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So now they are also in the chip selling business:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/3014-butterfly-labs-announces-bulk-chip-sales.html

*facepalm*

~100 days + 2 weeks, right?

Posting over here in case their site goes down or they change the original post

Highlighting is from me,

So... I haven't been paying attention.

Are all the engines equivalent performance, and if so... what is the performance per engine?

It's only logical they sell the chips since they can't deliver hardware. I wouldn't be surprised they're also vaporware. Gotta love that down payment.

Is this a cunning plan to get BKK to design a board that works :)

2 chips per Jalapeno
~28 engines for 5000 MH/s, if we assume each engine produces 1 hash per clock then the engines are running at ~180Mhz and doing 180Mh/s

Imagine how much it stung to go from 1 chip  @ $40-60 apiece to 2 chips per Jalapeno. That probably blew up their margins on all of their $179 era pre-orders.

Heatsink + fan: $15
PCB: $20
Case, cable, and power brick: $15
2 chips: $100

Estimate COGS of Jalapeno is $150. Those are some slim margins @ $179 retail.

Buy chips now and maybe we will tell you how to implement them next year.

i chuckled at this as well. i guess if they convert all the pre-orders to chip sales, they won't need to worry about fixing problems with their boards  ;)

imagine what the reference designs look like...

Butterfly Labs IS officially a piece of shit outfit. Customers have patiently been waiting for their orders, but BFL opts to sell new hardware devices and now chips, the same vapor chips that's suppose to go into product.

You've already seen how Sonny Vleisides treats little old ladies. Do you think for one motherfuckin' second he feels anything toward the demographics who've invested in BFL? The only thing he has proven in his life that he cares about is himself.

What a selfish PRICK. And that goes for all the cocksuckers over at BFL that know exactly what's what.

Sonny is such a PUSSY, he won't even come back to this forum to defend himself even if the accusations were false.

Madness! Utter madness!

Unnnnbelievable! I actually wrote in a post the other day that the best thing forward would be for them to open up to the community and open source.

I think you are prob a little bit off here. With BFL offering the $100 upgrade from 5-7 gh/s for Jalapeño I am assuming that what that 'upgrade' consists of is that they use Class A chips instead of class C/D. This gives them a little better margins if they can use 13-15 engine binned chips for the 5 gh/s jalapeños.

Still not impressive margins, OR of course they may have MASSIVE margins on the bulk chip sales. Hard to know.

100+ days lead time and $90 chips makes it a shitty proposition though. I doubt at those prices you can even find ROI on miners you would DIY build in Sept.

Amazing how this is released at 5PM on a Saturday.

Of all the things that needs to be done at BFL, they've opt to sell chips they don't have. The same chips that................  FUCK IT!!!

This is so fucked up on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin.

Honest Abe must be rolling over in his grave, while PT Barnum is asking himself, "Why didn't I think of that?" The out-of-order sign in now firmly in place over the see-the-egress sign.

Yet another gimmick to buy themselves 2 weeks more of life with preorder money.  House of cards is collapsing faster than I thought.

Blows on his BS decoder ring.

The following is imaginary and simply wild speculation without a basis...allegedly

A) Oh shit, we have a shit ton of orders and little or no funding to pay for new wafers!
A1) I know, let just pass the cost of new wafers to our customers!
A2) I know, lets pitch the idea Avalon is doing to our boss. Surely he would love to see us sell 2$ chips for 97$!


B) Oh shit, we might not be able to complete our huge order backlog!
B1) I know, let get this monkey off our backs and shift the blame of bad boards to open source vendors. We will sell our yet to be made chips with an extra 50% downpayment for quick liquidity! That way we can clear our backlog of orders and prevent our asses from getting thrown into court.
B2) I know, lets lull people into thinking they can just make our boards for us. In this way we will only be responsible to order chips from the fab and the packaging people....and the rest will work itself out! We can't possibly screw this up....We are probably going to collapse soon, so we might as well open source our design. We are knee deep in commitments/liability we won't be able to fulfill anytime soon. Don't let them see the panic in our eyes?!

60 days to fulfill 2 days worth of orders.

How many days between june 23, 2012 and December 31, 2012? Alot. How many from Jan 1, 2013 till today? Can anyone say, entering PANIC mode?

So sometime in 2020? Right? I hope!

Bingo,

It also lowers the bar with respect to complexity in the delivery of orders. If it's only chips...they can manage that much right? ;D

That is one way of resolving the issue.

2 weeks?! ASIC chips cost under $2 each to manufacture. It's FPGAs that are expensive. The point in ASICs is they have high non reoccurring engineering costs which BFL should have covered ages back, but keep finding new ways to spend and delay.

Overheads must be expensive, but they will not be running out of cash this way, even if they just convert the current orders.

Is this what Yifu' saying at this exact moment?; "WTF dude?! just sell the chips and **** the mining units".

https://i.imgur.com/oefg2Q7.jpg

Yes, the upgrade was just chip binning and some firmware to run them at a different clock speed. The $100 is so they stay afloat while processing the pre-orders.

One can look up how much a square MM costs in an MPW production run. It ballparks them around $40-60 a chip which fits with their announced prices.
It also explains why so much time was spent tinkering with the chip & boards trying to get 5GH/s out of just 1 chip. They couldn't just slap in 2 chips per jalapeno and ship them without wrecking their margins @ $179. Since they promised 5GH/s, they would get lynched if they tried to deliver only 3GH/s for $179.

So one chip has 180MH/s. 14 engines per chip means $89/chip. $89000 per 10k. -10% means $80100 for 10k chips. Avalon charges 782.1BTC * $128 = $100109. Doesnt sound bad. But avalons chips have 282MH/s standard. So the GH costs $3.55 for avalon and $4.45 for BFL. The half power usage doesnt mean much at the current time. And isnt it still open if that is true at the end?

Then 100 days mean 14,28 weeks. Avalon claims to need 9-10 weeks only.

So im not sure if BFL will make a fortune with this... but... when i think about it... i believe most BFL customers will happily get their chips instead nothing. At least they know the chips are working. Even when this means they have to wait some time to have a working miner... its still more reliable to wait for someone in the community to build a miner.

Maybe some people will prefer to buy BFL chips too instead having to trust a groupbuy. Its a good move to lower the minimum amount of chips needed to order.

Something wrong with my calculations?

BFL is always behind Yifu!

You are wise beyond all men!

I'm selling the blades.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Klingon-weapons.jpg

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when I am considering converting my orders to chips because I trust yet unnamed DIY builders to deliver working miners before a multi million dollar company that has had 12 months to get a product out.

 :-\

It makes you wonder what is wrong with the general design that it needs that many revisions. Lets hope they will provide technical support for those that take the reins in the future.

This is the irony of it all.  The grass isn't always greener elsewhere.  There is power in numbers.  With hundreds/thousands of pissed off customers, BFL was forced to actually DO something (however bad they are at it).  Divide all that business among 100 or so fly-by-night operations that have little to no experience in mining and assembling hardware, and the opportunity is ripe for scamming.  A company with only 100 customers as opposed to 60,000 has far less to fear in the way of legal challenges.  I think people are going to be disappointed in these chip sales, both on the BFL and Avalon side.  Not everyone, but enough to make the scams go wild.  

