As for the other section, I have not personally been involved in said displays of arrogance. Having read through some of the history it is apparent why people are very upset. I do genuinely sympathize with those in that situation. That said, I have seen the reactions of those people first-hand in just two of these threads and reading countless others. It becomes quickly apparent that emotions are intrinsically tied with the responses of those who have had their bridges burned. My milieu presents me with an opportunity to express what the 3-4 month miner and current consumer of ASICs perceives in the market. Even in the process of presenting this view, I've been labelled as - shill
- desperate
- believing magic is responsible for current market forces
So, while I am in no way acting as an apologist for anyone's behavior - I can absolutely see what kind of response can be expected from slighted ASIC customers of ~1 year+ If only you had done actual research on BFL, people might have more patience with you. You say you are aware of the history and even read through some of it. Perhaps you should take a few days to actually educate yourself before you declare things to be "absurd" or "trolling". If the veterans of the forums are short with you it is because your type is a dime a dozen here. Your type shows up and wonders why regurgitation of the BFL party line is met with hostility. Dismissing all evidence that does not originate with BFL is certainly not going to endear you either. I hate to burst your bubble, but I have little desire to be endeared to you. Actually none, or negative desire if we really want to be specific. OP's idea was, and is, absurd. Zero "veterans" of the thread have been short with me aside from you, and "short" is hardly the word to describe what you've been typing. Dribble, babble? I don't even know any more. I'm not trolling any company line. I'm not a type. Continue to try and fabricate associations between me and a company all you want, but you're just flailing - and flailing poorly, at that. Name: ThatDGuy Posts: 237 Position: Full Member Date Registered: April 25, 2013, 04:01:07 PMLast Active: Today at 08:35:26 PM Sorry, but you are a type. Uneducated, unaware, wide-eyed at bitcoin, and running wild with confirmation bias. You got called out for not understanding what a hypothetical is after insulting someone for rightfully pointing out it's absurdity. You didn't realize that BFL could not actually have 100s of TH/s of mining equipment. You didn't realize the composition of BFL's order book. You have little to no idea of the history of BFL, you only know that there is hostility surrounding them. I have doubts the OP *could* organize a mass refund, but I have no doubt that one could appear and would be extremely harmful to BFL's business. KNCMiner's product has twice the bang for the buck and is looming on the horizon. If KNCMiner delivers, BFL's order book will vanish because people would rather get twice as much for their money. You backpedal and derail discussions. You willfully ignore key areas of the discussion because they are inconvenient to your argument. Put a little more effort into your subject before you start spouting off on it. Don't cherry pick data that fits your argument and ignore data that does not. Your original point that a mass refund would help BFL remains idiotic. Your defense of it is dogmatic. Saying that you are after some charity money from BFL was sarcasm, you would not be worth it. |
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As for the other section, I have not personally been involved in said displays of arrogance. Having read through some of the history it is apparent why people are very upset. I do genuinely sympathize with those in that situation. That said, I have seen the reactions of those people first-hand in just two of these threads and reading countless others. It becomes quickly apparent that emotions are intrinsically tied with the responses of those who have had their bridges burned. My milieu presents me with an opportunity to express what the 3-4 month miner and current consumer of ASICs perceives in the market. Even in the process of presenting this view, I've been labelled as - shill
- desperate
- believing magic is responsible for current market forces
So, while I am in no way acting as an apologist for anyone's behavior - I can absolutely see what kind of response can be expected from slighted ASIC customers of ~1 year+ If only you had done actual research on BFL, people might have more patience with you. You say you are aware of the history and even read through some of it. Perhaps you should take a few days to actually educate yourself before you declare things to be "absurd" or "trolling". If the veterans of the forums are short with you it is because your type is a dime a dozen here. Your type shows up and wonders why regurgitation of the BFL party line is met with hostility. Dismissing all evidence that does not originate with BFL is certainly not going to endear you either. |
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Ok, I missed the Bitcoin mining train.  Is there a way to use the ASIC for LTC, or stick with the GPU? If KNCMiner delivers, that would be a second generation product with better bang for the buck. You could look into ordering that at some point. I would not jump just yet, but it looks promising. |
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JUNE 15
R-DAY
Change to the 14th. You want to hit them on a Friday, = they know about the tsunami but can't do anything over the weekend to move funds. Gives time for it to build momentum. Nah. It will take them two weeks to make it that far into their email box. In fact, if you request a refund now, they might just find out by early July. Yeah, there is literally no way you could get the refunds to hit all at once. BFL would drag their feet processing them and you couldn't reach enough of the pre-order investors to coordinate a single salvo of refunds. A thread full of people who have canceled their orders with BFL would be statistically interesting, but it would be impossible to know what percentage of orders that thread represents. There could still be 90 days of backlog even after a thread with 100 cancellations in it. According to the data we have, the lion's share of pre-orders (dollar value) is in mini-rigs. If that slice of the order book vanishes due to pre-orders (or never existed in the first place), that would put the screws to BFL. If KNCMiner delivers, expect every real mini-rig order to jump ship since KNCMiner is claiming twice the bang for the buck that BFL is claiming. BFL really needs to get their mini-rig operational and ship the first one. The next month or so should be very interesting. |
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It's irrelevant to the market right now. You choose different proof.
