Blockchain bloat will have to be dealt with at some point anyway. SDICE is just accellerating this a bit. It was clear a long time ago that the "p2p nature" (as in: every customer runs a node) of Bitcoin was going to be "reduced".

[/quote]

Ya, this has significantly shifted my interest in the Bitcoin implementation of 'crypto-accounting systems'.  My interest is still high of course, but it is weighted more toward seeking personal profits than it was, and analyzing the system as a general study for future independent efforts vs. hoping that evolutionary developments of Bitcoin proper hold much hope as leverage toward balancing the imbalances in our mainstream monetary solutions.  So it goes.

Some of the Bitcoin dev team have mentioned the strain SD puts on the nascent Bitcoin solution, and it is blamed for a fair part of the blockchain bloat.  Even so, it does not seem to be enough to have induced a workable merkle pruning scheme yet.  I do hope that such a thing is even practical.  It seems a shame to me that so much effort was put into the GUI client a year and a half ago vs. some of the more foundational aspect of the Bitcoin solution since the end result seems to be that the QT-client (and P2P nature of Bitcoin itself) is increasingly unpopular due to bloat.

One of the earliest concerns of mine regarding Bitcoin is that it did not seem to have enough protection against 'denial of service' attacks, though I still have not studied the issue in great detail.

I would be leery of investing in SD in case the evolution of the Bitcoin solution injects measures which impact the practicality of SD working as it does (however that is.)  Maybe SD could adapt.  I wouldn't know.

Perhaps the moderator who was so harried can weigh in on the nature and magnitude of the harassment they received from the Avalon team.  Also it would be interesting to know which mod coordinates with BFL such that Inaba can come up with such detailed information.

I will say that it looked unsightly when BFL spammed the Avalon thread, and also looked somewhat discretionary (e.g., the excuse that they were tamping down lies didn't seem to fly.)  By the same token, it actually does not look that great going the other direction.  The same argument about 'free time' in what one would expect to be fairly busy days down at the shop applies.

That said, I find it wildly entertaining when one vendor harasses another, and also relatively informative since the various ASIC [would-be] vendors probably have more insight into the field (that is, producing/scamming) that the average Joe here.

Heh.  Payback is a bitch

My skim of this latest info seems to indicate that Tom basically has nothing to buy in terms of progress toward an ASIC.  Thus, a 'buyout' would not really do much to competition in the ASIC space.

I've long suspected that BFL is in the same category (limited or no technical progress), and while I've not committed it to writing (that I remember), I wondered if Tom recognized BFL as a scam and also that he was in a pretty good position to get in on the action.  Avalon I actually have some hope for, and if they ship anything in early 2013 it will have been about a year earlier than I theorized as likely.  Better yet, it will likely foster competition because it will show that such a thing is within reach, and also there is probably some room to improve on their initial implementation.

Turk finally got it through his skull how similar and complementary to PMs Bitcoin is?  Sunnakar's doing?  No matter...hurry anyway.

From getting scammed obviously.  (And yes, I acknowledge that BFL is not a proven scam at this point, but even if not, being delayed until long after others have their ASIC's humming away is probably not likely to result in the pay-day a lot of people might have hoped for.)

I don't pay a lot of attention to this stuff since I've not yet felt the calling to be a miner, but I guess I pay more attention than you.  From what I gather, BFL's FPGA stuff what a cache of out-of-production (although powerful) FPGA's.  They didn't even know how to compute the power which is why their estimates were so far off.

As for screwing things together, at least one of their customers said that things worked OK when he re-did a bunch of the work.  Highly technical stuff like flipping the fan around and that sort of thing.  I guess they put it in a pretty box or something though, and that's good enough for many of their customers.

But anyway, their business model comes to an end when the box full of surplus/reject FPGA's run dry.  Faced with needing to either close shop, compete with people who seem to know what they are doing, or try an ASIC pre-order scam, it does not take much imagination to envision someone with with a 'rich history' in scammery opting for the latter.

Saved by (unsurprisingly) being broke.  A practical advantage of being in such a condition.

Anyway, if I were running a pre-order scam, I'd be targetting people much like yourself...albeit with more disposable income.  Cook up some simple mock-up apps and watch the money pour in.

An alternate hypothesis is that BFL may recognize that this is a more effective strategy to rope in the simpletons who would be likely to send them 'pre-order' funds without any tangible evidence that BFL will ever be delivering anything.  People who don't want to 'learn ssh' are likely a super-set of the 'have money, will send to strangers' group.

I had been at one point, but the guy tried to turn things around so that rather than betting about whether BFL had been lying in order to suck in pre-order funds, he wanted to make it about some power consumption issue under some theory that that would prove that BFL has been diligently at work setting milestones in chip design.  Thread starts here if you are interested:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134952.msg1439161#msg1439161

At this point I consider it to much of a hassle to dick around with bets like this.  But go ahead and throw out your terms if you are so inclined.

