The reddit thread about this is full of people happy about the fact that their BFL units are now "worth twice as much".  What is it that P.T. Barnum said? |
|
|
|
Right. Great info, but I'm more concerned with what's showing up on my electric bill.  The Avalon guys are reporting 620ish watts @ 68Gh/s on 120v and I think Ngzhang has a post around here somewhere about savings with 220v circuitry. Sounds like a shipped ASICMiner concoction will be similar. |
|
|
|
Both of you have valid points. The problem is that the people they have ripped off are not acting rationally. They do not want to see any of the facts, only the riches that are coming to them.... This is a classic in MLM and pyramid schemes. They victim does not want to "give up his place" as it now has a perceived value to him. A good way to stop the ponzi from falling apart is to RAISE price. That makes the people already fleeced perceive that their "position" or place in line is EVEN more valuable. Go over and read the shoutbox at BFL and tell me if the people discussing there will not be in a pysch 101 textbook someday..... "wow, this price increase just made my July order EVEN MORE valuable".... Agreed, I think that's precisely what they've done. Also they've effectively negated the discounts of those silly vouchers being given to those early investors as compensation for BFL's scammy behavior. So, tell me. Why do you think none of these people will do anything about it? There is more than enough information on public forms typed by Josh himself to convict him of federal and state crimes. Sonny is in clear violation of his parole. It would be simple for any of them to hire an attorney for and less than $5,000 FORCE the authorities in KS/MO and the US attorney to press charges. Why don't they? I personally do not care. I was going to buy some miniRigs (until I spent 2 hours on the web looking things up) so now I am just the curious on looker. Do you REALLY believe that none of these people have figure out they have been taken? Even in the best case scenario, they were de-frauded out of money to fund a venture to make a bunch of amateurs rich. Why don't any of them do anything? Nasser could be likely be charged in france (and definitely in the US) if he actually works for Soc Gen. And, Soc Gen would get fined for lack of compliance over him. Sonny could get back to club fed. Josh could be charged by the SEC and by Revenue (I would be more worried about Revenue as they have a 100% conviction rate). All, these state and fed prosecutors want to make names for themselves and what a better way than to bust some scam in "bitcoin" the newest headline (which they want to discredit anyway). So, why do all of them do nothing? No authority is going to do anything because Bitcoin is considered "game money" so to speak.I got hacked for 38BTC @ Mtgox a year ago,went to a sheriff I know in my hometown & bounced the idea of filing a report about my loss.He just had a funny look & asked "what's a Bitcoin??"................................................ That doesn't wash though. BFL like BTCFPGA accepted credit card payments. The "authorities" do take wire fraud seriously. I do not know why more people tolerate BFL's scammy bs. If you search my posts you'll find I've asked the same questions many times. One fella has been in contact with the AG's office and presented evidence of said contact, but I think he let it go after a point. |
|
|
|
Both of you have valid points. The problem is that the people they have ripped off are not acting rationally. They do not want to see any of the facts, only the riches that are coming to them.... This is a classic in MLM and pyramid schemes. They victim does not want to "give up his place" as it now has a perceived value to him. A good way to stop the ponzi from falling apart is to RAISE price. That makes the people already fleeced perceive that their "position" or place in line is EVEN more valuable. Go over and read the shoutbox at BFL and tell me if the people discussing there will not be in a pysch 101 textbook someday..... "wow, this price increase just made my July order EVEN MORE valuable".... Agreed, I think that's precisely what they've done. Also they've effectively negated the discounts of those silly vouchers being given to those early investors as compensation for BFL's scammy behavior. |
|
|
|
BFL and Avalon are plain greedy it's s shame there is no other competition to keep them honest Lumping Avalon in with BFL crooks is very not kewl. Avalon's product has pricing power because Avalon actually has a product. We've all seen the eBay sales with undelivered Avalons going for many times what their manufacturer sold them for. I'd raise my prices too if I was building something and shipping it to someone who'd already sold it for 10x what I sold it to them for. |
|
|
|
My guess is that they're desperate to prevent paid orders from being cancelled to stave off bankruptcy. Telling people that "all orders are final" is cute drama, but illegal in the US for a pre-order product.