As I said, whenever you're ready to stop talking about the past, either in this thread or in the history of ASICs and start looking at what's going on right now, I'm ready to listen. I'm sorry the present doesn't line up with how you wanted it to.
You're just babbling now. I'm sorry you got so worked up and emotional about all of this.
It must be so nice for you to just dismiss all things inconvenient to your argument and then declare victory. According to ThatDGuy: Would a mass of refunds be harmful or beneficial to BFL? IGNORE BFL'S FINANCIAL SITUATION COMPLETELY!!! Your position is absurd. It has only grown more so. You are approaching Wrenchmonkey status. Keep derailing this thread and soon you will be eligible for BFL "charity donations". Cui bono indeed. |
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If you find a way to clear the queue for us, PLEASE let me know, as I'll place roughly $18,000 of Jalapeno orders, IMMEDIATELY upon learning that there's no longer any backlog. I guarantee you that I am not the only one. I'd be willing to bet my house on it, right there along with others.
So please, do us that favor, and clear out the pre-order queue!
This is what's known as magic as opposed to market forces here. Beware using such logic. Look at how desperate ThatDGuy is to demonstrate that a wave of refund requests would help BFL. DESPERATE. Even the thought of such an action has him replying to every single post on the subject. Derailing discussions. Refusal to consider BFL's history. Blind allegiance to BFL's own statements. Hmm, it might be time to consider Cui Bono since ThatDGuy's posts are now entirely devoid of content. //Begin sarcasm Super desperate here, you found me out. On no, what will my ASICMINER dividends look like next week if my grand plan doesn't pan out. //End sarcasm I encourage anyone to look through my post history aside from two threads where I asked honest questions from an unbiased consumer's point of view, and presented my perspective based on the way the market is currently functioning. I have literally nothing to hide and stand beside all of it when read in context. I know context isn't your strong suit but am confident that the majority of reasonable readers understand how it works. I thought it was worthwhile to make wrenchmonkey aware that he may well be considered a magician on this particular post. That's pretty cool, for him. You asked the questions and ignored or misrepresented the answers. People have had legitimate questions about BFL's financial situation for the last 8 months. IRRELEVANT you say, they have infinite money as far as you care. Since they have infinite money, they can never go bankrupt and in this magical world of infinite money people canceling BFL orders would indeed benefit them. Your premise is absurd and incompatible with reality. No wonder nobody can resolve things to your satisfaction. There must be a shortage of unicorns or something. |
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So I haven't been following all of the BFL drama over the past however long, but I have another concern that might be of note to this group buy.
We know that they have actual chips that work, they've shipped (a few) Jalapenos. But from what I've seen of the tear down of these devices they have 2 working chips on a board designed to house 8 chips, with a pretty beefy heatsink and fan on those two chips. They've stated they missed their power numbers, and thereby the chips run hotter than they intended. Is it possible (me not being much more than a hardware layman) that these chips run too hot for any reasonable cluster size on a PCB?
If so, then BFL could ship the chips, fully complying with the terms of the group buy, and have the money released from escrow, only to have the buyers holding chips that overheat constantly and have to be throttled or have fewer chips placed per board than intended. I think it was a surprise to a lot of people (myself included) that Josh agreed to the full escrow deal. Maybe this is why? They have a ton of chips and can only use a few per board? It would only make sense to sell them and get all the money they could out of their (our) investment at that point.
That would certainly explain why they have not released the Singles or Mini-rig prototypes. Those are supposed to be densely populated boards. Perhaps the chips cannot be kept cool. Very hard to say until they release specs and samples. |
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If you find a way to clear the queue for us, PLEASE let me know, as I'll place roughly $18,000 of Jalapeno orders, IMMEDIATELY upon learning that there's no longer any backlog. I guarantee you that I am not the only one. I'd be willing to bet my house on it, right there along with others.
