Announcement of Commencement of Bankruptcy Proceedings for MtGox

25 Apr
2014

mtgox-logo

The Tokyo District Court has issued an order of commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings for MtGox, this is something that was already anticipated after the dismissal of the application for commencement of a civil rehabilitation procedure by the court a few days ago. So what the people that had coins and cash inside the MtGox system will soon need to do is to file a claim in order to be able to at least receive a part of what they had when the liquidating distribution to the approved bankruptcy claims starts and that can take some time, like a few months at least. The exchange rate of Bitcoin has yet again dropped this morning apparently as a result from the MtGox news as well as new information about PBOC trying to tighten the control of banks and payment processors still servicing crypto exchanges and payments. Below you can find quoted some of the most common questions that people will most likely ask that were published in the official announcement for the start of the bankruptcy proceedings:

Current Status
Q. What is the bankruptcy trustee?
A. The bankruptcy trustee is the person who will implement the bankruptcy proceedings
from a fair and independent perspective, through, among other means, the administration
and realization of the Company’s assets and the investigation of the claims and the
liquidating distribution if funds for distribution are secured. The power and authority to
administer and dispose of the assets of the Company is vested exclusively in the bankruptcy
trustee. In this case, I was appointed as the bankruptcy trustee of the Company by the Tokyo District Court.

Q. What is expected to happen under the bankruptcy proceedings?
A. The bankruptcy trustee will implement the bankruptcy proceedings, in which the assets of the bankrupt entity will be managed and converted into cash, the investigation of the claims,
etc. will be conducted, and if funds for a distribution are secured, the liquidating distribution will be made.

Q. Will a creditors’ meeting be held?
A. It will be held on July 23, 2014 (it is expected that serial creditors’ meeting(s) will be held at proper times). For the details of the creditors’ meeting to be held on July 23, 2014, please refer to the order for commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings, etc. which will be available on the Company’s website.
In addition, creditors are not obligated to attend creditors’ meetings, and the creditors will not be disqualified from the liquidating distribution due to their absence from creditors’ meetings. It is planned that the content of the report at the creditors’ meetings will be disclosed on the Company’s website.

Q. What will happen to the power and authority of the representative director of the Company?
A. The representative director of the Company has lost his authority to administer the Company’s assets pursuant to the order of commencement of the bankruptcy proceedings.

Filing Proofs of Claims and Investigation of Claims
Q. What is the filing of proofs of claims? What happens if such filing is not made?
A. The filing of proofs of the claims is a procedure where persons who have bankruptcy claims file proofs of such claims, such as creditor’s name, address, and amount of claim, for participating in the bankruptcy proceedings (please note that the filed claims are not always approved, but rather the bankruptcy trustee will investigate the existence, amount, etc. of such claims after they are filed). Without such filing, creditors cannot receive a liquidating distribution for their claims in the Company’s bankruptcy proceedings, even if funds for distribution are secured and such distribution is conducted.
Detailed information for the filing of proofs of claims, including the form of the filing document and the process of the filing will be disclosed through the Company’s website at a later date. Your patience would be very much appreciated.

Q. When and how will I be informed of the form of the filing document?
A. Detailed information for the filing of proofs of claims, including the form of the filing document and the process of the filing will be disclosed through the Company’s website at a later date. Given that the number of creditors is large, it is expected that it will take a long period (several months) to determine how to distribute the form of the filing document and to prepare for distributing such form. We appreciate your kind understanding.

Q. I want to know how to fill in the filing document and how to submit such document.
A. The method of filling in the filing document and how to submit such document as well as the form of the filling document will be disclosed at a later date through this website.

