NEW info. Everyone is lying about ther ASIC project

[king_pin]

In my personal opinion there is something very stinky about BFL:
NEW info. BFL are the biggest liars it appears

• No certain delivery dates.
• No pictures or schemes or anything.
• Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).
• No one answers their phone.
• They answer your e-mail within 2-3 weeks.
• All their answers are with a maybe or possibly.
• I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred.
• The broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe.
• They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman.
• They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress.
• Up to today no one has either seen, touched or heard their ASICs. (even remotely)

So what is your opinion, I personally believe that they are developing something but they are quite away from delivering it or with the given characteristics.
Some of my friends think that all of it might be a lie.

EDIT1:
So after 3 months this is what BLF has to say:
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/437-asic-update-26-november-2012-a.html

"fuzzy" date

Got to love that!

EDIT2:
FOUR months now, still nothing while other manufacturers, are posting pics of their real chips!

EDIT3:
FIVE months have passed and now it appears that all ASIC companies are lying.
AVALON are trying to make us believe that they shipped a week ago, but no one has received anything, and DEEPBIT blew it officially -    
DeepBit Reclaimer ASIC  
EDIT3: - HAHAHA HA ......7 months!!!

[1715303404]

1715303404

[solareclipse64236]

just wait, just 2 more months

[SgtSpike]

I don't see anything fishy, just a business that doesn't do customer-service very well.  You could have said the same things about their current-gen stuff before it was released too.

[pyrkne]

To be honest, (most of) the things you bring up are very legitimate concerns. When they come out, we'll know for sure.

Let us early adopters take the jump.

[jojo69]

• No certain delivery dates.

yeah, they fucked this up last time so they are reluctant to make promises this time and blow it again

• No pictures or schemes or anything.

they are literally sitting on a gold mine, that IP is going to be very closely guarded

• Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).

see above

• No one answers their phone.

see their FAQ

• They answer your e-mail within 2-3 weeks.

they answered my last email the next day

• All their answers are with a maybe or possibly.

see the first point

• I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred.

duh, they want to promote bitcoin

• The broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe.

??

• They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman.

because no Hispanic people live in Massachusetts

• They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress.

and?

• Up to today no one has either seen, touched or heard their ASICs. (even remotely)

see point 2

[king_pin]

• No certain delivery dates.

yeah, they fucked this up last time so they are reluctant to make promises this time and blow it again

 - Exactly, they fu**ed up once so they are probably going to f**k up again!

• No pictures or schemes or anything.

they are literally sitting on a gold mine, that IP is going to be very closely guarded

 - If I have a gold mine and I am looking for inverters, I wont show the where the mine is, but I will give them pictures from inside the mine.

• Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).

see above

- So again if im sitting on a gold mine I wont tell where it is but I will provide geological data or something.

• I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred.

duh, they want to promote bitcoin

 - duh, cause with BITCOINS you may get away without returning them

• They broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe.

??

- If you have bought anything on e-bay you will see that u can ask for your money back within 2 months, well BFL are telling me on e-bay that I can buy something with PayPal and they will probably maybe send it to me within 6 months. So again I cant get my money back - see above.

Now I can give such answers to all your replyes, but I understand your point, and that is exactly what I want to see who thinks what.

Somewhere someone sad that with Bitcoins it is Christmas all over again for the Pyramid and Ponzi schemes, old stuff that everyone knows but they seem to forget it when BITCOIN is involved - bear in mind Pirate40

[live627]

   

They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress.

and?

His point was that it seems unprofessional and maybe even a rush job. But it works for them, it works well. Should it be changed?

[king_pin]

His point was that it seems unprofessional and maybe even a rush job. But it works for them, it works well. Should it be changed?

Yes I have always sad that if something works well it shouldn't be changed, so that maybe one down but it still remains a big list

[Unacceptable]

That isn't them on Ebay !!!

It's just some guy making money off folks that have no clue on how to buy the devices on thier own...............

You are talking about this,right???

http://www.ebay.com/itm/230826486809?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

[kjj]

• They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman.

because no Hispanic people live in Massachusetts

This is incredibly common.  It doesn't mean anything bad.  All states require that a corporation list an agent with a physical address in the same state that is capable of accepting legal process.  Because of this, all states have companies and/or people that act as registered agents for various fees.  States with favorable corporate laws (Nevada, Delaware, North Dakota, etc) have tons of these agents.

Apparently it is a huge secret, because at least once a month I hear someone just learning about it and talking like they think it is evidence of something sinister.

[king_pin]

@Unacceptable
Actually i was told that they are selling on e-bay I never bothered to look if it was really them, but how can you be sure?

Apparently it is a huge secret, because at least once a month I hear someone just learning about it and talking like they think it is evidence of something sinister.

I learned about it a few months ago, but it just adds to the conspiracy theory
Funny thing is that their offer sound so good that even I would buy one if I wasn't in Bulgaria and I'd probably wait 1000 years for it.

[billotronic]

Not to say I know anything... but look at all the trouble the raspberry pi went through to come to market. Now, waiting for a 35 dollar computer vs a 1500 dollar money mill is different, but that is the price of bleeding edge tech.

[localhost]

I don't think it's a lie but I really don't like their PR...

[king_pin]

Well the vote is kind of split, maybe some more votes will help decide

[firefop]

I'll say this:

BFL acts like a small business (probably because it is one).

That being said, a couple of points:

It doesn't matter if you believe them or not, they have product in the wild.
That implies a customer base who trusts them to deliver a product, maybe not on time - but they are shipping orders.
BFL has chosen to capitalize on their brand by selling pre-orders on ASIC product plan to produce. It's safer than a speculative investment - you could always sue if they don't deliver the product or return the money.

Conclusion:

If they release an ASIC product first, it doesn't matter what that product is - if network hash rates increase by 5 or 10 times (potentially 40 times) then GPU mining becomes pointless. And you'll then be stuck with no way to earn. My advise is this, if you haven't jumped on the BFL bandwagon yet - do it now, order an fpga single and pre-order the upgrade for it. If another company produces an ASIC product, you should buy from them as well. The more developers making this hardware would be the best thing for growth of bitcoin longterm.

An Aside:

BFL has been very careful to leave the small independent miner a very cost effective way to get into ASIC mining - that $150 Jalapeno - affordable and it would will effectively gpu mining for a third of the cost to the miner. This shows that BFL is in fact hitching their company to the future of bitcoin.

