Bitcoin Forum

Instead of sitting here pulling our puds everyday why not we group together and finally put some pressure on BFL? Apparently nothing seems to work verbally and nothing has actually come out of anything. If we all request refunds on a multi-group level maybe they will actually see how serious we are and won't constantly be taken advantage of every day while using our money for whatever bad decisions they keep making. Since it was our mistake into thinking BFL would produce a working miner we were all thinking about the money we could make with them and BFL knew that and took advantage of that and put up ridiculous time frames they knew they would not hit. Then just have been stringing us a long for months and months about delays. They took advantage of us, now lets take advantage of them. If they see so many refund refund requests they might actually start to listen and take us seriously. If they can't produce those refunds I'm sure they'll have plenty of legal issues on their hands. This isn't to start problems, these problems all were started when BFL began falsifying dates and putting up promises they knew they would not be be able to fulfill. Really people, when do we say when? If a credit card company gives you money and you don't pay one month they are on your ass right away. Since we basically have given BFL financial loans here why don't we request interest on the loans we gave them? We haven't received any product in return, so it is basically a loan. We should be making money on our loan we gave them? When is enough? 2 months? 5 months? 8 months? 10 months? 12 months? 2 years? We really need to make a decision here. I'm not an early adopter like a lot of people are here, and I feel really bad for the people that have been waiting for such a long time. If I knew I gave someone a few thousand dollars and then 12 months later find out other customers of another company that started even later then BFL, has a smaller staff and a lot less experience are making $200-$250/day I'd be quite pissed off. No big screen TV! :)

I apologize if this post "offends" anyone but I was brought up to make my own decisions and not always worrying about what other people think about it. Maybe other people want to comment or put a little finesse into it? Can always use a little polishing.

You first.

I already have. I had three orders in for SC's, since I can't pay for them all at once cause I'm not made of money like some other people are. I've already canceled two of those orders because I could be making more money with that money just sitting there in someone else's pocket. The people that don't agree with me are the ones that have money and don't care a lot of their money is tied up making them no money. Ok, now you go.

So why haven't you cancelled the remaining order?

Because that order isn't all mine. I have someone else's money in that order so I cannot cancel it without their permission. I think you are missing the point here. You are actually more interested and intrigued in my orders and history then the big picture. No wonder why BFL was able to suck in hundreds of thousands of dollars with no proof of anything. A lot of people are limited in their thinking I guess.

Awesome.  ;D

Paragraphs are overrated...

But seriously, explain to me again how "everyone" mass canceling will A) somehow magically force BFL to ship sooner, while at the same time B) prevent advantageous people from NOT canceling, and instantly moving up in the que?

Maybe that was the idea. Now that BFL finally might get closer to shipping, if everyone else cancels, he'd get one first. People are playing preorder chicken.

this

Everyone will always read between the lines and spew out their own opinions, how accurate or not. Obviously the intention is not to stop or hold up BFL from moving forward but the exact opposite. If we apply a little pressure maybe we can get them to work a little more efficient. I'm always wondering in the back of my mind why didn't BFL just get business loans like a normal company would on this project. Hell, even Kickstarter would have been a better option then just take people's money and have them expect something in return.

lolwut ???

Edit for posterity's sake.

A lot of people don't even know they never made a single thing and are just reselling other people's stuff. Very lame. We have the power to shut them down. Get our money back and put our money into a company that has already shown a viable working product. Avalon could be one of them. The only way that would happen is if we all get together and do this.

Yes!  Fight the power! 

PS - if you're fighting the power, it's good to have your facts straight.  Pickingpair and opentoe have basically no facts straight and are talking out of their asses, so if you decide to fight the power (DOWN WITH THE MAN, MAN!), you might want to pick some leaders who aren't complete idiots. 

And yet you come and call us idiots, and don't drop a single fact of your own. Interesting, huh? I smell paid shill.

I am indeed paid by BFL, I admit that 1000%.  I wouldn't say a shill though, since that implies I have hidden the fact, which is simply not true.

