Bitcoin Forum

Dear butterflylabs.com

would be a pleasure if the community hear any update regarding your progress on ASIC or any news from you during the months of waiting.

Thanks in advance!

no, and hopefully not till sometime next year =P

You've got a bet on as well then ;)

I've already had a wager on there, don't want to say what incase I jinx my bet, or lose money and get this thread revived should they ship in 2012 and/or meet their performance target - oops now I've said it!

No and no.. I'm doubting either of those will happen..... They may start shipping end of 2012 but not at advertised speeds..... (I get super stoned and I have these dreams)(I know stuff) :D

May BFL's ASICs turn out to be a fiasco? If the first ASICs to come out do not give anything like the advertised speeds, then I'd say people who pre-ordered were scammed.

Well unless it could be fixed with firmware updates...... I would say mislead...... not scammed... Scammed ='s Money going in and nothing coming out :D If they send you a 1.9 Ghash/s coffee warmer instead of a 3.5gh/s coffee warmer... Well suck it up.... :)

While I'm willing to gamble they'll miss their target ship date and/or performance initially, I wouldn't put any money behind the notion of their ASIC being a scam.

Profit wise it would make no difference at all, as ASIC will make GPU and FPGA unnoticeable competitors, so it will only be ASIC vs ASIC.

If all their products are 50% underspec, then all it means is that difficulty will go up 49% less than expected, so in the end the profit will be the same.

Not if there are competitors that will deliver  what they promise.

*holding breath*

...probably a bad idea...

There are no competitors, there were some FPGA alternatives but no-one could match BFL in performance/price. So I doubt anyone will match it with ASIC.

I'm reaaaallly hoping this site gets an update today/this weekend.

http://www.butterflylabs.com/production-update/

Perhaps an updated timeline as well.  Is October on track, is it beginning of October, end.  How long before current orders are caught up... something, anything...

ok, back to work...

Well meet these guys : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0

They delivered more Proof than BFL and are on schedule. If they start selling then there will be competition.

^ I hope so... :)

I hope not as my preorder will suddenly become worth a lot less!!!

They have never delivered a product and just talk so far, look at Enterpoint, their product info and pictures looked great, people bought the board only to realize it does not work as they hoped, now a wopping 6 months later there are finally some Bitstream that are actually capable of delivering the expected performance (did I mentioned they also had some hardware errors and mistakes when they designed it) but this is FPGA, ASIC is even more complicated.
Atleast BFL has a track record of delivering something that works out of the box.

Also anyone buying shares from these mining companies are taking away the whole point of Bitcoin "Decentralized currency for the people by the people"

The only clever thing about BFL is their marketing and using refurbished second hand FPGAs. If they design their ASICs as skilled as they did their FPGA design (power consumption off by 300%) there will be a good chance to become an epic fail. It needs only skilled engineers to produce a mining ASIC, no BFL-only magic needed ;)


Well, the same goes for big mining pools, BFL-based mining companies, the use of ASIC technology in general. But since the community voted for ASICs it is good to avoid a BFL monopol for mining devices and the price per k/M/G/T-Hash/s will drop.Too bad for those who backed the wrong horse.

BFL has never used second hand or refurbished FPGAs.

Any comments on the original question? How are you getting on with ASIC development?

The old lady from QC is still soldering the transistors for the ASIC....give her a break...she's old....

if asicminer is succeed, the bitcoiners around the whole world will get cheaper asic rigs. It's the best way to secure the bitcoin network rather than rely on BFL alone. I think that's what you mean "by the people".

As I understand from what they wrote, their plan is to use your finances from buying shares to create ASIC, then mine on it themselves, once the difficulty goes up to a point that selling ASIC hardware is more profitable than mining on it, then they will start selling it.

yes.

but bitcoin community will get cheap asic rigs at the end.

until now it's still risky investment, and I think this is very good timing to say that we are taking risks and a initial higher mining payback is fair as a compensation for the risk.

I think for the BFL customers, as they essentially are taking the risks for the BFL R&D (if BFL fails they will run, as ngzhang speculated), it's fair for the BFL customers to use the rigs first and BFL promise not to mine first. (is there any such promise?)


no.

ASICMINER will be selling the rigs before that, in my understanding.

