Meanwhile, many Avalon customers got their shipping notices ... and the bitcoin network dropped over the last couple of days ...

Well you felt the need to act like a tool with your comment of can I spell - you get treated like one.

And to further the matter you have just made yourself look like rather idiotic. You obviously have not read any of my posts as I was the one ARGUING that using customers equipment to mine is unacceptable.

Man don't just steam roller in mouthing off like a cretin without reading the thread. Only one outcome you look dumb.

As someone else pointed out the fluctuation was due to ASICMiner nothing to do with a couple of 500ghs BFL units - as the change was huge but unsurprisingly you did not bother to check that either.

Also using the same username across multiple sites is not clever either as you can be easily identified.                                                                                                                                                                        

It also indicates why the stepwise linearity of difficulty is a far less important metric when massive swings in network capacity can and do happen, and how the centralized operations can and will game that.

For example, right after a diff. reset, a big operator can bring a chunk of capacity online and jump BpH up to around 8 or more.  In fact,the marginal small unit isn't going to contribute in that enhanced bounty, only the centralized power is mathematically positioned to extract that "bonus."

Gaming abounds.  With regard to this network drop, though, something happened somewhere, I don't think there's any question, and that goes right to the point you made.
 

Yes I can Five Hundred Gigahashes. Not really sure what point you are making.

How is the mining going at BTCMine? Enjoying your 10 day stint for 0.1 bitcoins?

I really wish I could change make my status from Sr. Member to "Unexpected Buddy".

Thanks for that it does clear things up.

But then what the hell are ASICMiner doing - this is a perfect example of why the network needs to be decentralised.

Is this a new form of attack to squeeze out the smaller players? Increase the difficulty to such a point and then reduce hashrate to dramatically increase the time between difficulty adjustments. Hence making it impossible to pay the costs.

A similar thing was done to Bytecoins and it destroyed it - plus it was shite anyway but the fact still stands.

Where did you hear that?

it may not be accurate because there are a lot of units in that room heating up the room temp so who knows what it would when you have it

Maybe.

I'm basing my assumption on what proof I have (admittedly, it's not much), but if I were you I wouldn't get worked up on ideas not backed by facts, It won't do you any good. if you think they have scammed so much, search the blockchain, maybe you will come up with something relevant.

I think you will be sorely disappointed when you receive a 0.65BTC refund per machine for the coins that Avalon "stole" from mainnet

(780 BTC / 1200 miners ≃ 0.65 BTC/miner)

So basically Avalon is stealing from all of us using preordered unit. GG scammers

Governments have a problem with bitcoin, that works to the scammers' advantage short term:  if they were to allege fraud -under US law, it would probably be Civil RICO- then, by definition, they would be accepting the legitimacy of bitcoins as something of value, and -worse- would have to assign some value to them to finish the allegation.

I have no doubt that there has been systematic use of Avalon equipment since the March/April price run-up.  I don't believe it has been done by team Avalon, except to the extent that their poor control over their fulfillment processes is responsible in an overarching, "buck stops at the top" way.

But prior to April, I don't believe it was worth it.  I'm not so sure that BFL has done it, or is so loosely organized that it would go on without knowledge; I don't think that's part of their script.

What you are really saying, probably, is this:  If 30% of the new coins minted were done so using the money of those who pre-purchased asic "dreams," only to have those dreams turn into nightmares of difficulty-induced futility, then a lot of people - maybe a critical mass of early adopters - would abandon the concept and it could die.  

Yeah, that's possible.  But as long as the "scheme" regardless of the ethics of those around it, continues to produce 400 thousand dollars worth of something every day, there for the taking for anybody who has the right piece of electronic gadgetry, there will be those to replace those who drop away, if someone promises them that gadget.

The governments and the Central banks might, ultimately, kill this.  But right now, they haven't figured out how to attack it effectively, and, frankly, it isn't big enough - yet - for them to worry too much about.

Be careful with that.  Governments around the world are probably already drafting bills that would allow for licensing of mining operations. 

Say what?  You don't have a license for that ASIC?  Well, boy, that is 3 years in a big house; for each Gh/s.  Confiscation of hardware, seizure of property etc.

I think you should never underestimate the force of good ol' private enterprise, petty corruption.

Here's an analogy.  One of my good friends is a retired Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (USA ATF) agent.  One case he worked on as a young man was at the Marlboro plant in Virginia.  Truckloads of Marlboro cigarettes, hundreds of cases, thousands of cartons were loaded into containers and sent to the Navy at Port Norfolk.  Tax free.

The guy whose job it was to seal the container, certifying that the seal was not to be broken execpt overseas, would spoof the seal on certain trucks.  The driver of that truck would exit on the way to Norfolk, stop, pull out a couple cases into a waiting van, and then press the seal.  When the cigs got to Japan or Europe or where ever, nobody even noticed the shortage.

They got busted.  Mafia?  Nope.  International cigarette smugglers?  Nope?  A couple guys who had the motive (money from free cigarettes to sell), means and opportunity.  

Take the crossfire bridge off unless you use it for gaming.  It hurts your hashrate.

And regarding your "bad luck streaks" another "old friend of yours" that just PM'ed me wanted to mention that he's still throwing squid when remembering the "bad luck streak" that your pool had during the weeks previous to block halving in November. It seems math has no place in your pool at some very specific periods.

Unconvinced, and first - even if they are, they are unlikely to be a significant performance/power advantage over GPUs, and second - mining, no matter what the means, efficiency, power, resistance, mechanism etc. does not create an ecosystem in and of itself.