Bitcoin Forum

Apparently this is the plan they have although there are still some details that need to be hammered out

1/3 - 1/3 - 1/3 plan
from what I understand this plan goes like this; they take the total amount of stock they have when they are ready to ship it and they break it down into thirds.
The first third is shipped in first come first served fashion
The second third is shipped to those who are doing trade ins
The third third is shipped to random people



If nothing else at least this thread has this shipping plan in a place where it is easily found.

Feel free to discuss it, its a good opportunity to give your suggestions and feedback in one place about this shipping plan

Win.

There is a reason businesses work this way. Imagine if I ordered a book off Amazon and they said I was unlucky and would be waiting another month.

First come first served

The "trade-ups" should also be queued the same way.

BFL has stated the ASIC units will be shipped according to the 1/3rd-style plan. Although I am all for FIFO.

The other thread  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87934.840)was discussing if BFL should wait to ship units, thus shipping them out as a large batch, rather than a smooth delivery as they are made.

I understand the 1/3rd plan is what they were discussing most recently however they have not made any kind of official statement or promise on how they are going to do it and they have not hammered out most of the details.

That is why I created this thread/poll to get them to finalize things and give us an official statement of how they are going to do it, and also give a venue where customers can voice their opinions and offer suggestions on the best way to do this.

See no point to this thread to be honest, if you bothered to read other posts, then you would have enough information.

One of BFL's threads states that Trade-In customers which fall in the 1/3 of natural priority will be served based on their natural priority (chronological)

So, the second 1/3 in the scheme assigned for Trade-In orders should be exclusive from the first 1/3, but have it's own group chronological order.

Thank you for that, not sure why they show that URL with /products/ there is nothing about this policy on that page or any other page I can find.

It would be nice if things like this were on the website, I tried to have a conversation with BFL-Josh today but I think he went afk before he could answer my questions.

oh and by the way ice-chill your still on my ignore list and I still dont give a crap about anything you have to say.

thanks for the info I added it to the OP

streblo I also added your info and changed the post - I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in on this

if nothing else this thread at least puts all this information in one place, I am sure enough people care about when they are getting their ASIC's for this to warrant its own thread so they can easily find out how the shipments are being made.

I just realized that the 1/3 plan is missing a 4th element:  Those of us who converted backlogged orders of prior-gen units to ASIC units.  Where do we fall?

I voted for FIFO.  If BFL thinks that they won't be able to meet all preorders in October, then they should adjust the ship date on new orders coming in.  It isn't fair to people if they preorder expecting delivery in October, delivery begins in October, and they don't receive their order until, say, January.

1) The 1/3 - 1/3 - 1/3 plan only affects the initial batch of shipments. After that, it will be a FCFS order.

2) I can't believe you had the balls to create this thread, as you are a competing vendor of BTC mining equipment! You're openly questioning a competitors business practices! And a competitor that has promised a better product than yours, on top of that.

Here is my proposed shipping plan:

Each person gets six Jalapeno’s, except for the Person on the BFL’s right, who gets seven. The second person gets an additional SC, except on Tuesdays, in which case they get a "half-SC.  The third Mini-Rig is a "shralk" and is grounds for disqualification. With two Orders, one wants an SC and a Jalepeno, except at night, when one wants a Mini-Rig and Raspberry Pi.

If the buyer orders 3 SC’s and a Jalapeno, the buyer would get another unit, except when it's dark, in which case he'd have to give it back. The top order is a "royal Miner," but the odds of getting one are "astronomical" and truthfully I have never computed them.

Paying with Paypal is called a "kronk" and means that shipment will happen after the last full moon following the summer solstice during even numbered years.

:)    (10 points for Mr Spitzer)

Great Star-Trek reference.

I am a customer of BFL, why would I not care about this?

I have 10 BFL singles that I purchased before I ever started BTCFPGA, why would I not convert them to SC singles? It would be foolish not to, don't you think?

I am not questioning their business practices here I think its a very legitimate thing to want a clear answer on this, the release of these mining units could effect Bitcoin in very dramatic ways and Bitcoin is something I have invested the last two years of my life into. To me this is serious business, not some kind of bullshit attempt to make them look bad.


and Yes I have balls thanks.

Apologies, as I did not realize you were also a customer.

Its ok, no problem. :)

you won´t need that BFL stuff... the hashing algo will change so that all sha-256 speacialized hardware is useless!

