When there is no actual product and no prototypes accepting orders is an "investment" not a purchase. It is basically a no interest loan especially if they use the funds to finance their production process. In this case yes the SEC does prosecute investment scams, because thats what it is.
Exactly. BFL appears to be crowdfunding without being straightforward about it, much less compliant with the numerous applicable regulations. Another delay we've had to endure is the fact that we have effectively tied the ASIC teams payment to the success of the chip. If the chip were to be a failure they don't get paid... so they have incentive to get it right but that has made them very cautious and slow to approve final masks (This is why we can refund all pre-orders we want and why we have the capital to do what we need to do without a failure putting us in bankruptcy).
Seems to me like BFL is using pre-order money to fund ongoing R&D & pay Josh Zerlan + other BFL employee salaries. It seems like they have shot some of that pre-order $$$ at China and China has not shot back ASIC chips. Who knows where the fail could be in such a complex machine. I wonder if they keep gambling: maybe they send more of the pre-order money at a different Chinese manufacturer that promises that can produce the chips, all the while using the huge pre-order bankroll for operations and weekly salaries. Apparently some of the funds are also used to buy CES booths with fan-boxes as a show of corporate strength, with instruction to cuss at anyone asking the tough questions: http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m38s |
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Judging by the deafening silence in this thread by a once aggressive Josh Zerlan, the BFL group has apparently has moved to full damage control in reaction to Josh's unprofessional interaction with me on the CES floor [in case you have been reading this thread under a rock] --> http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m36sJosh recently posted some dates I want to bet BFL will miss: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status.html#post10249And most interesting to me is this recent post by Josh Zerlan: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/690-13-jan-2013-asic-update-discussion-thread-5.html#post10399"Another delay we've had to endure is the fact that we have effectively tied the ASIC teams payment to the success of the chip. If the chip were to be a failure they don't get paid... so they have incentive to get it right but that has made them very cautious and slow to approve final masks (This is why we can refund all pre-orders we want and why we have the capital to do what we need to do without a failure putting us in bankruptcy). " Seems like they treated the pre-order money like a round a funding, not quite sure if a product could be produced with the funds received as "pre-orders" - he also seems to slip up here, saying that they have the capital to do what they need - capital raised from the pre-orders. I wonder how much of that pre-order money is going to pay the salaries of BFL employees. I'm now moving on with this part of my investigation in the "scam accusations" section of this forum, as CES 2013 is over: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=136392.0 |
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If you want to test our android app + make issues as you find them, hit me micon at swc dot eu but spell the name of the site out.
a large testing base is great for catching all the bugs across all the devices. Please make the bug entries too. Although the app is getting tight already, we need to drive it home.
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*** Butterfly Labs Scammer Investigation Abstract ***Josh Zerlan or anyone from BFL is welcome to openly debate me or answer any of these questions on my DonkDown podcast or any other format we can just record and upload for free for everyone to hearSome of you may remember the Pirateat40 & BCST debacle [ http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3243200/bitcoin-ponzi-schemes-savings-and-trust | https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94900.msg1049935#msg1049935 ]. It cost the community ~$5M when delimited in USD. Myself and other members of the community feel a similar situation may be going on at Butterfly Labs. They are in the race for ASIC mining technology, along with a handful of other groups. Their goal is to be first-to-market with a chip that mines bitcoins at an extremely fast and energy efficient rate. As of 1/23/2013 a competing company that BFL references many times as their competition claims to have shipped their first batch of ASIC miners: [ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137534.0 ] Many of you, like me, have noticed the outlandish spending on advertising asking for pre-orders for ASIC devices. While I spend most of my time helping to run SealsWithClubs and have a brand new baby girl, after my interaction with BFL representatives on the floor of CES 2013 I now feel it is my responsibility to bring a full investigation into this company. I further understand that many bitcoin community members have done much of this research themselves. I hope to collect all links and full information in a fact-based manner. My personal best-guess as to what is going on in general at BFL is that they collected a massive amount (many millions when delimited in USD, exact figure unknown) of pre-orders, thought whatever sourcing they had contracted with could produce working ASIC chips, then there were many delays for many technical reasons likely costing BFL more money, so they responded by massively increasing advertising for more pre-orders. Many ads that are floating around Bitcointalk still say simply "xx Gh/s for $xxx Butterfly labs" when they are clearly not capable of shipping said product at this time. It is impossible to know the exact current state of the company, but it is my impression after my personal interactions with the company executives that they are stressed an lying to the public. They may have a hail-Mary play gambling community pre-order money on another run of chips, or they may have absolutely no product and collecting as much as possible before they go belly-up, either legally with a chapter whatever bankruptcy or illegally by jumping on a plane with a thumbdrive full of BTC. 1 man's thoughts, 1 man's investigation. I smell a rat and I think this one may set the record for biggest btc community loss, previously held by Pirateat40. Questions I feel the community deserves answers to: "What hardware did you bring to CES 2013? Where you mining at CES 2013?" "How much in USD have you collected in pre-orders?" "Are you using the pre-order monies to fund current R&D?" "Are you using the pre-order monies to pay current salaries?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Butterfly Labs Company Information [ty lucif] ***---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Butterfly Labs Link Dump ***http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/6/prweb9611889.htm <-- initial press release 7/15/2012 citing "private venture capital" as backing the company. BitcoinTalk Butterfly Labs ASIC Thread [active]: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87934.0 [6/16/2012 OP date] Avalon ASIC Batch #1 shipping thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137534.0elux's BFL scammer thread, concerning Sonny Vleisides: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.0Sonny Vleisides "intro" thread as BFL_Sonny: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110868.0Codinginmysleep Sonny Vleisides interview: http://codinginmysleep.com/interview-with-sonny-vleisides/Video of Josh Zerlan, Butterfly Labs CEO on the floor of CES 2013 when I asked about the BFL hardware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m20s JoshZerlan.com launched. http://joshzerlan.com/ Help requested on adding info. Information on a possible past crime committed by Josh Zerlan
Micon v mrb betting thread on this matter: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135914.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** Day 2 2013 CES Encounter with Josh Zerlan of Butterfly Labs ***
13 minute youtube cue'd to the part where I ask Josh Zerlan of Butterfly Labs to show me the equipment he brought to CES 2013 and he instead uses profanity, hands me a quarter, and refuses to answer the questions of what he knew at this point was a well-informed skeptic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m36s
** Josh Zerlan has claimed I was acting in a manner on Day 1 CES 2013 that warranted this response from him. Josh was not in the booth on day 1, only Dave.
