work just fine.

Chiller if you want $20-$200 or more but I'm going to try mine with out one and see how well it works, I figure with 2 radiators one on the miner one with the fan exhausting the hot water through the 2nd radiator out the window should work well enough, at least for one miner...

Total rough price with everything but a chiller $176, now if this can save $176 in extra AC cost for the summer it will already have paid for itself... Pump and Fan run on 12v easy to connect to a variety of PSUs and don't use more than 50-100w max.  So that is about the power of just 1 fan in the system!

Lets see what happens when it gets here and I put it together...   For me, it's worth the $176 or even $200 to turn the fans down to like 50% maybe less?  Also should help the AC cool even better since the heat does not have to be air circulated, a lot harder to control than water

I agree with the watercooling, a cold plate could be placed on the bottom but it will only draw heat from the one blade, although it could pull out enough heat to turn the fans down depending if a chiller is used and pump, etc.

The thing is that with more than a few of these the noise is an issue too, also the heat, with the concentration in such a small area I think that it is not able to pull all the heat out with the slimmer heat sinks and the smaller fans, even if it does pull 150cfm.  On a 42u Rack they have to be spaced about 4u apart or the heat from the miner below will affect the top.  These are sitting on rack trays and a lot of heat is actually dissipated from the bottom, it's hot enough to cook an egg well with my contact thermometer it shows that the front of the heat sinks get to over 100c and is about the same on the bottom of the case.  The rack trays that I'm using has some vent holes and it helps a little bit but the entire tray gets hot as well so there is a large amount of heat transfer.  It's hot enough to burn my hand if I try to lift the miner from the bottom where the heat sinks are touching the case.  Over 100c as well.

From what I've looked at it may only cost a couple hundred at most for a single machine, cheaper of course with more since the same pumps and chiller would be able to be used for many miners.  Still for one miner it may be even less as I've seen some pumps that are less than $20 and would be able to move more than enough water though a cold plate...

I think I'm going to give this a shot and if it works I'll post some pics as I think that with one SP10 I may not even need a chiller as long as I have a large enough reservoir of water, I may hook it to a radiator that they sell on Amazon for about $40 and a 12" radiator fan which can also be found for about $20 on Amazon.

Oh, also to add where I live it gets very hot, up to 120f in the summer, my central AC does just fine but now with the extra heat from about 10Th of miners in total it can get toasty and this is sitting in a 10x15 sqft living room (which can not be used as a living room due to the sound) and my AC is on 100% of the time, there is air being exhausted out a window but it is not enough, on a good day and if the temp outside is below 85-90f I may get the living room ambient temp to about 85f but when it is hot like over 90f outside then it can get close to 100f inside.

This increases my power bill from not just the miners but also the AC on 100% at full blast all the time.  The bill is about $300-$400 more so it would likely be worth it to spend the one time costs to get water cooling system installed.  I'm not sure about others but it's worth the money as just one or 2 months would make up for the extra hardware, especially in the hottest part where it is over 120f in the day.

I have been thinking about some of the issues that many people have brought up about their miners and I have a suggestion that may help in the issues of heat, noise and a relatively low cost and easy to implement solution to both the SP-10 and the SP-30 machines.  Before I get into that I just want to give IMHO over a couple things that have been brought up recently...

Yes, immersion cooling is a very good way of cooling but I doubt that Spondoolies will warranty any hardware unless the setup has been thoroughly tested and verified by their engineers and I would imagine that the setup would have to follow a very strict guideline of what kind of fluid, hardware, enclosure, condensation system, etc is used, very likely something that they would have buy to use themselves evaluate and test on their miners to ensure that they will continue to operate properly.  So for a "mid level" home/hobby miner who is looking to cool say 3-5 miners of the SP10s or even the SP30s there is going to be a higher added cost for the setup and most likely the user would have to consider how many miners would be necessary to justify the added expense as well as building the infrastructure to house them.  With the margins as tight as they are just the immersion cooling may out weigh the entire ROI of the machines.

There is also the issue where people may want to sell their old miners (once they determine that they are satisfied with the return and also need to install new miners to keep up with the difficulty).  Depending on the method of immersion cooling used it may be pretty labor intensive to reassemble the machine to factory spec in order to resell to the next owner as it is more likely that there are not going to me many people who will be willing to use immersion cooling for a used miner anyway.  I think that most people consider the resale of older hardware as part of their ROI in the big picture.

