Since Tom is refusing to actually make the bet he himself proposed between us, I am offering up a guarantee of 1000 BTC to charity (I will take suggestions on which charity to donate this to) if BFL does not meet it's power claims within 10% - meaning if BFL's power consumption is more than 66w for a Single SC, we lose the "bet."

Now, I ask if Tom is willing to step up and back the winning side.  He is 100% confident that we will not meet our power claims (which is the genesis of the failed bet), and as such I ask that he pony up 1000 BTC to the same charity if we do make our power claims. 

So there it is:  Tom is confident that we won't make our power claims, I am confident that we will.  I am willing to put up 1000 BTC to show my confidence in BFL products.  Is Tom confident enough to do the same or is he just blowing hot air?

Well... I'm having trouble with the question.  If the answer were no, why would we be doing it?  The answer must necessarily be yes.  Sure, we could turn out to be wildly out of our depth, but we are not basing our first batch of products on our new equipment (it's still being done by our current facility) and if something goes wildly wrong and our quality is not up to snuff going forward, we still have the current houses in place to manufacture our equipment, so it's not really a problem for the end user/customer in either event.

The poster claimed they are/were "working with BFL" which is false, so that's what I was basing my statement off of.  Sure, they could buy the stuff from us and resell it, but they'd be effectively doing it at a loss since they are not getting any sort of discount from us.  I'm not sure why anyone would  resell our products at a loss, so it's got to be scam.

The ball is in Toms court at this point.  If he doesn't even have the confidence in his hardware to define "competitive" then there's not really that much more to be said.  The fact that he's unwilling to back his own words with his actions speaks volumes as to his integrity.

I'm putting up 1000 BTC against BFL hardware @ 1.1w / GH against your "competitive" definition.  That's it.  Simple.  Define "competitive" and you can win $12,000. 

I'm not asking him to give wattage numbers or a power estimate, I am asking him to define competitive.  What the hell, are you completely incapable of reading?  

Again, here's the bet I'm willing to make:

1.  BFL products will ship with a power usage at 1.1w per GH or less.
2. Tom defines "competitive."
3. Tom does not require that I stay out of his thread as a condition of the bet.

That's it.  Tom has already declined because he knows if he defines competitive one of two things happen:

A) People realize his definition of "competitive" and their definition are grossly different.
B) He has to admit that his power usage is not going to be competitive.

That's really the only reason he is declining the bet at this point, because it forces him into a position of admitting something he doesn't want to admit yet, because his precious pre-orders will dry up like a bone in a desert.

Haha, I knew Tom did not have the confidence in his product to back up the bet!  Thanks for confirming it, Tom!  I'm willing to 1000 BTC against our SHIPPING power usage.  All you have to do is define "competitive," you don't even have to give a power estimate.  I'm willing to put 1000 BTC against you just defining "competitive" and you aren't even willing to do that.  What are you hiding?

I've still got 1000 BTC to back up our power when you're ready to come clean and be honest with your customers, Tom.  Just let me know when you're ready.

Perhaps you need to read what I wrote, since you seem to be having trouble with comprehension, let me restate it:

I will accept the bet for 1.1 GH/w as stated by Tom as long as he defines "competitive" and eliminates the stipulation that I stay out of his thread.  I did not modify the conditions of the bet in relation to BFLs power requirements.  Therefore, I did not decline the bet.  Additionally the bet was not "ONLY" about BFL's claims, as you stated, so please try to read and comprehend before posting, thanks.

What's it going to be Tom?  Are you going to man up and back your hardware like you want BFL to?  Or are you going to back out of the bet because you don't want to define what you consider to be "competitive?" 

I've got 1000 BTC backing BFL's claims, put that 1000 BTC behind your claims.

I did not decline the bet.  We'll see if Tom has enough confidence in his hardware to make the bet.  My guess is he'll chicken out and take the excuse of "You won't stay out of my thread" to back out of the bet.  But maybe he'll surprise me.

After all, 1000 BTC is a lot of money and I'm willing to put it up against BFL hardware so long as Tom is willing to define "competitive."  Seems easy enough for him to do, but we'll see.

I'm tired of arguing the power issue with people who have zero understanding of the economics of mining.  Anyone with even a modicum of sense would wonder what the heck Tom is hiding by not releasing any estimated power usages or defining "competitive."  Transparency my lily white butt hah. 

I found a bug in the block processing this morning... a wayward comma in some very rarely used code was causing the processing to fail and get backed up.  Unfortunately, the specific share information for each block was lost due to it.  The only thing this means is that all the affected blocks are listed as 0 shares and they have no information on who found the block. Everyone is basically paid as if the blocks are super short blocks, so you haven't lost any payments.  You'll notice your payment column basically has the same amount for each block as the previous block...