full 2013 bitcoin CES thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133487.0
My account of day1 when asked in the CES 2013 thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133487.msg1452374#msg1452374
I am re-posting my day1 account below this epic pic:
Bryan Micon's Account of Day1 Interaction with BFL @ CES 2013:
This is to the best I can remember. I wasn't recording anything day 1, wasn't planning on anything but sneaking into CES to shake some BTC hands as I always do when BTC companies buy booths in Vegas for conventions. 1) About "sneaking in" to CES: I always "sneak in" to all conventions I want to go to here in Vegas. I wear my WSOP media badge from a few years ago and just walk in like a boss. Sure I could call whatever bitcoin-facing booth is there and have them give me a badge for the ~30 minutes I'll be there. As will all conferences, the booth buyers usually need to pay extra for another badge, or at the very least pull a "hey let me use your badge and then I walk out with 2 badges and give one to you" - I "sneak in" because it is +EV for everyone involved. Next time, if ever, BFL comes to the conference I will acquire a legitimate badge as it was clear they called security to have me removed. 2) About the "stomping and cussing" on day 1 that Josh keeps referring to. First off, Josh was not there day 1. Only Dave was in the booth representing BFL. I imagine Josh was off doing Yoga or other form of meditation & self-reflection. We will get to that in a second. Let's start at the beginning: 3) Whenever a bitcoin booth at any conference comes to Vegas, I go to say hi, shake a hand, say "hey, I'm Micon. I help Freemoney run SealsWithClubs, the market leading bitcoin online poker site." And just see who is there and what they want to talk about, trade bitcoin ideas for ~20-30 minutes then be on my way. I have done this many times and met a bunch of BTC industry leaders. Erik Voorhees I met this way and he is an amazingly awesome human, and Charlie Shrem I met I think at the same Money2020 conference maybe 6 months ago or so at Aria, and I had Charlie on my donkdown podcast for an awesome interview about the bitinstant operation based in New York. I was skeptical about parts of bitinstant and bitpay at the start, but when I asked the company directors of those organizations I was met with clear answers and follow up interviews. 4) Ok so I was on the same grind on day 1 CES - just go and meet the boys again, shake some hands, congratulate bitpay on the round of funding, etc. My daughter was born ~ 2 weeks ago but I made time before picking my parents up at the airport to stop by CES to do this because I feel it is very important, + I'm a huge nerd and CES is nerd porn. Right after the nerd porn convention they have a real porn convention here but that's not the point of this story. When I found the Bitpay booth, I didn't realize they would be sharing a booth with BFL, in fact I was very excited to see BFL equipment on display and I planned on asking some extremely nerdy questions about how the hardware will solve the proof-of-work problem much, much faster than current equipment. I also wanted to understand the metrics of what ASIC will do to the network hash rate, as I understand mining conceptually but not technically. 5) Dave immediately engaged me when I walked near the BFL equipment. I congratulated him on selling a large amount of pre-orders. he said in a smug way "yeah... we've done very well" To a studied poker professional such as myself, his body language gave me the impression that this man felt by collecting the pre-order monies he has already done well. If I were in his shoes, the first thing I would have said was "We have a huge responsibility to get these things shipped ASAP. The community has handed us a large amount of money" I would feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders to make good on the massively distributed promise of sending these machines. Dave felt like a winner, IMO. 6) I asked very plainly "is this your ASICs" or something to that effect. This is when it got predatory. He showed me the box of fans + 1 android tablet and said that is where ASIC chips will eventually go, and the android device will be the output screen to show you how fast it's mining and other stats. I asked what the cube connected to a second android sitting on top of the fan-box was, and Dave said it's an FPGA miner that BFL used to sell, but it wasn't currently mining and you can't buy it from BFL anymore. I asked Dave what items were available for purchase right now from BFL that they could ship immediately, he said there were none. I then asked when they would ship ASICs, he said "in a couple of weeks," and showed me 3 cases that ASIC chips would come inside. 