I took the number from this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222983.msg2344464#msg2344464
Im not sure if the numbers are correct or not.

Forget how little they are making on the Jalapenos.
At $50 per chip (if that's correct) the 1.5 TH/sec mini rig will cost them $26,000 in chips alone to manufacture!

This really feels like a sinking ship.


...and more wild speculation. If anyone truly believes they would have the ships in their hand after 100 days then they are delusional. BFL are just trying to buy their time - and they are failing miserably. If BFL were a person, they would be a manic depressive crack-head.

WTF!

what a piece of shit person/company

how are you going to announce chip sales when you havent even delivered 1% of your ridiculous 6,000+ order queue 8 MONTHS AFTER TAKING PEOPLES MONEY!

BFL is the the biggest disgrace to bitcoin, they are taking the entire mining community for a bunch of fools, and frankly dont give a flying fuck about the bitcoin community or the network. TRUE AMERICAN SLIME

Dude ASICs cost between $0.5 - $2 each to manufacture dependant on volume of chips and intricacy of mask layers.

Yes, it's always in the next 2 weeks.

Yifu Guo of Avalon skeptical of Butterfly Labs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtVx26LlNXA

It's Luke Jr. In the background.

Yes there is something wrong there. As soon as I saw this chip sales I did the math on it.

$89 per chip x 10k chips is $890,000 -10% for $801,000. When Avalon sold chips in april (when most of us bought chips) it was about $80,000 for 10k chips. So you get about 10x the number of chips from Avalon as you do from BFL.

This is important to note because 10x the speed of an Avalon chip is 2.8Gh and thats just under what a BFL chip can do. Its about more than just delivery times and speed. Avalon pcbs are hard enough for us to sort out. Trust me, Im working on it and its not easy.

Just imagine how hard it will be to get the BFL pcb straight and working perfect compared to the Avalon pcb we are still sorting out. Not only that but the cost and time to assemble these boards vs Avalon pcbs could make it even worse. You end up with a BFL unit that costs way more in time and money to finish. If you ever get your chips that is.

$1 to $2 is probably the correct marginal cost per chip. I was just quoting the guy (see above) who said the cost to produce chips for the Jalapeno was $40-$60/chip.

So absolutely nothing's changed then? ;D

They probably don't need to sell chips, no doubt they have been badgered to death about the Avalon chip sales.

It's good to see two chip sources on the horizon, even if neither have actually shipped any batches of them yet.

Ouw... big mistake... but i think its not as bad as you wrote... according to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222983.msg2344464#msg2344464 a jalapeno has 2 chips and 28 engines. That would mean half the price you mentioned. But when i read that post again... he wrote that an engine alone has 180MH/s. That would mean when a jalapeno with 5GH only has 2 chips then each chip would have 2500MH/s... can this be? If thats true the BFL-Asics would be way cheaper per GH than avalons... but maybe im too tired yet... :)

I Thought one of their chips were hashing at 5 gigahash/sec

so why the different prices?

No thanks.

Chips vary, they are graded into different bins depending on how many "engines" are working, ever wondered why there are so many Intel/AMD versions for each CPU? Not all make the designed target.

The main advantage of the BFL chips is a lower parts count and simplified board design, the boards you see in their 5GH/s units are designed to take 8 chips, and support components. If you designed one from scratch to take only 1 or 2 chips it would be far simpler.

I would like to see someone design a 10Gh/s unit. I feel the BFL 5GH/s  Jalapeno was fine for the time when it was announced a year ago, but the mining difficulty has gone up so much you really need 10Gh/s to get the same result.

They are unproven... and likely never ship in time.

Thanks no.

One avalon chip costs $10.0109. If one $97 with 16 engines has 2880MH/s and one chip of avalon has 282MH/s then the MH/s for avalon would cost: $0.0355 and bfl's MH/s $0.03368. Man i hope thats correct finally... :)
For me it looks like BFL might chose the price by looking at avalon and underbidding them a little bit. In fact they made their MH/s 5.13% less costly. Im not sure that its less enough to invest. At least with the longer waiting time and no miner available. But maybe this will change soon.


The chips are proved to work as far as i know. Jalapenos are working already. So buying these chips would be a relatively safe bet.

This is bad math again.

If you purchased Avalon chip when bitcoin was $110 (which was the price multiple time in april, when it even fell below $90 around april 30th) then you paid ~$9 per chip. That $9 per 282Mh or $90 for 2.8Gh.

I think what's going on is that BFL can not order chips in large enough quantities to fullfil their orders... they just order a certain amount at a time and their product is just trickling out.

now if they have a way to raise a gazzilion dollars again (let's sell chips!!) then they could place very large orders of chips.

then they will use the chips received to fullfil the orders while those who ordered chips will wait again...

Let's rob Peter to rob pay Paul.

Thats about what I got. Its almost 1:1. With no real big power savings either  :D

Its getting the PCBs made for these things and then getting them assembled that scares me. Not that I ever expect these to show up in quantitys. The thing that amazes me is that they are offering a 20% discount on orders over 10,000 chips. Like anyone will be spending $8,000,000 on chips alone. Do you think they could deliver 10,000+ of these in the next 100 days? Its just like the miners where they are taking as many pre-orders as they can, and they will quickly get in over their heads on this as well.

I guess now Yifu can now check to see if BFL's chips really are 65nm if he gets in on a group buy of 100.

$100 is cheaper than ponying up one of those 6GH/s development boxes.

im in for 10 chips, lets get the pre-order started

If you have looked at the photos of the BFL wafers you will see that there is like 1,000 chips per wafer and they had 65 wafers left last week, BLF also mentioned they had already placed order for another batch of wafers. There are long lead times on these things. They obviously don't want to dig into the existing wafer stock to supply chip only sales.

Take them to Las Vegas and see if they'll accept it at a casino?

So sorry your math is correct. I was using .83btc instead of .083btc for price of each avalon chip.
I have 27.7 mh per dollar for Avalon. 29.7 mh per dollar for BFL. 1:1.1

Bingo, that my reasoning and speculation as well...

Gotta power the next die shrink...though honestly, if they are getting 110nm performance at 65nm with their designs...I doubt a die shrink will do them much good.

YCNMIU  ;D

Makes absolutely no sense in buying BFL chips over Avalon chips - presently.

Looking / reading through the docs it doesn't seem like BFL will release PCB schematics.  I looks like they are only willing to release the ASIC reference material / schematics?

Most of the people ordering ASICs are hobbyists trying to launch 'companies' and being a bit bold.  Very few of the orders are for 'non-hobbyists' (as in people doing this full-time and getting paid to do only this fulltime).

The only way buying BFL chips would make sense if somehow bitcoin value would go up through the roof and Avalon chips would become overly expensive.  Another thing is unless someone starts doing open-source PCB design for a BFL chip I don't believe they'll get large interest from the community.

