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Life & fun · January 9, 2013

RO

Reality of running a [Bitcoin] hardware startup

I am a long term supporter of Bitcoin, and have ordered a couple of specialized mining devices (ASICs) from a well-known individual of the Bitcoin community. This individual, Tom, is known for founding [BTCFPGA](http://btcfpga.com), which sells Bitcoin FPGAs and was one of the first to provide FPGAs to Bitcoin. Recently, he started [BitcoinASIC](http://bitcoinasic.com) to launch ASICs to the Bitcoin mining market. There have been a couple companies who have promised to deliver ASICs, but none of them have delivered yet. Competition is fierce, as ASICs provide significant advantages in…

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In the maker’s words, at launch

I am a long term supporter of Bitcoin, and have ordered a couple of specialized mining devices (ASICs) from a well-known individual of the Bitcoin community. This individual, Tom, is known for founding [BTCFPGA](http://btcfpga.com), which sells Bitcoin FPGAs and was one of the first to provide FPGAs to Bitcoin. Recently, he started [BitcoinASIC](http://bitcoinasic.com) to launch ASICs to the Bitcoin mining market. There have been a couple companies who have promised to deliver ASICs, but none of them have delivered yet. Competition is fierce, as ASICs provide significant advantages in hashing power compared to GPUs, resulting in greater profits to miners. Today, I was notified of an announcement of the founder stepping down and selling his equity to an Chinese manufacturer in response to not being able to meet shipping expectations. I find this announcement relatively depressing, Tom had been very enthusiastic and hopeful attempting to have his company be the first to launch ASICs when he started. However from yesterday's announcement, the stress he had taken can be clearly reflected from his post. I also found [this article](http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/20/the-last-day/) relavent through the hard reality of startups. Announcement link (also in comments; too long for here): https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=954.msg2804#msg2804

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