Q. I want to file proofs of claims immediately by using a document that I have made. Where should I send such document?
A. As stated above, detailed information for the filing of proofs of claims, including the form of the filing document, the method of filling in such document and the process of the filing will be disclosed through the Company’s website at a later date. Your patience would be very much appreciated.
If each creditor submits the filing document using his/her own form, there will likely be confusion, since such documents may lack legally required information, or there may arise discrepancies in the interpretation of the descriptions in such documents. In addition, given that the number of the creditors is large in this case, if such confusion occurs in relation to many creditors, the process of the bankruptcy proceedings would likely be extremely delayed and the interests of the creditors would likely be impaired. We ask for your kind patience until we provide the above stated information.

Q. I have not notified the Company of my name or address. Will the information regarding the filing of proofs of claims be delivered to me without fail?
A. Users who have not notified MtGox of their names and addresses may not receive the individual notices regarding the bankruptcy proceedings from the court or the bankruptcy trustee. We will disclose the necessary information for the creditors through the Company’s website later, and detailed information for the filing of proofs of claims, including the form of the filing document, the method of filling in such document and the process of the filing will also be disclosed through the Company’s website at a later date. Your patience would be very much appreciated. Thus, please check the Company’s website continuously and
regularly.

Status of Administration of the Assets
Q. I would like to know the number of bitcoins that I have deposited with the Company.
A. For the time being, we will continue to offer the service under which you can confirm your balance, which the Company previously offered through its website. However, please note
that the balance that you can confirm on such website is shown for the sake of users’ convenience, and such confirmation is neither a substitute for the filing of a claim nor does it mean that the bankruptcy trustee will approve the existence and amount of such claim. Thus, it cannot always be assured that the balance that you can confirm will be approved as the bankruptcy claim in its full amount. The bankruptcy claim will be fixed through the subsequent procedures, including the filing of proofs of claims and the investigation procedure.
The process of the filing proofs of the claims, etc. will be disclosed through the Company’s website later. Your patience would be very much appreciated.

Q. Please return the bitcoins and cash that I deposited with the Company.
A. We will make the liquidating distribution to the bankruptcy claims if funds for distribution are secured. With regard to the liquidating distribution under the bankruptcy proceedings, please see below.

Q. How many bitcoins or how much cash does the Company have?
A. The actual amount and value of bitcoins and cash of the Company will be investigated by the bankruptcy trustee with the cooperation of certain experts, etc.

Q. Will the bankruptcy trustee investigate the bitcoins and cash that are said to be lost?
A. The bankruptcy trustee will investigate such matters to the extent possible through its asset administration. The Company has consulted with the police authority, and the bankruptcy trustee will also proactively cooperate with it when such cooperation is requested.

Q. What will happen to the business of the bitcoin exchange operated by the Company?
A. It is unlikely that the Company can restart the exchange. The treatment of the exchange business is expected to be decided by taking into consideration various matters, including whether there is any proper buyer candidate who can assume the business and how to transfer the business to such buyer.

Liquidating Distribution
Q. Will there be any liquidating distribution to the creditors? How will it be conducted?
A. The bankruptcy trustee will consider these matters as the bankruptcy proceedings progress.

Others
Q. Will the liability of the representative director of the Company not be pursued?
A. The bankruptcy trustee will conduct an investigation regarding the liability of the representative director of the Company through the bankruptcy proceedings.

Q. Is it not likely that the business of the Company will be assumed by a buyer?
A. Various matters, including whether there is any proper buyer candidate who can assume the business and how to transfer the business to such buyer will be considered by the bankruptcy trustee.

Q. What will happen to the affiliate companies of the Company?
A. At this stage, we are not aware that such companies have filed for the commencement of civil rehabilitation proceedings or bankruptcy proceedings.

Q. I would like to speak to the bankruptcy trustee directly.
A. Given that the number of interested parties (including the users) is extremely large, please refrain from directly contacting the bankruptcy trustee, and please contact the call center if you have any queries. However, please kindly understand that, at this stage, responses will not be given beyond the scope of the details described in this appendix.

