These are the answers provided by the MeaTec team to the questions asked by our community through the AMA last December:
Why are there so many Offline Miners? Is there an estimate of how long it’ll take to repair them?
StakeCube owns a lot of Bitmain S17x devices which are one of the worst devices Bitmain ever produced. We have a total loss of devices of around 87%. This was also mentioned by Bitmain directly.
Rewards seem to be very irregular and at times a lot lower than before. Will they return to normal at some point?
This is not an easy point to explain. Rewards from Stakecube are not only generated from one coin.
StakeCube owns a lot of DASH Miners, but for now DASH is at very low price level and the devices generate
up to 400% smaller rewards. Also Bitcoin dropped hard while the difficulty keeps on rising. At the same time the S17x models keeps giving us problems. It is not possible to answer this question completely as no one knows what the future will be for Crypto.
MeaTec is using hydroelectric power to run the miners, how come the network is so unstable? Why are there so many power cuts lately?
Yes, we use 100% green energy, however the power grid is a very complex system and unfortunately a bit more complicated than people realize. There are two substations between the hydro power plant and us and these connections are regularly maintained. The infrastructure is built a little differently because the temperature differences in Russia are up to 100 degrees. Therefore, especially before winter, it is important to do all the necessary maintenance and rebuilding before the temperatures reach -50 and the ground freezes over.
If the Problems are caused by MeaTec expanding their mining farm, why do we have to be affected? Shouldn’t we be entitled to compensation for the lost mining time?
Even if we were to blame for the downtime, our contract takes that into account. We do not guarantee 100% uptime of the devices, because it is impossible to do that with such a high power consumption. There is always something to repair or maintain. If you want to have a guaranteed uptime of 100%, we could recommend several cloudmining providers that offer 1-2 year contracts.
Is there any reason why more miners have gone offline lately, and why is it taking so long to get them repaired?
Yes. This is again due to the S17x models. Since StakeCube is one of our main partners, we have compensated for the failure of the S17x models with replacement units until we have the units repaired at our repair center. This was a service from our side to minimize losses to the customers. Unfortunately, we have reached the point of running out of spare units ourselves a few months ago and the repair center is simply overcrowded. Now, when a device fails, it stays off and no replacement device is connected.
Would it make sense to send mined Ethereum only once a week to make it more efficient?
Together with StakeCube, we have built a fully automated payment system between us. The Ethereum fees (Gasfee) is relatively low and only on some days disproportionately high, so you can’t always estimate that. However, should it be desired, we can gladly change the payout frequency to weekly.
Are you planning to expand to different locations to minimize the damage caused by local disruptions such as the recent explosion? Could you sign a contract with electricity providers to cover loses in case of blackouts?
We are definitely planning to expand and next year (2022) we will open at least one new location. The last accident happened at the substation and not at our place. Unfortunately, there are no insurances or guarantees for this. This is also impossible to implement in Russia, especially since mining is not a regulated industry and is still relatively new.
If spare parts for miners are the problem, shouldn’t you have predicted that you would need them before and stockpiled enough? Do you have a contingency plan to ensure spare part availability is sufficient in the future?
To answer this question, one must first understand that the producers of mining equipment provide very small quantities of spare parts (Bitmain excluded). Many no longer produce the models and there are no spare parts at all. There is no or hardly any customer support and the spare parts unfortunately cannot be bought anywhere. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it and mining wouldn’t bring the profits it does. Nevertheless, we work in the background with many engineers who try to fix each miner individually. Mining is a new industry. We’ll keep you updated on Instagram and on our channels about how things are going in our center and what progress we’re making.
Is there a business report available for MeaTec? What is the revenue for this year and the outlook for next year?
No there is no business report and we are not planning to publish one yet.
Will the damaged units be repaired or replaced?
As mentioned above, the S17 models were being replaced for a while to minimize the damage. The devices are all tested, and repaired when possible.
Is MeaTec planning any steps to improve transparency and communication? Transparency is key to maintain customer trust.
We are constantly trying to keep everything as transparent as possible and with StakeCube we have a special communication anyway. Nevertheless, we ask you to take into account that we have over 4000 other customers besides StakeCube, all of whom we have to take care of.
Is MeaTec considering an investment in lithium batteries to provide power during blackouts, or even generating energy locally such as solar or wind energy?
We have so many projects that we are doing in parallel that this investment is not planned. But if the StakeCube community puts together enough money, we will build a lithium battery park next to the mining farm 🙂
What are your expectations regarding the Hash Rate of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? Can you provide some evidence that you are actually mining the coins that we receive?
– We don’t like to answer questions about what we expect from something because no one can see into the future. We see a lot of potential in the mining business, otherwise we would not be constantly expanding. What kind of proof should we provide you with? Our total pool size and hash output is secret and we will not publish any internal company data. We like to invite our customers directly to us and we have already had a lot of them visit us and see their own devices while mining. That should be enough proof.
How can MeaTec expand their facilities to face the growing demand for mining services?
We are working every day to expand our capacity. Exactly how is beyond the scope of this question. Don’t worry, there will always be enough space to host StakeCube mining devices.
Is MeaTec planning to improve their website to be more informative? For example put there the tour of the facilities and other information to improve on transparency.
Yes indeed. We have a new version 3.0 already ready. We are still implementing the last features and working a bit on the webshop. We plan the release incl. many new products in the middle of January.
Is a more detailed ‘status’ API planned showing the current location/status of repairs of the miners? rather than just online/damaged something like “on the way to repair center”, “currently being repaired”, “no repair possible”, etc. Also for those offline, the reason why they are offline.
Yes we have just developed our own software with our German development team. We will create and stick an individual QR code for each device. Depending on where and which process it is in, the status will be updated via QR code.
Is MeaTec planning to increase the staff dedicated to support to improve on waiting times? Will MeaTec offer some form of live support?
We are constantly expanding our team. Especially our on-site engineering team is growing weekly as more and more equipment is added. There will be no live support in the foreseeable future.
How often will MeaTec hold AMAs such as this one?
If there are enough questions, we will always take the time and be happy to answer them. We will also create an extensive FAQ section with the new website.
What terms of service or agreement or deal did Stakecube sign with MeaTec specifically regarding damaged miners? Which party is responsible to cover repair costs?
We will not publish any statements on internal contractual arrangements. Of course, StakeCube will cover the cost of repairs if we can repair the unit.