7) After it was clear I was no longer a friendly and was asking some tough questions, he hit me with a classic scammer line something to the effect of "if you don't believe in BFL, then you don't believe in bitcoin." This is where the "stomping and profanity" as Josh put it came in. Please don't take Josh's or My word for it - Ask the bitpay guys about this next part - I give a very intelligent response to Dave, certainly using profanity for emphasis (but not in the personally derogatory way that Josh Zerlan does to me here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m43s ) more like "I believe so much in bitcoin that I wear this fucking button (point to bitcoin button I always wear when leaving the house for any reason) each day, and help run the market leading bitcoin online poker site, dedicating most of my awake time to the betterment of this technology." Ask the bitpay guys. I was certainly pissed off, and this guy used a classic scammer line on me and IMO it required a forceful response so Dave understands that I'm a real guy with real BTC credentials, and his line is bullshit and +1's in my head that he and his company are dishonest. After my response, emotions briefly settled, and I asked him when filled with ASICs how fast this machine would hash at. He said something like 1+ T-hashes per second. I.e. 1000 ghashes/s , would produce in terms of Dave did not know network hashrate. I told him it wasn't a test, just tell me about how many T-hashes/s the network hash rate was. Dave said he still didn't know, so I quickly looked it up on my Galaxy Note II by Samsung running Android Jellybean OS by removing the S-pen and quickly speaking into google "total bitcoin network hashrate" This site came up: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ and to me it looks like the current total bitcoin network hashrate is around 20-25 Thash/s - which means that if Dave was right, just one of these boxes could have ~ 6% of total current network hashing power. I was surprised he had never run the math before... 9) so after this, I post the pic I took and illustrated that BFL did not bring anything worthwhile to CES. I posted on bitcointalk that I'd be back tomorrow to film closely and ask the tough questions. Obviously we all saw Josh Zerlan's response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m43sIf there is anything that needs clarification please ask. I am 100% transparent. I further state that it is possible I have made a small chronological or grammatical error of some sort. I feel I captured the general feel of the day 1 CES experience as it relates to BFL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** Josh Zerlan exhibits low-confidence tells at CES 2013 when a different reporter asks about when the actual ASICs will be shipped ***I have the video cue'd to a few seconds before so you can hear the reporter ask the questions then see Josh's reply, notice the down-left eye movement at 4:41 mark. This is a classic, instant, involuntary low-confidence tell that comes from the limbic part of the brain: http://youtu.be/5ZUPniBo5UQ?t=4m29s ------------------------------------------------------------- *** Info Still Needed ***-- Full list of principals of BFL -- Any sourcing info, i.e. links where any BFL has either denied saying where they are being produced at or listing a location, country, or company that is producing them.
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BFL info incoming
mods maybe move to "scam accusations"
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That helps us piece together the events. Thanks.
If I haven't said it before, congrats on becoming a father. I hope all is well on that front.
I've never interacted with Dave from BFL, so I can't speak to how competent he is.
It sounds like Dave relayed the story to Josh and may have missed your intentions for being there.
My suggestion is to let tempers cool a bit and have Josh on your podcast sometime AFTER BFL ships.
It would, of course, be more entertaining to cointinue the drama, but some of us are more interested in facts. Now back to your regularly scheduled trolling.
TYVM about my little girl - she changed my life instantly. I'm not very emotional in general, and cried for the first 5 days whenever I would see my beautiful wife holding my beautiful daughter and realized how insanely lucky I have gotten in this world and how I should enjoy every second of these special moments. I basically have been on auto-show any other human I come in contact with my baby pix, and I never understood why ppl did that to me when I didn't care about their baby, but I totally get it now. Her name is Anna Micon and I call her the annamicon (ah-nah-mah-con) & she is a singularity & she will continue the crypto-activist revolution born from this currency. All the nerds will follow the hot & smart female crypto-anarchist or crypto-activist whichever she prefers. BFL Josh Zerlan or anyone else from Butterfly labs is welcome on my podcast any time they wish. It usually runs Wed. 7pm live, then podcasted later, but i'll make time day or night to have this debate. No editing of any sort and if BFL is concerned we can do exactly equal time to speak. Others can record and upload to make sure no edits or funny business. I highly doubt a company like BFL, which I can poke endless holes through their business by asking the tough questions, would ever agree to this. Offer on the table for literally any time, day or night, starting now. |
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Trying to see through the malarkey, I hear you.
First question for you, Micon. Can you elaborate on your interaction with Dave on the first day you went to CES? There is some contention on what actually happened. Stomping around exclaiming "Its just a box with fans!" and dropping the F bomb is something you're purported to have done.
Also, the fake badge thing, well it makes you look less credible tbh... Not that you had it, but that you got caught...
But anyway, if you could just address the accusation about your behavior on the first day you visited CES.
I watched the video you put up and my concern is you are offended by your interaction and looking for a fight at any cost so that you feel you've gotten revenge.
