Honestly, the standard for "proven and publicly accepted" on this forum is laughable compared to any major mathematical or scientific proof, or even that of most court rooms.

Sure thing, Captain Hindsight! I'm sure they totally knew about all the mistakes they would make before they made them.

Which benefits of the doubt? ASICs really do take a long time to produce. Failed chips really do require a whole new production run. What we see really is how things would look if their first chips failed and they were forced to get new ones made. Most companies really are light on information, only publishing what they need to market it.

I'm not giving them a free ride here. BFL really can make more money from products that really are possible to produce, than from a scam. Simple logic says that BFL will do whatever will make them the most money.



You didn't even read my post.

If it's not obvious, I'm pretty sure that it's genuine, but I do want to see some real-world power consumption figures of the final product before I order. Electricity is expensive here.

Of course it's there for show. It's goddamn CES, where companies try to show off whatever they can. They said weeks in advance that their chips wouldn't be ready.


They'd have to be braindead to not realise that people would ask about them. They wouldn't have been able to release FPGA products if they were braindead.

Every ASIC vendor advertised (at least a little bit) before they had a finished product. This does not imply that they didn't have a real design.


Obviously they have a good advertising budget. You can get this sort of funds when you have good investors who see some serious cash to be made.


Being produced? You realise that it takes a long time to produce them, right? This means that if the initial batch doesn't work (annoyingly high chance), it takes a long time to get the second batch. If that doesn't work either, you're forced to delay the shipment for a third, etc.


Why would they publish specs of their chips? The spec of the finished product is all that really matters to the customer.


Um, what do you consider to be "transparency"? I've noticed some pretty ridiculous goalpost-shifting over the last few months...every time they publish something, they apparently cease to be transparent if they don't publish more.

You may think this looks like a scam, but the simple fact is that the outward appearance of a new company trying to release their first ASIC product looks pretty much exactly the same, so it would be 50/50 for a scam or no scam without evidence. However, consider this evidence:

• ASICMINER has working chips, so it is at least physically possible to produce mining ASICs
• bASIC apparently also has a small number of prototype chips (possibly from a MPW)
• BFL has sold FPGA products before, so they probably already had at least some of the required expertise, they know how mining works, etc.
• Selling ASICs can be very, very profitable. If their power usage is lower than their competitors, then they will remain profitable for longer...people will still be buying these for a long time
• Many are simply waiting to see real products before they order, myself included, resulting in a fresh wave of orders after they first ship

Having ruled out that it's impossible to produce ASICs, BFL is in a better position financially if they can produce a real product than if they can get away with a scam. Assuming they want to make money, it's therefore more likely that the products are real.

POINT: it's CES. Most of the companies show to advertise incomplete products.

They announced beforehand that it wouldn't be complete in time.

Stop also missing my point!


I didn't say it can't be a scam (although it is unlikely, since they can make more from actually delivering).

Stop missing my point! You suggested that not even the first people would get refunds but they already have.

I'm not saying that I'm certain that all future refunds will be honoured, only that you shouldn't pretend that refunds are already being rejected.

The first refunds have been processed. If this really is a genuine scam, you shouldn't have to exaggerate.

Evidence please.

The posted on the forums weeks beforehand that they wouldn't. This is not news.




Explain. It's not like they could have asked CES to delay the entire event until they get a batch of working chips...

.....Or submit a refund! They're refunding anyone who wants one!

That guy snuck into CES with fake identification for the purpose of harassing Josh/BFL. TWICE. I would be pretty pissed off if I were in Josh's shoes. The "total asshole" is the guy who made the video.

He's just upset that we get Christmas sooner.

Delayed shipping == scam ??

I see there's a 10% error margin. That means that BFL could deliver a fully working ASIC unit doing 60GH/s but if it uses 67W instead of their claimed 60W (but still less than every competitor) then the answer still comes out as no. However, it doesn't actually say if "advertised spec" refers to the hashrate or to everything...

Why on earth would they have one chip? If they had chips at all, they would have thousands, and they would post photos of them being soldered on to PCBs and be shipping them. You know, they did say in advance that they wouldn't have hashing units, so you should have already known this, but I guess I can forgive you for not bothering to read their forums.

Why would an actual "BFL apologist" put in in their profile? Why would an actual troll put it in their sig?


There's a post right here in this thread pointing out that IP issues in China are real.

Who cares?

I want my 65nm ASICs now.

I'm not convinced that his original post was ever "laced with stereotypes". It seems more like seeing what you expect to see. Since you already judged him as evil long ago, if a post of his includes the word china, it must be racist, right?