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I have been dealing with them for about 3 months now. They have always returned every email I have sent them in a timely manner.  I was going to be in the area (this ended up not working out) and asked If I could tour the facility and see the build process.  They told me sure no problem but they expected to be extremely busy trying to get everything lined up so it might be better if I give them two weeks..  They also told me they want to be a long term mining partner and warned me not to buy a mining rig if I was hoping to just make fast profits.  They said realistically it would be about a year ROI to get the money back. 

So far, the company has been professional, honest, had a good attitude about it.

Now for the people who are going to jump in about how they have not delivered in 7 months, I have to say.

I have been doing some homework on what it takes to design an asic, get it produced, and turned into a finalized product.  Hint* not easy. 

Now I can believe that maybe these guys are kinda learning as they go.  And they are using everyone else money to do it.  I grant that.  But the same could be said for almost any new business.  I started a company 8 years ago out of my garage, just poof made it up one day.  And Yes I had the basics down in the beginning but honestly we were not that good at what we were doing for a few years. 

Also, Successful Business veterans quickly learn that its very easy mistake to make which is to not properly set a customers expectations.  I can see that BFL is obviously guilty of this.  It is clearly documented that they have said multiple times when something was going to happen and it didn't due to unforeseen complexities in the process. 

But lets be honest for a moment.  From what I can see, if they are a scammer company they are doing a very bad job about it. 

1) Have a public office where anyone can visit any time they want
2) This is their 2nd round of hardware (fpga's to asics?)
3) They are putting alot of money into R&D into software, and hardware design in support of the community with relatively low returns.  Probably working insane hours to do it. 
4) giving refunds to unhappy customers
5) offering lifetime warranty on all their products.

I say give them a break, If you don't believe in them, don't fucking buy anything from them.  But to openly accuse them of fraud, cheating, lying, and all the other shit I have been reading seems to be unwarranted to me.  I ordered a minirig from them and I want it to work correctly for at least a few years.  I want it to be well built and if that takes a little bit longer to make it awesome, then so be it.
I don't want some piece of shit they just slapped together so I can have the 2 week advantage over everyone else.  I would rather it take a few extra weeks if that means they are going to do it right. 

Another point is, we need companies like BFL who are willing to invest in the infrastructure if bitcoin is to survive long term.  Yea they have some faults, hopefully they will learn their lesson and start doing what every good business man does.  Under promise and over deliver.  Right now they have been over promising for a while and I think that is why so much negativity is going their way at the moment. 

I know I'm probably in the minority given the tone on these forums but I just wanted to throw out my two btc.

So much of what you said is very subjective and not using quantifiers.  I went and bolded some of that crap.

1) Considering this was an opinion piece, is that surprising?

-Professional?  Is calling somebody a c*cksucker professional?  Maybe in the porno industry.  Is that the company you keep?

2) Yes, I have been treated in a professional manner thus far.  I really cant defend breaking that traditional customer service role for someone else but if i were on the receiving end of some of the crap that a lot of people are dishing out I'm sure it would be an easy mistake to make.  But they have not done it to me. 

-If ASICs are not easy, then how were 2 competitors able to start after them and beat them to the punch? They may not have the lowest 65nm process, but what good is that when your customers lose money hand over fist?

3) So building ASIC's are easy?  Could you qualify that statement?

4) How are people losing money hand over fist, because they should have bought the other ASICS out there that also don't exist?  Who is losing money hand over fist? 

5) Mining is a long term business.  Anyone who expects to make instant overnight returns is deluding them selves.  Sounds like you are mad because you didn't make those 3 billion percent overnight returns?

-Honest? I don't see how this company can be called honest when the PR has one of the biggest conflicts of interest in all of bitcoinland.  Running a pool and selling mining contracts while at the same time being a PR guy for hardware vendor.  He made promises to 2 conflicting ends of a spectrum.

6) So they are running a pool, but they don't actually have any hardware?  I'm confused.  Which one is it?

-fraud, cheating, lying?  Fraud - willful intent to deceive. I think taking orders for an item in June that is supposed to be delivered in October and then delivering it for over 3x the amount of time is blatant fraud.  They stifled competitors by giving false information (although this is seen in many other industries - still doesn't make it right).  Who the hell thinks they had a prototype sometime last year?  Anyone?  Every misstep with the bumping and packaging stage seems to indicate they hadn't done it before.  You're telling me they made the same royal screw ups twice?  Only Homer Simpson could do that.