So basically Jalapeno mining replaces gpu mining (probably will generate about the same as a high end video card or two after difficulty adjustments) -

Incidently, if the network hash rate goes 40 times - and the asic single hits numbers, it should be pulling in ~20 btc per month. And as long as they're earning themselves out in under a year... I'll be glad I pre-ordered.

[king_pin]

There is one thing I don't understand:
If I have posted this pool 1 week after their announcement the result would have been probably 100% sayng that they are lying.
Now after 2 months absolutely nothing has changed on the BFLs side, no info no previews, no news nothing at all.

So why is the trust in them growing?


It is called euphoria people starting to get excited and believing, and of course it is the sheep principle - people following the herd.
Even I am thinking about ordering one. 

[ashjam]

i just paid for two "warmer" units via paypal and email support for order number. A person named pegi replied saying the order number is the paypal transaction number . Did anyone get this same reply ?

[doubleganger]

The two I bought (at different times) had the order number in the email.

[BFL_Josh]

BFL has not and does not sell on eBay. 

BFL is not registered in Massachusetts ... not sure where that came from?  We are currently registered in Wyoming.

[ashjam]

The two I bought (at different times) had the order number in the email.

when u had order number ? what kind of number is it ?
 as in string of numbers like XXXXX ?

[DeviledMoon]

i just paid for two "warmer" units via paypal and email support for order number. A person named pegi replied saying the order number is the paypal transaction number . Did anyone get this same reply ?

I paid with paypal but received an invoice as well as an order number (four digits). So I highly doubt its the paypal transaction ID, they were probably requesting your transaction ID from paypal so they could bring up your order number.

[ZenInTexas]

I don't think we are talking about real hard core R&D here.  Many years ago, I remember CPLD were hot, then FPGA seemingly replaced them overnight when speed requirements went nuts (>100MHz -  it's funny now).  There are folks who sell canned ASIC IP cores.  And shops that will add custom designs to the cores.  Plus, multi chip FPGA simulator boards have been around for a while, ie simulators for ASIC design testing, if they even cared to do that; they might have skipped that step.  It's not special anymore, and something as well known as SHA, I would imagine takes less design work.  It then becomes more about money, operations & timeframes (ie staying on top of the one stop ASIC design shop & the chosen fab).  It's really about timming, did they submit the order to design & fab early enough. 

Let's say it takes 1 ASIC to match the 2.5GH/s on the $150 product; or maybe 2 or 3 to meet the spec, okay, fine.  Once their chosen fab starts & works out the bugs in the prototypes, they should be able to mass produce the chips cheaply, so even if it takes a few chips, they should be profitable.  Anyway, let's say the current FPGA design equivalent runs at 250MH/s, lets say we expect a 5x increase, so 1.25GH/s, so that would mean they need two chips to meet spec. The ASIC will have a much smaller foot print & pin count, so I don't expect a big PCB compared the the BFL singles, even with 2 chips each $150 ASIC product should be small, and cheap to produce. 

A few years ago, I had some involvement with UWB chipsets development.  The lab prototype was made from discrete components which include mixed signal work, which means huge amounts of custom stuff when you put it in to an ASIC.  And yes, there was an FPGA prototype for "compliance" testing.  The total timeframe was little more than a year.  Well more, if you count the amount of time the standards committee took in delaying things.  I don't think BFL has to worry about standard committees, manufacture interoprabilty, or compliance testing.  That big ugly box turned into one chip and a few discrete components, it really was like magic...one day a prototype ASIC magically appeared in a FedEx box, come to think of it I think it was an Intl FedEx box.

When did BFL start?  I don't know the answer.  It may have that fishy smell, if you haven't experienced this kind of development before.  But FPGA's are an intermediate step to ASICs.  If I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they were thinking about ASICs, but made the FPGA product first, because they could get it to market faster.  Then I would work backwards from when the FPGA's were first advertised as being for sale; so give or take Nov/Dec 2011, back up 2 more months of pre-engineering before marketing the FPGA product, I would say a reasonable start would have been Oct or Nov 2011 was when they could have started thinking about the design of the ASIC...about 1 year ago.  It works out for me.  But on the other hand, this is probably a really small outfit, so even if there are only 2 principles, even fairly recent collage grads behind it, I think it would still be reasonable if they work with a design house; as long as the principles have some experience in the FPGA to ASIC route, things will work out...but I would personally be prepared for some delays...engineers are not strong on operations or customer service.

[king_pin]

BFL has not and does not sell on eBay.  

BFL is not registered in Massachusetts ... not sure where that came from?  We are currently registered in Wyoming.

Is that the only thing that you can prove me wrong?   

[BFL_Josh]

Prove you wrong about what? 

[chich18]

I think he means about all the point in his OP he made about something being funny about BFL's new ASIC. You proved him wrong on the owner location.

[Monkey1]

BFL have proved they are a serious company, shipping physical product and not a scam.  the only thing they have been reluctant to reveal is delivery dates etc, probably due to development issues.  When they first started accepting preorders, they probably had not developed the tech, but hopefully by now they have and its a question of asthetics etc?!  After all, they are due to start shipping in 4 weeks!

[king_pin]

I think he means about all the point in his OP he made about something being funny about BFL's new ASIC. You proved him wrong on the owner location.

Yes that is what I mean. You have proven me wrong on one point, now please prove me wrong on the other points that I mention in the first post, so I you can persuade me to buy some of your ASICs.
Now I am a skeptic so if you manage to persuade me I will probably persuade 1/4 of the Bulgarian Bitcoin forum and u can see from the mining statistics how many we are.

BFL have proved they are a serious company, shipping physical product and not a scam.  the only thing they have been reluctant to reveal is delivery dates etc, probably due to development issues.  When they first started accepting preorders, they probably had not developed the tech, but hopefully by now they have and its a question of asthetics etc?!  After all, they are due to start shipping in 4 weeks!

I agree with you, but I think that they are a real but not a serious company based on their PR, support and overall look.
I do think that they will eventually produce some ASICs, but I am willing to bet that:

   BFL won't start shipping before January - February 2013!  

[solareclipse64236]

They specifically said October, who said anything about January 2013?

[vphen]

I care, because I am scared

[QuantumKiwi]

I think he means about all the point in his OP he made about something being funny about BFL's new ASIC. You proved him wrong on the owner location.