Xiaomicoin (MI) Scrypt-based alternative cryptocoin

24 Apr
2014

xiaomicoin-logo

Xiaomicoin (MI) is a mixed POW/POS cryptocurrency which will be POW for the initial 7 days and pure POS after that. This Cryptocurrency was built for the community and by the community. We fully intend to implement the best practices, safe, fast, and secure transactions. Using the Kimoto Gravity Well, assures, that this coin is as fair as it is beautiful & practical. There are plenty of pump and dump coins out there. We simply do not believe in this get rich fast attitude. We are developing an Android game that will reward XiaoMiCoin to Top Scores once per hour, with weekly, or even monthly Top Score Bonus’s. Use XiaoMiCoin Today, a Peer-to-Peer Digital Cryptocurrency.

Website:
– http://www.xiaomicoin.org/

Block Explorer:
– http://xiaomicoin.mywallet.link/

Coin Specifications

  • Algorithm: Scrypt POW/POS
  • Total Coins: 400,000,000 MI
  • Mined Block Confirmation: 50
  • Transaction Confirmation: 3
  • Nominal Stake Interest: 3.65% Annually

Wallet:
– Windows
– Linux
– Mac OS

Source Code:
– at GitHub

Ports:
– RPC Port: 16889
– P2P Port: 16789

Mining Pools:
No mining pools available, the coin is now PoS only.

Coin Exchanges:
– C-Cex

Voltmodding the New Gridseed G-Blade Scrypt ASIC Miner

24 Apr
2014

gridseed-g-blade-voltmod-1

In the previous post with our first hands on experience with the new G-Blade miners we have mentioned a bit the topic about voltmodding the new Blade Miners. Now is the time to talk a bit more about it and share our experience based on the voltmod experiments we have already done on our G-Blade. We already said that the new G-Blade uses the same UPI Semiconductor UP1509 chip for controlling the voltage of the GC3355 chips as is used on the smaller 5-chip ASICs. So it is easy to do the voltage modification to the G-Blade as you are going to be essentially replacing the same resistor, though there is a bit of a difference in how things look on the new PCB. There are no element markings, so make sure you replace the right resistor marked on the photo above with a green circle with the 333 written on it. The resistor we are replacing is also a 33 kOhm one (~1.2V default), though here it is 603 type and not 402 like on the 5-chip ASIC devices, so it is easier to replace.

Do not be in a hurry to solder a new one before reading our advice. Since the default voltage of the GC3355 chips is 1.2V as on the smaller 5-chip ASIC miners here you can pretty much expect the same out of the box performance, though our tests have shown about 800 MHz to be the safest option in terms of how high you can go with no or very minimal HW errors, so a bit lower results than what we are seeing on the 5-chip ASICs. Also since the voltage regulators used on the new G-Blade are not that much powerful than the ones used in the 5-chip models you are not going to have the same safe headroom to increase the operating voltage of the chips, in fact you are actually pretty limited.

gridseed-g-blade-voltmod-2

We were quite disappointed in how Gridseed has designed the cooling of the new G-Blade miners, and especially the use of a powerful and noisy fan to compensate for the lack of adequate cooling for the three VRMs. The CG3355 chips can easily be cooled with a silent and much lower RPM fan, however it seems that the powerful fan is there just to be able to ensure that the mosfets are kept cooler without having any radiators directly placed on them or on the back of the PCB where they are located. We are getting about 60 degrees temperatures of the IR mosfets at the standard voltage and operating frequency of 800 MHz, however as soon as we remove the fan the temperature of the VRMs starts to get higher very quickly while the CG3355 chips still remain pretty cool. By replacing the resistor marked above with a higher value one and increasing the operating voltage of the chips you can easily overload the voltage regulators and burn them in a matter of just a second without the fan and even with the fan running you can still burn them if they get too hot. So the moment you decide to voltmod the new Gridseed G-Blade you need to also think of improving the cooling of the voltage regulators a lot and not try to push the operating voltage of the chips too much, or you risk the VRMs easily overheating and burning up. We have used an old motherboard chipset radiator glued on the back of the PCB (with thermal glue) where the voltage regulators are placed, so that it can help in keeping them cool and have also placed a smaller video memory cooler directly on top of the regulators on the other side of the PCB.