7) So asking for pre-orders is now considered fraud?  Better let EA, Blizzard, and everyone on kickstarter know. 
I think people are bing a bit harsh for 2 reasons.  a) you are free to get a refund if you don't want to wait.  b) it was called a pre-order for a reason. 

-The final point is your assessment.  A "bit longer"?  Understatement much?  End of June to end of October is 4 months.  A bit would be maybe 5, 10, 15%.  Maybe even 20% more.  If a car dealer quoted you a price and said please forgive me, the car is a bit more - 190% more.  Would you have that same reaction?  Unwarranted?  Are you kidding yourself?

8)How does the unit taking longer translate into a higher price? Correct me if I'm wrong but Tesla has a waiting list to get their cars.  But I'm sure they are not changing the price?  I'm sure getting your actual car is subject to delays in production.  Are they scammers also?


They are not a scam (at least not until they run away with the money).  They are unprofessional, liars, fraudulent.

9) They are not a scam, just fraudulent? How does that even make sense?

May I ask what kind of business you run that you see this as professional?  I don't see how anyone could attempt to call it ethical.  It's skirting illegal at the very least, but if you believe in Karma they'll burn in hell.

10) They have wronged you (or society I'm still trying to figure out which)  to the point they will now "Burn in hell"  Interesting.

Bottom line is that your free to take a refund if your not happy to wait.

But anyone who was expecting instant overnight returns by being first to market, is deluding them selves.  If you seriously had that expectation, you probably shouldn't be spending money on something you apparently don't understand how it works.

Everyone should be requesting refunds, because the risk that BFL will go out of business or be shut down grows with each day they fail to ship products that were 100% paid for months ago.


The promise of being first to market is PRECISELY what BFL sold...honest abe. The fact that they've failed so spectacularly while lying about nearly everything at every turn while Avalon and ASICMiner have succeeded in designing, building, and delivering ASIC mining hashes in less time should be a wake up call for BFL investors, but you need smelling salts to rouse many out of their slumber.

Hrm interesting.  I had only just first heard about them about 4 or 5 months ago.   I lurked on the forums and what not for a few months and did my research.  Avalon's offer is way more expensive and seems to be less well designed.  ASICMiner, I really don't know much about them.  I know you can buy mining shares on their system, and I spend an hour or two trying to figure out how it works but I really couldn't.  The BFL solution looks the cleanest, and most high end.  If they were selling on being first to market thats news to me.  I had not seen anything that promised that anywhere.  Maybe I'm just late in the game.

Hrm interesting.  I had only just first heard about them about 4 or 5 months ago.   I lurked on the forums and what not for a few months and did my research.  Avalon's offer is way more expensive and seems to be less well designed.  ASICMiner, I really don't know much about them.  I know you can buy mining shares on their system, and I spend an hour or two trying to figure out how it works but I really couldn't.  The BFL solution looks the cleanest, and most high end.  If they were selling on being first to market thats news to me.  I had not seen anything that promised that anywhere.  Maybe I'm just late in the game.

Bottom line is that your free to take a refund if your not happy to wait.

My only fear is that they will some how go out of business before I get what I paid for.

Hrm interesting.  I had only just first heard about them about 4 or 5 months ago.   I lurked on the forums and what not for a few months and did my research.  Avalon's offer is way more expensive and seems to be less well designed.  ASICMiner, I really don't know much about them.  I know you can buy mining shares on their system, and I spend an hour or two trying to figure out how it works but I really couldn't.  The BFL solution looks the cleanest, and most high end.  If they were selling on being first to market thats news to me.  I had not seen anything that promised that anywhere.  Maybe I'm just late in the game.

Then you don't understand the full scope of how deep their lies go. In mid Oct 2012, they were saying "Honest abe, we're shipping in October. We're world leaders in microprocessor design!" Now it's mid Apr 2013 and nothing has changed. Oct shipping was a lie. Nov shipping was a lie. Dec shipping was a lie. Jan shipping was a lie. Feb shipping was a lie. Mar shipping was a lie. Apr shipping is their latest lie.