I've dropped facts many times.  Your suppositions are complete bullshit.  You have no evidence or proof to back up your claims, yet you speak them as if they were facts.  That does, in fact, make you an idiot.

Josh is the COO of BFL, I sure hope to hell they're paying him lol

Name:   thepickingpair
Posts:   144
Position:   Full Member
Date Registered:   February 03, 2013, 04:45:32 AM

That explains it.

As with anything in life, i'm only going by what i've learned, and what i've experienced. If i am wrong, i'm more than capable of admitting it and eating my share of the crow. My interactions, combined with what i've read online, led me to those statements. If i'm wrong, then i apologize ahead of time. I obviously didn't know you were BFL_Josh when i quoted the 'paid' comment. Perhaps correcting me on my misunderstandings, or directing me towards some information that does, would go a long way to clearing up any negative thoughts myself or others have? Just a thought.

I'm not sure what the age of the account here proves or disproves, it's merely a date of wanting to take the infatuation with cryptocurrency into a public setting. Unless you're referring to the fact that i didn't know the account above was BFL_Josh, then yes, you're right.

OMG ROFL! This quack hasn't even been around long enough to know that Inaba=Josh, and somehow he feels confident enough to make very detailed accusations statements about BFL's support staff¹, funding², product shipping history³, product suppliers⁴, manufacturing discounts⁵, manufacturing processes⁶, prototype development⁷, shipping schedule⁸, and global affect on the BTC economy⁹.

No, you're the one missing the point - I'm a pretty vocal BFL critic - but even if every single Batch 1 customer cancelled their order, all that would happen is later orders moving to the front of the queue.

Where BFL is vulnerable is their bulk order.  Once they commit to production of those 63,000 chips, they need to be able to sell them.  If Batch 1 has been delivered and works as advertised, this won't be a problem.  Despite the ridiculous delivery times, people will continue to pre-order from BFL because there's currently no-one else from whom you can order ASICs in any quantity you like, any day of the week.  BFL originally expected to have 100,000 chips, which would have made X number of units producing revenue of Y dollars.  They will now have 74,000 chips, which will make J number of units producing revenue of K dollars. That's a non-trivial deficit which needs to be offset, and there's probably no way to offset it with the first 11,000 chips - so sales from the bulk order will be critical.

Personally, I believe BFL should stop taking pre-orders until they've caught up on the backlog of existing orders and can offer an order turnaround time of less than two weeks - but as long as the community is willing to wait months for delivery of their order, BFL has no real incentive to abandon the pre-order model and do whatever it takes to close the order : delivery gap.

Why are you so certain that BFL hasn't borrowed money to develop ASICs and/or fund their operating expenses?  It's pretty certain that the months of delays have blown their budget to hell, but that doesn't mean there was never any source of funds other than pre-orders.  It's highly possible that they have lenders and investors breathing down their necks right now as well as customers (and from a practical point of view, they're more accountable to those stakeholders than they are to customers).

opentoe - Why don't you just go knock on the door?

https://i.imgur.com/gqLIlf2.jpg

or, alternatively:

[redacted photo showing a member of BFL's home - the information is widely available but I don't want to cross any boundaries]

BFL clearly isn't trying to hide.

I was just about to pen something similar.


Seriously? Then why the 8' fence and 20' tree?  ;D


It's times like this that I wish I had an anonymous sockpuppet user account so that I can link that recent YT video of somebody explaining how the Bitcoin protocol works under its name.

To be fair, if I were to explain it, I too would fuck it up, but I think not that badly.

The only part that was fucked up was the fact that I said 10 blocks instead of six, while I was thinking of 10 minutes.  Call me out on that if you like, but otherwise feel free to piss off. 

