I did not say that BTC is an unchanging currency. I said when you buy an ASIC miner you are buying BTC because the only thing that determines the equipment's ultimate worth is the amount of BTC it returns by mining. Those are very different statements.

You want to sell me an ASIC miner called a Z28 for 400 BTC, but your Z28 hasher is expected to mine 0 BTC, so I would never pay 400 BTC for it. If you could demonstrate that the Z28 hasher was expected to mine over 500 BTC, I would consider paying 400 BTC for it.

If you are buying an ASIC miner, you have already decided to buy BTC. The question then becomes, what is the best method to acquire BTC?
For every point on the USD/BTC exchange rate, 13 BTC is worth more than 10 BTC and 20 BTC is worth more than 13 BTC. If the device gives you 20, then you would be better off than if you bought a device that gave you 10. You would also be better off than if you had bought the 13 BTC from MtGox and held it.

Now if the exchange rate drops to $5, the problem was that you decided to invest in BTC, even though you may have picked the best way to do so.

Well, we know fractal02 is American.

Done.

If you have ordered from ButterFly Labs and have not yet received your product, you are entitled to a refund whenever you request one (per FTC rules).
First ask ButterFly Labs for a refund, they will probably say no but you might get lucky.
If you ordered via PayPal you can file a complaint with them even if you are outside the 45 day window. Multiple customers have already gotten a refund from PayPal that was outside the 45 days.
If you ordered via Bitcoin or Bank wire, you can fill out a complaint with the FTC and they will advocate for you with ButterFly Labs to get your refund. You can also contact the office of the Kansas Attorney General and inform them that you have had your money taken with no product delivered for months, just more promises.
You can also do a paper filing with the DA here: http://da.jocogov.org/complaint-forms

There are also several threads on how to get a refund from ButterFly Labs, here are two:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266945.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=272585.0

The number of Bitcoins a Z28 is expected to mine over it's lifetime: 0
The number of Bitcoins I must pay for the Z28: 400
My expected loss in Bitcoins if I were to enter in this transaction: 400
No, I do not want to buy your Z28 to mine Bitcoins with. Try again. 

^This. BFL is not selling mining equipment. They are selling promises of mining equipment. They want to maximize promises sold, and minimize equipment delivered.

Every item has a static BTC price at the time you consider buying it. Just like every item has a static GBP or EUR price too. Do the exchange rate calculation, and you will know who many EUR, GBP, USD or BTC something costs no matter what currency it is "priced" in. If it is mining equipment, you will know what it was worth after it is done mining all the Bitcoin it will mine. Then you can compare what it cost you in BTC to what it was worth in BTC and see if you got ripped off.

But you are unable to explain why you think this to be so. Either your ego won't let you admit that you got ripped off, or you have some vested interest in presenting BFL in the best light. Either way, you seem to be out of arguments besides "nuh uh!". 

The Jalapeno is equivalent to 10 BTC. You could have traded 13 BTC for 10 BTC.
13 BTC would be roughly $1560 (@120). 10 BTC would roughly $1200. Less BTC = Less USD. That would not have been a good trade.

I agree. Exchanging USD for BTC and then back into USD (or vice versa) in an attempt to sell high and buy low is the transaction people are confusing with successful mining. As you say, if you take the exchange rate out of the equation, you can calculate trivially whether you got a good deal buying BTC.

Name:   thecube891
Posts:   15
Activity:   14
Position:   Jr. Member
Date Registered:   August 16, 2013, 10:46:32 AM

Looks legit. Jump on it. 

(tries reverse psychology)

The reason is that people who buy ASIC mining equipment don't realize they are buying a variable stream of bitcoins. There is little else of value in ASIC mining equipment other than the bitcoins that come out of it. Therefore the mining equipment can be easily compared to a fixed amount of bitcoins. Both are purchases of Bitcoins, so there is no "if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle" issue. It is just choosing a vendor and product to get your bitcoins from. Some vendors are good, others are bad.  Some products are good (variable annuity from Avalon Batch 1), others are bad (variable annuity BFL Single).

Except you were spending a fixed amount of coin to buy a future variable stream of coins. Very similar a variable annuity from an insurance company. The inputs and outputs were in the same unit. Bitcoins in, bitcoins out. There is no way to justify spending 200 bitcoins to receive 120 (more or less depending on the date received and future difficulty). There is no uncertainty, there is no gambling. Under what circumstances is it good to pay $200 for a financial product that will return you $120? Why would you pay an insurance company $200 (or it's equivalent) for an annuity that caps the payout at $120? You wouldn't.

As for the Apple shares analogy:
Would you have traded 200 shares of Apple back when they were worth $20 for 120 shares of Apple when they were worth $500? After all, the 200 shares were only worth $4000 and the 120 shares are worth $60,000!
Explain the circumstances under which that would be a good idea.

This might be true, if they bought a pizza, or a shoe, or a car  (which btw are not investments).
But they didn't, they bought a complex future option for more Bitcoins. Like most options, this one has a decaying time value. The fact that it is packaged in the form of silicon is idiosyncratic of Bitcoin.

The greater fool method of profit was the only way to profit for people who bought BFL.

ASICMiner offered (IMO) overpriced gear. People paid the price. ASICMiner then delivered exactly what they offered immediately.
Many people (myself included) tried to warn people that there was no ROI to be had, but we were shouted down by the buyers, not the sellers.
ASICMiner then offered slightly less overpriced gear.  People paid the price. ASICMiner then delivered exactly what they offered immediately.
They are doing it a third time. People are still buying. You can't blame the shovel makers for making shovels and selling to the millions who come to the gold rush and are desperate to buy a shovel. You have to educate the people and teach them why they should not covet shovels and goldpans.