The reason that Avalon chips have been a hit is primarily because of the mostly complete miner designs being released.  It isn't just because chip sales started happening.  It's more 'hack n slash outfits' buying the Avalon chips than 'full time PCB/ASIC design outfits'.

Love how they don't specify their hashing rate, wattage, etc.

What a joke.

+1

*mumbles something about Honest Abe*

So you're looking at:

1. Maybe 10% more Hash/sec / $  [but no hard numbers]
2. Claimed 50% lower Watts / Hash  [but no hard numbers]
3. Nothing about reference design, documentation.  Nothing to work off.
4. ~14+ week lead time minimum
5. orders starting vaguely sometime in june

Avalon meanwhile has a 10 week leadtime and has been accepting orders for, what, over a month now?

Seems like the only benefit here might be the lack of 10k minimum quantity.  and with BFL's track record, how long is that "100 day" leadtime going to be?

Can't wait to see all the BFL cloners start to announce their boards for sale.

So bizarre... it makes me wonder if they have money issues? If you intend to sell chips, why not price them below the competition and release schematics, etc. at the same time? A chip cannot cost them even close to $90 to produce... why not charge $30-$50 and actually present a viable option for miners? As it is, there is absolutely no benefit in investing in their chips over Avalon (that I see).

Maybe they need the 50% upfront to scrounge up some money.  The redesigns cost them a lot, their profit margins in their initial offersings (prior to the price double(!)) were not very large.

All the actions BFL has taken over the last few months are a huge red flag they're having money problems.  They didn't budget for their chips being underperforming, slower, and requiring more to get the same hashrate.  They didn't budget for the expanded PCBs with twice as many chips on them as before.  They didn't budget for double the heatsinks.

According to the thread you're only getting about 10% more GH/sec per dollar, so they didn't undercut Avalon by much. 

Want to see what Avalon said about their [BFL] Fab production "a while ago"?

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about.html

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about-3.html#post37045

Take a look at the first page where a well known quote from Team Avalon is cited in the first post, then zoom forward "into the future" towards the end. As Josh recently gave the thread a backhand comment for someone bringing it back to bite him in the ass.

The Truth hurts!

Or having to produce 60,000 units + and only having 60~65 wafers with....1,100 chips each. (assuming 100% perfect chips...which is improbable)

Does anyone see a math problem above?

BFL stop selling and start delivering.

Funny that hashrate skyrocketed today of all days

Josh lied back then, then freaks out when the thread was necro bumped. From one I can see, Josh is going to be spending more time over here, taking a vacation from over there. Meanwhile, Sonny's crossing off days from the calendar, counting down to when he's no longer on probation, of which lands just prior to the first time BFL needs to report their filings. I believe he misses the blue butterflies in Costa Rica. And when he goes, he won't give a shit what happens to his step-dad, Christ Vleisides, whose name is on the incorp docs.

And the investors who've claimed it was money they could afford to lose, will end up crying wanting their money back. You don't believe me. Let me give you a motherfucking example. I had over 1000 BTC in InstaWallet of which was chump change in dollars, all saying to myself that if I lost it, I would care less. Well, guess what? When that little bit of real money grew to over a quarter of a million dollars and I lost it, I LOST IT! I freaked out! I was pissed! I still am, but have calmed down considerably in regard to that potential lose. You guys with a few thousand invested will go through the same exact emotions.

I was made aware of warning signs just prior to IW shutting down, but my fears were shown to be unjustified, thus didn't worry about it till it was too late. Fortunately, for those still having pre-orders, there's a Nash Equilibrium that can still be exercised.

<not edited for grammar, for I believe this motherfuckin' kidney stone is going to pass this time>

What income have BFL had for the past8 months? Pre sales.

But what happened? Couldn't deliver then missed their specs. Sales would have slowed and refunds grown. How many people have asked for their 30K back from no chance of getting a mini rig? And for the remaining products the profit has been slashed due to pricing against a spec they couldn't deliver, and they bought ALOT of parts they can't use. (I'm thinking about those boxes of 1500W PSUs they showed us).

Now they are doing something strange - instead of concentrating on delivering the orders they already have they are asking 50% up front for a bulk chip order. Why? Because they need the $$$$$$. They are running out of the money they have been donated for the past 12 months, and their on going income is minimal. I'm thinking they are even struggling to pay for their chip orders and hence they need people to down pay for the manufacturing for both bulk chip sales and chips for what ever BFL is able to deliver.

When will there be a class action against BFL for late delivery and failing to meet promised specs?

Therefore UNPROVEN... unlike AVALON... they have known values and are beyond the prototype phase. Why trust these jokers? Insanity.

Not to mention for sheer GH/sec per dollar KnCminer is the best and will probably deliver before BFL's chips even arrive, much less assemblies using them are done.

+1 Wouldn't that be nice?

KNC? Are they a scam? Sheesh... let's just stick with things that actually exist.

OrSOC is no scam, and their credentials blow BFL out of the water.  they have the IC designers behind opencores.org working with them on this project.

http://i41.tinypic.com/30lktoh.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/mc59uu.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/ek2vt3.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/fkt99g.jpg

A quick google search brought up these old memories from months ago. That is alot of parts.

Don't drag knc and their vapor ware outfit into a discussion about companies that actually has asic working. Knc is a scam, so go ahead and buy their overpriced FPGA..

KNCMINER vs BFL
Apples vs Oranges

FTFY

What do you call a warehouse full of obsolete parts?

Garbage.

Well............Avalon/Klondike=5GH @ 32 watts (also FULL open source,so to speak)........................BFL=5GH @ 27 watts.I don't see a better buy myself,not enough difference to sway me  :P

Both are FRUITS that never get delivered?

Yup... pretty much end game here. BFL is going to fail to ship and without any reasonable expectation they can ship on time why bother? Open source BKKCoins, Alten and Burin designs and what Block Erupters as well? Why bother with BFL?

BFL could solve all their money problems if they simply deliver. Then they'll be able to use the untouched millions in their bank account. How do I know that they have not touched that money because it would be illegal for them to do so? Because they told us so, and they don't lie like us cocksuckin' trolls do.

Just admit you don't know what OrSOC being involved means.

They're far more trustworthy than BFL.  Perhaps they have a bit to go to reach Avalon level.

oh men, this guy took 1 year to deliver a product they say in the first announ will be deliver in 4 months (aprox) they deliver me my 2 5ghz units, and those are the most basic unit, ... 100 chips and they say 100 days  u better multiply that *3 .. maybe they deliver or not but something im pretty sure it will take more that 100 days knowing there rep around here.

i still have no clue why out of all power supplies, they decided to get evga.

ffs.

So what are you suggesting that they have to redesign the chips as well and go though a series of prototypes, or are you completely oblivious as to why your 5GH/s units were delayed for so long?

all viable reasons lol

While waiting for the chips you ordered, of which you'll have to build the damn thing yourself, brush up on your constructing skills with...

http://www.oldtuberadio.com/oldtuberadiocom/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/HEATHKIT-HM-2103.jpg

You're going to need it. And if you can't build one of these, then you shouldn't have purchased any chips, for building a bitcoin miner is a thousand times harder to construct.