gridseed-g-blade-voltmod-3

We have slowly started increasing the operating voltage of the chips from the standard value of about 1.2V until we have reached 1.4V with the use of a 39 kOhm resistor and decided to stop there as we’ve already seen the voltage regulators getting quite hot. At this point we were aiming at a stable operating frequency of about 1000 MHz while keeping the device cooler and being on the safe side for the voltage regulators. With the 39 kOhm resistor replacing the standard 33 kOhm one we already saw the mosfets easily getting up to 90-100 degrees Celsius in about a minute (without the extra cooling). With our extra 2 radiators attached to the PCB and the chips we were able to bring the temperature below 70-75 degrees on the long run, so pretty much safe for leaving the miners run all the time like that, though you should continue to carefully monitor the temperatures. We have decided to stay at 39 kOhm, though pushing a bit more for like 40-41-42 kOhm with extra cooling might work, going for 47 or 49 kOhm may be a bit too much for the VRMs to handle. So be extra careful should you decide to go higher tan what we have used, though we do not recommend it, and monitor carefully the temperature of the voltage regulators as they may get very hot in no time and burn up without adequate cooling!

gridseed-g-blade-voltmod-4

Here is what we are getting after replacing the resistor from the standard value of 33 kOhm to a 39 kOhm one. Running the device (only one of the PCBs is connected on the photo) at 1000 MHz seemed quite Ok with little HW errors, though we have decided to go a step lower in order to lower the HW errors a bit more. After some additional testing we have settled for 988 MHz as it brings down the HW errors up to something about 1-2 per hour which is much more acceptable than getting an error about every minute or so at 1000 MHz. The local hashrate at 988 MHz we are getting per PCB is close to 3.4 MHS or almost 6.8 MHS total for the whole miner with the 2 PCBs modified, up from about 2.6-2.8 MHS per board or about 5.2-5.6 MHS without the mod and the miner running at 800 MHz. The power usage per PCB after the voltage modification is about 85W or a total power consumption of about 170W for the whole modified miner.

The results we are getting are not bad, but do require you not only to solder a resistor, but also to improve cooling of the device. You also need to be extra careful should you decide do go even higher than what we have achieved as the voltage regulators might not be able to handle well the additional load or the temperature. It seems that with the G-Blades things were already pushed close to their limits by Gridseed, so there is not that much of headroom left for users to squeeze some extra performance for free by voltmodding the units. We are a bit disappointed by that, we kind of expected more, especially after seeing what the GC3355 chips were capable of in the smaller 5-chip devices. We are going to be doing some more tests and experiments in the next few days to see if we can get something better than what we are already getting, but the chances for some significant improvement are not that good.

Again we advise anyone willing to do a voltage modification to his Gridseed G-Blade ASIC miner to be extra careful as these devices are more expensive and can handle less abuse from the users as compared to the smaller 5-chip ASIC miners, so proceed with caution! The smaller 5-chip miners allowed more headroom as they were designed to handle much higher power usage because of the BTC mining part, but for the new G-Blade miners Gridseed has decided not to support the SHA-256 mining part (the chips do, but the device cannot supply enough power, so do not try to activate BTC mining or your miner may burn). So the headroom for overclocking without doing some modification related to the voltage regulators is actually very little with the new G-Blade ASIC devices, and working only on improving their cooling does help only a bit. Reworking the power part of the miner could open up some additional possibilities, but that is not something that most users can easily do themselves unlike the replacement of a single resistor for example. In short, if you are expecting performance boost on the bigger G-Blades like on the smaller 5-chip devices with a voltmod, you will be very disappointed, and the fact that after voltmodding the Blade Miner you might have trouble cooling it down properly for long term operation might not be worth the extra performance boost you will get.

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