Bitcoin Forum

Let's see who has the last  :D
- So Oct 31 was a no-go for ASIC in the wild. Majority of the voters were correct in their guess. Some best-effort promises were broken. Waiting until Nov 30.

I voted no. From what I've read so far, I think they're either pulling a massive scam, or if they're sincere, they're

a) way too optimistic with their timeframe... no ASICs before the new year at least, and
b) pulling the specs out of their arse... sure, ASICs would improve on FPGAs and do great damage to the GPU and FPGA miner diehards, but their quoted speeds and powers are bullshit.

That said, I fear wishful thinking on my part. I've sunk a whole load of money into a GPU farm since first hearing about bitcoin in October last year, and it's going to take a heck of a long time to recover my costs even if ASICs don't materialise (partly my rigs being continually uncooperative, partly poor buying decisions). If they do I can pack this all in. So I'd definitely much prefer that they're pie-in-the-sky and/or scammers, so I can continue to recover costs and feel smug about all those eedjits who jumped on the bandwagon.

Also I don't know if you can change the form of a poll once you've posted it, but
a) Your poll says we can only choose up to two options. Herp derp and so on.
b) You say the poll closes Nov 2. It would make more sense to close it some time before the Oct 31 deadline. How about either 30 Sept, or sometime mid-October?

Wait, so I can select yes AND no? SWEET!!

Technically, the answer is 'no'. The question is, will BFL deliver before October 31st, 2012...and although their website states they will be available in October, they surely won't be in our hands until a number of months afterwards.

As for the actual specs, they'll be on target. Think about it this way...if you just paid $30,000 for a single Rig, would you like to see the promised 1TH/s (or thereabout)? Not to mention, they have venture capital backing (VCs don't mess around with shoddy products for the most part) and $600,000 in preorders/trade-ins for the Rigs (that have been posted so far), so the specifications they promised will surely be met.

Simple: no

Might be they deliver some sort of new product - but by no chance the ASIC they claim to be developing...

I can't tell if I'm being trolled or people just don't know how businesses work...

Let's simplify it a bit:
1. Product offered
2. Product bought in large quantities
3. Product meets expectations

Does anybody know what happens if #3 isn't met?

This isn't rhetorical by the way...I'm actually curious about what people think is going to happen given the cynical views so far.

Just because u send a shitload of money to anyone doesn't guarantee you the product that you where offered .....

And VC's want you to sell your product even if it's unfinished or crap.... That's how funding works. They want to see some numbers adding up, before they grant you more money!


They send back their recieved under spec Units hoping for a refund that ll never see the daylight .....

Or they just mine with them, accepting that bfl cares FUD about that?



I seriously want to have one or two sc units. But I'll only order if I see an actual unit hashing!

I hope not.  :D

Yep Venture Capitalists have a 100% success track record. Also, BFL has a history of delivering the exact $/MH and MH/W of their pre-order specifications.  ::)

Either way they are swimming in cash. No one can compete with them at the moment, and they can do whatever they want. Orders will still be pouring in way faster than they can fill them. I'll wait and see how it plays out. I sure hope some real competition emerges at some point. GH/s per $ always wins at those levels, and BFL seems to understand it.

Not if you order BIG bucks outta them. Then, you'll have a special treatment.

That is them doing what they want.

i got some mini rig sc's on order and I have to wait just like everyone else. I don't see any special treatment. At least not in my case.

I am optimistic that we'll at least see some test units in the wild by then.

That's their superior treatment for highvalue customer. So that you don't feel bad :)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=89685.0

"a) way too optimistic with their timeframe... no ASICs before the new year at least, and
b) pulling the specs out of their arse... sure, ASICs would improve on FPGAs and do great damage to the GPU and FPGA miner diehards, but their quoted speeds and powers are bullshit."

BFL owners are known to be optimistic, but that is the only type of person that succeeds. So far their success has been based on delivering a superior product, so it seems their optimism was warranted.

Superior? Really?  ;)

The Single uses double the power of a Spartan6 based FPGA unit - at the same performance.

The price looks good... well it does at the first glance - but you need to pay 2 months in advance... so if you add those 2 months of lost mining revenue - it's actually not that "cheap" (anymore).

The Mini-rigs at least match the Spartan6 based FPGA units in terms of the consumption / performance ratio.

About the ASIC - time will show....

Phil
 

If BFL labs ever got their delivery time down to 3 days, I might consider ordering one of their units.
They should have just made a kickstarter campaign if they were going to fund their business through pre-orders.

I can't say for sure what they would do if they do not meet the specs. But with the last prouct they released, they lowered the price from $699 to $599 when it was found that the product missed the projected specs on hash rate and power consumption. With that product one would assume they had very, very little wiggle room between their costs and the selling price because of the particular FPGA chip that was used. With this product, it is assumed that the costs to manufacture the actual units, after NRE costs are set aside of course, is a much smaller percentage of the current listed selling price. If they did have to lower the initial price, it would cause some logistical headaches but could be compensated for by extending the time before which they lower the price again, competing products being unavailable that is.

Ah, didn't know that they dropped prices...though that makes sense. I noticed that BFL has been around since August 2009, but are the first products they've released been the FPGAs?

If so, I imagine that it's been sort of 'trial and error' for them to get everything right within the Bitcoin community. Given a year of FPGA deployment so far, I'd hope that they have a better idea of what to do and look for when they release ASIC devices. Maybe we'll get "closer-to-posted" specs...or maybe faster shipping...or maybe a discount of sorts? At this point I guess only time will tell...