^^^ will be making 0.05BTC/day in about 6 months.  :P

When? Do you have any proof?

No he doesn't. That's been the anti-asic camp's battle cry for a while now. The protocol can change, but if there was ever a security vulnerability found in SHA-256, specialized ASICs could become useless.

well he's right that could happen

however not all ASICS are created equal, I can't speak for the hardware that BFL is releasing but I can tell you that there will be sASIC based Mining hardware released eventually and with a structured ASIC you can reprogram them just like a FPGA. If BFL really does ship in October it wont be before them but it should be available by the end of the year.

the hash-method-change will be before BFL ships the ordered units. some called it "bitcoin 2"

Please link? I srsly doubt it. Unless he's talking of a hard-fork that no one will ever adopt.

LOL

Reality:

• Breaking compatibility with old Bitcoin clients is considered by us developers to be a Bad Idea by default, without significant justification.
• There is a long-known vulnerability to mining pools (including decentralized and peer-to-peer ones); it is possible to fix it by making a backward-incompatible change to the block rules, but even this is not considered sufficient to justify the break.
• That being said, we have a lot of planned improvements for the day we finally do need to break compatibility.
• The closest thing to "Bitcoin 2" is a branch specifically for these planned improvements to be implemented and tested; I have one, but it is accepted to be at least 2 years away (at any given time) from being used live on Bitcoin "mainnet", and there are literally zero actual improvements made in it because we're all preoccupied with present-day improvements that can be done without breaking compatibility. There are plenty of those to keep us busy for a long time.
• These improvements include keeping the proof-of-work compatible. That is, using the same SHA256 of 80 bytes, with nonce being in the last 12.
• The developers cannot single-handedly make a compatibility-breaking change. This decision inevitably lies with the economic majority who decide whether to accept the changes or not.
• It is reasonably expected that the final hashing algorithm used as proof-of-work will not change unless it is threatened. That includes either SHA256 being broken, or someone obtaining and monopolizing a substantial amount of the network hashpower.
• By selling ASICs at consumer prices, Butterfly Labs is helping to take Bitcoin to the next level of security: no longer can anyone just make ASICs to monopolize the network at will, because all the "good guys" will already be using ASICs themselves.
• There are currently zero legitimate grounds to justify even wanting ASICs broken.

Exactly.


Luke is talking about block withholding. We know how to fix it for centralized pools in an incompatible way— as luke points out, though not for fully decentralized pools.


Even most SHA256 "breaks" would not necessitate or justify a POW change (though might require the replacement of SHA256 _everywhere else_ in the protocol). E.g. the existent breaks for MD5 wouldn't make us move away from an MD5 POW if we were using it for that.

As Luke says, there could be reasons to justify altering the POW, but they're not things that would come quietly or subtly.   E.g. things like an active monopolizing super-majority attacker on the current POW.  Breaking everything is justified when the alternative is everything being even more broken, but not otherwise.

You must have missed my decentralized-compatible fix on the dev ML a few months ago :p

I'm between thoughts, Firstly, The firs come first served is just basic business rules, you cant expect to build reputation by "throwing the dice" on orders, but at the same time BFL also claim to try not to give monopoly to some people whilst the hash rate is low (yes it is low compared to whats comeing) So I understand trying to randomise it a bit, But I dont really agree for trade in's a priority, To put it bluntly, Those people allready have some hashing power and can wait their place in line.

I just hope when they start shipping there wouldn't be continuously an inherent 6-8 week wait for getting it delivered ...

Personally i think they need try to schedule shipments so that international and national customers get at approximately the same time, and make sure that no single order gets at once too much, say FIRST batch of shipment is limited to 2 per for the first say, 500 customers, then 1 per next 500 customers. Then start shipping in FIFO manner.
That way as large group of people as possible gets at least something early on AND no one can get like 4TH worth while no one else gets nothing.

Or if they have enough products to be shipped, then from get go FIFO manner, but the largest orders ship in 2 shipments, second one with 3 business day delay.

Knowing BFL tho, they will have very limited number at beginning, and if i order today a SC it will be February before shipment if they are right on schedule :(
They need to seriously ramp up the production, if i knew a Single would ship tomorrow if ordered today, i would not hesitate to order RIGHT NOW at least 4 of them.