B-I-N-G-O ...was his NAME-O :P

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about.html


Date December 2012.

LOL

FUCKING LAWL. Josh is a clown who doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

"blah blah Avalon team doesn't have the experience"....


Yet they shipped and continue to ship before your Butterflying asses.  :D

Then six months later Josh says the following:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about-3.html#post37045

You keep playing the ORSoC card. Will you be giving money to ORSoC for these ASIC miners for which no ASIC exists yet? Will ORSoC pay you back in case you never receive your ASIC miner that doesn't yet exist?

ORSoC will do no such thing. ORSoC is the ODM and will take NO responsibility in the potential fuckups of KNCMINER.

ORSoC is NO GUARANTEE you will ever see your miner.

They know once the pre orders queue is empty the highest margins will come from the silicon business, not the devices business. Just license (or open source) the reference board and get big bucks selling the chips. Focus on evolving the chip and the forget about crazy logistics to tackle end customer business.

There are dozens (or hundreds) of people that can build the boards and mining devices, but only a few can design and deliver (well... I have to see my prepaid stuff working yet) ASICs worldwide. That is the real value of BFL if they are looking for VC funding.

Are you sure about that? Where did you got your info? From Sam? From ORSoC? Or out of nowhere?

Who do you buy the miners from? KNC
Who do you have a contract with? KNC

Are you an ORSoC customer? No
Are you giving money to ORSoC? No
Do you have a contract with ORSoC? No
Did ORSoC give *any* kind of warranty they would pickup the tab in case KNC defaulted? No
What does ORSoC state in their PR regarding the partnership? Talk to KNC.

If you have any information pointing to the contrary, please do share.

Wow.

Even INTEL does not have this kind of capacity. Neither does AMD. They produce, then test, and if things suck, they throw it all away or make a "budget version" of a downclocked chip. If you were ever wondering where these shitty graphics cards came from that nobody wants... take a guess ;)

This has nothing to do with BFL ASIC  Bulk Chip Sales by any stretch of the imagination, can you please move it to one of the KNC threads?

It's the unicorn blood. Definitely...the unicorn blood.

Too bad the unicorn blood was way over rated. It failed to help the process along in the end...Reality and Physics got in the way of the ritual sacrifices.

Is it OK in the US if those damn assholes sell the basic components of a product I already paid in June 2012 to another customer?! They should burn in hell!  ???

+BTC250

Considering that's not what they are doing, all you have done is shown your lack of comprehension of a relatively simple product announcement. I suggest you go and read it again, perhaps twice.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/3014-butterfly-labs-announces-bulk-chip-sales.html

Do you actually think they can full fill their promise to manufacture 10k orders in a month. For fuck sake. Best they managed to do is a manufacture a one Jalopeno / day. I've waited them to deliver my SC for a god damn year, and now they're gonna kill the rest of my investment with this shit. I've officially lost BTC250 now. They can shove that $1200 refund up in their ass.

If they deliver a single ASIC before all pre-orders are shipped, they fucked their customers again. There are no signs that they will ship all their pre-orders in the next 100 days. I read the announcement several times but don't see the statement that the ASIC shipment will begin after the last Miner pre-order was shipped.

we are going to have about a 20% difficulty increase and still BFL hasnt delivered...lol

Glad I got my refund  ::) Meet the uberscam...

So you'll be updating your scamlist thread then?

I hope they do, just to rub it in your face! It's clowns like yourself that try and equate the supply of a single component with the supply of a completed whole item. If it were just chip supply that was holding up the pre-orders they would have been out the door weeks ago. Why not pick on long torex screws, or cases, they need those too.

I don't see how this matters. The point everyone is trying to drive home is that BFL have yet to deliver more than a single month of pre-orders of ONE of their products, they lack even the most basic communication skills, and are far over energy consumption and size of their miners.

YET they seem to have the time to prioritize order upgrades and now chip orders vs. their already soon to be 1 YEAR overdue customer orders.

Seriously, what company does this?

Anyone with a datasheet? Or a chip pinout + package type?
So we can start drawing the schematic and doing the initial
placement already.

intron

Here's an idea.

Lets get some trustworthy ESCROW person and gather funds for minimum order of BFL chips.

Either they deliver chips on time + datasheets or we keep our money and good bye.

The price is actually reasonable and if they are not able to produce the boards/rigs (the real bottleneck of BFL), we can get someone capable to do it right. There are some talents (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=192860) designing Avalon chip boards.

If butterflies actually deliver ... people waiting for big preorders will most likely kill them. None of my business.

EDIT: Already contacted  John K. in his thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=141672.msg2348784#msg2348784).

EDIT2: New thread to discuss 100% escrow https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=223571.msg2349094#msg2349094

This is interesting.  Chips delivered en mass in around 100 days?  Is that BFL suggesting they will get most or all of their preorders done within the next 100 days and then concentrate on the chip business?  To me it seems pretty unlikely, as the PCBs instead of the chips seem to be the hold up right now.  BFL could well be shipping chips while product preorders are still outstanding.  It will take a while for third parties to develop, test and ship their own boards so BFL probably have 200 days from now before rival products appear based on BFL chips.

So... at 200 days for 3rd party.

I guess the question folks considering chips need to ask themselves is... will third parties deliver faster at 200 days, than BFL itself.  Tough call... I would lean towards third parties.

I personally have no interest in their chips with the current state of information about them and their reference design.

No.

They are bailing on responsibilities.

They have, to their credit, designed working ASIC chips. How reliable they are is open to contention.

They are opening the machine/PCB design to open source.

Cutting and running.

I actually replied in a BFL post last week suggesting they do just this; swallow pride and open source to the community. I'm actually intrigued to know whether this was taken aboard!

If someone in the community is able to design a working on solution before them, or an improved solution, almost certainly they will adopt/base a design on it and fulfil orders.

Makes total sense from their position.

They need help, and this is an opportunity for the BFL pre-order community to assist them...unless they wish to loose funds.

Or it is total BS, which from these guy seems totally likely.

Remember, not one unit of the newer BitForce line has shipped, at all. Just a few Jalepenos so far, which is an older one before that little refresh when it was obvious their first design was flawed.

Now they suddenly can handle additional demand to ship bulk chips too?  :-\

Or, maybe BFL needs a little more funding to buy the chips for the new product lines.

They outsource them for sure. It is a try to make a quick painless buck. As they see Avalon chips income.

We could play they'r game, but under our rules.

I'm trying to negotiate. More on that in separate thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=223571.0

Poor Erk. Working so hard to call everyone a clown, or douche, or troll.
Doesn't BFL have a job opening for a public relations manager?

On their site they have quite a few job openings available for those based in the US.

They also offer con-sulting...