Yes that is what I mean. You have proven me wrong on one point, now please prove me wrong on the other points that I mention in the first post, so I you can persuade me to buy some of your ASICs.
Now I am a skeptic so if you manage to persuade me I will probably persuade 1/4 of the Bulgarian Bitcoin forum and u can see from the mining statistics how many we are.

BFL have proved they are a serious company, shipping physical product and not a scam.  the only thing they have been reluctant to reveal is delivery dates etc, probably due to development issues.  When they first started accepting preorders, they probably had not developed the tech, but hopefully by now they have and its a question of asthetics etc?!  After all, they are due to start shipping in 4 weeks!

I agree with you, but I think that they are a real but not a serious company based on their PR, support and overall look.
I do think that they will eventually produce some ASICs, but I am willing to bet that:

   BFL won't start shipping before January - February 2013!  

Your the customer, he doesn't have to talk you into buying at all.

The website of BFL says it all.

Electrical engineers are not #1 on customer support or business, your hounding a race horse with no harness.... Come on, give them a break and let them release such a product before calling them lies.

[Fcx35x10]

i sure hope it's not B.S 

[Derringer]

It looks like typical "geek" small business to me: questionable customer service, a lot of margin for error in delivery dates and effectiveness, but they do eventually ship product and it fundamentally works... took them about nine weeks to get me an FPGA Single but it's whirring away on my desk like a ... little cube of hashing machinery. 

[king_pin]

...
The website of BFL says it all.
...

It says NOTHING! 

[Brian Puccio]

I'm in for a Jalapeno, it's money I can afford to lose and if it pays for itself quickly, great!

[jojo69]

Something I think needs to be said.

There exists motive to cast doubt on BFL's intention/ability to deliver.  Current miners with significant investment in GPU, or even FPGA, infrastructure show increased return on investment for every SC order that is NOT placed.

FUD pays in this case.

Just sayin'

[BFL_Josh]

Indeed, the bottom line is we are working to improve customer service and our shipping times.  We just shipped orders from the first of August, so we are getting caught up there.  I have been working hard on the customer service issue as well as the shipping issues.  We are also working very hard on getting the ASICs out the door on time.  We are really beefing up our production capacity and moving everything we can in house.  We've purchased a pick and place machine, an oven, stenciler and other equipment to manufacture all the boards in house.  This means we can produce as many boards as we need without being at the mercy of board manufacturers and their timing/runs. 

Our ASIC chip is 100% original IP and we will have as many chips as we need, when we need them.  We are standardizing a lot of our equipment, so we can keep massive quantities of inventory on hand (at least 6 months of production work is the goal), allowing us to crank out units - literally - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if need be.  We've hired more personnel and will be hiring yet more people as we gear up.   

The ASIC generation is going to be much less complex, as well, so there will be less steps to creating a fully functional end unit, and we will also be able to assemble/produce the much faster.  Everything you know about BFL is changing now and will continue to change.  The only thing I can do is assure you we understand the concerns and we are doing everything we can to address the past mistakes. 

[ashjam]

i just paid for two "warmer" units via paypal and email support for order number. A person named pegi replied saying the order number is the paypal transaction number . Did anyone get this same reply ?

I paid with paypal but received an invoice as well as an order number (four digits). So I highly doubt its the paypal transaction ID, they were probably requesting your transaction ID from paypal so they could bring up your order number.

I had replied pegi, hopefully i get an invoice and order number too ..

[tcp_rst]

If they had never, ever delivered a functioning product in the past I'd be far more suspicious.  But they have.

[bitvientiane]

What if they made their original product at a (slight) loss to build a good reputation for themselves so people believe them enough to please a large preorder for the suppossed ASIC?

[tcp_rst]

What if they made their original product at a (slight) loss to build a good reputation for themselves so people believe them enough to please a large preorder for the suppossed ASIC?

I'd say that paranoia runs deep.  And if I was really paranoid I'd say that the OP was helping someone who works for one of the other two companies claiming they'll release an asic based product in the next 6 months.  In the end, no one is making anyone buy anything.  Mining, whether for bitcoin, coal or gold, is risky--you either accept the risk, or you don't.  Those are the options.

[bitfair]

(...)  We are also working very hard on getting the ASICs out the door on time.  We are really beefing up our production capacity and moving everything we can in house.  We've purchased a pick and place machine, an oven, stenciler and other equipment to manufacture all the boards in house.  This means we can produce as many boards as we need without being at the mercy of board manufacturers and their timing/runs. (...)

Seems to me like the focus of BFL at this moment is on increasing production scale, rather than getting the product out the door as early as possible. Makes me think some of the other operations might already be mining with their first crude mad-dash batch of ASICs by the time BFL delivers...

Interesting race!

[king_pin]

...We just shipped orders from the first of August, so we are getting caught up there....

This is the most interesting part of Josh's replay.
So we should expect in the next 10 days or so, people to start receiving them, posting results, pictures etc.

So why don't you finally post 1 picture of a Jalapeno or another ASIC?
If you are already shipping them it shouldn't be a problem!

[bitfair]

...We just shipped orders from the first of August, so we are getting caught up there....

This is the most interesting part of Josh's replay.
So we should expect in the next 10 days or so, people to start receiving them, posting results, pictures etc.

So why don't you finally post 1 picture of a Jalapeno or another ASIC?
If you are already shipping them it shouldn't be a problem!

I understood it as he was talking about orders for their other products which are already out (FPGA), and not the ASICs. I would expect everyone to make much more noise if they were shipping ASICs earlier than expected (Oct/Nov). BFL would at least make a song and a dance about it, full of "I-told-you-so"s.

[RyanRed]

I donno. Im a new miner, but I feel a small $150 test investment is trivial compared to the way Bitcoin seems to be going. Ill start small with one. Feel it out, and reinvest more into it if the Jalapeno works out.

Butterfly labs customer services seems "ok". I've asked questions via their website submission, and got a response back within 24 hours. But I also got a response back to the same question twice from two different people. Both answers matched though hahha, so that's good

[BFL_Josh]

Yes, I'm sorry if I confused anyone, but we are only shipping the FPGA products at the moment.  The comment above was with regards to the FPGA Singles - our helper monkeys (They are on subcontracted out from EMC) are busily creating more singles as we speak for shipping either later this week or early next week. 

We also have more than 300 boards on their way after that to satisfy current and future orders prior to the ASICs.  It will sure be nice when we have the pick and place ready to go and we don't have rely on a third party to place the components on our boards.

[RHA]

Josh, don't convince him. Let them stay with GPU mining. There is cheap electricity in Bulgaria. 