So please, do us that favor, and clear out the pre-order queue!
This is what's known as magic as opposed to market forces here. Beware using such logic. Look at how desperate ThatDGuy is to demonstrate that a wave of refund requests would help BFL. DESPERATE. Even the thought of such an action has him replying to every single post on the subject. Derailing discussions. Refusal to consider BFL's history. Blind allegiance to BFL's own statements. Hmm, it might be time to consider Cui Bono since ThatDGuy's posts are now entirely devoid of content. |
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...still?
Let it go, man. We were way past that like yesterday.
No, you changed the subject to "market forces". Just because you refuse to address the situation of BFL finances does not make it disappear. You have consistently misrepresented my positions in a transparent attempt to put words in my mouth. I did not expect better from you, unfortunately. I have had too much experience on these forums. Your position in this thread has always been absurd on the border of idiotic. I have been very patient with you up to this point. I have attempted to explain reputational risk to you. I have demonstrated how BFL has many past claims that turned out to be either incorrect or untrue. I have shown that there is a mystery about how they are funding their operations, they claim it is not from pre-orders but there is no other source of income or investment to account for their operational funding. Your willful ignorance and misquoting is tiresome. Time has told that BFL was the worst of the ASIC options. Merely holding the BTC instead of buying BFL would have seen a 10 fold increase in value. Buying Avalon would have seen even higher returns. Buying ASICMiner shares would have been higher still. Time will tell as to how many and how much BFL's investors get screwed for. It's like somewhere you missed the fact that this entire thread is idiotic. The premise is absurd. You've already attempted to fabricate parts of my post history for your own advantage once and I called you on it respectfully. Keep on talking in "would haves" and analyzing BFL's finances. Time will continue to tell, and the present is speaking loud and clearly right now. One of us is listening. One day you will read the following, then you won't have an excuse to call the notion of a wave of refunds absurd anymore. ThatDGuy claimed that $5 million dollars in refunds would benefit BFL. I contend that they do not have their pre-order money in escrow as they claim. I would bet that $5 million in refund requests would bankrupt BFL (assuming there is even $5 million in their order book). 11 months of product development and a full company with offices paid for with what money? They discontinued their FPGA sales and they were never that profitable so it can't be from that. Nobody has owned up to investing in BFL. BFL has never identified any investment made in them other than a cryptic message about support from a "private equity group" that has never been mentioned since (probably for legal reasons). |
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You're now asserting that BFL has the risk of imploding assuming a "mass of refund request" - i.e. Dogie's impossible idea. i.e. the ludicrous hypothesis that I was pretty sure we stopped talking about 2 pages ago.
I was always saying it was not ludicrous, that it would not benefit BFL, and that your claims that a mass refund request would benefit BFL was what was absurd. I am still saying that. Your failure to examine the facts of the situation is why you are confused. Perhaps you should go back and read my posts again. Not confused at all over here. You're more than capable of going back through pages 1-2 of this thread to see plenty of people either commenting directly about how asinine the "plan" was or indirectly through their responses. When you, or anyone else, is ready to address this discrete question, I'm all ears: If a company was in such dire financial straits as you are alluding to, why would they force a refund on a customer?
I've asked a few times, and gotten emotional responses and added context to it instead of answers. If there is no real answer to it, then it can be reasonably assumed that the company is doing fine. You question was answered. You refuse to read it. However, I can paste it hundreds of times without too much effort. I will paste the response again until you either read it or have it read to you. More disinformation from ThatDGuy. ThatDGuy claimed that $5 million dollars in refunds would benefit BFL. I contend that they do not have their pre-order money in escrow as they claim. I would bet that $5 million in refund requests would bankrupt BFL (assuming there is even $5 million in their order book). 11 months of product development and a full company with offices paid for with what money? They discontinued their FPGA sales and they were never that profitable so it can't be from that. Nobody has owned up to investing in BFL. BFL has never identified any investment made in them other than a cryptic message about support from a "private equity group" that has never been mentioned since (probably for legal reasons). |
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Hand waving and poo-flinging
Oh look, wrenchmonkey is back after the last time I schooled him on this subject. The press release claimed a private equity group had backed BFL. No names. GROUP, not solo angel investor like you claim. If you actually have evidence that it was a solo angel that backed BFL, please enlighten us. Currently, the only evidence is BFL's one time claim that a nameless private equity group backed them. FYI, billionaires who run private equity groups don't give a crap about random forum posts on the internet. |
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If a company was in such dire financial straits as you are alluding to, why would they force a refund on a customer?
