These are the frequently asked questions we receive, and the answers for your convenience.
Q - Line of products?
We offer cryptography hardware. Our first line of hardware are specially designed ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) devices that hash the Scrypt algorithm. More details on our devices can be found in the ‘Products’ section.
Q - Shipping and Hashrate?
Due to the previous errors of other ASIC companies, hash rate and shipping we have quoted are based on worst case scenarios. We expect to out-perform these quotations. All our boards will very likely have better hash rates than estimated/published. The published hash rates will be guaranteed as bare minimum if not better. Our partners have previously dealt with large scale manufacturing for various industries/projects for some very well known global customers. The facilities and ecosystem that are available to us in India are a huge advantage in rolling out our devices faster. A very efficient supply management system and distribution management system is set up where items will be dispatched directly from the assembly and packing line after thorough testing. Our goal is to improve significantly on our shipping estimates of Q2/Q3.
Q - Expertise and Durability?
As we are the first innovators in building a cost-efficient ASIC design, we also expect to be the first to ship especially with the backing of our engineering partners in India. Dexcel Designs have very experienced engineers, some of which have been certified by Altera and Xilinx. They are the only company in India to have partnerships with Altera for both design and training (DSN & ATPP) . Dexcel Designs are direct certified design partners with the likes of Xilinx, Altera, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Atmel and many more. Not only it ensures that the design is done by the engineering experts, it also helps us to overcome design hurdles quicker than most other companies in the same market. Here are some links of Dexcel Designs partnerships and work. It can be verified on their partners websites as well:
http://www.dexceldesigns.com/alliances.html
http://www.altera.co.uk/products/design_services/partners/profile/Dexcel%20Electronics%20Designs, http://www.altera.co.uk/support/refdesigns/sys-sol/wireline/ref-dexcel.html
Q - Pricing & Difficulty?
Since we expect to be the first to ship, we are only taking 30% deposit instead of the usual 100% other companies take and at the same time allowing the opportunity to get a refund in deposit. (this refund policy is fair as we are not taking 100% upfront and have certain costs to the manufacturing process to be made). We would like to avoid to lose any customer by virtue of cancellation, however please note that based on our volume projections certain costs have been arrived at. Any significant cancellations can seriously dent our pricing calculation.
Difficulty in example 5 months time will increase, but all that difficulty is not majority based on ASIC hardware like the Bitcoin network. Example. The whole Litecoin difficulty in 5 months time will be made up of GPU’s. When our ASIC products ship it will be more advantageous than any GPU rig, will be more cost efficient, and much more power efficient.
Below we will display estimates on what cost and power saving advantages you get:
Viper Device 25 Mh/s: 600watts (or below) £5450 (full cost)
GPU Rig 25 Mh/s: 10,000 watts (40 GPU’s @ 250watts x 625 Kh/s) £12,000 (excl. other costs)
Viper Device 5Mh/s: 100watts (or below) £1350 (full cost)
GPU Rig 5Mh/s: 2,000watts (8 GPU’s @ 250 watts x 625 Kh/s) £2,400 (excl. other costs)
(GPU figures above are generous, only GPU consumption, and exclude full system and cooling costs. Viper devices are full system consumption and are based on worst case scenario).
Viper device work out cheaper than what you would pay for a GPU rig, plus the advantages of virtually running it for free in comparison. GPU’s will be in no comparison after you just compare the cost and power savings you will get. Regardless of which GPU is released in many years to come. ASIC is built for this task in hand, GPU’s are not, therefore, space requirement is much lower and cooling costs. Running our device in comparison to a GPU device automatically makes you more profitable in terms of upfront cost, but mostly due to recurring huge energy savings. So difficulty increase has no impact on the advantages of our devices, as all the difficulty to come till our release will be made up of GPU hash rate.
Q - VAT and Taxes
All applicable duty, taxes and shipment will be extra and will depend on location. Which will be applied on final payment. Shipment is direct from manufacturer’s location in India. Our VAT Number is 176115022
UK Customers pay added VAT (on final payment). Note. No local import duty and taxes for UK customers. Alpha Technology are named as the importers of goods.
Non-UK customers will not pay any added VAT but may be responsible for paying local import duty and taxes. Customer is named as importer of goods.
Q - Misc. Updates
Prices are the same worldwide. And any additional shipping cost will be charged at the time of final payment. Deposit payment and final payment can be paid through different payment options, e.g. deposit can be paid with Bitcoins, and end payment with Bank Transfer. After shipment we will be rolling out regular firmware and software updates.
Q - What Next?
Overall, transparency is crucial in our plans ahead. We will be giving live updates on every part of the production process we are on, this will give customers a better idea on the good news we will have to give in regards to overall hash rate, lowered power consumption and shortened shipping timeline. We are innovating in making scrypt hashing affordable using ASIC Technology, which has never been done before. We would like the community to join us on the ride to make scrypt hashing more cost efficient and power efficient. Our long-term plans are to carry on innovating in Scrypt technology, this would mean rolling out cheaper and faster devices in the months and years to come.