BFL don't make the chips, they are made for them, all the do is order the wafers, then send them of to the chip makers. Nothing whatsoever to do with the BFL production line making miners.

Uh, they are offering to convert orders to chips orders. So it appears you don't know or don't read...

Those screws and cases were ordered long in advance, erk. Sometimes re-ordered more than once when the design changed.

Please, learn...something.

I wonder if there is a respin in progress as well.

Explaination of the process BFL's contractors are using for chip production:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-project_wafer_service

They outsource production to a company like this one. Here is their price list:
http://cmp.imag.fr/products/ic/?p=prices

They have not been doing the full mask + full wafer run for hundreds of thousands of chips. They have been getting hundreds of chips each time they did a run, which means they are doing MPW. That means a ballpark price of $40-$60 per chip depending on volume.

It's over folks.  BFL will never deliver units.

They formed a partnership WITH ORSoC.  KNC miner is ORSoC

I'm not saying they won't have technical issues or troubles.

But ORSoC is not going to take your money and run

http://orsoc.se/orsoc-and-kncminer-are-partnering-up-to-develop-bitcoin-mining-products/langswitch_lang/en/

What's next? Pre order of the casing? Oh no I'm waiting for them to offer to pre order the whole BFL!
Don't they know the limits? This pre order scheme is getting old and its popping up everywhere now

Long con-sulting?!  ;D

I think you need a crash course in commercial law.

KNC is NOT ORSoC. A partnership only means they are working on the project together, as in ORSoC is building the rig to the KNC specs.

ORSoC will not be doing business with you.

Move this discussion to the KNC thread if you'd like to pursue your argument.

lol @ BFL

What good is BFL releasing a reference design if the reference design is flawed? IE.  power issues/other issues....

"You can buy our chips, but good luck getting them to work!"

The bulk chip idea is a good, if unoriginal, one.  They could reduce the costs down to the point where there is some vague hope that their victims..er...'customers' might eventually receive some hardware.  And there would be some wins for the community at large.

To bad we are talking BFL here so it's nearly certain to be a scam.

Even if their offering of a hot running heat-sink needing chip was of interest, I would not do it unless there was both an escrow with multiple escrow agents needing to sign, and also some sort of a performance bond posted by BFL which was forfeited upon failure to perform.

Not ideal but it's good starting point for the talents out there. Better than trying to figure out everything from scratch.

+1

Erk is another BFL tard. Can't read and can't see a scam when it is glaringly obvious.

How do you consider vaporware chips a good starting point?

Only difference with what people have now is they have money. If they order they will have no money and an email saying they have "chips" on their way in 100, 200, 300 days?

dont make me laugh  :D

I was referring to the reference design. It's better to start with one than figuring out the chips. (there is no reference design AFAIK though, so it was more of a "generic" comment :) )

Now, whether BFL delivers is another can of worms.

;) even with the reference design how do you really know it works?

We dont.

As with every design: make it, test it, change it.

I'm not promoting BFL, if that's your worry, but I would support freelance pcb designers (as I do for the Klondike project).

I bet they stop shipping jalapenos after they start to ship chips.  

See what Avalon do first.

Do you get paid by the day or hour to instill confidence of BFL into the community?

They are nothing but a bunch of back stabbing con men, liars, cheats, fools and ass hats. The whole company is a circus. They could't assemble a pizza box if their vary lives depended on it.
Every one who works for BFL is curt/ terse demeaning/dismissive or just hateful to customers. They distract, derail threads that are negative. They ban people who complain and cancel their orders. They mark up prices and ask for shipping you already paid for. They change specs and then they change specs again. They delay and delay and if the day ever comes when you get what you ordered it well be worthless.
 

I am curious, how do the chip packages that BFL use,  attach and make contact with the PCB, is it a hot air reflow solder thing like QFN?

I've read it more than twice (not being an ass), and here's my other takeaway.


Remember the posts where Jody, et al., was complaining about their email workload? This just compounds that problem several fold, but that's okay, for these emails will consist of moneys going to the their coffers, oppose to support of product they'll having trouble producing.

Total pieces of shit!

But they have refused to do exactly this for the current customers of which thousands have been so kind to them in helping fund their endeavor. Now, it's fuck them, we will treat the next batch of cocksuckers better.

Expanding their business line detracts from the orders BFL already has at their feet...NOT HAPPY JAN!

Clearly 0 < 13.

Would the D-grade chips (13 engines or less working) include chips that are non-functioning?

The D-grade chips might be the equivalent of the fruit at the market which is just about to be thrown out. OK for making jam, but that's about it. Problem is jam has a very poor hash-rate.

One isn't expected to pay full retail for the crap that is getting ready for the dumpster.

+5092379381609586958698052753857093587396108045893825038524095723053957093258095358309583

make this man a Mod

^^^^ BFL PR department

Always one on these threads... as in ( Sockpuppets incorporated)

Does anyone else think the chips are priced ridiculously?

I talked to someone at an ASIC company lately who argued that it would be a cinch to build 65 or 28nm chips, their sims showed about 8-10gh/s per chip. He offered that if they ever got to development, the first batch would cost me $50 per chip since the development costs are so high. Should they produce a second batch, he'd give to me for $30. Estimated margin with development costs on a 100k batch was by the way 300-400%.

What you see there is a fucked up margin of unbelievable 1000%, since one of these chips is bound to cost around 10$ including production if there was one 100.000 batch produced and built.

I dont care about how late they are or how mean to their customers, I already got a refund for that. But now selling your chips with a 1000% margin? Are you serious BFL?

As serious as Avalon are with their margin, or ASICminer with their ludicrous mark-up!!!

Demands are just too high because people are willing to spend anything on a short supply of ASICs right now

Avalon's markup is around 300-400%.

That is completely ok.

ASICminer: Im not sure, but it is beyond a lot. He stated that adding 1th/s is at the cost of $10k right now. 1th/s means that is about  100 block eruptor blades. Build costs around $10 per Gigahash. (3 chips, I would guess) Lets assume around 20-30 additional dollars for assembly.

--> Block Eruptor Blade building costs, not factoring development, around... $130-140 Dollars. Sales price 50BTC or 2BTC for small chips. Ok, ASICminer beats BFL, it is okay :D



Which is incredibly stupid. You need to at least do your calcs. The Block Eruptor USB Miners are fun, small and cool devices. They are several times overpriced though. I would guess that they SHOULD cost 1BTC. That includes shipping, manufacturing, chips and a 400% premium. That is a fair price and a good margin to win at business. 800% is fucking your customers, 5000% is hardly even thinkable...

While from a personal perspective, I agree, from a business one I don't. The USB is a novelty item, really. But you don't see any gathering dust, do you?

If people are willing to pay outrageous prices, the producer is a fool to NOT offer outrageous prices while he has a defacto monopoly. When somebody credible comes to market at lower prices, ASICMiner products will lower theirs to something more reasonable. Right now they are mining fools as much as bitcoins. And if you have ever studied the history of gold rushes, mining fools is often initially much more profitable. Friedcat isn't screwing anyone. He's just allowing fools to screw themselves. And he IS delivering the product.