I believe that is what they mean Yifu. However according to creativx, what they are now doing is an illegal manouvre? Im unsure on the legality of this statement as I live outside the states. BFL is a US company. They cannot enact that policy and comply with FTC/SEC regs. I believe they're just posturing to stave off insolvency. Sorry, I agree with much of what you say but you have gone too far. BFL "cannot" do that because it against the law? Seriously? Sonny stole money from retirees selling them fake lottery tickets. Josh/Inaba CONSTANTLY was illegally soliciting investors and using his own name (that is an SEC securities solicitation violation). Josh has been hosting a co-loc of bit coin miners for non USA residents that do not pay USA income tax and would each have to form a business to be legal (that is money laundering). Josh tells people that they can "leave their rigs in MO/KS" and save the tax of their country but DOES not charge them state sales/use tax (that is fraud). He does this all over public forms and does not care about the law. Why would he care about the rule you linked? Nasser works for a broker dealer that has rule against ANY employees engaging in an outside business without submitting a form for compliance to approve (which they NEVER approve especially if it has ANYTHING to do with f/x, commodities, debt or securities. And you think so "law" is going to stop these guys? They have broken so many laws constantly for the last 12 months. They do not care about any laws because they KNOW the suckers that live in their parents' basements that they have stolen this money from them WILL DO NOTHING. Perhaps. Everyone has a breaking point. I'm sure there's a reason why BFL keeps making their "all sales are final" policy public and then honoring refund requests anyway. If I had to guess it's because they like deterring refund requests(because that's how pyramid scams breakdown) without further violating FTC/consumer protection laws. I agree though, they're crooks. |
|
|
|
It appears as though their chips are the problem so power consumption could be as high as 7.5w/Gh. That'd be a nuclear power plant like 11250w @ 1500Gh, but I've seen people estimate as "low" as 9000w. Yes that will definitely be a problem.
I noticed Josh saying that they'll ship whatever it takes to achieve hashrate and I also noticed him saying that people would have the option of waiting for gen 2 if they didn't want sub-spec units, but I haven't noticed anyone from BFL saying that people can have refunds if neither of those options are acceptable. Did I just miss it or has it not been said? All I know for sure is that they added that nonsense about "all sales are final", though I'd give them a quarter if their policy withstood even a weak legal challenge. Trapping people into non-refundable pre-orders while failing to deliver on any specs or shipping dates is...somewhat inconsistent with FTC & consumer protection regs. Edit: Thanks for the update Teal. 6600w is still a problem though and just splitting it into two "little" minirigs might make it possible to plug it into a deadicated circuit, but it doesn't improve profitability. |
|
|
|
The products are going to most likely be shipped from Hongkong. And what we accept is ordering instead of pre-ordering, which means that when we decide to sell, we ship it. Hopefully this makes our products be valued higher by the market.
I've heard great things about shipping out of Hong Kong: I've heard several people say that things ordered from Hong Kong have arrived at their destination in Europe quicker than ordering from a neighboring European country. With BFL and Avalon increasing their prices, this could be a great success. Does anyone know, top of their head, the power consumption figures of BFL, Avalon and ASICMINER? BFL current estimates are 7.5w/Gh & Avalon 9.1w/Gh. ASICMiner chips are 130nm and Avalon's are 110nm, but I seem to recall calculating ASICMiner efficiency to be slightly better than Avalon's. |
|
|
|
My uneducated guess would be is they realized that they won't be able to build it. Too hot, over 9000watt power consumption... So out of stock means they won't be making it. So those who bought it will either get equivalent in Japapeņos + SC singles  or simply quietly get refund those people. Or maybe in the fall they will come up with such device... Anyone else have their guesses? My maths brain's not working this morning. The mini-rig was going to contain 192 boards of 8 chips. Given that the chips/boards aren't performing as anticipated, how many of the sub-spec chips/boards will it take to make up 1500 GH and what will the power draw be? Is the total wattage going to create issues for people (I'm on 240 v with 20 amp circuits but I know that the standard maximum load per circuit is different for those on lower voltages)? It appears as though their chips are the problem so power consumption could be as high as 7.5w/Gh. That'd be a nuclear power plant like 11250w @ 1500Gh, but I've seen people estimate as "low" as 9000w. Yes that will definitely be a problem. |
|
|
|
When is the 50 TH supposed to ramp up?
