Bitcoin Forum

So, its all on our minds...

BFL - The biggest scam in BTC history.

There is significant evidence now of it being a scam, news items released near days after competitors release a similar product.

Also the amount of pre-orders taken, and the limited " real images and demonstrations " of the product(s).

The history of the CEO is significant and the company has taken steps to hide this information.

What do you think?

Im 50/50 really, however the latest release of info seems very much BS. Getting 2x hash rate from the same chip? Come on...

Get a life and die.

IMHO, the CEO's record is meaningless. By the companies own admission he doesn't have sole control of the checkbook and couldn't run away with all of the money if he wanted to. That's just the typical fear-mongering drama that comes with a lot of the bitcoin community.

What I'm more concerned about is the company claims about their product.  If they've made some kind of discovery that allows them to seriously outpace their competitors, I understand the secrecy. But why not just apply for a patent and be done with it? That way, they could show the world their stuff, dispel all the 'vaporware' rumors, and put peoples minds at ease.

Right now, I'm withholding judgement. BFL isn't a fly by night that's just popped up and never sold products before. They've got a track record. Still, their unverified claims make me nervous.

This thread is premature.  We can speculate about it all day (some ppl have already done this), but there is nothing with which to make a definitive judgement at this point, or anytime soon IMO.

I recommend that OP delete the thread.  Maybe bring it back if no product is seen come 2013.

As I mentioned in a different thread, I don't see that this would/will be that big a deal.  The total loss may be high, but it will impact a relatively small number of people, and a lot of observers will feel like they had it coming.

Leave me to be the test dummy. You guys can get in line later..

Two questions...
1) Quantum, are you retarded?
2) Why is this under scam accusations when it's 100% speculative?

2) Haven't you heard? "Scam accusations" is the new default section, for everything.

(it would be really better this way: it's much faster than having to open a new topic every time, and people would realize immediatly how secure what they are talking about is)

I don't think the word "evidence" means what you think it means.  Please provide ANY evidence, significant or otherwise.

I think in the next few weeks it will be a shit or get off  the pot type deal.

Lol seems that way. I used to think it was a place to point out thieves and nefarious people (no pun intended for the current 'Nefario' issue), but now it's just a hodgepodge of people complaining about other people on the internet.

Want to make an escrowed bet at even odds then?

Hard to do that when you keep avoiding questions eh? Franky1...where you at man?

The Bitcoin drama calendar is getting somewhat crowded, with people currently waiting for Nefario to get his shit together and to see whether there's any communication from pirate tomorrow.  Those things should take us right up to the time when BFL is due to ship the first ASICs.

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Biggest? Even if it is, BFL has not nearly had the $7 million in purchases that BTCST was at at its peak. And the double hash rate is perfectly plausible, there are a lot of limiting factors including chip design and heat that can all be tweaked. Doubling the hash rate in 3 months is actually not even faster than the average rate at which Bitcoin mining technology has been improving these past three years.

This is all true, but for them to be at where they are in "production" they would have had to already have figured this out. Once a ASIC is made that it no more changes. Cooling the chip may give you a little OC power, a water block would help lots. But I still fail to see the Asic test batch samples shown. or a proto-type to test the chips being shown. When the factory makes your chips they send you  test batch so they can be sure that they work, they do not want to make 1000's of bad chips. If they were about to release the product in 2.5 weeks I would have to say these must exist, why can't we see them?

Best post on here. This thread is pure speculation, it needs to be moved to Mining Speculation, I think we'd all prefer this forum be for actual requests of scammer tags or discussion on actual scams.

Let's just wait and see. Too early for this kind of talks.

I think that there is a good chance BFL is planning a huge scam.

Firstly: It's so, so much easier to sell fGPAs than ASICs. fGPAs you can just buy from China. Design and manufacture of ASICs is a vastly more complex and expensive proposition. Considering the relatively small amount that will be sold (relative to a mainstream product, that is) I just can't see how it will be profitable for them. The volume of Bitcoin miners just isn't big enough.

Secondly: Their CEO is a convicted fraudster. Sure, you can look at his stories about how he was just trying to make an honest living but those damn government regulations got in the way. He certainly knew his audience when he was concocting that line. The picture of him with the baby was a nice touch too. But if you look past his appeals to your willingness to support The Little Guy vs. Uncle Sam and your emotions, the fact is that he was running an insidious and vicious fraud against very vulnerable people. Ask yourselves, what kind of person runs a mob-style numbers racket? An honest john? Somehow I don't buy it. And that is just the part he admitted to. Lots of elements in his story just don't add up. The guy is a scumbag, he's a convicted felon, and he's a known confidence trickster. I wouldn't trust him with a nickel.

Thirdly: They are encouraging payment in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has a bright future but at the moment one of the problems is that the price can and does go up and down like a yo-yo. I just don't think that anyone who was involved in a complex, long term and incredibly expensive project would willingly expose themselves to that risk.

Fourthly: Bitcoin is a scammers paradise. People who are scammed out of Bitcoins have pretty much no legal recourse. Some guy just stole $5.5m worth of them and he hasn't even been arrested. On it's own, this fact isn't significant, I'm not saying that everyone doing business with Bitcoin is dishonest. But when you combine it with the above pieces of information it does give pause for thought.

+11 get this shit outta here.