SysRun thanks for your questions. I did not explain day 1 properly, and really wasn't planning on any of this happening, wasn't planning to make a scene or even come back the next day, but b/c of what happened on day 1 I felt compelled to post here and go back to get the full story the next day. I told this story to some private skype conversations about BTC I am involved in, but never on these boards, and I should tell my side because Josh is very good at marketing, and instead of working on what must be massive supply chain issues for his company he does 24/7 damage control. This is to the best I can remember. I wasn't recording anything day 1, wasn't planning on anything but sneaking into CES to shake some BTC hands as I always do when BTC companies buy booths in Vegas for conventions. 1) About "sneaking in" to CES: I always "sneak in" to all conventions I want to go to here in Vegas. I wear my WSOP media badge from a few years ago and just walk in like a boss. Sure I could call whatever bitcoin-facing booth is there and have them give me a badge for the ~30 minutes I'll be there. As will all conferences, the booth buyers usually need to pay extra for another badge, or at the very least pull a "hey let me use your badge and then I walk out with 2 badges and give one to you" - I "sneak in" because it is +EV for everyone involved. Next time, if ever, BFL comes to the conference I will acquire a legitimate badge as it was clear they called security to have me removed. 2) About the "stomping and cussing" on day 1 that Josh keeps referring to. First off, Josh was not there day 1. Only Dave was in the booth representing BFL. I imagine Josh was off doing Yoga or other form of meditation & self-reflection. We will get to that in a second. Let's start at the beginning: 3) Whenever a bitcoin booth at any conference comes to Vegas, I go to say hi, shake a hand, say "hey, I'm Micon. I help Freemoney run SealsWithClubs, the market leading bitcoin online poker site." And just see who is there and what they want to talk about, trade bitcoin ideas for ~20-30 minutes then be on my way. I have done this many times and met a bunch of BTC industry leaders. Erik Voorhees I met this way and he is an amazingly awesome human, and Charlie Shrem I met I think at the same Money2020 conference maybe 6 months ago or so at Aria, and I had Charlie on my donkdown podcast for an awesome interview about the bitinstant operation based in New York. I was skeptical about parts of bitinstant and bitpay at the start, but when I asked the company directors of those organizations I was met with clear answers and follow up interviews. 4) Ok so I was on the same grind on day 1 CES - just go and meet the boys again, shake some hands, congratulate bitpay on the round of funding, etc. My daughter was born ~ 2 weeks ago but I made time before picking my parents up at the airport to stop by CES to do this because I feel it is very important, + I'm a huge nerd and CES is nerd porn. Right after the nerd porn convention they have a real porn convention here but that's not the point of this story. When I found the Bitpay booth, I didn't realize they would be sharing a booth with BFL, in fact I was very excited to see BFL equipment on display and I planned on asking some extremely nerdy questions about how the hardware will solve the proof-of-work problem much, much faster than current equipment. I also wanted to understand the metrics of what ASIC will do to the network hash rate, as I understand mining conceptually but not technically. 5) Dave immediately engaged me when I walked near the BFL equipment. I congratulated him on selling a large amount of pre-orders. he said in a smug way "yeah... we've done very well" To a studied poker professional such as myself, his body language gave me the impression that this man felt by collecting the pre-order monies he has already done well. If I were in his shoes, the first thing I would have said was "We have a huge responsibility to get these things shipped ASAP. The community has handed us a large amount of money" I would feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders to make good on the massively distributed promise of sending these machines. Dave felt like a winner, IMO. 6) I asked very plainly "is this your ASICs" or something to that effect. This is when it got predatory. He showed me the box of fans + 1 android tablet and said that is where ASIC chips will eventually go, and the android device will be the output screen to show you how fast it's mining and other stats. I asked what the cube connected to a second android sitting on top of the fan-box was, and Dave said it's an FPGA miner that BFL used to sell, but it wasn't currently mining and you can't buy it from BFL anymore. I asked Dave what items were available for purchase right now from BFL that they could ship immediately, he said there were none. I then asked when they would ship ASICs, he said "in a couple of weeks," and showed me 3 cases that ASIC chips would come inside. 7) After it was clear I was no longer a friendly and was asking some tough questions, he hit me with a classic scammer line something to the effect of "if you don't believe in BFL, then you don't believe in bitcoin." This is where the "stomping and profanity" as Josh put it came in. Please don't take Josh's or My word for it - Ask the bitpay guys about this next part - I give a very intelligent response to Dave, certainly using profanity for emphasis (but not in the personally derogatory way that Josh Zerlan does to me here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m43s ) more like "I believe so much in bitcoin that I wear this fucking button (point to bitcoin button I always wear when leaving the house for any reason) each day, and help run the market leading bitcoin online poker site, dedicating most of my awake time to the betterment of this technology." Ask the bitpay guys. I was certainly pissed off, and this guy used a classic scammer line on me and IMO it required a forceful response so Dave understands that I'm a real guy with real BTC credentials, and his line is bullshit and +1's in my head that he and his company are dishonest.  