[Inaba]

This is a picture of one of the helper monkeys that work behind the scenes at EMC to send all those text and email messages.  People always wonder what they look like.

[poon-TANG]

I sure hope BFL can/will deliver.

[uniquark]

the customer service is so bad.

[king_pin]

Josh, don't convince him. Let them stay with GPU mining. There is cheap electricity in Bulgaria. 

Actually it is the cheapest in the EU, but they are planing to rise it by 15% the end of the year
Maybe than I will preorder a ASIC. I say preorder because I doubt they will ship them by then

[HDSolar]

This is a picture of one of the helper monkeys that work behind the scenes at EMC to send all those text and email messages.  People always wonder what they look like.

I knew it.  Now how do I order one of those 

[king_pin]

This is a picture of one of the helper monkeys that work behind the scenes at EMC to send all those text and email messages.  People always wonder what they look like.

That would be my face if I see a BFL Asic before Christmas

[judas3000]

 (other form the Lack of Pictures of Stuff like packaging, cases, assembly lines or anything that is involved in the process of making this thing ... oh wait there is picture of a wafer that is shown on at least 6 other websites
https://www.google.com/search?q=semiconductor+wafer&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSYxphCxCo1NgEGgAMCxCwjKcIGjwKOggBEhTMBskG9gXeA_1QF8gXrA6EDlwPHAxogmY5_1V4e1Z TfidXWnqqj2p5uXwVkKOJhV2FiKyK-VR9cMCxCOrv4IGgoKCAgBEgQvH-IjDA&ei=--xRUJBNid_hBKedgcgO&ved=0CCgQwg4&biw=1440&bih=657

What bugs me the most is the "buy-back" thing.

It just does not make sense and there is no explanation to why. How can a company afford that? When you sell something for 599$ and then later buy back the same thing for the same price which nobody wants to buy any more because there is also the other thing (jalapeno) that's way faster and way cheaper than the original ... you are not going to sell it again.

It sounds a lot like the "establishing trust" in a Ponzi scheme. let's take the numbers to see which magnitude we have here
with the old system (599$/832MHashes) i would get less than 1.4 MHashes per Dollar
with the new system (1299$/40GHashes) i would get more than 20.7 MHashes per Dollar
that's an increase of 1478%
with the upgrade (699$/39168MHases) i'd even get 56 MHashes per Dollar
that's an increase of 4002%

man, even the newest ponzi scheme https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108832.40 has only a 100% interest

oh wait, let's see what a mining calculator says to this

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/index.php
Hardware break even: 8 days
Net profit first time frame: 3687.60 USD

the upgrade will generate 165$ a day extra

btw, jalapeno

Hardware break even: 11 days
Net profit first time frame: 287.44 USD


i will have a lot of fun watching this thing!

[SgtSpike]

judas, it's not wrong to be paranoid.  Certainly, those of us who are trusting a company with our money months before we'll actually see the units we are buying are taking a greater risk than those who wait to order until BFL has a proven track record of selling ASIC's.  But the reward is also much greater.  Break even time will quickly rise to 6-8 months, and only the initial purchasers will see that large initial return on investment.

That said, I'll give you two explanations to your two issues...

1) They offer the buy-back to help build trust, and they are still making money when people trade in.  It is speculated that the ASIC chips will only cost around $10 or so each.  If someone trades their $600 unit in for a $1300 unit (and you can't trade in more units than you buy), then they're still paying $700.  Assuming the variable cost of production is $100 or so for the other components and assembly, BFL is still making $590 on a traded-in machine (which they also stated would be resold for other purposes in the future).  If they DIDN'T offer the trade in, those who already have BFL products would likely feel jaded from their recent purchases becoming obsolete so quickly, and would turn to a different company to order from in the future.  So, BFL is doing the trade in both to make money (to help recover the cost of their capital investment in ASIC technology), and to maintain a good relationship with their previous customers.

2) It's an increase in performance of 4002%, so it must be a ponzi scheme!  Erm, no, not so much.  There is no "interest rate" here, it's a performance increase.  Technological breakthroughs sometimes allow increases in performance of 4002%, and that's the case here.  An FPGA is a device that can do many things, but inefficient at doing any single thing.  An ASIC is purpose-built for a single task, and thus can have much higher performance and efficiency than a programmable array.

[mj72]

It does look at a little concerning. lack of pics, detailed specs etc when the release date is so fast approaching. On the other side though is the fact that BFL is already established. 170$ risk isn't a big risk for a lot of miners though. Just a newb interpretation.

[FlipPro]

They have deplorable customer service. It's the main reason why I may go with a totally different ASIC provider.

[Inaba]

 

They have deplorable customer service. It's the main reason why I may go with a totally different ASIC provider.

Yeah, good luck with that.  

Let us know how that worked out come January.

[f6wgycbedb]

If they release an ASIC product first, it doesn't matter what that product is - if network hash rates increase by 5 or 10 times (potentially 40 times) then GPU mining becomes pointless. And you'll then be stuck with no way to earn. My advise is this, if you haven't jumped on the BFL bandwagon yet - do it now, order an fpga single and pre-order the upgrade for it. If another company produces an ASIC product, you should buy from them as well. The more developers making this hardware would be the best thing for growth of bitcoin longterm.

Just to check, if we had to speculate, that there's a possibility that network hash rate could go from 20TH/s right now to 40x = 800TH/s?  When do you believe this would be hit?

[dooferorg]

Indeed, the bottom line is we are working to improve customer service and our shipping times. 

I was very happy with the fast response I got from BFL customer support about my SC pre-order. BFL gets my vote, for what it's worth

[dooferorg]

btw, jalapeno

Hardware break even: 11 days
Net profit first time frame: 287.44 USD


i will have a lot of fun watching this thing!

Ya.. I wish. LOL. Just remember the difficulty is GOING TO SKYROCKET. THat means if it's up by 10x then our little doodads (I ordered a Jalepeno for poo and giggles) will only make 28.74 USD in that timeframe for the same amount of hashing work done.

[judas3000]

btw, jalapeno

Hardware break even: 11 days
Net profit first time frame: 287.44 USD


i will have a lot of fun watching this thing!

Ya.. I wish. LOL. Just remember the difficulty is GOING TO SKYROCKET. THat means if it's up by 10x then our little doodads (I ordered a Jalepeno for poo and giggles) will only make 28.74 USD in that timeframe for the same amount of hashing work done.

