Bitcoin Forum

I see some problem with http://store.avalon-asics.com/ - It asks some password for "prepping for batch #3".

Seems like batch#3 is supposed to be invite only.

Interesting, good find.   I assume we will see a newsletter announcement soon.

Strange.... exciting?  :-\

I can normally login and see me order status here:

http://store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-batch-2

But even that redirects to the 'prepping for batch #3' page.


Where's my batch #2 Unit!?!?

Not everyone has even received their batch #1 unit.
It seems to me that the tail end of batch #1 were a bit unlucky... with I suspect, the longest time between payment and delivery - all during a bull run in BTC prices just to add to the pain a little.

prepping for batch 3 :) http://store.avalon-asics.com/?post_type=product (http://store.avalon-asics.com/?post_type=product)

Batch #1 has not ended yet.

seems I can't access to this link.

Thanks, but I cann't get access to youtube.

If I was part of the avalon team, I would mine with the asic units we have now and slowly ship 1 or 2 units out every other day so by the time batch 2 comes around we could keep a steady supply of asics mining.

:facepalm:

The same thing happened when batch #2 went live.  Batch #1 customers could no longer login to check their order status.

Does it mean batch #2 will be shipped in near future? :P

What do you guys expect the price to be for batch 3? And is there any hardware changes?

Price is supposed to be the same, $1500. It may have 6 slot capacity, as batch 2 orders could.

I'd really like to know, plus I'd like to know about the expansion cards. I've ordered every batch, and I'd like to order a large batch 3 order,10 units or more, plus enough cards to fill them all out.

All of that in spite of the lackluster support.

Did you get batch #1 shipped?

Do the Avalons really use 10x the power of the BFL 60GH/s ones? I was thinking about ordering batch 3 but it seems like so much power use.

Compare with potential reward, power cost is nothing.

BFL does not have any asic's in the market yet. So BFL asic's are more like a dream, they do not exist so you cannot really compare to some product that is not even real.

4x more, estimation for BFL singles is around 130w...

Avalon team, can I have an invitation please for batch #3?

I dont think its invitation. Its CMS login to admin page.

Please pre-order batch #3 if possible, so we can have our #2 units get shipped. lol ;D ;D

Password, eh? What is this spinning diamond thingy...

i would be happy if i get my #1 shipped  ;)

So the first unit from batch one was delivered about 50 days ago, there were 300 units, so they must be shipping at a rate less than 6 per day if you haven't got yours.

Let's say 5 per day to be best to hope for.

Batch 2 was 600 units, so 120 days to complete.

That puts batch 3's arrival quite a way off :(

I appreciate this presumes production rates remain the same, but if they could have increased the rate then surely batch #1 wouldn't still be waiting.

no. they started the "real" shipment on March 1st. its hard to say how many avalons of #1 are shipped, but mine will be one of the latest.
i think they will start shipment of batch #2 on April 10th. Or maybe the "special" units a few days earlier.

Where did you get this information?

Batch #1 is more than 300, maybe 500-600

which information exactly? the most is what i think. and there was a mail from bitsyncom on march 1st.

no. bitsyncom said batch #1 is 300 (+/-10)

No.

The April 10 date. The email stated "Shipments will continue on March 10".

launch.avalon-asics.com -> batch #2
Shipping Time: March 5th – April 5th, 2013
and they have one week delay. so i think they will start on april 10th.

In fact, in batch #2 page which was replaced by batch #3 preparing page now, the date is March 10 - April 15.

i think 300, too

300 is the number used on their website and to the community.   Just saying "no" does not make this not true.   Provide evidence we can evaluate if you think this is wrong.   

+1 single word comments are useless

Dear Avalon,
I also would sincerely appreciate an invitation to purchase batch 3 please as soon as available.
Sincerely yours.
Smith :)

as stated before its first come first serve when the open the flood gates.... does anyone have inside or other info on when batch 3 will open? Ive been sleeping with my phone in the case i do get the email in the middle of the night (daytime in china).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137534.msg1611560#msg1611560

You don't have to be so radical, you will have a few days of notice. Just keep your btc ready.