You joined in 2011.  I'm not sure how you could have missed their promises of being the first to deliver ASIC unless you took a long hiatus from BTC.  If they didn't make this promise I would have used fiat to pay for my Single.  Instead I tossed 208BTC into a dark hole.  What's the point of asking for a refund when I would get what, maybe 10 BTC back at the current rate (or 6 BTC at the time of your original posting).  I'm pretty sure my first day order will make 6BTC, but will never make 208BTC before melting.

My options thus far are

1) get nothing and put my money on something else
2) wait this out and get what I paid for.

So in one hand I have everyone who probably has pre-orders telling everyone else to cancel and the other hand I have what seems to be from all accounts a mostly finished product that is close to shipping.

Yea, I believe that things have been over promised, However, I'm not sure if everyone is really this mad about it, or just trying to convince everyone else to cancel so they can get their rig first.  It honestly seems like everyone is over reacting a bit to me.

Hrm interesting.  I had only just first heard about them about 4 or 5 months ago.   I lurked on the forums and what not for a few months and did my research.  Avalon's offer is way more expensive and seems to be less well designed.  ASICMiner, I really don't know much about them.  I know you can buy mining shares on their system, and I spend an hour or two trying to figure out how it works but I really couldn't.  The BFL solution looks the cleanest, and most high end.  If they were selling on being first to market thats news to me.  I had not seen anything that promised that anywhere.  Maybe I'm just late in the game.

So, observation A: the OP has little to no clue about engineering or electronics, yet is trying to make a decision based on his expertise in these areas. Doomed to fail. Avalon is the working version, so by definition it is better designed than BFL.

observation B: Avalon didn't spend any money marketing because their product sells itself. BFL has no product and they are selling investments in BFL, so their brochures have to be very shiny to pull in the dough. Pictures of products that do not exist, promises of riches, and sowing the fear that people will miss out if the don't invest now.

Looks like BFL snared another investor.

BFL tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSu5Yyc1bEM

a) If your saying I have no clue about engineering or electronics, that would be an incorrect assumption.  My earlier statement said that I had not heard of Butterflylabs, not that I had not heard of asics.  I'm not claiming to be an expert, however, I do understand the process generally speaking, have some general knowledge in logic circuits, and programming.  I also understand the process of designing and manufacturing circuit boards from a high level perspective.  I understand that asics are basically the end of the road when it comes to mining and that no better technology currently exists to preform the calculations in a better,faster,cheaper way then an asic. 

b) It is a fallacy to claim that just because someone put a bit of time on their marketing that their product doesn't exist.

So we are back to my original statement, was this over promised? Yes, it is clear that either by under-experienced mis-judgement, in the actual complexities and overall timeline, of producing and putting together such a complex product from the ground up (the more likely scenario in my mind) or by willful misinformation(hard to believe), this product was promised and not delivered according to the timeframe that was understood by all parties who were very early "investors" as you would like to call them.  Yes, I get it.  That will be enough to piss anyone off to the point of OP claiming they will "burn in hell" for the wrongs they have inflicted on society. 

And the point I have been trying to make is that, while yes, this is not good business practice to over promise, it doesn't merit the level of negativity that I'm reading a lot of the haters spewing out.  Thus far, no one has lost any actual money, other then forgone profits of being first to market.  However, I still maintain that if your buying a mining rig solely for the purpose of getting that one or two month advantage over everyone else, then you need to re-evaluate your strategy, as mining isn't a short term venture.  It is a long term game. 

I have done the math, and even if the difficulty goes up to over 300M which i think is unlikely, and the btc price crashes to under $50, you will still be able to make 100% money back in less then 12 months. 

So I say, being first to market really doesn't matter as much as most people think it does.  Yes, you will not make $5,000 / day, become the next bitcoin millionare and retire at 35 but that is honestly pure delusion that anyone would think that that kind of a return should be expected in the first place. 

It's clear from your rebuttal that no amount of proof will get you to change your opinion.  I might have agreed with you 4 months ago (look at my posts).  The stuff coming directly from them makes me think otherwise now.