I'd only look at the network Hashrate and compare it to the number of btc that are produced (number of bitcoins created and difficulty are strongly correlated) . Other factors should not be relevant, it will be easier to get bitcoins, but only for those with the hardware, I think the transation will be smooth.

Let's take a look at the numbers
we have a speed of 21293.57 Gigahashes/s which produces 7950 btc a day
7950/(21293.57) = 0.3733521433935221
each Gigahash produces more than 0.37 btc a day

if we add the 300 mining SC from butterflylabs with 40 GHashes/s (somewhere I read that they had 300 in the first batch)
7950/(21293.57 + 40*300) = 0.23878484644332224
each GHash now produces less than 0.23 btc a day

which is a drop of 37% in revenue for classic miners when the first batch of 300 SCs are deployed.

[timmah]

Well, I've placed about 5k worth of my BTC in their miners so I hope that they deliver!

[CJGoodings]

There has been 0 proof from any of these so called ASIC developers. Each time the community shouts at one to show their hand, they bitch on how the other groups havent shown theirs. So we end up starting back at square one, with these groups charging an arm and leg for their units which don't technically exists yet except in concept.

And yet, people all over these forums are throwing tens of thousands of their hard earned dollars into a product nobody is willing to demonstrate.

[Monkey1]

You are also ignoring the price of BTC.  The increasing difficulty and halving of the reward may make the value increase.  Alternatively it could make no difference at all!  At this stage it is pure speculation.  You pays your money and you takes your chance!

[SgtSpike]

There has been 0 proof from any of these so called ASIC developers. Each time the community shouts at one to show their hand, they bitch on how the other groups havent shown theirs. So we end up starting back at square one, with these groups charging an arm and leg for their units which don't technically exists yet except in concept.

And yet, people all over these forums are throwing tens of thousands of their hard earned dollars into a product nobody is willing to demonstrate.

Why do you even care what people choose to throw their hard earned dollars at?

[RATM69]

What bugs me is the Hash power that they are introducing. 3 gh/s & 40 GH/s (no problem) but why is the next step a 1TH/s. Shouldn't or wouldn't make sense to come out with like an upgradable 250GH/s unit?

You would think they would start a little smaller (250GH/s upgradeable) and sell a bunch of those then move up in size a little bit (Just like with the rest of the computer industry)Then maybe two-three years down the road move up to the 1TH/s. There's no acceleration here, it's either stopped or WFO.

Seems like to me introducing this much speed will pretty much eliminate ALL the small guy's. By small I mean anything under 100Gh/s. I would think this will basically shoot them in the foot and they will realize what i'm talking about once everything is on the market and people are plugged in. Start small and work your way there. Don't go from ground floor to the 13th floor all at once. That's my 2 bits thanks for letting me vent.

[firefop]

Indeed, the bottom line is we are working to improve customer service and our shipping times.  We just shipped orders from the first of August, so we are getting caught up there.  I have been working hard on the customer service issue as well as the shipping issues.  We are also working very hard on getting the ASICs out the door on time.  We are really beefing up our production capacity and moving everything we can in house.  We've purchased a pick and place machine, an oven, stenciler and other equipment to manufacture all the boards in house.  This means we can produce as many boards as we need without being at the mercy of board manufacturers and their timing/runs. 

Our ASIC chip is 100% original IP and we will have as many chips as we need, when we need them.  We are standardizing a lot of our equipment, so we can keep massive quantities of inventory on hand (at least 6 months of production work is the goal), allowing us to crank out units - literally - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if need be.  We've hired more personnel and will be hiring yet more people as we gear up.   

The ASIC generation is going to be much less complex, as well, so there will be less steps to creating a fully functional end unit, and we will also be able to assemble/produce the much faster.  Everything you know about BFL is changing now and will continue to change.  The only thing I can do is assure you we understand the concerns and we are doing everything we can to address the past mistakes. 

As a note (from a customer with undelivered singles on order, and asic upgrade on pre-order) This is exactly the sort of communication that your customers love to see. Maybe something as simple as mailing out a newsletter at regular intervals. It would only need 3 sections, since last time - currently - looking forward. That in and of itself would go a long way on the customer service side of things.

[SgtSpike]

What bugs me is the Hash power that they are introducing. 3 gh/s & 40 GH/s (no problem) but why is the next step a 1TH/s. Shouldn't or wouldn't make sense to come out with like an upgradable 250GH/s unit?

You would think they would start a little smaller (250GH/s upgradeable) and sell a bunch of those then move up in size a little bit (Just like with the rest of the computer industry)Then maybe two-three years down the road move up to the 1TH/s. There's no acceleration here, it's either stopped or WFO.

Seems like to me introducing this much speed will pretty much eliminate ALL the small guy's. By small I mean anything under 100Gh/s. I would think this will basically shoot them in the foot and they will realize what i'm talking about once everything is on the market and people are plugged in. Start small and work your way there. Don't go from ground floor to the 13th floor all at once. That's my 2 bits thanks for letting me vent.

If they offered a 250GH/s unit for $7,500 instead of a 1TH/s unit for $30,000, why couldn't those who ordered a single mini-rig instead just order four 250GH/s units?

In other words, it would make very little difference in overall network hashrate if they had chosen 250GH/s as their largest hasher instead of 1TH/s.

[AndrewBUD]

They did buy up ALL the ad space on this site.... I think something is up and they will be very far behind schedule... I think maybe 1 of each units will be shipped out per week for the next 15 years

[RATM69]

What bugs me is the Hash power that they are introducing. 3 gh/s & 40 GH/s (no problem) but why is the next step a 1TH/s. Shouldn't or wouldn't make sense to come out with like an upgradable 250GH/s unit?

You would think they would start a little smaller (250GH/s upgradeable) and sell a bunch of those then move up in size a little bit (Just like with the rest of the computer industry)Then maybe two-three years down the road move up to the 1TH/s. There's no acceleration here, it's either stopped or WFO.

Seems like to me introducing this much speed will pretty much eliminate ALL the small guy's. By small I mean anything under 100Gh/s. I would think this will basically shoot them in the foot and they will realize what i'm talking about once everything is on the market and people are plugged in. Start small and work your way there. Don't go from ground floor to the 13th floor all at once. That's my 2 bits thanks for letting me vent.

If they offered a 250GH/s unit for $7,500 instead of a 1TH/s unit for $30,000, why couldn't those who ordered a single mini-rig instead just order four 250GH/s units?