After my response, emotions briefly settled, and I asked him when filled with ASICs how fast this machine would hash at. He said something like 1+ T-hashes per second. I.e. 1000 ghashes/s , would produce in terms of Dave did not know network hashrate. I told him it wasn't a test, just tell me about how many T-hashes/s the network hash rate was. Dave said he still didn't know, so I quickly looked it up on my Galaxy Note II by Samsung running Android Jellybean OS by removing the S-pen and quickly speaking into google "total bitcoin network hashrate" This site came up: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ and to me it looks like the current total bitcoin network hashrate is around 20-25 Thash/s - which means that if Dave was right, just one of these boxes could have ~ 6% of total current network hashing power. I was surprised he had never run the math before... 9) so after this, I post the pic I took and illustrated that BFL did not bring anything worthwhile to CES. I posted on bitcointalk that I'd be back tomorrow to film closely and ask the tough questions. Obviously we all saw Josh Zerlan's response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m43sIf there is anything that needs clarification please ask. I am 100% transparent. I further state that it is possible I have made a small chronological or grammatical error of some sort. I feel I captured the general feel of the day 1 CES experience as it relates to BFL. |
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Here is 100 chips for the first user to find this and toss it into their "my account" redeemable code section:
Jan-*QJ31RT5W8
and like we always do about this time, ~30 minutes away from the BIG BTC | our 2 bitcoin buy in tourney, 60 btc guaranteed
see you guys there
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Ok, I agree to at least a 10 btc bet on these statements. But we need to clarify one of them: -- BFL equipment is reported to by 10+ "good standing" forum members (I do not believe determining "good standing" will be very hard, and I doubt this bet comes down to "no those were shills reporting hardware" - I think the writing will be on the wall on the date our bet settles. Also, it may be prudent to appoint 10 confirmed members that all have publicly stated they have placed a pre-order that we can both believe are in no way connected to BFL or would shill for them)
BFL equipment is reported to what? (Words are missing): a) to have been merely received by 10+ members, with the Mhash/Joule personally confirmed by at least 1 of them b) to have been received, and to have the Mhash/Joule personally confirmed by all of them a) is too weak. b) is too strong. Even to this day, after almost 1 year of sales of the BFL Single FPGA, I don't believe one can find 10+ good standing forum members having personally posted their measured Mhash/Joule. Maybe only a handful did (I was one of them), yet the whole community recognizes the ~10 Mhash/Joule performance as legitimate... What about making the statement: c) BFL equipment reported to have been received by 10+ good standing forum members, of which: - 3 must have each personally measured the Mhash/Joule of the devices - the other 7 may not have necessarily measured the Mhash/Joule, but must have provided reports of having received working devices that seem to validate the existence and plausibility of the devices belonging to the above 3 I too believe that it will be pretty obvious who of the two of us wins the bet. (It will not be a close call and come down to "only 9 users reported working devices, not 10, you loose!"). However, I don't think we are going to be able to round up 10 willing appointees, for the simple reason that not many care about our bet. So do we need to strongly define "good standing" members? In the very unlikely scenario where the outcome of the bet is ambiguous or unclear (eg. either fewer or more than 10 reports are available, depending on who you consider to be a "good standing" member, and the Bitcoin community itself is somewhat divided on who of the reporters are trusted members), if you and I cannot come to an agreed outcome, I promise I will be a gentleman and offer to cancel the wager :-) Bowjob: arrange the details with Micon directly. I want to interface with only 1 person to simplify things. I would of course match both of you at 11 btc total. In fact I would want to bet a lot more if possible. After reading your part C) it is clear we will have a wager soon. I will accept your part C as the terms of "if BFL shipped" Let's find an escrow / I'll send 10 coins right now / then we have 1 bet and can start talking bigger. I appreciate the users early on pre-order that have volunteered to report. How much BFL paying for those signatures? don't you think it's time to stop giving them currency until they start sending ASICs? |
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Make your case Micon. Do you expect your conspiracy theory to have legs or just blowing off steam?
1) a semi-serious answer to this question, which I feel is appropriate given Josh's childish nature of responses & repeated personal attacks on myself and my daughter:  2) but seriously, please ask me exactly what you want to know about anything on my part. I will answer you as honestly and completely as possible. If your question is "Micon, how can you convict BFL right now? Show me proof" Then I cannot prove. I can only tell you IMO what I believe, what I think of the men involved with that company, what body language they gave off and such scammer-like responses and deflection in their arguments. If Josh Zerlan told you that he had a shipping container of ASICs that 100% work and will be here on 2/5/2013 it would be really hard for me to give you concrete proof that is not the case, but I would wager large amounts of coin that Josh Zerlan & BFL is not close to shipping ASIC chips. 3) Josh Zerlan - since you are so interested in wagering, take the first coin of many I will bet against your scam: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1141 |
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Micon, you won't bet more than 10 BTC against BFL. You were offered a 250, 500 and even a 1000 BTC bet by someone earlier, though I can't recall who. Why did you not take them up on that? If you're so sure you're correct, it would be easy money for you. You're a gambler and a self admitted "Pro poker player" (This is laughable, but whatever) - so gambling a mere 1000 BTC is not an issue for you morally. It's a sure thing, given your statements... so why not do it? Or is it because you're just full of shit?