I bolded the single point I thought was the most egregious, contentious part I found in your argument.  Over-promising is saying like UPS saying your package will get there Tuesday, but i gets there Wednesday in your case.  Willful deceit would be like UPS advertising 3 day service and delivering every single package 9 days laters for every single customer.

And if you think nobody lost money on this then there is no point for anybody else posting anything else here since you have your head.... in the sand.  The forums are full of stories of people who have changed their lifestyle and behavior to invest in what they think is the future.  Perhaps you should read more.

I can appreciate what your saying. It would most certainly be possible to change my opinion and don't mean to be hard headed, but I feel like I have a valid point and am waiting for just 1 person to agree with me.  I guess I'm all alone.

In your analogy you give the UPS example of delivering your package a day later vs being triple the time frame due to false advertising.   However, if in that case, if UPS offered every customer a refund who was not happy with the service of having to wait so long to get the package in exchange for not delivering the package and returning it to its point of origin, would this still be considered willful deceit since they therefore didn't profit by the false advertising?

Also a few other things that come to mind regarding the lifestyle changers you mentioned,
 
1) Aren't those customers who don't ask for refunds validating that they believe BFL will deliver and actually choose to live with the delay?
2) Couldn't the case be made that its a risky proposition to make lifestyle changing decisions based on a get rich quick scheme that is marketed specifically as a pre-order?

Now things that would change my mind would be something of the order of,

1) not having the option to get a refund if requested upon going over the stated time frame
2) not having an option to get a refund if the agreed to quality was not delivered
3) the company folding up shop and disappearing with the money before product was delivered.
4) not having the option to get a refund if they are not being responsive to customer inquires in a timely manner

Thats about all I can think of.  

So far, I cant honestly say that any of those criteria have been met.  Therefore the worst I can say about them in good conscience is that they have over promised people in the past.  While I think this is not a good business practice, and is ultimately self defeating, I see no better option for fulfilling my desire to have a mining machine based on ASIC technology in the immediate future.  

Either one of two things will happen, because they cant honestly delay shipping those things much longer before having a mass exodus.  1) The will start shipping and I'll have been correct.  or 2) They will disappear with everyone's money and I'll have been 100% wrong.  

Considering this is their 2nd round of mining machines, i simply find it highly unlikely they would be scammers.  If so, this is the longest most elaborate scam since Enron.  

I can appreciate what your saying. It would most certainly be possible to change my opinion and don't mean to be hard headed, but I feel like I have a valid point and am waiting for just 1 person to agree with me.  I guess I'm all alone.

This is what happens when ppl open their mouths in the conditions of:

1.  Low information
2.  Lack of critical thinking

The value of the phrase "keeping people honest" is lost in today's society.  Most people will believe anything and not make the effort to inform themselves.


Fin

Exactly. All OP needed to do was read the full BFL history and look up 'fraud' on Wikipedia. Humanity is screwed.

While the OP is failing to see the ongoing fraud that is BFL objectively, I'm not willing to write off humanity because of this. When I was choosing an ASIC mining hardware vaporware vendor last September/early October, I did significant research into BFL's history. What I found caused me to not only order from their competitor(BTCFPGA), but to actively campaign against BFL and their deceitful marketing practices. For the latter I was routinely labelled a troll, idiot, etc, but over time more and more have come to see BFL as they truly are.

Ordering from BTCFPGA/BitcoinASIC was only better than ordering from BFL in that the BS product delay announcements(lies) were less refined and marginally more truthful. Announcing a 3 month delay(BTCFPGA) rather than several 2 week delays(BFL) caused a tidal wave of refunds that bankrupted BTCFPGA. Management of BTCFPGA was simply less "slick" than BFL management, which allowed me to get out much sooner, which has allowed me to get on board with Avalon.

OP, please note that like BFL, BTCFPGA also sold FPGA mining hardware, yet their ASIC mining products never existed. Only team Avalon has thus far delivered both FPGA and ASIC mining products.  

a) If your saying I have no clue about engineering or electronics, that would be an incorrect assumption.  My earlier statement said that I had not heard of Butterflylabs, not that I had not heard of asics.  I'm not claiming to be an expert, however, I do understand the process generally speaking, have some general knowledge in logic circuits, and programming.  I also understand the process of designing and manufacturing circuit boards from a high level perspective.  I understand that asics are basically the end of the road when it comes to mining and that no better technology currently exists to preform the calculations in a better,faster,cheaper way then an asic. 

b) It is a fallacy to claim that just because someone put a bit of time on their marketing that their product doesn't exist.