In other words, it would make very little difference in overall network hashrate if they had chosen 250GH/s as their largest hasher instead of 1TH/s.

I was just thinking more from a business stand point seems like it would make more sense to slowly increase the power. Hell they probably could have gotten $5K for a 40GH/s and $25K for a 250GH/s. I'm quite sure people would gobble them up even at $5k and $25K Then later on offer upgrades or whatever. That's basically all i meant. Just a thought.

[Zack]

I have a strong feeling they will deliver, but not on time. I've never ordered from BFL before except to pre-order my jalapeno but by reading these forums I'm nearly sure the ETA for delivery will be pushed back quite a bit.

[firefop]

I have a strong feeling they will deliver, but not on time. I've never ordered from BFL before except to pre-order my jalapeno but by reading these forums I'm nearly sure the ETA for delivery will be pushed back quite a bit.

If only - I'd absolutely love it if they'd take untill june 2013 to actually release. But then I got a late start, I'm hitting hardware costs this month.

[king_pin]

They did buy up ALL the ad space on this site.... I think something is up and they will be very far behind schedule... I think maybe 1 of each units will be shipped out per week for the next 15 years

hahaha, I love that quote!
Someone sad that buying back their old SC is a trust policy! Well why spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy back instead spend 1/2 that for better customer service.

Sometimes I'm thinking that this is BFL:
Big Fat Liar

[king_pin]

An interesting hit on BFL's reputation:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109515.0

In short words i it possible that BFL's boss, has been sewed for large-scale fraud!
Weather truth or false is being disused!

[Gabi]

Well, October is near. Either they start delivering some ASIC or then i'll add them to my scam list

Remember that delivering FPGA is much much much easier than ASIC 

[greyhawk]

Well, October is near. Either they start delivering some ASIC or then i'll add them to my scam list

Remember that delivering FPGA is much much much easier than ASIC 

But but but look at how they bought each and every adspace on the forums and then some. There's no way they would try to grab as much as they can in a last ditch effort before deploying their ASICS....












































































.... running shoes

[SLok]

Seems like all these so-called asics producers want your money before they even have produced a single asic-miner at all? And if you do not get involved now, either way you never get one that will pay itself back in a reasonable time, or will have to pay almost double the pre-order price when waiting.

[flower1024]

Seems like all these so-called asics producers want your money before they even have produced a single asic-miner at all? And if you do not get involved now, either way you never get one that will pay itself back in a reasonable time, or will have to pay almost double the pre-order price when waiting.

it was the same with their fpga's and they did deliever.
i am not afraid

[Gabi]

Seems like all these so-called asics producers want your money before they even have produced a single asic-miner at all? And if you do not get involved now, either way you never get one that will pay itself back in a reasonable time, or will have to pay almost double the pre-order price when waiting.

it was the same with their fpga's and they did deliever.
i am not afraid

As i said

Remember that delivering FPGA is much much much easier than ASIC

[greyhawk]

Seems like all these so-called asics producers want your money before they even have produced a single asic-miner at all? And if you do not get involved now, either way you never get one that will pay itself back in a reasonable time, or will have to pay almost double the pre-order price when waiting.

it was the same with their fpga's and they did deliever.
i am not afraid

Google Hustling, Three card Monte or shell game

[SLok]

Seems like all these so-called asics producers want your money before they even have produced a single asic-miner at all? And if you do not get involved now, either way you never get one that will pay itself back in a reasonable time, or will have to pay almost double the pre-order price when waiting.

it was the same with their fpga's and they did deliever.
i am not afraid

I'm not afraid too, because as you mentioned they did deliver those fpga's. I ordered 6 pcs of the Jalapeno first week of August btw.
I will order an Avalon from ngzhang too but not early, unless they make 'm $700 more expensive than the pre-order as they say. It will be a single SC from BFL than, or 2, if they are still around by then. 

[king_pin]

Seems like all these so-called asics producers want your money before they even have produced a single asic-miner at all? And if you do not get involved now, either way you never get one that will pay itself back in a reasonable time, or will have to pay almost double the pre-order price when waiting.

EXACTLY
They are counting on that to make you pay them formidable amounts of money without any securing, and all the mentioned above points.
I am beginning to believe that ASICs and particularly BFL will be the Next New Old Ponzi Scheme.
Cross our fingers and lets hope for the best!

[Monkey1]

Thats the choice you make.  Either buy now and hope there is a product and you get it early enough to make a profit, buy later and hope that its still viable to mine when you get it or give up mining!

[SLok]

Seems like all these so-called asics producers want your money before they even have produced a single asic-miner at all? And if you do not get involved now, either way you never get one that will pay itself back in a reasonable time, or will have to pay almost double the pre-order price when waiting.

EXACTLY
They are counting on that to make you pay them formidable amounts of money without any securing, and all the mentioned above points.
I am beginning to believe that ASICs and particularly BFL will be the Next New Old Ponzi Scheme.
Cross our fingers and lets hope for the best!

No, don't think so. Quite a setup, making and selling singles and mini-rigs with fpga tech, all also pre-payed and (being) delivered? Then promising asics and run off with the money? What about those other fpga sellers coming with asics on pre-order pre-pay, their own scam, or maybe set up by bfl as a smokescreen? We'll see, I'm not worried a bit, would order some 40Gh/s SC's now if I had more money.

[FactoredPrimes]

If this company is producing these super hashing units, then why are the selling them?

Wouldn't they make more profit by just plugging them all in an keeping them all for their own mega-pool?

If I was producing these I would not let one of them outside the company and keep them all running as constantly as I could. Unless I am missing something.

[laSeek]

If this company is producing these super hashing units, then why are the selling them?

Wouldn't they make more profit by just plugging them all in an keeping them all for their own mega-pool?

If I was producing these I would not let one of them outside the company and keep them all running as constantly as I could. Unless I am missing something.

Some of the ASIC's projects are doing that - at least at first to recoup their investment - which is pretty substantial.
Others chose to try and make a profit while doing something they think is worthwhile.

An important part of bitcoin is the community - I don't think everybody is out to make as much money as they can from it before ditching it and going back to standard currencies.

Cross our fingers and lets hope for the best!

Hope for the best, plan for the worst
Buy stocks - offset your investment.  If you're worried about being pushed out of bitcoin or your investment in GPU's being null'd - explore other ways you can use the GPU's for the sister/parallel currencies (litecoin, devcoin, namecoint etc) and push pool ops for more merged mining.
iirc there's a pool project here with multi currency support and the first bash at merged mining of currencies and there's been some talk recently on one of the other threads (I'll post the link if I stumble over it again) about exploring the use of GPU's for other currencies now that FPGA's & ASIC are hitting the markets in higher volumes.