Now, many people say well just host it at a DC, then you will have no problems, etc... that may be great but there are a lot of people who may have power rates that they consider good enough to want to mine themselves at their home as well as the added cost of the hosting itself, if someone has already converted an area of their home to allow for the power and other necessary aspects to mine then just sending the machines over to a DC would have wasted all the money and time that was spent to upgrade the home.

At the same time, many people have also brought up the fact that even for a high density rack at the DC it would not be able to hold a full rack of SP10s and only hosting a few miners still may not make up for the cost of the DC rates and directly eats into the ROI so even more money would have to be spent to perhaps negotiate an even better rate at the DC and costing even more money which I think most people would not be able to afford.

So, with that said, if you take a look at the design of the miner there are heat sinks on the bottom of the mining board and the fans at the back to exhaust the heat from airflow through the front, well if you look closely at the pictures and even with the suggestions of the people at Spondoolies themselves they admit that the bottom gets very hot suggesting that perhaps putting them vertically would help to dissipate that heat more effectively.  Now I have not done any controlled air flow tests but I would bet that most of the air that is going through the case is cooling the top board as there is a larger gap and with the air flowing through the path of least resistance then it would be correct to assume that the top board has more air flow than the bottom right?

When I look at my machines it is apparent that the bottom board of heat sinks touches the bottom of the case or is close enough that pretty much most of the heat of the 2nd board is dissipated from the bottom of the case so what if some heat pipes are installed to connect the top and bottom heat sinks?  This way the heat can be moved from one heat sink to another, if the top board is cooler then it would be able to pull heat from the bottom or from the top.  This way it would allow even cooling of both boards with minimal addition to cost, allowing home users other options to remove heat from the miners perhaps with just some more fans blowing on the bottom of the case and would let both boards have relatively even temperatures.

I don't know the exact cost but I think 1-2cm heat pipes spaced maybe 5cm apart running down the heat sinks in a U shape with the "ends" at the back where the fans are should be adequate to even the cooling of both ASIC boards.  In fact there is enough extra space at the back of the case where some copper heat sink blocks could be attached to the heat pipes to increase the heat dissipation and ensure it is even across both boards.  This would also let the heat concentrate to the back end of the case where the fans could easily be moved back a few inches to allow for that extra copper to draw in the heat but would not be touching the boards so effectively allowing an even more concentrated area to cool the entire miner while taking the concentration of heat away from any active components and let people use other ways to cool the machines even more like perhaps installing water cooling blocks towards the back of the miner.

This may cost a little more depending on how much more copper is added but would allow much more efficient cooling ability especially in environments that may not be able to keep a constant 20-25C temp at all times.  Even if just copper heat pipes are added with out extra copper blocks at the "condensing" end it would still work to keep both boards more evenly cool and give end user the ability to cool the bottom of the miner and have the heat from the top half move towards the bottom allowing both boards to be cooled instead of just basically the bottom at with this current design.  I'm pretty sure that it would not cost much to get some 1-2cm 18" U shaped heat pipes that would fit in the current spacing of the existing heat sinks that are already being used, this technique is used in almost all cooling applications so I'm sure it is a lot cheaper to install those into these miners.

One last note is that there would not be a need to actually change the design of the miner as that may complicate assembly or change the case layout, if heat pipes are made just to fit the right side between the heat sinks of each board then they could just be slid in between the existing spacing of the fins.  It may not give 100% optimal use of the heat piping but better than nothing...  Also since the SP30 design may not be finalized yet this is also an option to add to the design and would make an even better product very likely allowing people to get even more hash power from each machine.

Just a suggestion.  This may help to a point where the fans don't need to spin as fast and therefor help with noise as well.

I saw that about the DC but I was specifically referring to people who may want to run this at home and do decide to get more than a couple.  As of now the 110-120v circuit on 20 amps (normal for house setups) will only work for 2 SP10s as that is over 2000w and 120v*20amps=2400w, so since most circuits service a whole room then you also have to be careful as anything else plugged in will be enough to trip your breaker.

Same deal with the heat, HVAC in homes are not made to handle that much heat, so you will have to install some more AC or a whole house fan, for the noise you have to consider noise proofing.  If it is in a common area like the living room you will most likely have to enclose the area.  I plan to do it with Plexi, like a small studio room but engineered for sound proofing and optimal air flow.

I have 3 45u racks single frame lifted above the floor by 8" and the 3 racks are about side to side, I had the electricians upgrade my house to 200amp and then run 0awg to a service panel right on the side of the wall where my racks are with a 125amp breaker and I filled that panel with 2 pole 20amp breakers.  This gives me 6 240 outlets as my living room is close enough to the main breaker box that there is no voltage drop.