So we are back to my original statement

Was this over promised? Yes, it is clear that either by under-experienced mis-judgement, in the actual complexities and overall timeline, of producing and putting together such a complex product from the ground up (the more likely scenario in my mind) or by willful misinformation(hard to believe), this product was promised and not delivered according to the timeframe that was understood by all parties who were very early "investors" as you would like to call them.  Yes, I get it.  That will be enough to piss anyone off to the point of OP claiming they will "burn in hell" for the wrongs they have inflicted on society. 

And the point I have been trying to make is that, while yes, this is not good business practice to over promise, it doesn't merit the level of negativity that I'm reading a lot of the haters spewing out.  Thus far, no one has lost any actual money, other then forgone profits of being first to market. 

However, I still maintain that if your buying a mining rig solely for the purpose of getting that one or two month advantage over everyone else, then you need to re-evaluate your strategy, as mining isn't a short term venture.  It is a long term game. 

I have done the math, and even if the difficulty goes up to over 300M which i think is unlikely, and the btc price crashes to under $50, you will still be able to make 100% money back in less then 12 months. 

So I say, being first to market really doesn't matter as much as most people think it does.  Yes, you will not make $5,000 / day, become the next bitcoin millionare and retire at 35 but that is honestly pure delusion that anyone would think that that kind of a return should be expected in the first place. 

... BFL ... charlatans ...

Then you don't understand the full scope of how deep their lies go. In mid Oct 2012, they were saying "Honest abe, we're shipping in October. We're world leaders in microprocessor design!" Now it's mid Apr 2013 and nothing has changed. Oct shipping was a lie. Nov shipping was a lie. Dec shipping was a lie. Jan shipping was a lie. Feb shipping was a lie. Mar shipping was a lie. Apr shipping is their latest lie.

OP, I think you've got it pretty much right on... the company is legit, but completely inexperienced in actually delivering this type of product.

Anyone who says that "BFL Lied" is basing that off a misguided sense of entitlement rather than facts.

When I ordered my fpgas from BFL I was told it would be 2 months to have them delivered... they arrived 3 weeks early. When I placed my pre-orders for upgrades... I was told "expect a shipping date before march 2013"

From my perspective, I can call them anytime I want and have someone speak to me. I could if I wanted to request and get a refund... and from my perspective they're 14 days behind on shipping. Sure I was excited when they mentioned a ship day in october... but my plans were all done based on what the sales rep told me at the time of the order. So yes, I'm slightly annoyed that avalon shipped first, but I'm honestly expecting BFL to start delivering product any day now.

Even if the company is struggling on the tech side of things, the fact that they've adjusted numbers on hash rate, price and power consumption indicates to me that they're in the process of solving these issues. Expect a product soon. Anyone who says that "BFL Lied" is basing that off a misguided sense of entitlement rather than facts. Things happen when bringing a product to market, I sure some things could have been explained in a more timely manner... but so far they've had good enough reasons for the delays. Switching the packaging for example is a multi month delay at least, usually around 6 months in my experience.

So far, the company has been professional, honest, had a good attitude about it.

I'm with the OP.

I've been waiting since 09/12... I could have asked my money back, but decided to wait this out.

I cannot understand people who are angry with BFL without even having an order with them.

The argument that requesting a refund solves everything is a non-starter. Orders placed and paid in BTC were converted to fiat at that time. Some of these orders were placed when the exchange rate was $6. An order placed in June of 2012 for a single sc would have been 216ish BTC, while a refund of that same order processed this very second would return 13.4BTC. That's a pretty unappealing proposition, and when you add to that the total lack of competition in the marketplace and BFL's vaporware price increase, most will simply choose to keep their place in line for it's perceived "value".

OP, I think you've got it pretty much right on... the company is legit, but completely inexperienced in actually delivering this type of product.