Probably because they didn't consider the negative legal and public-relation repercussions, or choose to deal with the matter civilly ? I'm not talking about any of the other potential effects. I'm talking about at a strictly financial level: If a company is about to run out of money (as k9quaint would allege) WHY would they be giving any money back? Diminish legal responsibility, and continue the illusion they are competent... (Note: only *if that's the case, hypothetically speaking) His post said NOTHING positive or otherwise about BFL's competency. He merely pointed out the fallacy of assuming a company is out of money, when they're clearly continuing operations, and forcing refunds on whiny little cunt nuggets like Xian. Thank you. It's insane to me that I literally pre-empted what I said with this: I hate to belabor this point and add further tangential fuel to the fire, but I have a very simple question:
If a company was in such dire financial straits as you are alluding to, why would they force a refund on a customer?
Edit: removed circumstantial evidence for consistency's sake.
...yet people still will remove context and put their own around it to dilute, muddle, and derail the conversation. UGH, hate having to repeat myself, but if you want to rehash your debunked positions, so be it. More disinformation from ThatDGuy. ThatDGuy claimed that $5 million dollars in refunds would benefit BFL. I contend that they do not have their pre-order money in escrow as they claim. I would bet that $5 million in refund requests would bankrupt BFL (assuming there is even $5 million in their order book). ...still? Let it go, man. We were way past that like yesterday. No, you changed the subject to "market forces". Just because you refuse to address the situation of BFL finances does not make it disappear. You have consistently misrepresented my positions in a transparent attempt to put words in my mouth. I did not expect better from you, unfortunately. I have had too much experience on these forums. Your position in this thread has always been absurd on the border of idiotic. I have been very patient with you up to this point. I have attempted to explain reputational risk to you. I have demonstrated how BFL has many past claims that turned out to be either incorrect or untrue. I have shown that there is a mystery about how they are funding their operations, they claim it is not from pre-orders but there is no other source of income or investment to account for their operational funding. Your willful ignorance and misquoting is tiresome. Time has told that BFL was the worst of the ASIC options. Merely holding the BTC instead of buying BFL would have seen a 10 fold increase in value. Buying Avalon would have seen even higher returns. Buying ASICMiner shares would have been higher still. Time will tell as to how many and how much BFL's investors get screwed for. |
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You're now asserting that BFL has the risk of imploding assuming a "mass of refund request" - i.e. Dogie's impossible idea. i.e. the ludicrous hypothesis that I was pretty sure we stopped talking about 2 pages ago.
I was always saying it was not ludicrous, that it would not benefit BFL, and that your claims that a mass refund request would benefit BFL was what was absurd. I am still saying that. Your failure to examine the facts of the situation is why you are confused. Perhaps you should go back and read my posts again. |
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If a company was in such dire financial straits as you are alluding to, why would they force a refund on a customer?
Probably because they didn't consider the negative legal and public-relation repercussions, or choose to deal with the matter civilly ? I'm not talking about any of the other potential effects. I'm talking about at a strictly financial level: If a company is about to run out of money (as k9quaint would allege) WHY would they be giving any money back? Diminish legal responsibility, and continue the illusion they are competent... (Note: only *if that's the case, hypothetically speaking) His post said NOTHING positive or otherwise about BFL's competency. He merely pointed out the fallacy of assuming a company is out of money, when they're clearly continuing operations, and forcing refunds on whiny little cunt nuggets like Xian. Thank you. It's insane to me that I literally pre-empted what I said with this: I hate to belabor this point and add further tangential fuel to the fire, but I have a very simple question:
If a company was in such dire financial straits as you are alluding to, why would they force a refund on a customer?
Edit: removed circumstantial evidence for consistency's sake.
...yet people still will remove context and put their own around it to dilute, muddle, and derail the conversation. UGH, hate having to repeat myself, but if you want to rehash your debunked positions, so be it. More disinformation from ThatDGuy. ThatDGuy claimed that $5 million dollars in refunds would benefit BFL. I contend that they do not have their pre-order money in escrow as they claim. I would bet that $5 million in refund requests would bankrupt BFL (assuming there is even $5 million in their order book). |
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If a company was in such dire financial straits as you are alluding to, why would they force a refund on a customer?
