Bitcoin Forum

This is usually where things are starting to set in with the masses. BFL can't really say much because if they "delay" with another announcement they will get a flood of refund requests all at once.

At the same time they cant stay quiet forever.

Next update from josh will be the same as the rest...."blah blah blah, almost done, bumping, clock buffers, (more excuses), blah blah blah...just wait a little longer"

 :D

I believe BFL initially didn't start as a scam but started as a bunch of cowboys with a calculator sitting around a desk discussing possible PROFITs they could make IF they developed a ASIC device capable of delivering the advertized 1.0 to 1.5 TH/s speeds.

Now that reality has set in and the process is much too unrealistic to achieve those numbers (in the current state of technology) they are shitting themselves on how to get out of this situation.

SITUATION: They have to deliver a product that they can't make to the specs they advertised. They spent a fuckton of customer preorder money hiring staff, outsourcing every part of the ASIC development, and Adsense advertisements.

I've seen this type of situation before, would not surprise me if customers would strung along for another 6 months ...OR...BFL runs.

As someone with no direct involvement with BFL, I share some of these concerns. Of course, it'd be wrong to accuse them of being scammers without proof. If they do flop, I wonder how significant any negative impact on the bitcoin price might be.

Never said they were scammers....time will out them on that one. Just wait for it.

If they do flop I see the price going higher as people who were waiting for BFL to deliver now will either go the back of the line for AVALON or other vendors (if any) or just buy bitcoins out right.

This slow injection of ASICs that AVALON and ASICMINER are doing is a good base for network security as opposed to a HUGE influx of new hashing power all at once.

Edit: I guess a more appropriate question is, when do we consider BFL as scam? Is it when they don't deliver according to specs? Or is it when they go silent like PirateAt40 and run with the money?

If they can't deliver according to the specs they advertised (in a reasonable amount of time), in my book, that is a scam.

Be all that as it may, do you really have to make a thread about it?  Do you think the poor SOBs on the hook for 500 BTC or more do not realize the gravity of the situation?

I guess you're doing it for the lulz, eh?

I too think they are not scammers in the classical sense. They are just utterly incompetent when it comes to ASIC design, project management and public relations.

But I would give them a scammer tag for lying to the community and for placing Google Ads that say "Order now" (giving uninformed newbies the impression they already have a product) all over the place.

Josh's last statement has set the expectation there'll be no updates until at least the middle of next week (when new hardware for the test rig is due to arrive) - which probably means he'll be able to delay giving another update until after the Easter holidays.

I'm confused about whether the assembly house has gone ahead and assembled all the boards or whether that won't be done until after the test rig is working properly.

As an ex-bASIC customer refunded via CC, this seems like more of the same but on a bigger scale.

How so?

It, super unfortunately, reminds me of bASIC....















We all know how that turned out.....right?

I think in the sense that they took $1,000,000+,  announced an october shipping date, and now half a year later have produced absolutley nothing. The only difference between BFL and bASIC right now is that bASIC has accepted that they have failed, and was able to give most of the money back.

Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.

I think April will be a key month in determining BFL's future going forward.

The problem with BFL's silence is that it breeds speculation.  I too am wondering how they're going and whether they have encountered any new problems. 

All the while I see difficulty shooting up and the next step will knock many GPU miners out of the game unless they have very cheap electricity or are willing to gamble on a higher bitcoin price in the future.  In the latter case they would be better off just buying some bitcoins now with money.

According to BFL's own renewed time line, testing and assembly was meant to take a week or two at the most and they were supposed to descend upon shipping companies like a swarm of angry locusts in late February...

One word : seppuku.

Would be nice if they put a web cam live feed in their lab then you could see if they were working on it.  ;)

lol

I know this has been mentioned before, but...

Out of boredom I just clicked on one of the BFL links that grace this forum and bought a 1500 unit for 450-ish BTC.  Or could have.  The only thing it even looked like was a 'order' and to add insult to injury, they'll happily charge and extra $300 for 'rush delivery'.  After being 6 months delayed so far that is a pretty funny joke.

God but what bunch of slimeballs these people are!  They should get a scammer tag just for this issue if nothing else.

I wonder how many people have written scripts that do fake orders over and over again.

When you say "Rush delivery", I assume you mean when they describe "express shipping". Their final order page reads:
Express shipping only expedites the shipping process. It does not affect your placement in the order queue.

If this is where you got it, then I think you are being overly sensitive. That is a shipping feature offered by most companies that ship some product to you.
That said, I also not happy with their missed timelines. They aren't any better than they were last year with FPGA's. Arguably, they are much worse.

In the past it was always the next month that was the key month. I'm one of victims that ordered in the first week and requested a refund weeks ago. I dont't expect to get my ASIC or my refund in april. I think we will see several Avalon batches before a customer will see a BFL ASIC - if customers will see a BFL ASIC at all.

Quoted from the BFL manual as to how PR is to handle their clients and naysayers.