We are working on ramping up our current shipping as well as our ASIC shipping.  Rest assured our shipping times are improving and will continue to improve through the ASIC launch.

ohhh kay....

Does ramping up mean ramping up your plan for shipping or actually ramping up shipping as in shipping things?

I mean ramping up the actual shipping.

thanks for clearing that up


so when will the first BFL ASICS ship?

I swear I see all these threads and they are all the same. Sounds like a couple of kids in the backseat repeating the same question over and over again.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet?Are we there yet? Knowing damn good and well.... :'(

The "Are we there yet?" Threads will be coming in almost exactly 2 months. These are the "How much loooooooooonnnngeeerrrrrrrr???? [/whine]" threads.  ;)

Would be fair to ship the units to outside of USA 3 or 4 days earlier, then in US, as the customs delay leaves people outside of USA disadvantaged.

It seems like a brilliant marketing plan to draw in more pre-sales with a chance that you won't need to wait 12 months for your magic "beans". Oh... I mean "jalapenos"  :D

Kudos to whoever came up with that scheme.

I dont know, I have some experience in FPGA and even ASIC, your sure BFL will be able to ship ASICs so fast after getting them from production line? Customers may get a DOA product or something wich will perform 1/10 of the specs due to some glitch or bug which cant be worked around..
PS: I do plan to buy BFL ASICs too but after they hit the market.

Here comes November!  ;D

As I understand, it's because they want to accumulate a large amount and ship it all at once, so the distribution timing is more fair.

Let me explain a bit about why our shipping of product is going to be totally different moving into the ASIC arena.

Right now, we have to rely on outside vendors for many of the parts that go into an FPGA single.  Couple that with the fact that the FPGA single is a complicated piece of machinery and the manufacture and assembly of an FPGA single is very labor intensive.

With the ASICs we are moving the manufacture of a large portion of it in house.  This will cut our supply chain issues down dramatically and allow us to build product as required to fulfill orders... we've invested quite a lot of money in building up our manufacturing and assembly facilities so that we aren't in the position we are in now and forced to rely on the timetables of other companies for some components.  Strangely, the biggest trouble we have is getting the most common stuff on time (fans, heatsinks, etc...).  Then there is the fact that the MiniRig and the Singles use different components, so we have to acquire and keep stock for both types.  With the ASIC generation, all of that will be shared between the units, so it cuts our supply issues in half and allows us to keep more stock.

tl;dr : We have made many changes for the ASIC generation that will make our production, assembly and shipping times measured in days, not weeks.

Hm, quite a cryptic post... :)
What exactly can you do in-house except assembling? Maybe bonding and packaging, but this will be a bit crazy..
Also, do you already have the chips in your hands for fixing final design and testing? ASICMINERs seems to move pretty fast and they dont need to ship a product.

We have a full pick and place machine in the works as well.

Ah, interesting..

Three questions for you BFL:
 
1.The $1,333.00 should be paid prior to shipment? I'm trying to place an order but for some reason the procedure won't continue (trying via Paypal).

2. I'm living in Greece. Will there be extra cost?

2. Is it certain that the BitForce Single 'SC' has a constant 40GH/s performance?

Thanks in advance for your answer(s).

GH/s per $ is what i care about, and what really matters. Also shipping speed. At the current low standards 2weeks or less to ship out is reasonable. Whoever meets those requirements is getting my money. So i really hope measured in days isn't a dream. Good luck to everyone.

The jalepeno is supposed to be USB powered. Dunno if that helps any.

It's a novelty item with the worst GH/s per $ that BFL will offer. I would still buy one  since winter is approaching and it's cheap enough, but most of my money will be spent on mid and high range miners. I just hope more competition starts. I like options, and BFL has a lot to prove still.

  Thanks for the updates there.  Good to know things are on schedule.

"Kind of" on schedule.... first they said beginning of October, now it is late of.

I don't recall seeing the word "beginning" anywhere, but I could be mistaken.

I also don't remember seeing any claim about shipping in the beginning of October.

Never seen beginning of October as any given timeframe from day one.  Always been late October.  As such, I'm fine if it also meant beginning of November.  Past that, and I'll be patient to the level of accordingness to my place in the order queue ;)

I do hope they ship in late Oct!  As an international customer I really want to get my hands on these before Xmas!

Christmas is such an arbitrary deadline... I want mine before November!

What about Jalapenos? You keep talking about singles and mini rigs but not Jalapenos?