I apologize for this problem and it shouldn't happen in the future.  It was triggered by a change I made yesterday that sent it down the path of this rarely used code and things started getting backed up after I went to bed.  All stats should be correct now and only 5 blocks were affected, but the good news is our luck isn't nearly as bad as it appeared a few hours ago

This I can agree with!

How do you get that out of what I said?  CPU->GPU->FPGA->ASIC->???????

See, that is the thing you don't seem to understand:  If the device is profitable, it's still competitive.  There's nothing to "upgrade" to after ASIC, so as long as it's profitable, it will be mining.  Ergo, the power is the single most important aspect of an ASIC mining device.

Wow, Tom!  I appreciate your generous offer of free money and I am absolutely delighted to take that bet from you with regards to the accuracy of our respective power estimates (I'll even send you a condolences cake with the proceeds).

However there's a few caveats, which I'm sure you'll agree do not alter the intent of the bet at all:

I will wager that what I've said is true about BFL's power efficiency if you wager that what you've said about your power efficiency is true as well.  You've said that your power will be "competitive."   To commence this bet, you will need to define "competitive."  How many factor increase in power consumption is considered "competitive" against ours?  Twice the power usage?  Three times?  Four?  Is that still "competitive?"  What happens if you're 6x as power hungry as our device?  Do you lose the bet then?  I want to know what you mean by competitive, and until you define that, well... I can't bet on it. 

Honestly though, after you calling me out in your thread, calling me a liar about our power... I want to know why you aren't being honest and open about what you expect your power to be.  It's simply not credible to say you don't know what your estimates are.  Even if you really have no idea at all, how can you then promise it'll be competitive?

Also, the last caveat is that I will not stay out of your thread.  You've been... shall we say... less than truthful about a number of things in your thread and I will be here to call BS when it's required.  But you define competitive and release the stipulation that I stay out of your thread and you've got a bet, cowboy!  I will absolutely wager 1000 BTC against your 1000 BTC any day of the week.

You have got to be kidding me.  You think there's no difference between making $4 per month vs $14 per month?  Really?

Power usage is *everything* when it comes to ASIC.  If you think it's not, you have no grasp on the economics of mining.  ASIC is not CPUs, it's not GPUs and it's not FPGAs.  It's the end of the line for mining technology for the foreseeable future.  What you buy today is what you'll be using in 3 years so long as it's still profitable.  That profitability is determined solely on how power efficient it is. 

If you buy an ASIC device that uses 2x the power as another device for roughly the same price, you might as well throw most of you money into a hole and burn it. 

I can assure you that it's a scam with 100% confidence.  This person/company has no relation with BFL in any way, shape or form.

New meme!

People buy horse power and drive torque...

People buy GH/$ and mine GH/w...

Now we just need a picture to go along with it.

It's called "preponderance of evidence."  You just have to look "kinda guilty" to be found guilty in a civil court.  So yeah, you have to prove your innocence.

Damn, I knew we were missing a step somewhere...

I think gross incompetence is an understatement.  MtGox is plagued by mismanagement at nearly every step... and that's all well and good, but when you're a) dealing with large quantities of money and b) sensitive personal information, that is just a recipe for disaster in the making.

The problem is that there is no disruptive technology on the horizon.  CPU's had GPUs on the horizon - a huge leap forward.  GPU's had FPGAs, another huge leap forward.  FPGAs had ASIC, another huge leap forward.  There's no huge leap forward for ASIC.  Yes, there's a process shrink, but it's not going to see a 10x bump in hashing power or effeciency like we've seen up until now, so history can't really play as a guide in this instance, which is why the power issue is more important now than it ever has been. 

Everything you said is true as far as the past goes - but ASICs are the end of the line for the foreseeable future.  So I expect even first gen ASIC devices to be in service for a much longer period of time than any of the other technologies, and again, this is why power is important and not a "Oh that's nice factor."  The ASIC devices (no matter who manufactures them) are likely to be quiet and not require much maintenance.  You should be able to leave the min a cupboard and let them mine happily away for an extended period of time... and that means something that uses 2x or 3x the power is going to be far less profitable than one that's more power efficient over the lifetime of the unit.

In a nutshell, with ASIC you can just keep adding to your farm, unlike previous technologies, where you had to replace to keep up.  That is, unless the power consumption exceeds it's profitability.  I'd rather have that happen later rather than sooner.