Probably because they didn't consider the negative legal and public-relation repercussions, or choose to deal with the matter civilly ? I'm not talking about any of the other potential effects. I'm talking about at a strictly financial level: If a company is about to run out of money (as k9quaint would allege) WHY would they be giving any money back? More disinformation from ThatDGuy. ThatDGuy claimed that $5 million dollars in refunds would benefit BFL. contend that they do not have their pre-order money in escrow as they claim. I would bet that $5 million in refund requests would bankrupt BFL (assuming there is even $5 million in their order book). 11 months of product development and a full company with offices paid for with what money? They discontinued their FPGA sales and they were never that profitable so it can't be from that. Nobody has owned up to investing in BFL. BFL has never identified any investment made in them other than a cryptic message about support from a "private equity group" that has never been mentioned since (probably for legal reasons). |
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what about electricity cost?
ASICs and FPGAs are very power efficient and at the current BTC/USD rate and difficulty, the costs of electricity are negligible. $1 - $5 a month depending on your electrical rates. |
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We know there are people in the world who have more money than sense
Perfect concession, plenty sufficient to end that conversation on. Way past the hypothetical now. I was going to bring up that not a single group buy of BFL's chips succeeded. The only group buy that has not given up is one that is asking for 100% escrow via John K (meaning zero money given to BFL until the chips are shipped). Perhaps BFL will agree given they haven't had any successful buys. That is not a market clamoring for BFL product. That is a market that is very wary of BFL and unwilling to extend them any more benefit of the doubt. Wow. So now you're taking it to the chips sale category? Whether BFL can successfully get into the chips market given the consumer base there is an entirely different subject. Why even bring that up when all I need to do is take one minute to find and post this: Same topic, but maybe I moved to fast for you. We were talking about the market's response to BFL's products and whether they thought that BFL could deliver. Their latest "product" offering fell flat on it's face. That is an actual market response. If what you were saying was true, there should have been enormous uptake in the BFL chip offering. Quite the opposite. BlackLilac @20 - Canada
Chanberg @15 - UK
pvtbrutus @12 - Netherlands
3 current bids for 5 GH/s miners. People are voting with their wallets. Over and over and over again. You are offering more tangential evidence to support your theory but it ultimately fails every time it comes down to $ and BTC, and the law of supply and demand. Jalapeno's are rare and existing ones command a good price. Nobody is arguing that. The entire reason they command a good price is people think BFL won't be able to deliver their orderbook in any reasonable time frame. If people believed that BFL could deliver a Jalapeno ordered today, they would simply order it from BFL and get it in a reasonable amount of time. They would not pay 20 BTC for the rarest of rare treasures, a BFL device in the wild. Those auctions are very different than a pre-order for a 50GH/s device that does not yet exist that is slated for delivery 90 days from now from a company that has never once met a deadline. I have demonstrated that BFL's latest product offering fell flat on it's face. You are conflating sales of what exists with pre-orders of yet to be developed devices. Maybe BFL will eventually get the singles and mini-rigs working and shipped. But I doubt they would survive a mass of refunds from those who ordered those devices. That is 93% of their order book according to the only data we have. If a company was in such dire financial straits as you are alluding to, why would they force a refund on a customer who apparently had enough funds to then purchase 20 USB miners @ 2BTC per unit?
They certainly have money in the bank. If they didn't, we would see notices of eviction actions and lawsuits to recover money owed by BFL filed in the courts. How much money is the question. If they spent half their pre-order cash funding 8 extra months of development, then they are vulnerable to a mass of refund requests. |
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As long as you cling to the idea that BFL has unlimited money, you will never see them at risk of imploding. Clearly you believe they have segregated all of their customer orders in an escrow account and spawned by magic the operating funds for a 20 person company (plus consultants) over the last 11 months. Here is Inaba/Josh saying back in July 27, 2012 that the BFL singles were being prepped to ship and mini-rigs were being assembled. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90333.msg994223#msg994223Clearly, their business plans at that time did not include an additional 10 months of operating costs. Where did that money come from? No venture capital group or private equity group has claimed to have invested in BFL. No angels have claimed them either. There's my little liar again, k9quaint. What our dear friend k9 has neglected to mention in the above quote is that: 1) I was not working for BFL at the time. 2) I was referring to the FPGA equipment, which was in fact shipping. But don't let context, facts and honesty deter your ranting K9. Just keep piling up the BS. Oh how cute. Josh says that their FPGA sales have been providing the last 10 months of operating costs. Well that explains it all then. BFL has been selling FPGA devices this whole time to fund the 11 months of ASIC development. Should I bother digging up BFL's explanation of why they discontinued their FPGA line? Or should I leave that as an exercise to the reader. /pats Josh on the head |
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*looks around suspiciously, looks at watch*
Where's Smoothie, Frizz, and Puerto?
