Bitmain declared they would experiment with radical transparency and provide shipment information on all their Z9 mini ASIC miners using hashtag #z9qa.

Their first shipping update was on May 27th, detailing 77 units: https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/1000755272212660225

Their last update on @Antminer_main is from June 25th & 27th, detailing 2422 units: https://twitter.com/Antminer_main/status/1011942437684539392 , https://twitter.com/Antminer_main/status/1011189143710257152

Their last update on @BITMAINtech was a retweet of @Antminer_main from June 20th, detailing 748 units: https://twitter.com/Antminer_main/status/1009470774241996801

Since then there have been no more updates regarding shipments. Why is this?

[Moderation edit for accuracy by @daira: this post appears to have missed some of the relevant tweets, but the overall point stands that Bitmain have ceased sending the shipping and volume updates, as made clear by Nishant Sharma’s emails quoted later in the thread.]

Well, it turns out there’s something most people, including myself, have missed:

Tucked away in the July 25th press release titled “Our Transparency Policy for Shipping and Mining Practices” we can see that when it comes to transparency, it’s only good for the first batch of the first model (not all units as described back in May).

Meanwhile the hashrate just keeps on climbing…