I'd love to see you try to explain the bitcoin network to someone that asks you on the spot when you aren't expecting it and haven't prepared anything.  Good luck with that.  I'm sure I'll hear all about how you'd have done better (or someone else will pipe up) ... but just like developing ASICs, I don't see shitheads like you out there putting it on the line.  All I see is a bunch of whiny bitches coaching anonymously from behind a monitor.  So until you and whoever else complains actually steps up and gets out there, you're nothing but a pathetic basement dweller, your opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

My bet is, you're the same type of person who calls out people who post music videos of themselves singing/playing an instrument/what have you on Youtube and telling them how shitty they are.  But again, unlike you, at least they are doing something. They are putting it out there and they have at least enough self confidence to do so... what have you got?  Nothing. Your entire contribution to the process:  Complaining about someone taking action.

You have a BFL_Josh account, use it. To someone who doesn't read every single post you make, you are hiding the fact that you are a BFL shill.

BFL has a LOT of money.  I would like to be employed by BFL to manage youtube, photos, video, questions etc.
I would make a great promoter, and public relations manager!

BFL:  PM me for my resume!  I code, I edit, and I use spellcheck!
I accept bitcoins, paypal, westernunion, etc!

Avalon:  Same offer!

I am confident people will need someone to field questions during the months to come of people waiting for units to be delivered.

I posted this message in BFL's forums, and I was banned. I think you deserve to read the post, and take your conclusions from this event:

------------------------------------------------
Dear fellows,

working in a high IC brokerage company in California (I may not disclose details), I have access to privileged business information, even some under nda's.
I can tell you that BFL did contacted a few enterprises, but just for budget info. From then, no more contacts were carried on that I know of on this business area.

If this forum is really official, please note some points:
   - Agressive anti-return policy (changing threads' names, complicating procedures, etc..)
   - The development schedulle is quite odd: they did not made a first debugging batch just for testing purposes, as usually companies do before starting full production.
   - Although current state-of-the-art simulators contemplate a lot of phenomena, it is quite strange they can give so accurate specs without hands-on.
   - Please note https://forums.butterflylabs.com/off-topic/1262-extremely-dumb-questions-regarding-butterfly-labs-asics-2.html that some forum users are advocating BFL in a rather suspicious way, what suggests that they are either obsecated with this company, or they are just dummy users, registred by BFL.

You should be ready for some disappointing news: either the chips are not being made were BFL_josh says, or they just wanted to have a clue on plausible numbers, to perform what I could classify as dishonesty.
----------------------------------------------------

To what the last point is concerned (dummy users) please beware that they could have also dummy users (run by BFL) on this forum, which is a common technique used in social group theory.

Best regards.

BFL_Josh - are these real pictures of you guys assembling bgas?  http://imgur.com/a/CMazz#2

Even if every single customer got a refund, BFL would still make out with massive profit due to the increase in the BTC-USD exchange rate.  Back in July 2012 I bought a Jalapeno for 24BTC = $150.  at the current exchange rate of around ~$45, my 24BTC would be worth over $1000. 

You should've just stuck it out with your original orders and kept your place in line, IMO.

i was thinking the same thing...stopped reading after first few sentences...but to the OP...BFL doesn't care if you manage to get 1000 ppl to get a refund...they are probably getting tons of new preorders a day and don't care about ppl that invested in them from the start

BFL does not received BTC directly, and instead they use BitPay to transfer those BTC to USD immediately at the time of purchase. You pay BitPay the BTC, and BitPay gives BFL the USD in their bank account.

If anything, BitPay is the one laughing all the way to the bank, not BFL.

Presumably BitPay also had to sell off most of that BTC to pay USD to BFL.