I figured they'd be here by now already foaming at the mouth and snarling in agreement with OP...
What else is left to say? |
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We know there are people in the world who have more money than sense
Perfect concession, plenty sufficient to end that conversation on. Way past the hypothetical now. I was going to bring up that not a single group buy of BFL's chips succeeded. The only group buy that has not given up is one that is asking for 100% escrow via John K (meaning zero money given to BFL until the chips are shipped). Perhaps BFL will agree given they haven't had any successful buys. That is not a market clamoring for BFL product. That is a market that is very wary of BFL and unwilling to extend them any more benefit of the doubt. 2. I'm plenty willing to question their statements, in a rational manner, and given their long-term and recent history. This combined with anecdotal evidence from the forums has provided me with all of the information I need as a consumer put a risk assessment on BFL. I'm not willing to speculate about supposed conspiracies.
P.S. Despite the fact that we disagree on some things, I do respect your opinion and can understand your perspective as well.
As long as you cling to the idea that BFL has unlimited money, you will never see them at risk of imploding. Clearly you believe they have segregated all of their customer orders in an escrow account and spawned by magic the operating funds for a 20 person company (plus consultants) over the last 11 months. Here is Inaba/Josh saying back in July 27, 2012 that the BFL singles were being prepped to ship and mini-rigs were being assembled. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90333.msg994223#msg994223Clearly, their business plans at that time did not include an additional 10 months of operating costs. Where did that money come from? No venture capital group or private equity group has claimed to have invested in BFL. No angels have claimed them either. I don't believe any of that, that was another poor inference on your part. As for the post that long ago, it's a fascinating look at history, and also makes it apparent why some people have the gripes that they do. I am not in that group of people. I came on board well after that, and could look back at the relevant parts of BFL's history to make an assessment of what kind of risk I was willing to take, and what the portions of a portfolio would be. I am not alone in this group of consumers, judging from anecdotal evidence. You say that you are not their accountant and therefore you are unconcerned by any financial details of BFL. That my friend, is what is called willful ignorance. No it's not. Despite the fact that I don't immediately subscribe to everything you post, I've discussed multiple times the rationale behind my risk assessment. If I haven't made it clear before, I'm well aware of what BFL threads degenerate to. Without having possession of BFL proprietary info (which only they rightfully have) I'm not going to entertain any discussion about their financial details. It's not worth the time, or wasted energy. A neat way to dismiss the core of peoples worries about BFL. You don't have proof and you are unwilling to entertain circumstantial evidence. BFL said they have the money and that is good enough for you. BFL said they have the products and that is good enough for you. There is already good competition in the ASIC community. More is on the way.
Bitcoin would have been better served if BFL had never existed, that money would have been spent on Avalon and ASICMiner (and perhaps other ventures). Of course, BFL was great for people who already had mining equipment (and did not order from BFL). BFL kept millions of dollars from being invested in actual hash rate and increasing the profit margin of every existing miner.
Perhaps being the key word. It's very easy to see in hindsight all of the woulda/shoulda/couldas. Opportunity cost has to be a constant consideration. Those people with pre-orders can go get refunds right now if they want to put their money elsewhere. They all have risks associated with them, that's just the nature of the marketplace right now. This will all be different over the coming months. As I've said countless times here, consumers will vote with their $/ BTC. For a lot of people, it was very easy to see in foresight. They brought up arguments like "not possible due to the laws of physics" and "people who make power and usage claims like that cannot possibly understand chip & PCB design". Those threads were not the ravings of trolls as the BFL folks claimed. They were simply people who knew that 5 watts would not heat a cup of coffee. They knew that getting 5GH/s out of 5 watts of power was so absurdly optimistic that no reasonable company would target it for a 65nm process. They knew that such a device could not be reliably powered by USB alone. All these complaints rooted in elementary physics were dismissed as the ravings of haters and trolls by Inaba himself. I am sure if BFL does crater, people will say "oh well, we couldn't have known" and that will be untrue. |
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