From what i hear you will have less than an hour window to buy before they sell out. How long was Batch 1 and 2 open for?

Please keep doing what you are doing. Radical gets you a spot in line.

Not quite true, but expect them to go out of stock pretty fast.

On the first batch ordering was borked. The sudden influx of buyers DDoS-ed the payment processor and ordering had to be stopped after a couple of hours or so. After about a week of sorting the mess out ordering was re-opened for the units that were left unsold (can't remember if there were only 130 or 200-something left). Either way, it took almost half a day for these units that were left to be sold out.

On the second batch, something similar happened - the sudden buyers influx generated a clusterfuck. Orders were messed up, some people saw other people's carts, payments could not be finished properly etc. It was quite unpleasant, so again, ordering was stopped for a few days - a week. After the payment processor got their shit together, second part of batch 2 went on sale (IIRC about 200 units were left). Again, it took several good hours for all of these to be completely sold out.

The thing you should know is that none of the hiccups was the fault of the Avalon guys. It was mostly the payment processors that screwed up, they weren't expecting such a sudden and huge influx of customers and were caught with their pants down. For the third batch they are using BitPay, which AFAIK is the largest payment processor in the Bitcoin economy. That and the lessons learned from the previous batches should make things go smooth this time. But don't expect the units to last more than a few hours once they're put on sale.

...more than a few minutes :D

Don't blame the Avalon guys? So there aren't any better ways to gradually roll out an ordering window, with your own private code for X hours, and enforce a certain # per customer? Not buying it. We have the technology for a slow-roll ordering process with a semblance of order. Just sloppy to throw it up and open the floodgates. This doesn't have to be black Friday at Walmart.

The main issue here is they probably need Batch #3 monies to pay for Batch #2 hardware. What will pay for Batch #3 hardware? Did they create a fab lab?

That said, I'd rather get an Avalon than a BFL; they EXIST.

Avalon ASIC Unit – Batch Three
From: ฿88.00


store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-unit

WOW!  :o
115BTC with ATX Power Supply and 4 Modules

88 Bitcoins? That's over $5000. What the fuck? I thought they would only cost $1500.

I think the prices are based 20 dollars USD per btc.

so about 1750 dollars for 3 unit Avalon without power supply

Except btc is now trading at $60, making the units considerably more expensive...

At 1.500usd it was quite a safe gamble. At +5.000usd the expected value is negative. Unless BFL is a complete scam, and no other player delivers a single ASICs, 90btc is a losing proposal for sure.

At that price I would only buy one if I had hundreds of btc, mined/bought when the exchange rate was much lower. Which unfortunately is not the case.

Yep - that is 100% true. Better bet is to invest BTC in market for players already having the hash power (get the hint). If this is the pricing structure, that is what I am going to do,

Yeah, if I had hundreds upon hundreds of coins mined from the early days I'd jump on board.  I don't, and when you consider where the difficulty is likely to go in the next few months before batch 3 ships, I doubt there is much if any profit to be had, and $6k is a lot of money to put behind "supporting the network".

Thinking about it more - there was a good chance this would happen.  With a single supplier in the market, they can charge as much as they want (as long as they clear their stock).  Classic supply/demand curve.  Without more supply (BFL?), we are at the mercy of a monopoly supplier.

On the plus side, a market where people can charge $6000 for a product that is profitable at $1500 (assuming the batch 1/batch 2 prices in the $1500 ballpark was profitable for them) is a pretty decent incentive for other players to enter the market.   At a batch size of 600, and a monopoly profit of $4500 per unit, that is $2.7 MILLION of monopoly profit for that one batch.

That kind of money is more than the cost of developing an ASIC-based product (based on nothing more than what I've gleaned from these forums).  So assuming batch 3 sells out (which I don't doubt it will, and if I had picked up hundreds of coins in the sub-dollar days I'd probably buy one just to support the network), then what you're looking at is a guaranteed ROI for someone else to join the fray.

Even assuming BFL actually ship something soon (any maybe that's the reason for the price - this could be Avalon's last hurrah before BFL ship a superior product), there seems like there is still plenty of room for another player or two.