This gives me 240v*100amp=24,000w.  With all my miners and the 4 SP10s I am pulling just over 10Kw, before this I had 10 Ant S1s, 6 Jupiters, 3 60Gh BFL + 4 Jallys (those are being used as a door stop at the moment).

So, I have barely used half of my available power and there are a lot of things that actually work on 220-240 as well as 120, most wall warts and laptop chargers work with both, PSUs actually are more efficient at 240v, in fact I find that most of my electronics that work at 240 are more efficient.  I have not tested plugging in my plasma TV into the 240 but I bet it would work, just don't want to test it at this point .  Many things that don't even say they are rated to work at 240 do work at 240 and things like PSUs and from the looks at my plasma tv power board it converts the power to 240 before doing DC-DC to the rest of the components.  Using 240v skips the power loss in that process.

Before the SP10s were installed the living room was pretty much quiet, unless you were sitting next to the rack the sound DB was lower than 60 and with the low pitch of larger fans it is not as noticeable.  No issues watching TV.

Now that things are starting to heat up plus the heat from the SP10s the whole room plus kitchen is over 80f, my AC is on 100%, I will be installing a whole house fan that can pull over 7,000cfm right above the rack area and enclose it ASAP, before things get any hotter.

The electrician install cost $2k including permits, utility co upgrading my box, new main box and another breaker box for the 240.  This way my living room is at the normal 120v but my miners are all at 240v, plus what ever I get an ich to test on 240 ...

My racks are mounted on a 5x6 piece of plywood, raised with a 4x4 and 2x4 on top of that, I plan to drill holes so that air can be pulled in from the bottom.

There will be plenty of power once my other miners come but it's the heat and noise that will have to be dealt with.

Even if I were to host it at a DC the issue will be if that DC can handle the heat, these put out more heat than many servers and other rack mount devices and DCs are built to be cold but are made for hosting servers not really hot 100% running miners, I would be interested to see what the temp is for a server rack with just the SP10s filled to the max.

Then that also brings back the issue, I have already spent the money to host over 2Kw of miners and others may have done the same.  Also, even though Spoldoolies is trying to get a good deal for hosting in WA they said that was for over 50 machines.  Not quite something for the average miner, even the ones with a hundred g to spend.

So, point is that these do get hot and for people with 1 or 2 they may not be able to cool it adequately and not everyone wants to host their miners.

Got 3 racks of various miners, KNCs, Bitmain S1s and SP-10s.

The SP-10 is the most professional product I have seen any company develop, this is what I expect when paying what amounts to many years of salary to just get one piece of technology.

No way would Dell, IBM, etc would release a server that they did not actually custom build.  Now with KnC the BTC difficulty was low enough that all October and November orders ROI in Bitcoins was very real and possible.  That is the point, to mine in order to get more BTC than spent otherwise we should just keep the BTC until the price goes up. 

For those that think ROI is part of the expected BTC price increase then they are not looking at reality.  In fact John from HF told me, (B1 buyer, burned very bad), "Look at the price of BTC now!  When we deliver your machines (said in early December 2013) which is estimated to be in just 2 weeks! (Direct LIE) that the price of BTC being so high you will make your money back because the value of bitcoins has gone up so much.  (again Btc in < than Btc out is True ROI even if btc went back to $1)".  Then to add a cherry to the top he said, "We will ship your MPP cards with your order, guaranteed!" I think John needed to lay off the coke.

Anyway, this level of professionally produced machines are what I expect when spending 50-75k in an order. 

KnC got a pass on very bare bone cases and miners because they were able to come out before everyone else with higher such a high GH per machine and also the best Gh/Kw at the wall at the time plus KISS with their product.  That meant that who ever had any of their Oct-Nov batch has already made more BTC than they paid in just 3 months, especially since Hashfast didn't deliver and raise the difficulty same with CoinTerra delivering late and under spec.  KnC could have shipped a cardboard case and people wouldn't care, they only wanted that hashing power since there was nothing in comparison on the market at that time and only delivered 1 week late (I know, KnC is different now).

Back then "home/hobby" miners could get a few of those miners (with the extra hash power at near 550gh) and it was still viable for a home setup.

Of course I hope the best with Spondoolies and really want to count on them to be a truly honest and moral company but now the home miners need to have a lot more capital or other funding otherwise or DC hosting as normal houses will not be able to run even 1 Neptune or one SP30 without major upgrades to 220-240v.  At that point, heat is a large issue, normal house AC will not be able to handle all the heat.