I will dig up the name of whomever was willing to bet you 1000 BTC if you'll take the bet. So, Mr. Pro Poker Player, put up or shut up.
PS - That could have been a picture you took yourself with your the phone you're so proud of owning if you had not acted like an idiot at our booth. Like I said, we had nothing to hide even though you so desperately wanted us to.
So what's it going to be? Are you going to pony up and put up 1000 BTC to show you are not full of shit or are you going to hem and haw and come up with excuses why you won't bet on a sure thing, according to you?
Hi Josh Zerlan. Since you are using deflection to not answer the question of "when will BFL ship ASICs" and "What equipment did you bring to CES" and "How much $ have you collected in preorders" I will simply re-deflect and link to this video of you cursing at me at CES 2013 when I asked you to show me your hardware, cued to when you were extremely rude to me: http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m36syou are the director of a company owing the BTC community many, many $30k devices you already have collected much, much money in pre-orders for that you originally said you would ship in 9/2012 but can't seem to produce. You are in the middle of getting destroyed across all discussions of this encounter. Maybe you didn't realize I was the guy that made a big deal when I thought BCST was a scam: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3243200/bitcoin-ponzi-schemes-savings-and-trustMaybe you didn't realize that I have so much determination when it comes to ridding the BTC world of scum like Josh Zerlan & Butterfly Labs. Such arrogance in the face of owing the community such a large amount of hardware is disgusting to me. |
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I can only imagine the pain felt by those with pre-orders to see the man who runs this company act in such a way on the CES floor convention floor
They are actually celebrating his "triumph". Always remember: Bitcoin is a religion, not a currency. Most on these boards should remember the irrational support of BCST by it's investors & those who stood much to gain from it, only moments before it went boom: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3243200/bitcoin-ponzi-schemes-savings-and-trustIt is a shame to see it happening again. I see many many BFL-supporters using the flawed logic of "well, I already paid them $30k, I really want to be on the forefront of mining, BFL just *has* to be real - think of how much $ I sent them! they just have to be a real company about to ship product!" I reddit'd the video of Josh & My interaction on the CES floor. and after a bunch of initial upvotes it was clear there was a BFL-supporter run downvoting campaign. Looks like the boys got pissed off and dropped this on their faces: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/16hnhw/butterfly_labs_30k_supercomputer_at_ces_2013/let's see if they work starting now to down-vote that. IMO Josh / Dave / whoever else works in this filthy organization are on the full damage-control prowl now: check how many responses this guy has to someone like me whom he claimed was nothing more than a guy "trolling" his booth. Then he said I was cussing and screaming in the booth the day before, but Josh wasn't even in the booth the day before - only Dave. How could he know that? It's clear BFL is only spending their time on damage control & buying more advertising to try and generate more pre-orders. |
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See, the difference is I'm not crying and whining to moderators to get BitSyncom out of here. I certainly welcome him trolling in our thread. If I were to come over to the Avalon thread and start asking questions, he would bitch and moan and complain to the moderators. I'm just pointing out the hypocritical nature of Avalon, not saying I want him to leave by any means.
I do love how he's taken to trolling BFL though. I wonder what that portends for their 19th shipping date with nothing to show but some paperwork.
Still waiting on that evidence of a working product, Yifu.
So what's the hard date josh? All you do is keep changing the subject when asked.I was told by Dave, live at CES the 1st day I went there that they were shipping in "a couple of weeks." Based on his body language that have used the past decade to determine poker bluffers and other interpersonal situations, I believe this man to be lying, knows he is lying, and generally dishonest in the way he spoke to me. ( http://www.jnforensics.com/#!books/cnec Joe Navarro, former FBI agent writes amazing books on this subject and I credit him partly for what I look for in other humans telling me what could be lie and what could be truth) When I go back the next day to find what the actual hardware BFL brought to CES2013, of course this happened, Cue'd to when the BFL rep so rudely curses at me and hands me a quarter: http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m40sI can only imagine the pain felt by those with pre-orders to see the man who runs this company act in such a way on the CES floor convention floor |
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Before the BFL shills tell me "oh, he's just doing this to make money" realize every time I put up a betsofbitcoin it is to prove a point and I bet 1 coin on the side I like: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1141Here is one that says that BFL does not show up to CES 2014 |