And more food for thought - what do you think Avalon are going to do with the 54000 (approx) btc they get for this batch sale?  At least some of that will have to be sold to pay "real" money to their suppliers, pay wages, expenses etc.  Unless they decide to keep a significant portion of the sale proceeds and monopoly profits in btc, then there will be a decent chunk of btc for sale in the market in the near future.  Which is fine by me - I'm a believer, and any dip is an opportunity to buy more as far as I am concerned.

Can someone please point me to the page that gives these 88BTC and 111BTC prices ?
Until then, I think mentioning these high prices for batch #3 is FUD.
The only thing I see at store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-unit is a rotating 'diamond'.
Perhaps someone of the Avalon team pulled a prank on us, by putting up this price for a few minutes, and is now LHAO ?

At the end of the day I'm sure this will benefit BFL. As this is betting, I'm sure that some of the ones that saved money for their batch #3 units, will prefer to bet on BFL... Just because is cheaper, so in case BFL finally manages to deliver, the expected profit is much higher.

And when (and if) the first BFL unit arrives to customers hands... Expect a huge rush to get one of their units.

Please do your own research. That is the confirmed price.

It is confirmed. Follow this link (the announcement is by avalon official): http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbbs.btcman.com%2Fforum.php%3Fmod%3Dviewthread%26tid%3D1550%26extra%3Dpage%253D1

It was clear this would happen .. earlier or later .. seeing the prices on ebay going to like 10.000 € per unit for a pre-order and people really demanding the unit..

Many people also believe in all this obvious scam's (i.e. primeasic & co) because market really wants ASICs.

As long as there is no competition, they can take any price they want - this is what they do now..

Compared to labour price in China > 5000 $ for a unit is making someone really, realy rich over there..
(and 600 Units * 5000 $ makes 3.000.000 $... )

I'm thinking they are mining themselves with the units as long as they can before shipping which gives them some extra $ too..

I really really hope BFL ships soon, otherwise btc will have a real problem soon as (mining) market is more or less controllable by one company (in china) ... which will make it drop really hard as soon as "investors" realize

Thanks, 88BTC is not much more than 75BTC that was paid for batch #2.1
I know at that time the BTC/USD exchange rate was different.

You have to stop thinking in USD and think in BTC

A batch #1 Avalon cost about BTC 106 when it was paid in September 2012

The question is: how long does it take to earn back the BTC at current difficulty when the machines are delivered?

None of the Batch #1 Avalons (except the first 3) have earned back their value in BTC amount, but they are coming close (mine have earned BTC 78 each by now)

Batch #2 machines were cheaper and Batch #3 machines will be even cheaper, but difficulty will go up dramaticly. If you break even after 100 days, you can be glad. I wish my other investments broke even in 100 days and after that started generating free profit

If you want to look at the USD value, you are way better off to buy BTC and store it for 100 days, you will have a lot more 'profit' that way in USD but you will not have more BTC

What is your game? You want more USD or more BTC? Choose wisely ;-)

+infinity

Well, thinking in btc: this has always been a gamble. For batch #1 and batch #2 customers, because they did not know if the units were real. But they knew that if they won that gamble, they would have had a high profit. For batch #3 customers, the bet is on the difficulty. As said earlier: given the current network and the total hashing power that will be deployed ONLY by AVALON, you will get your ROI in 100 days. That's a nice investment. But IF BFL and/or ASICminer deploy more hashing power... Then it's a losing proposal also if you think in BTC.

Unfortunately, without underlying fiat currency, crypto currency is valueless - until that changes, everyone needs fiat. If you run out of food or shelter, it will be really hard for you to find some now with e-currency.

there is plenty of competition, google ASICminer


"Bullshit"

Seriously, stop with these stupid assumptions. Where are they mining? Solo mining? On a pool? Which one? You really think people would not notice?


ASICminer is at least twice as big as Avalon at this point, start trolling their threads ;-)
(both as Chinese though, so as a conspiracy nut, you are onto something)