Mid-April. I guess I was hoping to get a date from friedcat himself.. Then go back a few pages. Mid-April is what friedcat said in one of his updates. |
|
|
|
I'm feeling cheated and a little butthurt about it. Wouldn't you? Yip. That's a bunch of bs. That coin was yours. |
|
|
|
I feel that first batch chips (June) going to generate the worst performed rigs and they might revise the design on later batch of chips to get better power/thermal performance Sweet, so ten+ months of waiting and early BFL ASIC investors get partially functional pre-production prototypes. Nice. Normally first generation hardware users will become lab rats  Avalon team is awsome, so far not so much complains about their first batch units, very impressive! For the awesome bank early BFL investors would've have gotten had BFL met nearly any of it's promises then that would've been fine. For them to ship half baked junk now on top of being 5+ months late is ridiculously scammy. Rewards are halved and difficulty is multiplied. This is the kind of stuff that keeps lawyers in new BMWs. |
|
|
|
|
The prices rose and the performance fell, no that's not a good thing for a pre-order vaporware product. Avalon is working on a successor product to their modular units and we know those guys can deliver. ASICMiner is getting into hardware sales and we know those guys can deliver. Ordering from BFL was a risky proposition as it was with off the charts efficiency, given the risk of insolvency and danger of never breaking even on your purchases even if they do ship. Now the risk is increased even higher at a time when Avalon is about to ship 80+Th and ASICMiner is bringing online another 50Th. BFL's response? Lower hashrates, massively increase power consumption, and increase prices. Ordering from BFL at this point is a near certain losing proposition given the tremendous lead times. Good thing they sent out those discount vouchers to the people they've already fleeced eh?
|
|
|
|
So it is clear this is not pre-order any more. Team avalon has started the price lifting trend with a 4X increase in price, BFL is doing reasonably ok... I heard that the latest BFL order numbers have passed 32000
Even 75000 chips of 8GH delivered and total network hashing power rised to 1PH, 3 months ROI is still possible with current BTC exchange price Must be everyone with a trade in has received their notification to send in their FPGAs for sure then. No? Hmmm... Avalon has shipped and Avalon will continue shipping. THEY have pricing power...BFL not so much. |
|
|
|
My guess is that they're desperate to prevent paid orders from being cancelled to stave off bankruptcy. Telling people that "all orders are final" is cute drama, but illegal in the US for a pre-order product.
I believe that is what they mean Yifu. However according to creativx, what they are now doing is an illegal manouvre? Im unsure on the legality of this statement as I live outside the states. BFL is a US company. They cannot enact that policy and comply with FTC/SEC regs. I believe they're just posturing to stave off insolvency. |
|
|
|
|
ROFL
Thank gawd I didn't order from these con artists last year. BTCFPGA was stressful enough.
|
|
|
|
I bet. I won but have undone me obviously missed. They were fools and ridiculous to me have closed. Fuck them and their site of betting. Well said! ...I think... |
|
|
|
My guess is BFL wants to actively discourage new orders due to their supply problems and chip issues. By raising the price and lowering performance, some people will still be interested and place orders bringing in much needed revenue, but they can avoid a huge flood of orders once they start shipping (that they probably can't fill in a timely manner) My guess is that they're desperate to prevent paid orders from being cancelled to stave off bankruptcy. Telling people that "all orders are final" is cute drama, but illegal in the US for a pre-order product. All of this comes on the heels of ASICMiner announcing their own hardware sales plans. The current market trajectory will result in another insolvent US ASIC mining hardware vaporware vendor. The two Chinese companies are cleaning their clocks. |
|
|
|
|
Batch 2 is scheduled to begin shipping on April 15 last I heard.
Dr. NGZhang gave an excellent explanation as to why tracking numbers are not being issued. It came down to communication problems with third party shipping surrogate.
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