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1) This is an epic pic. Hope it's not shopped 2) I cannot understand anyone angry at bitpay. Full disclosure: I have no position in that company other than holding a little-used merchant account for an e cigarette business yet to be launched publicly. I do not own equity or work for them in any way, other than asking local Las Vegas businesses to accept bitcoin, with bitpay being the obvious provider with an easy setup for a 1% fee. 3) Much like the restaurants around town, if they want to accept btc payments you use bitpay - it's just the best system to simplify it. Why would you be mad at BFL using bitpay? Why not just get mad at bitcoin? IMO, bitpay does a reasonable amount of due diligence before accepting a merchant. They also have 1000's of merchants. Anyone who wants to accept bitcoin quickly and easily calls up bitpay - that's the only BTC-processing company I thought of when in the formation stages of this new business happened last month. if you think about the earliest warning signs, BFL missing the 9/2012 shipping date was a sign - but that shouldn't have vilified them BFL quite yet - and certainly not Bitpay. At some point a pre-order, unshipped, becomes fraud. Did BFL need this money for R&D? did they try to gamble their way out by selling more pre-orders and tried to find different sourcing? Are they *still* looking for someone to make those chips in China? Who can know the answers to these questions but the disrespectful and unprofessional humans behind the BFL project. I agree that at some point your BTC payment processor should drop you as a merchant if a situation like BFL's arises. A "pre-order" signifies that their is a supply chain hold-up, we got the technology locked and loaded, and we only need a few weeks or maybe 2-3 months and then we will get you your product ASAP" How long until a pre-order becomes fraud? What if in 2014 BFL is still saying "We got those $30k boxes almost done - they will ship in a few more weeks in early 2015" - do you accept that timeframe as a "pre-order" ? When discussing what Bitpay's role in BFL processing was, it's very simple - they served the same function they do for *every other* one of their merchants - because this merchant appears to be working for evil, at some point you would expect bitpay to cut them off and say "no, we will not do your btc processing - there have been too many signs your company is a scam" BFL guys are not as stupid as they look in this video cued to me asking Josh about the machines he brought to CES and him literally giving me a quarter and telling me to "Buy a fucking clue" --> http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m40s <-- To bitpay, up until recently the BFL guys could have seemed legit. Let's see when they drop BFL. I'll bet Bitpay is still around in a few years and BFL is long entered into book of BTC scams |
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1) we are going to have to work on the statement we are betting on. Something like "BFL will not ship all pre-orders by 7/1/2013" is something I'd like to bet against.
2) I feel we are going to come to a wager for sure. I'm willing to bet 10 btc against the above statement right now. Escrow will still need to be found
3) My wife just gave birth to our daughter on 12/27 so I don't have a ton of time right now, please don't take my inaction in this thread as a sign that I'm scared or don't want to bet. I will give this as much attention as I can. I usually have a few hrs of daddy-daughter sleeping on my shoulder time and occasionally puking on me (I really don't mind it) during this time of night when I give her mom a rest and can msg-board it up for an hr or so. I'll check in semi-daily and we'll hammer something out soon IMO.
I am not sure I can put a date on "shipping all pre-orders". I am not even sure they will do that by the end of the year(!) as I believe they will run into numerous issues trying to bring the production back from Asia to the US (they claim they want to do that). Anyway I digress... Instead, I would rather bet on something like "at least 4-5 reasonably trusted forum users will report receiving working units by 7/1/2013, and performing at X Mhash/Joule". (Mhash/Joule is equivalent to Mhash/s per Watt). We do need to add this power efficiency metric as it would be unfair for me to win the bet if BFL ships, say, "FPGAs branded as ASICs" completely missing their power estimates. For reference: - BFL singles do 10 Mhash/Joule - BFL minirigs do 20 Mhash/Joule - All FPGA mining devices do about 20-24 Mhash/Joule as they are all Spartan6-LX150 based - ASIC vendors have estimated anything from 238 to 1000 Mhash/Joule (BFL claims 1000) I would put the threshold for our bet at around 200 Mhash/Joule, sufficiently high to prove it is an ASIC. But I have offered 350 Mhash/Joule on betsofbitco.in, so I would go with that for the sake of being fair to you. You claim the entire BFL ASIC operation is a scam, so my wager details proposed above would make you win, if that was the case. I can draft a document based on these details if you mostly agree with them. We will also need to define corner cases (such as who is a "reasonably trusted forum member", perhaps any forum account created before June 24, 2012, ie. before BFL announced ASICs) mrb - thank you for taking the time to reply in detail, and for the metrics on Mhash/Joule vs. the technology type. I am comfortable making a 10 coin bet with the following terms: -- BFL equipment is reported to by 10+ "good standing" forum members (I do not believe determining "good standing" will be very hard, and I doubt this bet comes down to "no those were shills reporting hardware" - I think the writing will be on the wall on the date our bet settles. Also, it may be prudent to appoint 10 confirmed members that all have publicly stated they have placed a pre-order that we can both believe are in no way connected to BFL or would shill for them) -- 7/1/2013 as the settle date for when 10+ Forum members must have rec'd their pre-ordered BFL ASICs -- And that BFL achieves 350+ Mhash/Joule on the devices shipped -- proper escrow decided - I'm good with Vorhees, any1 from bitpay or bitinstant, Jon Matonis, Charlie Shrem Watching NFL with my beautiful 2 week old daughter today, will check this thread a few times, get a 10 coin bet down at least to get things started  tytyty to mrb for being a complete gentleman going about making this wager. This is how it feels when I interact with my close poker friends - where both sides act like gentlemen as you decide the terms of a wager. Not this movie-conjured image of "Lets bet! you are scared?? ok Pay up on this technicality!!" Clear terms established at the start make for a fun wager for both the eventual winner and eventual loser - both expectations are properly managed. The injustices you may see me fight against all involve the mis-management of another human's expectations. |