I paid 93.5621BTC on 6/28 for the 8pack upgrade  

$6.551798217440609/btc on 6/28= $613
$46.438/btc on 3/13= $4344.84

 :-[

I will admit I do not have ALL the facts. I can't keep track of them all and I can guarantee the truthful/real facts we will never really know. I thought this power of the people thing would at least get your attention and make BFL really think about what they've done already. Seriously, if there isn't a working prototype yet I can almost bet no one will get a BFL ASIC unit until the winter holiday time. The process of making something new never done before rarely ever works the first time around. If you put all your eggs in the chips you guys just made then maybe that's just another monster bad decision by BFL again. I myself don't have the right to "start" anything, but my friends are all too optimistic and happy all the time and let people walk all over them and take advantage of how nice they are. Who is actually leading BFL? Who's making these decisions? My friends jumped on the opportunity instantly because of the financial reward to get a first ASIC's. But when other companies that weren't even considered because they weren't even a company (the one ran by the kid) who are actually shipping ASIC units across the world now really makes BFL look pretty bad. And my friends are scratching their heads like what just happened here? Nothing was ever guaranteed to them, but they obviously backed the wrong horse in this race for sure. As a lot of people are still scratching their heads. I asked a question about how long people are really willing to wait? No one answered. To me this means people are willing to wait indefinitely on just the hope they will actually receive something here. If you really aren't attached to your money that closely, then by all means I'll be making my own ASIC miner and will have it on sale in 2016. I'll create a rude pre-order page you can order from and I'll go on vacation with your money and maybe I'll get around to making some hardware. This is not a personal issue here, it's all business.

In my opinion, no working prototype in the electronics industry = at least 6 more months until a finished product rolls off the line. If you don't have a working prototype then you have nothing at all.

This is what they do.

I'm going to order an Avalon just because I'm thinking those will be out before my BFL order. I think my friends will do the same, but they will also request refunds from BFL. I think there is a trade law that if a company cannot produce something in 90 days they HAVE to by law refund money. Not even ask the customer, they are supposed to just do it with no questions or comments.

I hope the Avalon's go up for sale soon. As least they have working units in the wild, mining away.

Okay well I'm just going to state my opinion, although I think this thread should be moved as it has little to do with mining hardware and reads as a riot act against BFL.  The process of producing ASIC hardware is a massive endeavor, esp. when you are dealing with a relatively new concept (that concept being Bitcoin).  Yes, it does come down to hashing SHA-2 (SHA-256) values in most cases, which has been around for over a decade, but that does not make designing custom chips any easier.  I bought a Jalapeño on February 9th of this year.  I could have paid with bitcoins but instead used my credit card so I knew I was paying with fiat money.  For me Bitcoin is a hobby, a hobby I am passionate about but a hobby nonetheless.  I could have bought a Single or multiple Jalapeños and still had money to pay the bills, however I have a personal rule regarding Bitcoin, which basically states that I will not spend any money that I'm not willing to lose.

I can understand that many others, especially hardcore miners, don't share the same view that I have.  However I don't understand the anger towards BFL.  Yes, they have missed deadlines for various reasons, but as far as I can tell they have kept the public well informed along the way and perhaps most importantly, have kept at it (even if it meant a temporary loss for them).  Yes, if you kept your bitcoins they would be worth more today than when you spent them, but things could have been different and those same coins could be worth little or nothing.  I guess I'm just not understanding how some people feel that BFL is profiting while screwing over everyone else in the process.  If you think something is fishy then yes, I highly recommend you attempt to receive a refund (which seems to work just fine).

I have been a part of many electronic projects big (well my largest project had a budget of $250,000 - which is big for me) and small, and sometimes it really felt like anything that could go wrong was going wrong.  I've always keep anyone involved updated of the situation and have struggled to meet deadlines as soon as humanly possible; which appears to be exactly what BFL is doing now.  I can tell you now that a mass refund campaign is not going to be successful, especially at this stage, but if you feel the need to educate others about an injustice you see as happening, just try and be factual and expect a lot of opposition.

You are likely referring to some part of Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code.  This has nothing to do with pre-orders though.  PayPal used to have a stipulation saying that all orders made had to be fulfilled within x number of days (it was sometime within the 1 - 3 month timeframe), however this seems to be removed from their ToS.  This is what I was talking about regarding keeping to the facts; just speculating will discredit your cause.  Also enjoy your Avalon, I personally like smaller powerhouses myself  :).