Me, I'm waiting till he has some competition. I still might buy his devices, when the price comes down. Or I might go with the competition. These things are going to have a short lifespan unless somebody figures out a way to repurpose an application SPECIFIC integrated circuit. ASIC mining will be immensely profitable for a minute, fairly profitable for a little while, and a note in history a bit after that.

He isnt screwing anyone, of course.

I think that in the longterm, if he sells thousands of these, he might create thousands of haters, who didnt break even and then rant on Bitcoin. If he is into it selling long term, he might make more money not pissing customers off that later say "Ah, i wont buy new, i wont break even anyway."

Hard decision. Short term i agree with you.

Still it's not sharing the love, or the wealth to be *potentially made. It's centralising profits to themselves and leaving their *customers with a product that may...or may not give some reward one day in the future. I see no difference there between ASICminer and putting my money in a modern bank with a piss poor interest, other than I'm putting myself out to change funds to bitcoin and acquire a device which I'm then responsible to ensure remains working, whilst they profit!

To me that's an utterly selfish and stupid reason to sell at such a price. You didn't see graphics card manufacturers decide to raise prices because consumers discovered away to turn their products into additional fundraising devices did you?

Does anyone know how many pre-orders they have?

I really don't think he will, because he's been quite up front about it. And, given that half of the profits go back to Bitfountain, He is probably using it for R&D for smaller more badass chips. When he has serious competition, I suspect he'll be able to play the undercutting game and gain bonus points because of his reputation. Plus, his initial model was more about the profits to the shareholders than dissemination to the general public. Gen 2 chips, as I understand it, should have immensely more hashing power and be cheaper to produce (excluding the cost of the mask), so he could be positioning himself long and short rather well.

BFL isn't likely to deliver. Despite having had a civil argument with Inaba (which surprised the hell out of me) I've just seen too much hype without enough substantiation. Sure, they have developed the machines. I just don't think they have what it takes to actually take them to serious production in time to be relevant. I could be wrong, of course, but I will be very surprised if they hit the market before at least one competitor hits with better chips, cheaper. We already know there is a lot of interest in this, and there are rich men interested in it. Despite the scams out there, the odds are very good that some VC group is working quietly and has been for some time. They could easily come out of left field and change the whole game. As Yifu said, if his group could do it in four months, then a well funded group could EASILY do it.

I have seen production figures suggesting that the chips themselves will cost in the neighbourhood of .50 to 2.00 USD each to produce after initial cost, so there is a lot of margin for undercutting the market when someone is ready.

It's a hell of a game. I'm late to the party, but I'm enjoying the ride :)

You would have if there was only one or two options available. Early graphics cards were ridiculously expensive for what they did when they DIDN'T have any other purpose. (I mean way back, early 80's. A 16 color graphics adapter frequently cost more than the IBM PC you were putting it in). But as soon as Hercules got competition, the prices became reasonable very quickly.

The prices are always determined by market and costumers. That's OK. The only problem I have is BFL's full-charged-preorder-but-no-delivery policy.

True and we don't know what ASiCminer and BitSyncom's quality control is like? They may be throwing away chips that don't make the grade, not selling them!!

To be honest here, I don't think ASICminer/BitSyncom have issues with variance in chip quality, not to the extent BFL do. To me that smacks of how unfinished BFL are on this project, and how poor their engineering design actually is!!

I think their chips are going to have many problems that will only become apparent if their chips ever make it in volume in the wild!


Also, FWIW; The ASICminer blades are priced by the free market nitwits, the USB dongle is price gauging plain and simple!

I agree. I was speaking more of ASICMiner and Avalon. BFL is a wildcard. They are advertising what I'm talking about, but they have screwed the pooch so badly that I have extreme doubts that they can ever recover. Which is really too bad, because if the could deliver they would cause the other vendors to adjust. Not to mention they appear to have a really cool product.

Ah well. We'll see what happens. If they can actually get seriously to market before August, it'll change the game. If they can't, the game will still change. They just won't be leading the change. If they even survive.

Their ASICs are in some parameters far more superior to for example Avalon. They just took too big piece of the pie.

I really look forward to see how this few million dollar experiment goes.

What sort of gauge are we using? ;D

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Probably http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/16723686/2/stock-photo-16723686-sliding-gauge-with-a-coin.jpg

Nice!  :D

Bah! *gouging...gits! ;D

As an observer? With whose millions?!  ???

It will be interesting to see if how the chip sales by BFL go. 

Other than pre-order folks who want the chips instead of their original orders (a bird in hard vs. two...), potential chip buyers won't be the unwashed masses, but those who are technical and have done a lot of research and will have full knowledge of BFL's history.

If the chips sales are a success, then it will be clear that they have been able to preserve their name and brand. 

If the chip sales are a failure, then I think BFL has cooked their own goose with the entry into the ASIC market (and the future won't be looking to bright).

 :o Oboy.

I disagree there are plenty of stupid people...with money!

They aren't all confined to this forum!!

There will be potential technical chip buyers who have done their research, and there will be those that haven't and are using either their own funds, or someone else's (who also have undertaken minimal/no research)

NEVER underestimate stupidity, BFL are banking on that!

They have to, they have no other choice, without detailed chip analysis publicly available what informed decision can anyone make?? It's a total shot in the dark with a company that now has a very poor record of delivering anything they've made people pay for upfront.

Only credit card companies might save their ass (consumer)...

BFL doesn't take credit cards.

I will be really really angry if they ship ANY discrete chips before the ship all the pre-orders have shipped.

PayPal does...

It'll take months, at best, to ship all prior orders. Whereas chips just need to be received from the factory, repackaged, and mailed out.

I'd agree if chips were the only missing component to getting retail units out the door, then they should all go into retail units. But if plenty of chips come in and there is a shortage of some other component, I have no problem with them shipping chips while waiting for the other components to come back into stock.

Well seeing as BFL are incapable being confident of shipping products they are satisfied; work, remain working, aren't likely to burn your house down, what are the chances of you receiving your goods before someone else DIY's them a solution through bulk chip purchasing?!

To be fair, I think it's your only chance of a working product, based on their behaviour of opening their intellectual property to this kind of usage...

Sure, but after 45 days Paypal considers the sale final. So if you have an old pre-order (100 days old for instance ;) ), Paypal won't help you. Since the CC companies are paying Paypal and Paypal didn't rip you off, the CC companies won't help you. That is why people were recommending renewing a pre-order every 45 days with BFL through PayPal.

IMHO, BFL is going to have to sweeten the pot considerably if they want to entice people to go with their chips. Considerable effort and progress has already been made toward open-source Avalon chip platforms. Pre-orders have been in place for several weeks.

With their price/hash being right on Par with Avalon, there's no incentive for anybody to jump from the Avalon ship, IMHO. Why would people invest the time and effort to develop boards for chips, when BFL has had trouble getting chips for themselves in weeks past. If they've had trouble getting enough chips for their own production in a timely manner, what reason is there to believe it will be any different for us?