I wonder if they do.  From my topical scanning of things, it seems that BFL found a stockpile of out-of-production FPGAs for their FPGA product line and screwed them together in some manner to get them out the door.  When that source dries up, they would not have very much to maintain.  They were almost perfectly positioned for a 'long con' in the ASIC scam-space, and my suspicion that that is what they did grows by the day.

I could imagine Josh being pissed at Tom whether Tom stole BFL's thunder as a re-seller...or simply muscled in on a particular niche in the ecosystem of fraud.

---

By way of brainstorming about a potential vanishing act for BFL, here's a possibility:  They could say that they themselves were scammed by a supplier.  They were strung along and had to spend a bulk of the pre-order money.  Then it turned out that the vendor was actually a scammer who was also scamming others (like Tom) and everyone should feel sorry for them after they tried poured their souls and a lot of their own money just trying to help the Bitcoin project prosper.

This reminds me of my 'Geiger counter' app.  It just shows more action when it is tilted.  Loads of fun.  Looks pretty realistic, and I made up some story about how 'the CCD can detect a variety of artifacts which impact the electromagnetic spectra and statistical analysis of these using the phone's cpu...blah,blah,blah' which was good enough to fool most of my PhD holding friends.  For a while until my grin gave the game away.

I think that BFL might be well advised to get an 'Asian benefactor' in order to gain some traction in getting something performs sha256 out the door.  Tom of b[ye]ASIC might know where to look.  Clearly BFL is having a rough time of it on their own.

More seriously, I am now wondering how BFL will perform their (and the pre-order funds) vanishing act.  Tom can just blame the mystery Asians if refunds are not forthcoming.  I guess the easiest way out for BFL is to just follow Tom's act directly...it actually seems so far that it may be relatively workable.

So, you want me to bet on some power metrics under the assumption that that will demonstrate something tangible about whether BFL are a bunch of lying scammers?  'Fraid not.  For one, I have not studied mining power consumption in general, much less circuit simulation and die size issues.  Plus, most of the numbers flying around were likely pulled straight out of someone's ass so they are hardly the basis for a logical chain of reasoning.  There is way to much chance of some technicality or other info popping up to make such a bet.  I don't play around with stuff that I don't understand, but if you think you have some ace up your sleeve to wiggle a victory out of your pet metrics/rational, best of luck to you.

BTW, the reason I've not thought much about power consumption issues is that it never made much sense to me to mine...at least not as a money-making adventure.  Easier to just buy BTC and sit on them, and I've never regretted that decision.  I doubt that I'll buy any mining gear until the second generation of ASIC, and even then hash/power or hash/time will not be as big a consideration to me as other things.  I'll only speculate on mining as a play on a coordinated government directed attack on the Bitcoin network, and in that case the geographical and network topography considerations will be much more interesting.

_My_ bet is predicated on the theory that BFL were misrepresenting various thing in order to get suckers to send them pre-order funds.

From day one I expected some possibility that BFL were scammers so I had no interest in sending them money and also have not paid terribly close attention to the details of their shtick , but here is what I believe they had tried to present:

 - They have some engineer who is also an officer with their company working in France.  He designed a chip that worked, but for the good of their customers it could use some tweaking, and that explained some of the earlier delays.

 - They at least implied that they were in sole control of the processing core that they were going to be delivering.

If someone who gave enough of a shit to follow BFL's various claims want to chime in and say whether, based on BFL's statements of fact, it is a fair or unfair take-away that BFL was supposed to be more than just an average packager of someone else's IP, that would be interesting.

If I were interested in being an early adopter in ASIC, it would be highly important to me that the vendor I use is not just some re-seller of someone else gear.  This is because I would want some advantage from taking the early-adopter risk and a vendor who just cobbles together something which sometimes works (especially if taken apart to make the fan blow air the right way as with other of BFL's toys so I've read) is not a very compelling supplier.

The only reason I am not 'certain' is that I've a very high bar for 'certainty' as a general part of my nature.  I'm confident enough that BFL are scammers (as I define the term) that I'd risk a couple hundred buck...and again, with no potential for personal gain.

Ya, you dug up what I believe to be my initial text.  It is as I recalled. That is, a general curiosity about how long an ASIC scam-ee could be strung along by an ASIC scam-er in this phase of the development of the Bitcoin community.  And, of course, a wish for a decent sample size to make a meaningful scatter plot and best fit.


I don't care much because BFL has none of my money and there was never any chance that they would get any.