Hopefully the shipping times get reduced dramatically. The rest of there issues i can probably live with at the moment. The demand is obviously huge so there should be no reason to under produce on units. I'll take a miner that uses twice the power at half the price for the same MH/s any day. 9+ weeks plus to reach my door is the deal breaker even if it still is the better option from a profitability stand point, which it is. I actually just canceled my order because of that. I'll re evaluate them in a few months.

Yeah, I'm actually contemplating the same. 3 months to reach your door after paying for the order is insane. What are they doing, digging up the silicon and building each chip by hand for the small devices?
Maybe they didn't expect the volume of FPGAs? Ugh, who knows...

I wish there was a reliable company representative that would be around to answer all our questions, give BFL some good PR, and put some of the cynicism and conspiracies to rest :P

Maybe the BFL old lady from QC is now manually soldering the transistors for the ASIC

This world we are all in is riddled with scams and promise's ., i trade a lot in the stock market and the same rational decisions used to pick out anything i'm investing any money has been used here. first of all any company that used paypal for a form of a payment knows
that if the wall falls through on them paypal will freeze there bank accounts faster then you can say "ASIC"

BFL labs is not new making their product., they have produced functional equipment that is already out and
producing mining capability.. also if you take consideration a VC.

Working with a VC, they are trying to make as much money possible., that's why they have upgrade programs
and are seeking there craft.

Do i think it will come by oct 31.. i hope so

but my answer is no., It still takes a very logistical time for this product to be shipped in 8 weeks.
   

They may very well have something they will call an ASIC, however looking at what happened last time.... i figure 10 GH/sec is more likely than 40 GH/sec. although since im heavily invested in GPU im hoping its 0 GH/sec xD :P

If they don't meet the specs, I am curious as to see what they prioritize: Hashrate or power consumption?

I assume they want to keep the BitForce Single 'SC' below 1500 kW (so you can still plug it into your wall at home), which gives them an UPPER bound of 37.5 Watt/ 1 GH/s. This is still reasonable, looking at some of the power specs some competitors claim to achieve (e.g. ASICminer: ~10 Watt / 1 GH/s, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91173.msg1062854#msg1062854)

Thus the question if their chip is 50 Watt / 1 GH/s. Will they hand out a 30 GH/s@1500W or a 40 GH/s@2000W ?

If largecoin is claiming 20GH/s at 100W i think tech has improved quite a bit. It should be in a similar range.

Would you please provide a reference when you quote numbers. Thanks.

I'm sure you know how to use the search features on this site. The BFL jalapeno is suppose to use a usb port only. What's that 3.5GH/s at 5W or so?

The only stuff which shows up on my search are rumors.

Until something is actually released and shipped it's gonna be a rumor. BFL isn't the only one claiming ridiculous numbers, and they will have a lot more competition this time around. Expect a reasonable estimate of 100W per 20GH/s.

I like BFL but I agree that they won't hit October only because I think they are trying to make sure that when they do ship they can ship out reorders before the end of the year.  Again I think and based off of what I have been reading all input supports this thought.  I don't think they will go past November because many of us won't stand for it.  Also the numbers are really high and I expect that we won't hit those high of numbers but looking at their past changes in numbers I can live it if they are that high.  Also BFL has provided a strong reason to why they missed the numbers and how they have fixed that on items such as the mini-rig so who knows maybe they can hit those numbers as advertised.

My opinion and yes I own BFL stuff and going to SC.   

For people willing to put money down on this, here is the betsofbitcoin bet for whether or not BFL will deliver by end of November.

Butterfly Labs SC Single will be delivered by end of November 2012
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=607

I don't understand why people set bets up like this?  End date of November 29th?  What's the point?  Everyone knows whether BFL delivered or not by then, and can bet accordingly...

A GOOD bet would have the end date prior to October 15th (since BFL stated they will start deliveries beginning late October), preferably even sooner.

I talked to Inaba a while back, and he had said

And I quote, "December is almost 100%, I say almost because I don't want to be caught off guard by something unexpected. If it's not out by November, something went horribly wrong somewhere."

Think BFL's estimations are bullshit? You can make money by betting "disagree" on http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=665
See also: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109357.0

I think BFL has no choice but to start getting units out some time in october, or at least for pay pal orders. For all those who paid and cant be patient for a later then october release im sure will start contacting paypal and saying I ordered this on what ever date and they still have not shipped my product. if paypal gets enough slack about it they will start locking up bank accounts to get to the bottom of the problem at hand.

Also deciding to take paypal does give a mental insurance to the buyer that thier money is secure and covered by what actions paypal is able to take in situations of delay or no delivery of a product by a specific date.  So BFL has alot at stake right now with being able to keep up with thier word and getting the SC out as quick as possible before paypal complaints start rolling in.

tha's just my opinion though, but like the ole saying everyone has one.

bump

Looks 50/50 now but I don't think they will be far behind that order date if they are slowed down.
But at the same time they have been exceeding expectations rather than over stating possibilities!
So close! I don't know

Folks it's not going to happen, period.

Read their own releases and threads, they are not shipping in October.

-bump-

Still gonna take a guess and say that they won't be delivering any this October.

So Oct 31 was a no-go for ASIC in the wild. Majority of the voters were correct with their guess. Some best-effort promises were broken. Waiting until Nov 30.

When does the December poll start? 8)

end of NOVEMBER and the JANUARI poll will start ::) 31 dec...lol.. :o