BFL, IMHO, if you want to sell your chips, you're going to have to SERIOUSLY come down off that price. Somewhere in the <$50 range, if people are going to put the effort and money into developing yet another platform for chips that may or may not come in the next year.

Nobody is going to pay roughly the same price/hashing power to go with a new chip, and start over at square one on board development. The numbers simply won't work. There has to be a financial incentive that drives people to branch off from the relatively safe status quo of Avalon chips (which already have a pretty good jump on you in terms of time, development, release of chip specs and reference design, etc).

That's what I thought, but it's not the case; apparently depends on the card issuer. I've been looking into this and speaking to banks...

I was talking about Paypal disputes, which are different than CC charge-backs.
I guess if you can get the CC bank to consider a charge-back then they will go to bat for you. Insuring transactions through the CC might be a good avenue to explore as well.

Yes, I'm not a BFL customer, just trying to protect my ass elsewhere.

I also spoke to Paypal, they will do nothing for you after 45 days, aside stop the seller from using Paypal if enough complaints are received...

I read elsewhere that visa and mcards 180 day warranty is invalid with third party payment via Paypal, so rang a my card issuer and Paypal.

Paypal wouldn't confirm anything but their 45 day window, surprisingly my card company was willing.

I have them on record saying that as I recorded the conversation.

Respective banks handle disputes in their own way so don't take my situation for granted. This is only for credit cards, not debit, but again your bank maybe different. I'm not in the US.

Any BFL customer should have done this beforehand. It was their responsibility, but greed blinds...and I've seen f**k all due diligence applied to most 'investments' here!

That is good knowledge.  :)

BFL and Paypal get charged a hefty fee whenever you do a chargeback through your credit card and sideswipe their normal processes.  Bonus for those of you who feel helpless and maybe even a little vengeful.  Vengeance aside, it is still leverage.  Most reputable merchants will be more flexible in the face of a chargeback where they are assessed additional fees.

But yes, I've successfully charged back items as late as 6 months after a purchase that went bad.  The scummier the merchant, the more willing they are to go to bat for you.

Maybe Avalon should simply buy a large lot of chips and design Avalon MK2 to run on bfl chips. Sure would solve a lot a problems for them and bfl.

I can atest to this being true. (Ref: The chargeback fees)

The biggest issue is not that you get charged a fee for a chargeback. It is that you gain a reputation for poor transactions.

Most Merchant accounts (that accept Credit Cards) will only allow you to fail 2% of the time. Then they drop you and charge you a termination fee.

There are probably several reasons why BFL doesn't have a standard Credit Card account*. The Main Rep (Josh) has even lashed out at Paypal on BFL forums. (which I am sure is against their terms of service)

Link: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/pre-sales-questions/2843-what-happened-pay-google.html#post34971

http://i44.tinypic.com/2yljjtk.png

If they lose PayPal, they lose a good portion of their Credit Card charging ability. I am unsure whether BitPay accepts CC. I believe they do not and only deal with Virtual Currency.

--------------------

Anyway, BFL customers don't complain enough, hence why they get bent over a desk quite alot. (Rather than them bending someone over the desk)

*PayPal Merchant Account is not considered a "real" standard merchant account in my opinion.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/terms-outside#user_responsibilities

Part 4

Prohibited Transactions. You agree that you will not use PayPal to accept payment for illegal products or services, including but not limited to materials that infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties. You will not use the Service, the PayPal website or any of the services offered therein for any unlawful or fraudulent activity. If PayPal (or Wells Fargo, in connection with processing credit card transactions) has reason to believe that you may be engaging in or have engaged in fraudulent, unlawful, or improper activity, including without limitation any violation of any terms and conditions of this Agreement, your access to the Service may be suspended or terminated. Further, if such behavior involved a MasterCard or VISA credit card transaction, it may result in you/your business being prevented from registering for payment acceptance through any payment provider or directly with any bank acquirer operating under license to either the MasterCard or VISA card associations. You will cooperate fully with PayPal Wells Fargo, MasterCard or VISA to investigate any suspected unlawful, fraudulent or improper activity, including but not limited to granting authorized PayPal representatives "guest" or "member" access to any password-protected portions of your website.

You also agree not to use your PayPal account to sell goods with delivery dates delayed more than 20 days from the date of payment, or to sell securities, business opportunities, franchises or multi-level marketing or goods with delivery delayed more than 20 days from the date of payment. You agree not to impersonate a PayPal User or a PayPal representative, or to request that a PayPal customer provide you with their password or other information to access their account.

=================

Highlights for pointing out the obvious...

http://i44.tinypic.com/2yljjtk.png

Josh is the bestest COO in the whole wide world. He'll handle every aspect of your company with that title, from handling care of customer service, overseeing the production line, taking care of the financial matter, and even single-handedly man the official Twitter account. He's even on record in directing the webmaster as to what corrections need to be taken care of.

He won't have a single leg to stand on if he ever claims that he was limited to information at BFL when Sonny ups and disappear after his probation is over.

Why would they? BFL chips bang for the buck is about the same as Avalon.

Retail prices:
BFL   2.5GH/s for $85  29MH/s per $1
Avalon  280MH/s for $10 28MH/s per $1

Avalon of course has access to wholesale prices for their own chips, so their chips are far more efficient for them to use than paying BFL.

My experience is that PayPal pays attention mainly (or only) to communications that went through their system.

Most of the people who've tried to screw me have not provided responses to my queries through PayPal's messaging system, and coincidentally or not, it took PayPal investigators a matter of minutes to decide I was in the right.

I have always tried to format my correspondence such that a PayPal investigator could easily follow things.  Short simple questions of the merchant which should be easy to answer.  And which should be answered.

Well it's been over 48 hours, several people have tried starting group buys but as far as I can see not a SINGLE person has commited to SINGLE chip.

A few who did show interest would only do so if payment was on delivery and nothing up front.

Sanity prevails on bitcointalk :)

Puts on MASTER BFL Shill costume.

WTH, BFL customers?!

BUY Damnit, BUY NOW. BUY MORE!

.......alright I didn't want to do this...but....

Moderators, cut the oxygen to BitCoinTalk by 20%. If they won't buy because of "sanity"...they will buy through induced hypoxia. We just need to level out this "thing" called sanity once and for all...

(MASTER BFL Shill)

BFL chips crap all over Avalon chip, read about them before you post. The market is NOT flooded with Avalon chips, the have not shipped.

Because.....


(Shit! I have no good answer...fook it...time to deflect!)

http://images.quickblogcast.com/3/3/0/3/9/301356-293033/deep_thoughts_thinking_of_you_cubby_demotivational_poster_1279848943.jpg

There did your mind just blank out right now? Good. What were we talking about again?  ;D

<MASTER BFL Shill>

@Erk,

BFL's chips if they ever do arrive will be at least a month or two after AVALON chip orders get filled.

Months in the bitcoin world in terms of difficulty is like comparing Smart cars to Limousines.