When I ordered my fpgas from BFL I was told it would be 2 months to have them delivered... they arrived 3 weeks early. When I placed my pre-orders for upgrades... I was told "expect a shipping date before march 2013"

From my perspective, I can call them anytime I want and have someone speak to me. I could if I wanted to request and get a refund... and from my perspective they're 14 days behind on shipping. Sure I was excited when they mentioned a ship day in october... but my plans were all done based on what the sales rep told me at the time of the order. So yes, I'm slightly annoyed that avalon shipped first, but I'm honestly expecting BFL to start delivering product any day now.

Even if the company is struggling on the tech side of things, the fact that they've adjusted numbers on hash rate, price and power consumption indicates to me that they're in the process of solving these issues. Expect a product soon. Anyone who says that "BFL Lied" is basing that off a misguided sense of entitlement rather than facts. Things happen when bringing a product to market, I sure some things could have been explained in a more timely manner... but so far they've had good enough reasons for the delays. Switching the packaging for example is a multi month delay at least, usually around 6 months in my experience.

I believe they'll get it sorted and a product shipped soon.

So in one hand I have everyone who probably has pre-orders telling everyone else to cancel and the other hand I have what seems to be from all accounts a mostly finished product that is close to shipping.  

Yea, I believe that things have been over promised, However, I'm not sure if everyone is really this mad about it, or just trying to convince everyone else to cancel so they can get their rig first.  It honestly seems like everyone is over reacting a bit to me.  

If you've only been dealing with them for three months then you ordered in January.  At this point, no-one has any idea when people who ordered BFL ASICs this year might receive them.  The chips they have in stock right now won't fill very many orders at all and there's been no mention of what is happening with the bulk order of 63,000 chips (from which the majority of existing pre-orders would have been filled).

So yes, they might be able to deliver some sub-spec units to June/July orders soon but there's no indication at this time when the revised design will be completed and when those who ordered after July can expect to receive their units.  It's not even clear whether the second 6 wafers have been completed or whether BFL is just going to use the wafers they have on hand to fill whatever they can with lower specs and everyone else will have to wait for the redesign.

I guess i'm just not that worried about the actual timeline as long as the product preforms as advertised. 

1) I originally put $1500 in to two 5970's back when the difficulty was under 500k.
2) I managed to mine enough coins back then to basically pay for my new rig.

From my perspective, the risk is about $1500 - $3000 range. I would be stupid not to take it. Even if they don't deliver, I'm only out $3000 of actual money at this point.  Painful, but not life ending.

We already know that the product isn't going to perform as advertised, but lack of competition means that people will forgive that.  Nobody else is mass producing ASICs at this point.  BFL may have to lift their game when other players enter the ASIC market but until that happens they have a virtual monopoly on ASIC sales.

As with everything else Bitcoin, it's not a great idea to spend more on ASICs than you're willing to lose. 

I agree with this.  

I get the feeling a few people overextended them selves a bit on this.  A very logical reaction ensues.  Feelings of intense stress and severe buyers remorse.  

Guys, relax, everything is going to be OK.  Things are never as bad or as good as what they seem.  The universe is not fucked.  Its just a matter of perspective.  I know, you cant wait to get your magical money printing machine from the future, that prints money....but its a bit of a complex process to make magical money printing machines from the future.  In the mean time, maybe get out side, walk your dog, de-stress, breathe.  

Either way, its going to work it self out soon.  

Lets be a little fair here, Avalon shipped 300 units in 3 months, second batch starting shipping today (im correct?), lets say, if the total numbers of Avalons is 900 by end of May and we consider 1/4 of what BFL claims on production rate, BFL will mach the number of Avalon units in a week and half if they start shipping in June....


Avalon shipped 300 units in 3 months, you cant order because they are always sold out, they are expensive, what are you guys expecting the people to do? Even if you order a 4th batch Avalon, you probably dont going to get it in a long time too.


Thats why people order BFL units and pray.

As for who win and who losse, like in any bussiness, there are winners and lossers, who preorder a Avalon 1st batch won, who preordered BFL lose, thats the end of story, you just cant start complaining because you taked your chances with BFL and lose, its getting tiredsome of hearing people compaining of BFL, nobody forced you to preorder BFL, ask a refund and do something else, if not its because you know you dont have other choice.