As soon as another company can provide competition, the prices will adjust to more reasonable levels.
Plus, you seem to be very angry at the only ASIC company that actually delivers what they promise when they say they will. Why is that I wonder.

BFL is not able to build and ship 1.5TH units ordered right now for $30,000.
If they were able to, people would buy them.
All BFL can do right now is sell promises that at some point in the future they might build one eventually and give it to you at some point.

If someone wants an ASIC right now, ASICMiner is the *only* place they can buy one in stock and get it in a few days.
Even with a monopoly on the market, ASICMiner has cut their prices several times. Still, they have profited handsomely from being the only place one can buy an ASIC mining device that is actually in stock.

Every other ASIC vendor involves ordering and waiting for weeks or months.

Gold is a shiny metal. It is not the sum of the output of the economy of the United States. If you like though, you can still put all your savings in it and feel safe.
Right now, US currency is backed by nukes and drone strikes. I'd rather have nukes and drone strikes to make sure I get paid than a shiny metal.

But this has little to do with BFL's shiny new photoshop rendition of a video card meant to represent a bitcoin mining device of the far distant future.

It tells me that someone else will have more use for it than I. You are assigning meaning to 'dispose' that is not there.
The definition I meant was:
a : to transfer to the control of another <disposing of personal property to a total stranger>
Picaso paintings are auctioned, but nobody would consider them to be thrown away.  


I was saying it is possible to construct a fair auction of mining equipment on ebay, not that all auctions on ebay are fair.
Perfectly describing an object in hand as to it's capabilities and attributes ought to be enough. Misleading statements and marketing is more selling and less auctioning. Also, the ASIC mining market is batshit insane right now. I consider the GPU secondary market on ebay to be in much better shape as far as morals go.

What about those who want rather than need? Why is selling a beanie baby on eBay immoral? It has no value other than how much a person wants to own it. A public auction is a fair method to dispose of things. I had a laser printer that was large, loud, expensive to run and wanted nothing more to do with it. However, there was nothing wrong with it functionally. It 'lasered' and scanned and networked just fine, so to speak. Someone who needed a large laser printer/scanner for their office snatched it up for what I felt was more than it was worth. It was also for a lot less than professional printers can be has new. I don't think that was an immoral transaction, I just think someone else could get more value out of it than I could.

The flipping of pre-orders is low. But bitcointalk.org is not the entire market anymore. As long as the auction starts at a fair price and full disclosure is made as to the state of the product, there is nothing inherently immoral about using Ebay. That is to say, it is possible to make a moral transaction of mining equipment using ebay.


"Passively" Auctioning something in the hopes that it will go for an absurd and non-useful price to the other person is immoral. (my standard may not be yours)

Most of the blades were auctioned here. So I consider that selling into an informed (if not rational) market.
There is a caveat with the USB miners. Selling one or two as a novelty item is fine. Like numismatic coins that contain a little gold, they are a terrible investment, but are shiny and pretty. I bought a gold plated buffalo coin for far more than it was worth, because my daughter wanted one. Also, the USB sticks are a reasonable way to democratize the bitcoin network. Selling them at 2BTC was ludicrous, but I could see $40 or so being reasonable.

I hate to burst your bubble with actual data, but
a) The polls are vastly in favor of BFL being a scam and using underhanded tactics. Several hundred against BFL in fact.
b) Also, shills would work for BFL, not against them. You need a different noun for people who's opinions are negative towards BFL
c) the number of anti-BFL posts has increased dramatically here, especially the "my complaints were deleted from the BFL forums so I had to come here" type. I believe we can directly attribute that to you.

Perhaps we wouldn't have so many new accounts here if you would censor fewer threads on BFL forums. Perhaps you have only yourself to blame. 

They might get their USD back, they will never earn back what their investment in BTC. On the other hand, BTC could very easily drop back down to $60 and may never see these valuations again.

Also, hoping BTC rises in order to bail out underwater miners is not a very good investment premise.
Better to get a refund, then purchase BTC in that case. Zero uncertainty.

All of those people who ordered ASICMiner actually received their devices within days of ordering them. ASICMiner only sold what they had in stock.
Greed led people to believe they would receive ROI in every ASIC purchase. A miner's greed is not BFL's fault, nor is it ASICMiners fault. However, with ASICMiner all the customers received their devices. 85% of BFL's ordered hash rate is still waiting to receive anything (I am sure by now some percentage of that has asked for refunds). Shipping slow is actually worse in this case than shipping with lower hash rate. People should have preferred 2.5GH/s back in April over 5 GH/s now.
I would have been far better disposed towards BFL if they admitted that they could only deliver 50% of what was promised, but could deliver it back in April.

@PuertoLibre: Auctioning something on Ebay when you are done with it is not immoral. Creating a marketing scheme to paint a rosy picture of a bleak scenario in order to move product at inflated prices is immoral. The reason ASICMiner was able to sell so many units at such a crazy price was because of the pent up demand for ASICs. This was due to Avalon and BFL being unable to deliver product to the marketplace. They could take orders, but they couldn't ship them in time to keep up with demand. ASICminer could and it was they who profited from it. I spent a small amount of time trying to convince folks that the USB sticks would not have a positive ROI, but it was swimming upstream against a fast current.