BitHashMiner
| Industry | ASIC manufacturing |
| Founded | February 2, 2015 |
| Defunct | February 9, 2015 |
| Headquarters | India |
| Employees | 1 |
BitHashMiner was a vaporware scam notorious for being very poorly executed, and persisting carelessly. A single product was offered, also called a BitHashMiner, which was a preorder mining rig with supernatural specs at an unrealistically low price. The scam has been labelled by onlookers as "thread gold",[1] "hysterical",[2] "the most blatant scam attempt",[3] "the yoda sales force",[4] "obvious scam",[5] "mind blowing",[6] and "half ass attempt to scam people".[7] It is remembered as the most futile scam attempt in Bitcoin history and is used as a textbook example of vaporware, helping people identify scams on their own.
The scam was an unintentional exhibition of many warning signs and red flags that deterred potential victims.
Hardware
The 9 lb. rig itself featured 10 Thash/s for $1000, with 25 20nm ASIC chips.[8] There is a screen on the miner depicting a CGMiner instance with two graphics cards Scrypt mining in late 2013.[8][9] There are also two 750W power supplies,[8] which weigh about 5 lbs. each,[10] meaning that the casing, fans, and chips must have negative weight, and would be at risk of floating away without the power supplies weighing them down.[11]
There was an enforced limit of two items per buyer,[8] which is a telltale sign of a dishonest sale.[12]
The rigs were offered with free shipping and a five year warranty, and were expected to ship in April.[8][13] By February 12, the BitcoinTalk account of BitHashMiner was inactive and the website was down; no units ever shipped.[1]
Impact
On February 7, 2015, BitHashMiner issued a statement declaring that Taras and TheRealSteve, prominent editors of the Bitcoin Wiki, were "Big Gang Mafia" and that they had accepted bribes from HashCoins to keep their listing on the "Mining hardware comparison" page of the wiki, while removing other potential scams including BitHashMiner and PowerModule.[14]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10432636.
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10422048.
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10358912.
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10371637.
- ↑ /r/Bitcoin thread 2umgwg. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 3 February 2015. This post
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10386707.
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10392058.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015.
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10340530.
- ↑ 750W power supply product listing on Amazon
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10372287.
- ↑ Schwartz, Lee. Three Not-So-Obvious Nominations for the Advertising Hall of Fame. http://www.sundoginteractive.com/sunblog/posts/three-not-so-obvious-nominations-for-the-advertising-hall-of-fame.
- ↑ http://bithashminer.kinja.com/bithashminer-10th-s-bitcoin-miner-1684345699
- ↑ BitcoinTalk thread 944406. BitHashMiner 10TH/s Bitcoin Miner 2 February 2015. Post 10385795.