Yes and no. They do mining, but the purpose is both for profit and quality control. The first batch of chips is a prototype and expected to underperform (every first design usually underperforms, I expect the same from BFL, hope they are already working on a trade-in program for the underperforming first gen ASIC ;) ), so they will test them in the field and improve the chip design. Then they stamp out the second and improved batch and sell those to the miners. But they keep their (limited) mining operation as quality assessment tool.

Will there be a power adaptor splitter a bit like Enterpoint has done, so if someone has 5 or 10 SC Japalenos or Singles, then they don't have to use 5 or 10 power adaptors taking up just as many power sockets ?

Let's first see some Jalapenos and Singles in the wild, then worry about power adaptor splitters  :D

Cablez (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=74397.0) makes some PCIe power adapters for the current Single, allowing you to string together multiple Singles on a standard ATX PSU. This uses fewer wall plugs, and a 80Plus Gold PSU will use less power than the inefficient bricks the Singles ship with.

there is another way: for example the first "underperforming gen" is 25% slower, but they still can add 25% more chips per unit to keep the speed as promissed! They will have less profit, but more reputation.

that implies a 25% increase in power consumption.

+1

Thats the point, lining us all up for the long con. Especially when people send in their trade ins for ASICS, and they make a run for it with loads of usd/btc & fgpa hardware.

good point

That's a good point, but only if BFL ASICs make up 99% of the market. Considering we have 20TH/s without ASICs, and there are already ASIC competitors announcing products (some this very night), I don't think that's going to be the case.

+1

Clearly this guy knows what he's talking about...

Takes a scammer to know a scammer?

I bet not much credence would have been given to Snapman's post if he wasn't tagged. One of the rare times sad tag comes in handy.

~Bruno~

PEW PEW PEW!

Maybe, more that his word means nothing.

Butterfly Labs reveals final performance specifications for it's revolutionary ASIC hardware.

BitForce Jalapeno - 4.5gh/s @ 4.5w
BitForce Single SC - 60 GH/s @ 60w
BitForce MiniRig SC - 1,500 GH/s @ 1,500w

Power figures are +/- 10% of those listed while we finish optimizing our power subsystem.

NEW An as yet named 'Little Single' device which will hash at a rate of 30 GH/s and cost USD $649.00.

You may notice that these performance figures exceed that of our previously published specification by approximately 50%. Our intention was to eventually over deliver while also being conservative during development. We had planned to reserve this performance increase for a future firmware update and was one method we planned to use to protect our customers in the event of a price war. However, due to the maturity of our development and competition in the market, we felt it was time to clarify what customers will actually receive both in speed and particularly in power consumption so they can properly evaluate their options and make good decisions. We hope it's now easier to understand the closed lip approach of our ASIC line product development.

A pledge to our customers: Butterfly Labs has always been committed to our customers. With the transition to ASIC from FPGA, we offered a 100% buyback program on the purchase price of your FPGA units towards the purchase of one of our ASIC units. This is an offer currently unmatched by any other manufacturer. People have asked why would we do this? We do this because our mission is to stand behind our customers and preserve the value of their hardware investment through all market changes, now and in the future. Simply put, you can count on us to protect your mining investment.

In summary, all current orders are automatically 4.5 GH/s - 60 GH/s or 1.5 TH/s devices. You need do nothing, just wait for delivery.

Our Value pledge: As always, our focus has been on offering the most competitive product, both in terms of initial price but also the most competitive TCO in the industry. Our current power consumption targets for our first generation ASIC products are approximately 1 GH per watt, far and away the lowest power consuming units available at any price. Not only will our products perform faster than any other product currently available, it will also cost less to run now and in the future. As with our FPGA products, when the time comes for our second generation ASIC products, we will not forget our customers and will make every effort to transition you, the customer, to the second generation ASIC as easily, quickly and in the most cost effective manner as possible.

source?

EDIT: I mean this is an unofficial forum. where is your official commitment if you are from BFL as it appears.

It's on the Bfl portal, but he really needs to learn to quote and reference sources.

I'll believe it when I see it :)

http://www.butterflylabs.com/products/

Check the updated specs!

aha, where? can you give me the link please?

EDIT: of the specs, of course...

You can follow the details in this link

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87934.msg1232810#msg1232810

However you can read the update yourself at this link

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/16-Announcement-BFL-ASIC-Release-specifications

thank you!