And there is not always refund choices when a bussiness goes wrong people.

Short update today, more to come in the next day or two, hopefully.

We've been working on getting the software and firmware nailed down. Things are mostly stabilized at this point and with our current boards (we do not have the redesigned boards in house yet), power usage exceeds the 1w/GH, unfortunately, but it's much better than anything out by 40 - 50%, at the wall. We are gearing up to start shipping out some dev boards and a few Jalapeno's most likely this week (at least a few dev boards) and then as more chips roll in we'll be shipping out the Jalapeno's. When the new boards land in KC, we'll start shipping Little Singles and Singles at that time. I don't currently have a time frame for those, but I should have something later this week in regards to that.

Obviously, the minirig can't fit 1.5 TH/s in a case the size of what we were planning, but we have some interesting solutions with regards to that. Expect and update on there as well, but I did want to let everyone know we have several solutions to solve the minirig issue and we are moving forward on that front.

I did want to quash any rumors that there was something wrong with the chips; there isn't. The chips themselves are fine (other than using more power than we expected), the delay is strictly due to having to re-engineer the power system on the boards (which requires a larger PCB redesign to a degree) and refine/streamline our processes for getting chips from silicon to mounted on boards. Things will be rolling along soon, albeit a bit slow at first, and then picking up speed as the whole process is optimized and finalized.

15 April 2013 Update

So far, the company has been professional, honest, had a good attitude about it.

Bottom line is that your free to take a refund if your not happy to wait.  

15 April 2013 Update

How is "We will deliver in october, LOL, sorry, november, LOLZ, actually not in december, STFU you are a IDIOTS we deliver in february,oops, march, eeh, april, nah, end of may, probably mid june july-ishy" in any way professional or honest?

They have been perpetually lying in their prognoses and only once did they notify their customers investors that they won't ship on the preset date.
They had Josh come in here, completely ignoring actual important questions  just to engage in several pissing contest with both the competition and trolls.

You are seriously deluded when it comes to the actual situation BFL customers are really in.
BFL has a lot more history than the couple of months you know them for.

1) So the update said pretty much what I was expecting.  The software is almost done, we have changed the power profile and had to change the board design to accommodate which is almost done, we are shipping out the dev units, and doing all the little 100's of details that make for a properly engineered and tested product.    No surprise here.  In fact, encouraging as it gives insight into exactly where everything stands. 

I think we are 2 months or less at this point.

1) So the update said pretty much what I was expecting.  The software is almost done, we have changed the power profile and had to change the board design to accommodate which is almost done, we are shipping out the dev units, and doing all the little 100's of details that make for a properly engineered and tested product.    No surprise here.  In fact, encouraging as it gives insight into exactly where everything stands. 

I think we are 2 months or less at this point.   

Notice that this is not surprising exactly because they have been saying these kind of things since october.

Also, please read the latest BFL propaganda again.
They want to stress that the chips are absolutely fine, except that they use up more power than was designed. But that's still ok, according to BFL.
But it's not. If the ICs use up a lot more power than designed for than there is something bad with the chips as well.
You have to look for those details because if there is one thing that i've learned about the way BFL operates then its that this little "the chips are fine" will turn into "We'll have to redo most of the ICs" in a couple of weeks.
The problems with the board were also fixable 'with a little tuning' and they would have delivered their product a couple of weeks ago.
Now the story has progressed over a couple of communications from 'Just some minor power problems with the board, will be done in a few days' to 'we need new boards and have no real shipping date at the moment'.

I guess that's just the difference in perception between us. Having been involved in a myriad of products from the initial design all they way to finished product... I can tell you from personal experience that having chips come out drawing more power or generating more heat than expected isn't the end of the production cycle. Sure it can change the game. But you don't just junk the entire design and do something else.

Once upon a time intel was developing Silverthorne - it was designed to an x86 processor for cellphones. They were trying to compete with motorola and mitsubishi. The tech worked, but needed more power and generated way more heat than expected. This tech didn't just dry up and go away... The changed the sales model, rebranded it under centrino as "Atom" and pushed it for handheld devices like tables and netbooks. This lead directly to the explosion of tablets as a consumer product. I don't believe there's a single cell phone that has an atom in it... but there are micro computers (in use as terminals and budget pcs) and hundreds types of tablets and 'netbooks' (micro laptops) that use them.