Are you starting something mate? You better stop starting mate! Stop starting. Yeah you'd better start stopping mate. Stop starting.
Maybe refunds follow more of a Poisson distribution? For the people that ordered early, it's pretty much a sunk cost by now.

Wow.  You must be pretty angry opentoe.

I'm not.

I have a small personal interest in BFL's success.  I ordered 2 Jalapeños and a Little Single in February.  I'm not going to cancel my order and ask for a refund.  I consider it a sunk cost.

I believe BFL is really trying to ship the products they've been promising us.  The last thing they need is to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under them.

I also have a larger nonpersonal interest in BFL's success: Diversity.  We need more ASIC makers.  If Avalon ends up the only one standing when it comes to mining ASICs you can actually buy and hold in your hand, I think Bitcoin is in trouble.  "Power in the people" you say?  I agree.

I'm going to go ahead and extend this offer now: Josh, if you feel like BFL is is trouble and you're not able to make the chips/boards/miners work, please, let me come and help you guys.  I can contribute quite a variety of technical and nontechnical skills.  My price is only one Single per week worked.  (Obviously if the project fails I lose too and get nothing.)  I will sign NDAs.

I made this same offer to Tom, but he did not accept.  Don't go out like that.

This. Just...look into it man. Idc what you've got goin' on; an outsiders head is usually, always, the answer.

What an interesting way for the OP to boycott BFL.


https://forums.butterflylabs.com/pre-sales-questions/1337-can-i-get-free-sc.html

 ::)

How many BTC have you mined with your BFL?

Classic. What an ass :D

Yeah, maybe Josh needs to start cancelling the orders of those who try to incite others to cancel so that their own orders advance in the queue.  Not that opentoe needs to worry - his friends are building their own ASICs.  :D

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/jalapeno-single-sc-support/1095-i-just-orderd-my-single-sc.html#post17440

Hey why not. I've already canceled my BFL orders so I have nothing to lose now. The only way I would want one now is if I would be first in line. Anything after that is just not worth it.

Sorry bud, no ASIC here's I guess you forgot to mention it was an FPGA chip. That's right, only half truths here on the forums.

Here is his facebook page: http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363 (http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363)

opentoe, you are an absolute moron. From the thread linked above:

And on here you say it's FPGA, and get onto people for quoting you correctly. What an asshat liar you are. Good day.

You are an idiot. You have no idea what you are talking about. Seriously, what are you even saying?

And someone's Facebook page? 3/4 of the worlds population has one. No one is going to listen to an account that was created two days ago throwing up links to Facebook accounts.

If you should blame anyone, look here

Now tell the truth: When you clicked that link, you saw your own Facebook page, right?

Blame anyone on what? You still haven't explained anything you are saying. I know, I'm a fool for even responding to this, it is hard to control.

This is a bitcoin forum and you are hiding being a newly created account because you are a coward to post under your real username. Then you post and talk about me. I didn't think I was that popular. If you want to promote me for free and waste your time and energy talking about personal people on a bitcoin forum then keep on going. I'll be happy to entertain and I'm %100 positive all people will become so bored they'll never read anything you ever post again. Trust me, my life is quite boring bro but if you want to me escalate me up on pedestal and popularize me I'm all for it! Trust me on this one, if I don't respond to your posts no one will except the young kids that thrive on social media drama on a bitcoin forum. If my life is interesting to you then dude you must really have a VERY boring life. Sorry about that.

Im sorry, i just could not resist the new prank I learned. Relax, no one knows about your facebook profile. That is just a link that opens facebook. Anyone that clicks on it will see his own facebook profile.

Best regards

Hahaha, this is classic. I didn't think anyone would actually fall for the old "73322363" trick.

Here: http://reface.me/status-updates/funny-facebook-status-update-profile-link/

It is quite funny. I really did not know about that and wondered why my boring life is interesting to anyone. :)