The only reason I care at all is that if/when the 'ASIC vendor scam' hits home it will probably be right up there near the top in terms of events which resulted in Bitcoiners being separated from their money.  Not good for Bitcoin generally, but by this time Bitcoin has a long history of shrugging off such setbacks and I'm sure it would this one as well.

As to the bet, it sounds like you and I agree that BFL has been utterly deceitful in efforts to get people to send them pre-order money.  Where we differ is that I consider this scamming while you do not.  Ergo, there doesn't seem to be much to bet about.

Edit: fix quotes.

I'm not normally a very generous person, but missing a delivery date in and of itself does not make one a scammer in my opinion.  If they had legitimate reason to hope for that date and something didn't go accourding to plan/hope, I do not consider it a scam.


Yes.  As time goes by, a scam is res ipsa loquitur, at least in terms of deliberately setting false expectations for the purposes of monetary gain.  This would be negated to some extent if they give everyone back the pre-order money if/when there is a diluge of requests.  I would be surprised if they give refunds when these start to significantly outpace pre-orders...because, again, I now lean towards the theory that BFL is a scammers nest.


LOL

edit: Better Latin after consulting wikipedia...though I still probably mis-used it...

If BFL were flat out lying about anything while accepting pre-order money sent to them on the basis of their setting false expectations, they are scammers in my book.

It is quite possible that Bitcoin mining ASIC could at some point down the road become an inexpensive commodity.  If BFL sits on the pre-order money (or spends it on hookers and blow) while waiting for that point then, buys enough to get the pre-order monkey off their back, yes, they delivered, and yes, they are scammers.

Yes, and more than that.  I started out with a general musing on how long it would be before 'marks' of a hypothetical ASIC scam operation got suspicious when there was a failure to deliver.  I didn't say anything about BFL.


My conditions were designed to capture BFL lying about something they claimed when they were in the hunt for pre-order victims.  That in and of itself qualifies them as scammers in my book.  (If it was 65nm or nothing at all that they claimed, then I'll adjust my conditions accordingly.)  I'm expecting various information to leak out as time goes by.  Some will be verifiable and/or probably reliable and some not.  I don't expect to win this thing on a technicality and don't wish to lose it on one either.  If BFL really was working diligently on an ASIC and they just ran into some bad luck (with timings and what-not as claimed) then I certainly would consider myself the loser of this bet.

Of course I do not know that BFL are scammers, but I think it probable enough at this point that I'll risk 20BTC on it.  Particularly if it would go to a good cause (even though I was among the few who stated reservations about the foundation in the thread discussing it.)

If my definition of a scammer and yours do not align well enough to place a wager on it then it is probably best not to do so.  Or, as seems to be the case here, you do not wish to have your funds backstopped by BFL's existence as a honest and up-front operator I would completely understand

I do not like the stipulations outlined in id=665 for several reasons.  Among them, the opportunity for BFL to simply buy someone elses technology exist.  And, of course, being 10 months behind schedule is questionable to say the least.

Find an example of where I was 'so certain' that BFL was a scam.  I've never been 'certain' of this, but it is true that I've been suspicious for some time and I grow more suspicious by the day.

A trouble with bets of this nature is that it is both very cumbersome to line out the details of what constitutes a win or loss.

That said, I am at this point pretty sure that BFL is a scam by my definition.  Here's the deal I would do, and I'll do it for 20 BTC (assuming my spending money is still available in instawallet and I don't have to go to my deep storage):

1) BFL had no program which could have feasibly produced, in time for their initial announced ship date of Oct 2012,
1a) a 60nm ASIC dedicated to Bitcoin mining
1b) largely their own design or a design commissioned by them for their exclusive use
1c) and for use only by them if _they_ so chose

AND

2) BFL fails to deliver a device utilizing a chip as described in 1) by Q2/2013

While BFL is tight-lipped, they gave every indication that the conditions of 1) were true so I consider them scammers if that turns out not to be the case.  2) just puts an end-date on this bet.

In the off-chance that BFL delivers anything by 04/2013, it may still be difficult to determine if it achieves the conditions of 1).  If this cannot be understood by a majority of observers based on what seemingly reliable info leaks out, the bet is annulled and the bettors get their BTC back.  (Put another way, you don't win the bet if Josh buys an Avalon and sells it to someone.)

I don't know Graet.  If he can explain why he would be interested in wasting his time on such a trifling thing to my satisfaction, he can serve as an arbitrator and escrow (in conjunction with other interested parties reading this note.)  My specifications are easy enough for most observers to understand (and fairly reasonable) so I imagine that Graet and Ozcoin would do a good job of arbitration.

If I win the bet, I'll take my 20 BTC back and your 20 BTC can go straight from the escrow to the Bitcoin Foundation.

What say ye?