You guys are all arguing as if you know what he is doing. I for one, dont. So can someone enlighten me?

Is he (co?)developing his own chip and systems, if so, have they even taped out yet? If not, what makes you so sure they will secure the funds needed to get this to working silicon? We are likely talking about >$1M here, depending on process node, possibly substantially more.

Or does he know of a third party ASIC chip we dont know about yet? If so, what makes you think he will not be just one fish among many when their product hits the market?

Or he is going to buy LargeCoins appliances?

Or something else?

Which is it: Management Company, or Mining? Public or not?




So wait, it's not feasible that you'll have a monopoly, but you might be the biggest player on the network and you intend to have at least 1 digit of TH/s of power?



You're intending for what now?  700MH/s for 250W (5970) is 2.8MH/W * 10^3 = 2.8 TH/W?





So you have "concluded" a long-term contract with a manufacturer, yet you intend to purchase from various other suppliers over the long-term?  What about the supposed long-term contract you've already drawn up?  How much do you plan to buy? I thought you weren't aiming for a Monopoly.




Why?  What is the monthly colocation fee for "the vault"?






Wait, so you are or you are not going to allow your IP to be sold to the public?  I say *your* IP because you specifically said subcontractor.  But you've dodged any definitive answer on this.





Are the masks done or not?  If they are, why do you need capital.  If they aren't, why are you spreading fallacies regarding your current project progress?  Or are you trying to cover your ass in case your first run fails?



Not trying to be an ass, just trying to patch up some of your inconsistencies and holes so I can make sense of this.

Also, feel free to use this template and your responses for your FAQ post at the beginning of the thread.

Yes, sell sell sell!!!

So if he builds 3TH/s (30% of current network) and through higher difficulty and lower block rewards difficulty falls to say 6TH/s he is going to idle some % of his multi-million hashing farm to keep himself below the 30% cap?  Really?

Given how variable network hashing power is (min of 3GH/s, max of 15GH/s, avg of 8GH/s just in last year) do you really think a <30% of total network cap is realistic?

The stupidest part is that once designed the per unit cost of an ASIC is negligible.  So he pays the massive upfront cost, takes all the risk and then intentionally limits the # of chips he produces ensuring he has a high cost per chip, lower profit and more risk?  Combine all that higher cost and risk with the need to idle some % of farm based on what other people (he has no control over) do with their hashing power?

Some people will believe anything.  IF one wanted to maximize the # of units, the amount of hashing power, and profits they would simply produce 10TH/s of chips and sell them on the open market at a 300%+ markup.  The network would be more secure, more efficient and no player would have more than a couple % of network hashing power.

The only limits Vlad would be facing would be market demand.  So the question is why isn't he doing that?  To take more risk for less profits?

SgtSpike here is correct. You'll notice that in my criticisms of what Vlad is doing I'm not criticizing on the 51% attack route, because even Tycho, and before him ArtForz, understood the risk of being at 51%. It's actually *not* in a Bitcoiner's best interest to hit that point, because the value of Bitcoin as a currency itself drops considerably when a threat is actually present.

When ArtForz first brought his GPU operation online, he offered free transactions and downplayed the essential dominance he had once the difficulty reset to something less in his favor. It did, however, upset a number of CPU miners who had invested quite heavily into their own operations. Artforz could have brought enough GPUs online to have achieved 51%, but appears to have chose not to in order to preserve his best interest of keeping the value of his already mined coin high enough to continue to compete in the future. Over the next three months, as more GPU miners cut into his profits, the price of BTC rose.

When Tycho -- with his mining pool "Deepbit" -- cornered the Russian and Eastern markets of GPU miners, it upset a lot of the smaller pools that had relied on friends and family all mining to get a set amount of Bitcoin per day. He actually became such a present threat that someone actively started using their botnet to try to punish him and the other larger pools for not letting them mine on their networks. In other words, BTCGuild, Deepbit, and slush's mining pools *could* have achieved 51% with the help of the botnet, but chose not to in order to preserve their actual best interests, which was to keep Bitcoin prices viable. Over the next three months, more and more pools began operating in more languages in order to cut into Deepbit's advantage, and some pools outright allowed pool hopping that I'm sure at least one botnet operator took advantage of. The price of BTC rose.

We've been without a major innovation since. Now I understand FPGAs and the more Bitcoin-targed BFL Singles are innovation, but unlike CPUs and FPGAs they don't have any dual-use purpose which means they are less and less viable outside of Bitcoin, itself. This has cause major trepidation on the part of some of the more serious Bitcoiners, who want to have a reason to throw a few thousand USD into something they would call an "investment" with an easily-measurable liquidation fee once they are out-of-market viability. This is especially true for European and US coast miners, who would operate FPGAs at a higher cost-per-watt than those in the US Midwest, or other remote country with a significantly cheaper electricity cost.

All in all, I think the biggest problem with Vladamir's operation (presently) is that he didn't bring enough technical details on the mining equipment itself, and instead jumped into how easily he'd be willing to spend funding trying to secure it in the most secure data center he could find. That's something that someone with a good sense of security would do, but without technical details, specifically what kinds of Megahash/joule, we'd be investing in something that is more of an idea than certain to be a reality. That said, if someone does come up with a major innovation that gives just one person an advantage, the price of coin with significant rise, just as it has in the past due to Bitcoin scarcity.

ASIC's are really the last major advancement that can be made.  As long as we survive the transition to ASICs, there's no reason that we'll have to rely on a single person/company to keep things legit.

lack of clues explanation: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1529/contents/made

We are talking with legal bods about this. This is our goal to allow "small time investors" in. At this stage it is not possible. We are in talks with a number of "funds" some of which are considering using GLBSE. We will do what we can to allow small investors to participate, but it is neither simple nor quick process.

One point that I have not seen mentioned is the fact that bitcoin failing would destroy his company. He has no incentive to harm this economy. The better it does, the more he makes. So I am assuming that he will be spending money to further bitcoin in the world. He might plan on doing this through advertising or other methods, but either way I look it this will bring more people to bitcoin.

You say he has no incentive to harm his business. This is obviously wrong if one can believe his words. He claimed he'd become one of the biggest if not the biggest player in the game again and clearly said he didn't want to sell his future SuperAsic to the competition, but which he wants "public" investors to pay for. This makes me think he didn't think it through at all before opening this thread. If you think about it, the idea is pretty failsafe for him if it works out, but only if those investors are willing to take the risk though. This alone is bold, but what I find appalling is he makes an attempt to intimidate people in telling them if they aren't investing with him, they'll be out of the game. Oh hold it, I'm sure it was meant as a joke. ;-)