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1) Aren't you supposed to at least pretend to be a principal of a legitimate company? How could anyone have faith in such an arrogant company director that resorts to personal insults almost every post? 2) You resort to personal attacks like it's your job, because clearly producing working ASIC chips isn't. (Or even spending time on the task. Who is working on that ATM? nothing better to do than fight with a "troll" ?) 3) your 5-point false-ing, to anyone reading these boards with any intelligence, sounds like the rest of your posts (and IRL confrontations) - childish and transparent. Deflect much? Price of your android being $259 @ Amazon (yup, u made me google it!) instead of $100 still deflects from the main points of: 3a) every search I do for bitcoin comes up with a BFL pre-order ad. BFL has taken in over $25M by my estimations. (I would love to hear other estimations of total pre-order monies shipped to BFL) You have shipped nothing. You started promising shipments in September 2012. 3b) Your company did not bring anything worthwhile to show at CES. 3b) here is an updated drawing if what BFL brought to CES using my Samsung Galaxy Note II [rated super high on CNET: http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-note-2/4852-6452_7-35426722.html ]  Haha... excellent. I refute every point of yours with facts and this is your response. If your claims are true, you could come up with something concrete to back your claims. Thanks for telling me, yet again, how great your phone is. I quite thoroughly understand that you love your little phone and think it's the neatest thing in the world. Your estimations are garbage, just like your poker "system". You brought up the $100 and asked me to respond to it, now you bitch because I do? Instead you post a bunch of strawman arguments to try and distract people from realizing you're a complete dolt. Unfortunately for you, they've already realized it and I suspect it happened a long time ago. I feel incredibly sorry for your newborn daughter with you a role model. She will, inevitably, Google you one day and likely find this thread and wonder why her dad was such a pathetic role model. 1) When do you plan to ship the ASIC devices? 2) How many pre-orders did you take so far? 3) How much money collected in pre-orders? Why would this be a big secret? IMO, the boys should start adding it up anonymously. |
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Jan-AU%RBD87GM
100 chips free!
first one only to redeem!
(just free chips / put in ur "my account" area under redeem code)
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1) The general hubris you display both IRL and on these forums will be your downfall. This coming from a failed poker player with a broken "system" who can't even manage to bathe himself properly means very little to anyone. 2) You claim a few time I was "Stomping around" and "cussing" at the Bitpay booth. Here is a cued video of you cussing at me: http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m40s if you would like more context, rewind a bit: http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m19s 3) I saw Dave recording me while I was recording you. You say many times I was the one stomping around and cussing go ahead and post your unedited video as I have. Let's take a look and see who is lying. As I stated many times already, you did this the day prior and I did not want a repeat performance. We were not expecting a troll to show your face in real life. Thanks for trying though, but you should probably work on your reading comprehension. 4) My galaxy Note 2 is > than both your $100 Androids that you brought to CES. Making fun of the device, arguable the hottest Android phone out there, makes you look even more foolish than when you handed me a quarter at CES. Yes, tell me again how awesome your Galaxy Note 2 is. I'm sure you're very proud of the fact that you could buy a phone. 5) The cold, hard truth stares you in the face, and you will never reply publicly to the fact-based account of the equipment you brought to CES:
3x plastic cases
1 Box of fans
1 FPGA miner, working condition unknown
2x ~$100 Androids
obviously you wont' be responding to #5.
In order: False (We had/have no plastic cases. I honestly don't even know what the hell you're babbling about with regards to this.) False (There's more in the "box of fans" than just fans, obviously. Nor have we ever tried to deny the fact that we don't have our chips available for public consumption yet. I don't know if this is a news flash for you or not, but pretty much everyone knows we are waiting on our chips. It's not a secret.) False (Just because it's unknown to you doesn't make it unknown, it just makes you ignorant. If you could have remained civil, you could have poked and prodded it at like a few hundred other individuals did this week.) False (Please look up the price on the N7.) and False (The fact that you're reading this is evidence.) So out of your five claims, every single one is provably false. I hope you can bring something else to the table. Please, for the love of god, let it be a shower. 1) Aren't you supposed to at least pretend to be a principal of a legitimate company? How could anyone have faith in such an arrogant company director that resorts to personal insults almost every post? 2) You resort to personal attacks like it's your job, because clearly producing working ASIC chips isn't. (Or even spending time on the task. Who is working on that ATM? nothing better to do than fight with a "troll" ?) 3) your 5-point false-ing, to anyone reading these boards with any intelligence, sounds like the rest of your posts (and IRL confrontations) - childish and transparent. Deflect much? Price of your android being $259 @ Amazon (yup, u made me google it!) instead of $100 still deflects from the main points of: 3a) every search I do for bitcoin comes up with a BFL pre-order ad. BFL has taken in over $25M by my estimations. (I would love to hear other estimations of total pre-order monies shipped to BFL) You have shipped nothing. You started promising shipments in September 2012. 3b) Your company did not bring anything worthwhile to show at CES. 3b) here is an updated drawing if what BFL brought to CES using my Samsung Galaxy Note II [rated super high on CNET: http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-note-2/4852-6452_7-35426722.html ] |
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