BFL is on the right track - redesign the board to supply the power needed while keeping temps stable, change the sales specs and ship the coffee warmer to consume the old tech board that would have been singles. Personally I think the very best move they could make would be devolping something where the top of it was a massive heatsink. and making it modular, to be plugged into the rack assembly they would sell. I'm thinking 4u rack that takes 3 mini-single modules. maybe just 4 chips per device.

I think the biggest hurdle for them is giving up the tiny size they had from FPGA days, get over it, go a bit bigger so you can cool the thing effectively... etc. Give me a metal packaged chip (or 4) that on a board that has AM3 holes for mounting a cpu heatsink and fan on top of it... that would make me very happy. Design the entire thing with a stacked heatsink that has a pair of 120mm fans on each side... design them so they could be assembled into a wall via interlocks on the sides, top and bottom of the case... one side air intake and other side of the wall being the exhaust... have the thing blow through.

looks good. 

I have been dealing with them for about 3 months now. They have always returned every email I have sent them in a timely manner.  I was going to be in the area (this ended up not working out) and asked If I could tour the facility and see the build process.  They told me sure no problem but they expected to be extremely busy trying to get everything lined up so it might be better if I give them two weeks..  They also told me they want to be a long term mining partner and warned me not to buy a mining rig if I was hoping to just make fast profits.  They said realistically it would be about a year ROI to get the money back. 

So far, the company has been professional, honest, had a good attitude about it.

Now for the people who are going to jump in about how they have not delivered in 7 months, I have to say.

I have been doing some homework on what it takes to design an asic, get it produced, and turned into a finalized product.  Hint* not easy. 

Now I can believe that maybe these guys are kinda learning as they go.  And they are using everyone else money to do it.  I grant that.  But the same could be said for almost any new business.  I started a company 8 years ago out of my garage, just poof made it up one day.  And Yes I had the basics down in the beginning but honestly we were not that good at what we were doing for a few years. 

Also, Successful Business veterans quickly learn that its very easy mistake to make which is to not properly set a customers expectations.  I can see that BFL is obviously guilty of this.  It is clearly documented that they have said multiple times when something was going to happen and it didn't due to unforeseen complexities in the process. 

But lets be honest for a moment.  From what I can see, if they are a scammer company they are doing a very bad job about it. 

1) Have a public office where anyone can visit any time they want
2) This is their 2nd round of hardware (fpga's to asics?)
3) They are putting alot of money into R&D into software, and hardware design in support of the community with relatively low returns.  Probably working insane hours to do it. 
4) giving refunds to unhappy customers
5) offering lifetime warranty on all their products.

I say give them a break, If you don't believe in them, don't fucking buy anything from them.  But to openly accuse them of fraud, cheating, lying, and all the other shit I have been reading seems to be unwarranted to me.  I ordered a minirig from them and I want it to work correctly for at least a few years.  I want it to be well built and if that takes a little bit longer to make it awesome, then so be it.
I don't want some piece of shit they just slapped together so I can have the 2 week advantage over everyone else.  I would rather it take a few extra weeks if that means they are going to do it right. 

Another point is, we need companies like BFL who are willing to invest in the infrastructure if bitcoin is to survive long term.  Yea they have some faults, hopefully they will learn their lesson and start doing what every good business man does.  Under promise and over deliver.  Right now they have been over promising for a while and I think that is why so much negativity is going their way at the moment. 

I know I'm probably in the minority given the tone on these forums but I just wanted to throw out my two btc.

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My biggest issue has to do with their apparent lack of perspective.

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Without accusing you of anything, your posts here could easily be interpreted as you pumping them up; this exhibits shill behavior.
the fact is that BFL NEVER gets back to anyone in a timely manner. so your premise is 100% wrong.

How is that benefit of the doubt going for you now?

How is that benefit of the doubt going for you now?

Far better than if they had ever "invested" with your scams that STILL haven't produced a single thing.  How's the Hive & Wasp going, that you promised to ship in December?  It's what... middle of January and nary a wisp of Wasp.