So for a "home rig" to be profitable, power has to be cheap, cooling has to be efficient and cheap, issues of sound and air flow must be taken into consideration and at least more than 1 or 2 miners, you would need more like 5 SP10 and 5 SP30 to really even make a dent in the difficulty and make all the extra work and cost of installing infrastructure worth the return on mining.

At this point having 1th of mining is not to different than 2 BFL Jalapeno running at ~10Gh in total which made about 2-3 BTC back when they finally delivered.  Since no other Asic companies had made large deliveries even the almost 1 year late BFL machine made BTC ROI in about 2 months.

Now 1Th won't generate a single BTC for a week or more, you need more like 10Th to even get close to 1 btc a day.

So I hope Spondoolies changes the playing field and lets people get back in the game.  Only thing is the heat that these generate from the bottom, I would rather have a 2u unit and more heat sinks stronger fans or I still have to keep them about 4u apart from each other because of the heat.  Even if I attach a copper cooling plate with a closed loop R134 coolant and compressor that would cost about $300 per plate, setup for the copper and more power to run the compressor.

Just my 2c, keep up the good work though.

Ordered from Spondoolies-Tech, last to get my combo order in so expected Mid-Late April delivery but yesterday I get this email:


Not trying to go off topic but this company really has their stuff together, including a very nice case and miner design which should be expected when spending so much on a product.  Any other server tech company (Dell, IBM, etc) would get slammed for selling a 10k product and use a RPi as a primary controller and a off the shelf case, etc.  When that kind of money is spent people expect to see Enterprise Level equipment not just some crap stuffed into off the shelf parts.  It's only the Bitcoin community that was willing to "trade" complete well designed product in exchange for just a well designed ASIC as long as it was delivered on time and was able to mine.  This is wrong, we should still get the "whole deal" as the manufacturers use the "excuse" to send out duct taped machines by saying they are trying to get to market as fast as possible.

I was B1 & royally screwed by HF, like royally so this is a refreshing thing to see, a mining company that makes a good product, actually keeps to their time lines and ships even sooner than I expected!

The rich Chinese (even the poor!) have many relatives, (much like the Mexicans who buy/rent a house for their "family" which the average American thinks, 2-3 kids, wife, husband, dog but the house ends up with 20 people there each and everyone related), not to be racist or anything but even with the "2 children" limit in China (is that still in effect?) the families are huge.  Many aunts, uncles, cousins and so on, each one of those people transfer their 50k limit, that is how the rich Chinese get their money out.  It's easy enough to just give each family member that helps a few grand and they are more than happy to "help".  Most of the time with such large families some one some where in there is going to end up making a lot of money in their life time.  Sometimes, almost every person in the next generation of a family lucks out and gets to climb the ladder or gets willed "old money" more than enough to start their own business enterprise.

Especially considering that there is a lot of "old money" and "new money" plus "general" higher educational standards and a drive to "live a better life" for themselves and their children is evident even in the government, allowing Hong Kong to be "one country, with two rules", clearly recognizing the economic policy of mostly self regulating business with minimal government "interference/regulation" has made Hong Kong a part of the "Dragons" in just a short time (relative to even the age of the USA) and wanting to keep that structure as it has made everyone a lot of money, including the government.

So, even though China may not truly rank as high in education in proportion to other countries, I believe the majority of the population is more likely to at least graduate high school, probably more so than the people here in the US, they HAVE TO work harder there to keep up with being the largest "race" in the world at over 1.35 billion population, just so that they can even have the skill and knowledge to even be able to work at a factory as technology advances so does the need for skilled workers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China

IMHO, there may be people in the political system there that want to keep their money locked in there but at the same time they are the ones that own most of our Bonds, that allow us to have this humungous national debt.  I'm not sure but I would guess that proportionately we have more debt than most other countries in the world, we don't own our own country anymore, everyone else does.  We started the country in debt as the US didn't have the resources to fight the English so borrowed money from the French, IIRC, that or the Spanish, in both cases we were in their debt from the start, now just a "short" about 300 years we now have many TRILLIONS in debt.  So much so that there is not enough gold to make the US dollar worth a dollar, the exact reason that there are federal laws to "limit" to how much gold an individual can purchase and have.

So, what does the government do?  Spend more money on the military industrial complex to make sure that if any country wants to cash in a majority of their Bonds we'll just declare war or call them terrorists.  9/11 was just a perfect time to enact all these "illegal" laws and turn our country more and more into a totalitarian government with an "illusion" of freedom. 

Now, technology has put the governments and banks in a bind, like the internet did to share information and help educate more of the world.  They are scared but don't want us to see that and will do what they can to make it like they "allow" us to have our freedom but isn't that already an oxymoron?  If you have freedom then why must someone else tell you that you can have it?

