Butterfly Labs Delayed Customer Shipment for Illegal Mining

[srgkrgkj]

Butterfly Labs was once a prosperous and honest Bitcoin hardware provider. However, as of recent times, this once successful company has seen its grip on the Bitcoin empire crumble as US courts and the Federal Trade Commission have launched their attack on this deceitful company. In a official statement released by the FTC for the court, many of Butterfly Labs practices were discussed including the fact that they had used customers hardware to mine Bitcoin for their own benefit.

source : http://www.coinfinance.com/news/butterfly-labs-delayed-customer-shipment-for-illegal-mining

[colinistheman]

Hah! --> "once a prosperous and honest Bitcoin hardware provider"

[cyberpinoy]

Chinese companies do the same exact thing, if you honestly think you have ever bought a "Brand New" piece of mining hardware, you are to stupid to even be here they all do it. Hell i would do it, and I am a pretty honest business person. However I, much like the Chinese, would at least clean it and ship what was ordered by my customers.

These things are manufactured and INSTANTLY put to work ( AKA testing) then when ordered by the reseller/retailers they to receive the machines and instantly put them to work (AKA secondary testing) then when you order a machine they pull it off the rack clean it replace the PSU and ship it out. The replacing of the PSU is not always something they do, However I do know the Chinese companies do replace the PSUs before they ship them out

Why do you think 2 of the same exact machines perform differently? They are manufactured the same exact way with the same exact pieces. yet 1 will hash better then the other. if they have all the same exact parts one would tend to think they would perform very closely to the other. But they dont because one was more rigorously "tested" than the other one

[franky1]

Butterfly Labs was once a prosperous and honest Bitcoin hardware provider.

butterfly was never honest. not in 2011, 2012, 2013 or 2014

[Nagle]

Read the actual FTC filing. One thing is very clear - the FTC enforcers understand Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining quite well. They're very clear on how the value of equipment decreases over time. The FTC filing indicates that not only was BFL doing all the bad stuff people were complaining about on Bitcointalk, they were doing it on purpose:

"Up until the time the FTC executed the TRO, Defendants were using customer equipment to line their own pockets despite public representations to the contrary. Further, the illegal conduct here did not occur in isolation or as a result of mere oversight, but as a result of a business model intentionally designed to extract and retain money from consumers as long as possible. Defendants have already done this once – they started taking consumers’ money for their second generation machine, the Monarch, when their first generation customers were still angrily waiting for their delivery. Also telling, rather than exhibiting contrition about their failure to fulfill promises to consumers, Defendants continued taking pre-orders despite their inability to fulfill existing orders and spent corporate funds on foam pitchforks emblazoned with the phrase, “Y U No Ship,BFL Is Late!” for conceivably no other reason than to mock their own customers."

[Snorek]

Butterfly Labs was once a prosperous and honest Bitcoin hardware provider. However, as of recent times, this once successful company has seen its grip on the Bitcoin empire crumble as US courts and the Federal Trade Commission have launched their attack on this deceitful company. In a official statement released by the FTC for the court, many of Butterfly Labs practices were discussed including the fact that they had used customers hardware to mine Bitcoin for their own benefit.

source : http://www.coinfinance.com/news/butterfly-labs-delayed-customer-shipment-for-illegal-mining

Who are you? A former employee of Butterfly Labs? Honestly they were always shady and judging by their history people were just stupid to believe in them.

[bitgeek]

Who are you? A former employee of Butterfly Labs? Honestly they were always shady and judging by their history people were just stupid to believe in them.

Long time ago there were just a few manufacturers, and BFL was making some really good looking and powerful miners, it was easy to fall into that trap.

[cloverme]

It seems like they went to pot after selling those little Jalapeno's. Other ASIC manufacturers took the market away from them, I think they went into a panic and tried to find a way out. I don't think they will recover from this.... just another tombstone on the Bitcoin road now.

[blumangroup]

Hah! --> "once a prosperous and honest Bitcoin hardware provider"

I am not sure about honest, but they were cetainly prosperous as they were one of the first ASIC manufacturers and did profit tremendously from their early ASICs.

I personally think they simply got greedy and tried to make more money early in their corporate life cycle when they could have made much more money over a longer period of time by being more honest and shipping their miners as they were actually available.

[Borisz]

I'm actually happy I didn't buy a miner from them when they started shipping. With all the complaints I have heard about 6+ months delayed delivery etc, I think I made the right choice.

I think they were shut down earlier? http://www.coindesk.com/us-government-shuts-embattled-mining-firm-butterfly-labs/

[Fiyasko]

Who are you? A former employee of Butterfly Labs? Honestly they were always shady and judging by their history people were just stupid to believe in them.

Long time ago there were just a few manufacturers, and BFL was making some really good looking and powerful miners, it was easy to fall into that trap.

I watched them from day one, It ALWAYS smelt fishy and they lied from the very fucking start to steal pre-order funds from potential competitors
Stating shit like an image banner ad that changed each month (meaning a new one was made each month) that said "SHIPPING NEXT MONTH, PRODUCTS IN FINAL STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT"

BFL was Never honest, they are the second biggest cancer next to Gox

[Operatr]

Honest? BFL has lied since day 1.

Not surprising considering its CEO is a convicted fraud in a real court of law...who will hopefully be put in a real cell of prison soon enough for their many deceptions.

[Borisz]

Butterfly Labs to Resume Limited Business Operations on Coindesk

"The Missouri-based company will not be allowed to serve new consumers when it reopens, and will be restricted to fulfilling existing customer orders."

[btckold24]

I can't believe I still do home mining and still hold btc after the horror stories I heard about BFL. They held my 2x 5gh units for almost a year before sending and by the time they sent I couldn't even break even. The didn't look new - they had small dents and dings and I bet they sat on a rack for months mining until they got all the profit out, then they sent em.

[Borisz]

I can't believe I still do home mining and still hold btc after the horror stories I heard about BFL. They held my 2x 5gh units for almost a year before sending and by the time they sent I couldn't even break even. The didn't look new - they had small dents and dings and I bet they sat on a rack for months mining until they got all the profit out, then they sent em.

At the time I was seriously considering getting one of those as it was pretty cheap. Looking back, I don't regret that I didn't buy it.

At least now the year old question is answered "Why do ASIC manufacturers sell their products when they could make much more money using it?".
They do both.

[cryptomad]

I'm glad I never got into buying from Bfl but I feel for other s who lost out or didn't get the support they needed

[petersiddle98]

How come it take 4 years until the police take action on BFL?

[Some1else0]

I was always tempted to purchase from BFL. However, their unusually long manufacturing/shipping times ruined it for me.

I remember when they said they'd be selling cloud mining for $10/GH, and now it's worth $1/GH. Then there's their 600 GHs Monarch, which never shipped or shipped very few units. They must've made a lot of money from both the pre-orders and mining on their hardware, and then they decided to start shipping once it wasn't as profitable.