Will those come out faster?

BFL has said that units of all types will come out at about the same time.

By Christmas I hope to have all current pre-orders shipped, not just the first batch! 

+1000!!  Thanks Josh!

Very valuable information, even if it is just a goal.  Thanks for sharing Josh!

To be fair he did say he hopes to have!

I will take that.  At the end of the day it should be such a game changer that it wont really matter when it comes out.  If you get your kit before the difficulty drop you are lucky!  If not, unlucky!  Fingers crossed for early delivery.

My wife's birthday is October 13.  I hope to have my units by then. I would like to know if you can make the October 13 deadline since I might have to buy my wife a backup birthday gift.  (Irene doesn't read these forums so nobody tell her.)

If October 13 doesn't work out my birthday is November 4.

I heard otherwise. Through the grapevine of course.

October 13: Unlikely, but not impossible
November 4: Possible


This is correct.

You're no fun :P

I would buy Irene something else.   ;D

I feel kinda screwed about having to wait a couple months while people are bringing up the threat level because they just got in early. Thus destroying the reason I bought the machine. To make money.  It's just greedy. It's a pre-order. All units should be shipped at the same time. I'm paying just as much money as everyone else. This is utter BS.  If it was weeks I'd understand. But we're talking months.  This is bad for anyone who has ordered within the last month or so. Again, utter B-S

If they start shipping in early November and have all preorders out by Xmas, thats only 6-7 weeks.  Not really months.

QQ moar

Ordering 1 month before someone else doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a month longer for them to get it.  It just means that they have as many orders to go through that were put in that month before it gets to them.

LOL, then you should have ordered earlier, eh?

Life isn't fair.  Deal with it.

Or dont order and take your business elsewhere!

There is plenty of competition cropping up. I wouldn't worry so much. BFL seems to be making a real effort to improve. I think they know they are doomed if they don't start acting like a real company.

Just voicing my opinion bro. It is what it is. I said my piece. Had to get it off my chest. I aint cryin. Just had to get that off my chest.  If they keep their schedule then we won't have a problem.  Just get em out don't make me wait months and we're cool.

Hi All,

Does any one know when does BFL stop taking per-orders, any approximate date? 

I am trying to gather funds by next month to place per-order for few BFL Jalapeno's. Would like to have Idea about cut off time for per-orders.

Ashitank

I don't think there will ever be a point when they stop taking orders.  It'll be either a pre-order, a back-order, or an order.  When you have funds, you'll be able to do one of the three.

Yes I understand that, but My question relates to expiry of Pr-orders of Jalapeno in sense change from per-order to normal order will change cost of unit from 149$ to --> $? , so wanted place per-order before price changes from that of per-order price to normal order increased price.

Is the price changing after pre orders? Higher or lower?

Not that anyone has heard yet.  If anything the price of ASIC units will go down over time as difficulty rises due to much reduced ROI. Luckily for the ASIC companies, once the chips are set the cost per chip is trivial.

Hmmm... this is the first I've heard of the price changing after pre-orders are up.  Where did you read/hear about the price changing after preorders are done?

I'm curious too. I've never heard anything of a price drop...

No where really.

I thought demand will out grow supply & we will have jacked up prices to bear, if this is not the case I am happy.

No way, prices are going to plummet due to insignificant incremental cost to produce units after development.

This is pure economics. The small units will become 8 GH as they just slap on twice as many chips and they will be the same price.

The only problem is once this price war starts it's a race to the bottom. Hopefully we will find a market equilibrium and then things will settle.

Buying in the middle somewhere is where most people can get hurt depending on how quickly the price drop occurs in relation to difficulty increase and BTC market price.

Avalon is going from $1299 preorder to $1999 standard.

We have absolutely no plans to raise the price after the pre-order phase.  I'm having trouble envisioning a scenario where we would do that.

 Josh, understanding that you don't have to say anything at all, in light of all this recent brou-haha over past fraud by officers of BFL, can we get an update on ASIC production, maybe some photos, specs... something to calm the masses ?

I don't care that the masses say, as long as I get my Singles. :P

IF  im not mistaken, their 1/3 rule is only for the first month orders. Which I think is okay. Now, after the first month orders, its obvious that, upgrade or not, each  order should be delivered as they come in..

Just quoting this for reference. I wonder why BFL deleted this post.