VMC interview transcript

Q1 - For those new to Bitcoin community, can you give us a little glimpse into the history of VMC (Virtual Mining Corporation)?

VMC was started to provide machines to ActM (Active Mining Cooperative). The mining coop was originally going to purchase from BFL (Butterfly Labs) and Avalon. As we have seen they have not been dependable options. As such, we decided to build our own machines for ActM.

Q2 - Why did you start making Bitcoin mining machines?

[Already answered]

Q3 - What would you say is the one thing that sets you apart from the competition?

Basically it's the size and breadth of our Bitcoin mining hardware, ranging from 64 GH all the way up to 24.576 TH. Also, the levels of sales support provided both before and after purchases. We offer online support (eg. email) and telephone support. There is a call button on our website that anyone in the world can use to contact one of our support representative and/or leave messages. We are the only company offering this at the moment. We plan on expanding that support to make it even better as time goes on.

Q4 - Other ASIC manufacturers have failed to ship on time. What has VMC learned from these mistakes and how does it plan to circumvent these issues.

We are confident in our ability to ship on time. Our objective is to make equipment that makes miners money. This is the only way to be successful ourselves.

Q5 - Would you consider making a bet (bitbet.us) to guarantee shipping time frame?

We thought about having a guaranteed shipping plan where we compensate for any delays. There are dependencies on the vendors that are providing equipment for us. As such, this makes it hard for us to personally guarantee exact shipping dates. Should we not make our deadlines, we will be compensating our customers in the form of additional hashing power.

Q6 - Will you consider making scrypt-based ASIC mining hardware?

We are working very hard on the Bitcoin side of the business at the moment with our 28nm chips and that is taking up all our effort. I'm sure though that after we get this up and running, we could possibly look into Litecoin and other things that might help expand the business.

Q7 - What do you offer for people new to mining that are not sure on how to get started?

Call (855) 1-BITCOIN (or use the button on our website) and we will help you with any questions you have.

Q8 - Where do you see yourself in 5 years time.

We expect to be the leading manufacturer of mining equipment (VMC). We also expect that the coop (ActM) will be the largest mining cooperative. These two sides of our business seem to conflict, however as miners we can't exceed 51% of the network. As such, we aim for a 50/50 split between mining ourselves and providing mining equipment profitable for others. The difficulty is rapidly increasing. Currently our top of the line offering - the Platinum Edition at 24.576 TH - is the best offering out there. If difficulty keeps going up, people will need a lot of hashing power in a small space, such as our Platinum Edition which only takes up 34 U of rack space.

Q9 - With your miners, say someone buys a unit configured for 5TH, is there upgradability? Can new components be slid in or will there be a need to purchase a new base unit?

Our machines are intended on providing ROI. However, remember this is not necessarily going to be a get rich quick scheme. People will need to be able to keep up with constant rises of hashing power, so our machines will be designed to be expandable and upgradable.

The base unit starts at 256 GH and can be expanded right up to 24.576TH by adding more hashing cards and/or more expansion cases to put the cards in. As stated earlier, a fully-loaded unit with take up 34 U of rack space.

As for the upgradable part, future modules (hashing cards) will be able to live alongside current generation modules in our mining machines. You can take out old modules and replace them with new ones, or just add new modules to empty slots. First-gen and future-gen hashing cards will be able to coexist in our units.

Q10 - The mining software, is it built-in or do customer have to control that?

Our units function standalone. You don't need to add anything to them. cgminer is used inside the base unit. We are working on modifying cgminer to be more user friendly and require zero configuration. cgminer has good compatibility, configuration options, power usage, etc allowing great control of everything.