*Mumbles something about the four extra quarters worth of clues that you are buying per GHs/Watt*

Erk, you should probably start updating your resume.  Things not looking good for BFL.

Notice how Erk claims the BFL chips win but can't post any numbers to back it up?  ;D

STop impersonating an australian...... sock puppet!

The never ending sock puppet army ...int03h ...others + others

They always start slow and then end up sounding exactly the same ...

Funny thing is once they have been used one up we never hear from them again ....strange ????

That's because they go on tour.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade/RedHotChiliPeppers2011Tour.jpg

This was always going to be a longshot for them. They are experts at marketing their products to unsophisticated buyers (not pumping up my own tyres, they got me as well). Anyone contemplating buying chips themselves is likely an order of magnitude better informed and would see that the risk of buying BFL chips doesn't justify the premium. Only by shipping all product lines in volume will BFL demostrate that their chip issues are behind them.

It's catch-22. If the chips worked properly they would have had developers begging them to release them. Because the chips don't work very well they need to sell more to get a better volume price. But no one experienced will want to buy chips to help them do that.

And the BFL chip performance is only marginally better hash/$ than Avalon's. Why would anyone take that risk?

Price/Performance
BFL: 2600 MH/s for $89 is 29.2 MH/s per $1
Avalon: 280 MH/s for $10 is 28 MH/s per $1

Power efficiency
Avalon: 66,000 MH/s @ 600W 110 MH/w 
BFL: 5200 MH/s @ 35W 148MH/w  (the ars technica box measured 5.2 @ 50W)

and it'll ship 2 weeks after avalon chip order starts being assembled and/or shipped out.


 ;D

Yeah, I'm really surprised they didn't offer a significantly better price than Avalon. They are shipping later and they are an unproven technology. I don't see any reason to chose them over Avalon for discrete chips right now.

I think they are going to get very few pre-orders and drop the price significantly in the next few weeks. Or maybe they actually need the money that desperately and will simply go out of business.

It doesn't help that they just angered every so single one of their 60,000 preorder customers which would have been their best market for selling discrete chips.

Which one is Josh and Anthony or Steven? or Josh Secretary?  ;D

So they've pissed away all their pre-order money with the assumption that it'd keep on rolling in, so now that avalon has taken their market they've made a half-assed panic offer in response.

Sad! they don't deserve a single chip order! and wouldn't even need to offer it had they just started delivering some decent quantities of product.

+1

BFL needs to be gone. Meaning out of business. They have hurt this community and its members much more than any other scam to date.

Only idiots will now pre-order from BFL and pay the order without an escrow.

There is no sign that BFL will start shipping large amounts within the next weeks and months. They are now in a prototype phase and maybe they loose money with every Jalapeno they ship. A poor yield is the only reason I can imagine why only 30 - 40 Jalapenos were shipped since april.

The 30 or 40 is at least 100 but don't let me spoil your smear.

http://bfl.ptz.ro/

c:\tmp>wc -l bfl_list.txt
   3408

c:\tmp>grep Undelivered bfl_list.txt | wc -l
   3365

Gives 43 happy people ;)

You forgot all the ones that haven't registered on that list.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=209750

But still, there are 43 happy people...:-)

I forgot erk that u have access to all of the delivery documenation.... considering u work for those asshats

erk..josh..bfl_temp..sonny...jody...whoever the fuck u are...u are  not an australian thats for sure !!

43 ... thats extremely impressive......

215g ...i could achieve that with 70 rigs...I have 20 at the moment and another 10 in a week or so

So i am ~50% of the total output of BFL so far after 60000 pre-orders and ~12-14 months of development

It cost me about 40k and these guys on guesstemates have spent in excess of 2-5+million
(maybe u could give us some exact figures erk mac jerk)

These guys are the poster child of FAIL town USA

This advantage turns negative when taking into account that these chips theoretically arrive 4 to 5 weeks after avalon chips arrive when ordered at the same time. In this time the difficulty grow so much that there is no advantage anymore or even an disadvantage.

If they arrive at all. Avalon has already demonstrated their ability to produce lots of chips that work and actually ship them to customers. I would imagine these chips would earn in a day what they cost in a year in electricity.

The pricing for BFL chips is extremely goofy. The better performing chips are actually cheaper per engine, so until BFL updates their prices there's no reason to purchase anything but Grade A chips.

As for why you would choose the BFL chips over the Avalon ones, I would say that BFL's present more interesting opportunities for board and cooling design. The BFL ASICs consume less power than their Avalon counterparts, and the lower device count per GH simplifies board design. If both were available immediately at the current prices I think it'd be a no-brainer.

The big question for BFL (and Avalon) is whether they can actually deliver on the timelines they've talked about. Both of them have had huge issues with getting production out the door for completed miners, but chips sales should be much simpler. It's been 7 weeks since people started paying for Avalon chip sales now. If Avalon does get their chips out in the next 3 weeks as promised, 3+ months for BFL chips will be hard to justify. If Avalon is late (and they're already 3 weeks late on providing samples), it might be closer.

There is certainly a lot more room for potential improvement with BFL. But there are too many unknowns until they are able to produce in bulk and ship to their customers. They say 100+ days, but we all know that could mean 100 days + while(1) { date = date + 2 weeks; }.  We don't even know what the size of the grades/bins are. If everyone orders Grade A and that ends up being 3% of the yield, there are going to be a [blot[/b] of unhappy customers.

Avalon has at least gotten over 100,000 of their chips onto boards and those boards into devices and shipped to customers. We have some performance history in the wild to go on with them. We shall see how late they are delivering their chip orders.

Please, don't lump Avalon in with BFL. Avalon #1 was originally scheduled for a Feb shipment, and they shipped most in Feb and Mar. That's pretty close to on-time. Batch #2 is maybe 1 month late.

BFL originally scheduled for a Oct shipment, and 7 months later has hardly shipped squat. There's no comparison.

i am selling 32 chip credits !

pm me with offers

Also selling 48 chip credits.

Is the 100 days up? Who has received their bulk chips?

And are there miner designs at all?

I have 1152 chip credits.  $1 each.  Can use John K as escrow.

For $1152 that is a savings of roughly $29K off your order.

100 days are not quite up.  First orders were on 6/10/13.  100 calendar days after that is 9/18/13.  However if BFL does not start requesting balance of payments on those early chip orders soon we can probably start to worry.

Look pardon my ignorance but whats the point ????

~30 chips  @ $57 to get 60-70 Giga = $1900 just for the chips without any other components

It will never make ROI unless u get it online TODAY

Or are the chips now $20 each ???

32 chips at 4GH/chip and $50/ chip + 600 per 16 chip pcb is $2800 for 128GH/s

which probably returns investment if delivered by 10/1/13.

At least it is not at the point of no return YET..lolz

I have 100 chips that should be shipping soon (paid final balance) and would entertain any reasonable offers sent via PM. My fall is going to be busier than expected and I'm not sure I want to invest the required time that remains on this project. May be a great deal for someone wanting to get into mining.

What was your order date, if I may ask?