How to buy ASIC miners without getting burned

This trade has three features that fraud likes: large payments, international transactions, and buyers who are in a hurry because prices move. Add a payment method that cannot be reversed and you have the conditions for the most common loss in mining, which is not a bad machine but no machine at all.

We sell hardware, so read this knowing we have an interest. That is precisely why the checks below are ones you can run on us as easily as on anyone else.

The patterns that recur

• The price that is not a price. A quote well under the market. Hardware pricing is not a secret, as covered in what a miner costs. Nobody sells machines of the current generation meaningfully below market because they are friendly.
• Crypto only, right now. An irreversible payment method combined with time pressure. Legitimate sellers accept bank transfer and can wait a day for compliance.
• The changed bank details. An email arrives, apparently from your supplier, with new account details shortly before payment. This is the most common successful fraud in the whole trade, and it is not always the seller who was compromised.
• Stock photos and no serials. A seller who cannot produce photographs of the actual units, with serial numbers, does not have them.
• Vague condition. Refurbished, tested, like new, grade A, with no definition attached. See new or used for what those words should mean.
• The escrow agent the seller found. An escrow service introduced by the counterparty is not escrow, it is theatre.

Checking the company

Start with existence. A real company has a registration you can look up in its own jurisdiction, a name that matches its bank account, and an address that is not a residential flat or a virtual office in a country with no connection to the trade. Check that the entity signing the contract is the entity receiving the money. Mismatches there are rarely accidental.

Then look for history the firm did not write itself. A website testimonial is worth nothing. A firm that has been shipping for years leaves traces: forum threads, customs records, people in the industry who have dealt with them. Ask for two references and actually call them.

Checking the goods

• Photographs of the specific units, showing serial numbers, taken on request rather than pulled from a folder. Ask for a photo holding a piece of paper with today's date on it.
• For used stock: the test record, the condition notes and what the warranty actually covers. Ours is ten days dead on arrival from delivery, in writing, on the quote.
• For new stock: whether it is sealed manufacturer packaging and which batch, because that determines the warranty position.
• Where the goods physically are right now, and whether that is compatible with the delivery date being promised.
• An offer to inspect, either yourself or through an agent. A seller refusing inspection on a large order is telling you something.

Structuring the payment so a loss is survivable

Never pay one hundred percent up front to a counterparty you have not dealt with before. Standard structures exist and legitimate sellers are used to them: a deposit against a signed contract, the balance against proof of shipment or on inspection. For large orders, a letter of credit through banks costs real money and removes most of the risk. Genuine third party escrow, chosen by you, is the middle option.

Start small. A first order of a few units costs you a little in freight efficiency and buys you knowledge of how the counterparty behaves under a real transaction. Every operator we know who lost a large sum did so on a first order with a new supplier.

The bank detail check that takes two minutes

Before any payment, telephone the supplier on a number you already had, not one from the email, and read the account details back to them. Do this every time, including on repeat orders, including when the email is fluent and refers to your last conversation correctly. Email compromise is the single costliest fraud in this industry and this call defeats it.

Get the contract right

A quote is not a contract. What you want in writing: the exact model and quantity, the condition, the warranty and its duration, the Incoterm (see Incoterms in plain words), the delivery window and what happens if it slips, the discrepancy window on arrival, and the governing law and forum. If a seller will not put those in a document, the price is irrelevant. Our note on reading a quote covers the rest.