Anyway, IMHO Bitcoins are at a point where it is almost too big to fail, so many companies have invested in the structure of bitcoins that they will lobby to keep it around.  Finally, once there are some good and easily accessible distributed method to buy and spend bitcoins it will take off.  If just 1% of the Chinese population buy just 1 btc that is 13,500,000 bitcoins, there is not enough in circulation to even meet that demand.  Correct me if my math is wrong but in any case from the amount of money already invested in a singular thing such as bitcoins it will not likely easily go away.

It's like Bill Gates said, "Who is going to need more than 4mb of memory anyway?"... 

ftfy

Just because something is banned in another country or even this does not mean it will go away, just like the greenhouse (controversial political subject but there are many parallels), someone has invested a lot of money, a LOT of money, to ensuring that the greenhouse is built solid, that the water, nutrient and light systems are going to work to the best efficiency in order to ensure that there will be a good harvest, eg Mining Hardware and the money spent to build then buy the miners and build an environment to maximize BTC returns in small or large operations, racks, power, cooling, DC expenses, etc.

Then lots of other people spend a lot of money on lobbying, licenses, permits, safe supply chain, etc, to build the infrastructure to legally distribute the product (in the decriminalized states) and in the areas that have not decriminalized just leaves that potential extra greatly needed extra tax income to large criminal enterprises who also have invested lots of money they just don't have to pay the tax man and as we have all seen hurts the general population more than it helps.  So this is the same with the exchanges following all the FINCEN rules and spending all the money to get the MTL in EVERY State in the US, not cheap or easy I would imagine.  All those venture capitalists and angel investors are not going to just let their multi-million dollar investments just go away.

So, if China bans BTC through banks and exchanges in China who would most likely end up paying "the state" the taxes and licensing fees then the business would just go elsewhere, perhaps Hong Kong or Singapore or any "nearby" Asian countries that are Bitcoin "Friendly" and the people follow.  For those that know, many Chinese people enjoy gambling, rich or poor, legal or not, they do it... the Chinese have been "organized" as a country for 5000+ years(?), longer if the time before the Emperors "united" all the villages and what not and set up a centralized system is counted.  In any case, through out that time, the Chinese has had a good grasp on monetary transactions and systems while the "west" was still worried about falling off the edge of the world and still traded goats for wives.  There just based on the population there were/are many "wales" through out that history that would "invest" or "gamble", it is practically part of the culture.  Just look at the all the casinos over there, they are so crowded that you can't even get a seat most of the time, many people just "side bet" on whoever is already there.

In any case, there are most likely many "wales" or children of them that grew up in the "tech" era and understand Bitcoins and the great potential it has, just because the "old" regime and regulators are scared of it does not mean that they will be able to squash it.  Look at the internet, the "Great Firewall of China" has largely has failed.  Soon the old generation will "retire" and the new will continue to take control.

Another example of China's ability to "control" the increasingly capitalistic industry is all the tonnes of "grey market" drugs and even straight up black market drugs that are openly advertised and shipped all over the world.  They will sell kilos at $3k to anyone who would wire the money and the "government" doesn't stop this, obviously these things are made in huge chemical factories and many people are making a lot of money.  I'm pretty sure there are many many palms greased to continue to allow this, the industry is growing so much that they are even creating novel compounds instead of just manufacturing existing ones.  Where there is a demand there will be a supply.

I think that there are many "tech savvy" wales that are quietly buying Bitcoins so that they can "store" their wealth in a relatively anonymous way and even would be able to still cash it out relatively quietly, I'm sure there are many "off exchange" trades that happen, especially when US customs forces anyone who carries over 10k in cash into the country to declare the money.  So what better way than to get Bitcoin, have some relative, friend, other, convert it into cash for them?  No need to "declare" anything when coming here... I would even go as far to say that one day Casinos will accept bitcoins, quietly, from the "wales" as payment.

So with all the millions perhaps even getting close to a billion in just funds that are just "spent" on the Bitcoin infrastructure that will never show on the BTC Market Cap, that it would have to be some pretty horrid catastrophic event to have Bitcoin go away, what happened after SR went away?  BTC went UP!

Anyway, back to the "greenhouse" just because perhaps the market is saturated because you choose to plant and harvest on the wrong time schedule does not mean that demand or structure has gone away.  Just like fruits are cheaper when they are "in season" so is BTC, at least until the structure is completely built out, just the same as when we can import fruits from the other side of the world in the "off season" and have it be almost as cheap as when they are in season, once the structure and demand is there things will just go up.  IMHO