[caffeinewriter]

   

They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress.

and?

His point was that it seems unprofessional and maybe even a rush job. But it works for them, it works well. Should it be changed?

Allow me to list some Wordpress Powered sites:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/
http://boingboing.net/
http://mashable.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/blogs/directory.html
http://www.cnn.com/exchange/blogs/index.html
http://blogs.forbes.com/
http://arcadefire.com/
http://katyperry.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/
http://blog.us.playstation.com/
http://ebayinkblog.com/
http://jquery.com/
http://wordpress.org/
http://dyndns.org/
http://thechive.com/
http://xtendmedia.com/

Guess what!? Wordpress is fucking powerful! Tweak it the right way, and it'll work for you. I wouldn't be pissed if you hadn't made it sound like WordPress is a low quality CMS.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

So? just wait till you get it

[SgtSpike]

If this company is producing these super hashing units, then why are the selling them?

Wouldn't they make more profit by just plugging them all in an keeping them all for their own mega-pool?

If I was producing these I would not let one of them outside the company and keep them all running as constantly as I could. Unless I am missing something.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1018ky/q_if_these_fpga_and_asic_miners_are_really_worth/c69i9r0

[FactoredPrimes]

If this company is producing these super hashing units, then why are the selling them?

Wouldn't they make more profit by just plugging them all in an keeping them all for their own mega-pool?

If I was producing these I would not let one of them outside the company and keep them all running as constantly as I could. Unless I am missing something.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1018ky/q_if_these_fpga_and_asic_miners_are_really_worth/c69i9r0

Thanks for the link, just what I was wondering about. I totally makes sense that if they tried to take a large bit of the mining action that it would comrpomise the currency. They make more by selling them to many people.

[RoboCoder]

Personally, i think they will probably deliver, however i expect it to deliver slowly and certainly not in the timeframe they have posted.  Or if they do, only a few of them will be filled immediately.  Interestingly enough, some of the other HHR ASIC's being announced (bASIC) are saying shipping in december..  which is probably at least a little more realistic.

(fwiw: i refer to the next gen ASIC's as HHR ASIC's - High-Hash-Rate, since GPU's are really ASIC's also..)

Personally, i plan to hedge my bets.  I am going to continue my steady add of GPU's - since they hold their value pretty well (at least the 7970's i use seem to) - i am not going to take much risk if i switch to HHR ASIC's and sell off my GPU's.

As to the reputation of BFL - i know people have received singles and mini-rigs from other posts in the forum - so they obviously are not a complete scam.  I just ordered a BFL single to see how long it would take to receive - I ordered it sunday, received a confirmation monday.  I sent a reply asking when it would ship and got no response - but i must admin i replied to the confirm which probably came from an unmonitored email address.  Have heard nothing since the confirm - but it has only been a few days - which from what i can see is not out of character for BFL.  If i get the Single in a reasonable timeframe - i will probably preorder some of the new HHR ASIC's.  I will probably also orderr a few more single just to reduce the noise in my lab - but i think at this point i wouldn't risk too much at any one time, i would trickle the orders so you don't stand to lose as much - but i am a little more conservative.

Side Note:  BFL_Josh - It would probably help leaps and bounds with customer confidence if there were a little more status in your receipt or at least another tickler email with an expected ship date if there is going to be a delay - i am sure if you have coders to do firmware and miners - a little script to do that shouldnt be that hard.  I am sure you are busy with the new stuff but invest a little in a support person to keep people up to date or more updates on the website and i will bet your preorders would more than double and that would do a lot for your bottom line.

Anyway.. my 2 cents.  Ultimately i look at the whole mining thing like real gold mining (was) or the stock market: the law of conservation of greed -> Any substantial reward will probably require and equal and opposite amount of risk.  Oh and like the stockbrokers tell you - don't use money you can't afford to lose..

Thus ends my soliloquy...

RoboCoder

[RoboCoder]

Interestingly enough...

As soon as i posted the previous message, i look at my inbox and there was a reply to the ship time - 6-8 weeks for the Single.  Soooo....  apparently the reply address to the confirmation IS monitored.

+1 for customer support (would have been a +2, but took 3 days to respond)..

I sort of expected that kind of a ship date so I am not terribly upset - i am still plugging along with GPU mining growth.. don't want to miss the coin...

[color]

I am still a newbie so this is the only place I can post this.

Josh from Butterfly Labs @ Bitcoin Conference 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT-smMzg54k&feature=colike

BTW, not my video.

[FactoredPrimes]

I am still a newbie so this is the only place I can post this.

Josh from Butterfly Labs @ Bitcoin Conference 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT-smMzg54k&feature=colike

BTW, not my video.

Neat.

[RoboCoder]

I see that the poll indicates over half agree that they will get them just not when they promise...

[king_pin]

I see that the poll indicates over half agree that they will get them just not when they promise...

It's not half but almost 2/3 because you can add the NO to the Not on time.

Did you read this shit:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110868.0

It is the funniest thing I've read, it is like e 5 year old retard is trying to make me believe in Santa!

[RoboCoder]

Did you read this shit:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110868.0

It is the funniest thing I've read, it is like e 5 year old retard is trying to make me believe in Santa!

Read it.. Sounds like it was written by a politician.  But i am withholding judgement for 6-8weeks (according to BFL's proposed shipping on the single i ordered..)

[squeept]

As a computer engineer and someone that runs their own business, I see lots of minor details being blown way, way out of proportion. So far, the ONLY thing that worries me is the past conviction of the owner. Even then, I still felt confident enough to place an order with them.

[squeept]

Also, you lose all credibility when you call it a ponzi scheme. For the love of god, learn to google and read.

[mem]

• No certain delivery dates.

yeah, they fucked this up last time so they are reluctant to make promises this time and blow it again

Despite what Inaba, apologists and Bull Fecces Lovers claim, they only updated their delivery times after 3+ months extreme pressure from the community. They only changed  their claimed delivery dates when it looked like they were about to be reported for fraudulent business practices - NO OTHER REASON.

• No pictures or schemes or anything.

they are literally sitting on a gold mine, that IP is going to be very closely guarded

Photos will not reveal anything about an ASIC's IP.

• Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).

see above

<SARCASM>yes because you can obviously reverse engineer an ASIC from a photo of its box.</SARCASM>

• No one answers their phone.

see their FAQ

See the most recent steaming pile of bullshit delivered by Inaba/ BFL_Josh/ Sonny.

• They answer your e-mail within 2-3 weeks.

they answered my last email the next day

And yet the forums have countless records of the contrary.
Any client daring to question where the order is can expect a scathing attack from the forums man-child and BFL shill Inaba.

• All their answers are with a maybe or possibly.

see the first point

All your points lack substance, please stop with the "Im a fool and trust them, why wont you be a fool with me".

• I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred.

duh, they want to promote bitcoin

DUH - Paypal would freeze  their account instantly, especially given Sonny's previous convictions.
They are selling a product that does not exist and their idea of reassuring clients is having that ass-hat Inaba attack and ridicule them on a public forum.

• The broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe.

??

??

• They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman.

because no Hispanic people live in Massachusetts

Just ask Sonny why he did the same when he was running his mail fraud scam.

• They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress.

and?

Exactly, why wouldnt you trust a convicted con artist with millions of dollars - he certainly proved he couldnt be trusted the first time.
Why not let a convicted pedophile babysit your kids while you are at it.

• Up to today no one has either seen, touched or heard their ASICs. (even remotely)

see point 2

because they have yet to:

A) Have one successful build.
B) Have one that is able to work with the bitcoin network
C) They require water cooling so they do not catch fire.
D) Have one that does not catch fire after running for 12h.

[IMakeComps]

I really hope they deliver as promised. I pre-ordered 5 Single SC's from them.

[AndrewBUD]

I ordered nothing, I'll order a bASIC if the time comes

[king_pin]

• Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).

see above

<SARCASM>yes because you can obviously reverse engineer an ASIC from a photo of its box.</SARCASM>

But I am that GOOD - why the Sarcasm

Дo кoйтo paзбиpa тoвa, c двe дyми БФЛ ce ocpaxa, oт дocтa ичзтoчници чyвaм, чe вce щe нищe нe ca paзpaбoтили, a ca cтapтиpaли пpoeктa eдвa cлeд oкoлo мceц oт oбявaтa, кoгaтo ca cъбpaли дocтaтъчнo пapи. Cpeднo зa тaкъв пpoeкт oтнeмa нaй-мaлкo 6-8 мeceцa, кoeтo ce дoближaвa дo мoятa пpoгнoзa зa кpaя нa Янyapи.
Mнoгo пoздpaви нa тъпaцитe oт HWBG, кoитo мe бaннaxa и нa мaлкoтo пeдaлчe bombera!

[Pochi]

I dont know, I ordered a Jalepeno a week or 2 ago just to test its profit potential if any since its hard to predict the difficulty of mining when they come out. My electricity is expensive so i hope they made it efficient with power. $0.22 / kWh here.

[benco]

My only question about BFLabs is:

Why would they sell a ACSI equipment for $30,000 that can mine 1,000G/Hash (roughly 4,500 dollars in BTC per day) and you can recover the investment in about 8 days, when they can easily build it for themselves and mine the shit out of it and become millionaires by running 10-20 of those themselves?

Because they can make more on devices than on BTCs. And they are right

[solareclipse64236]

BFL is just supporting the industry, I'm sure that they have a working business scale already in place.

[SLok]

They can make like 500 units per day, these will run a 24-hour burn-in test, so they will be constantly mining with 500 pcs of jalapenos/40Ghs/1TH machines. At 400X3.5G+80X40G+20X1TH.....
1400k+3200k+20000k=24600k Mh/s=$106,863.96 a day??

Check my calculation please, someone?

[dooferorg]

They can make like 500 units per day, these will run a 24-hour burn-in test, so they will be constantly mining with 500 pcs of jalapenos/40Ghs/1TH machines. At 400X3.5G+80X40G+20X1TH.....
1400k+3200k+20000k=24600k Mh/s=$106,863.96 a day??

Check my calculation please, someone?

Factor in block reward drop, difficulty increase and other ASICs (that they or others ship) and I think it looks differently

[live627]

A) Have one successful build.
B) Have one that is able to work with the bitcoin network
C) They require water cooling so they do not catch fire.
D) Have one that does not catch fire after running for 12h.

Proof?

[Aahzman]

What if they made their original product at a (slight) loss to build a good reputation for themselves so people believe them enough to please a large preorder for the suppossed ASIC?

Whoa. What if they were the ones who started bitcoin in the first place, to create a community and economy, with the sole intent of FUCKING US ALL 4 YEARS LATER!?!?  *MIND BLOWN* Talk about a long con game.

/sarcasm off

[Aahzman]

Yes, I'm sorry if I confused anyone, but we are only shipping the FPGA products at the moment.  The comment above was with regards to the FPGA Singles - our helper monkeys (They are on subcontracted out from EMC) are busily creating more singles as we speak for shipping either later this week or early next week. 

We also have more than 300 boards on their way after that to satisfy current and future orders prior to the ASICs.  It will sure be nice when we have the pick and place ready to go and we don't have rely on a third party to place the components on our boards.

Whoa! I may have to cancel my pre-order. Nobody said anything about EMC being involved. I work for HP, I can't be seen buying anything that's had EMC hands in it.... SO TORN NOW

[SgtSpike]

They can make like 500 units per day, these will run a 24-hour burn-in test, so they will be constantly mining with 500 pcs of jalapenos/40Ghs/1TH machines. At 400X3.5G+80X40G+20X1TH.....
1400k+3200k+20000k=24600k Mh/s=$106,863.96 a day??

Check my calculation please, someone?

I'd drop that figure to about 1/5.  No way they're building 20 minirigs a day.

But even assuming they are, compare the price of those (assumed) hardware pieces compared to the mining revenue.

400 x $150 + 80 x $1300 + 20 x $30000 = $764,000 selling price.

So, even if they make $107k/day mining, it still wouldn't make up a substantial portion of their revenues.  And that $107k wouldn't last long either - as more of the units are released into the wild, that revenue would drop to maybe $10k/day, if that.

I'm not particularly happy that BFL is choosing to mine on the main net, but I'm not going to cancel my order over it either.

[SLok]

They can make like 500 units per day, these will run a 24-hour burn-in test, so they will be constantly mining with 500 pcs of jalapenos/40Ghs/1TH machines. At 400X3.5G+80X40G+20X1TH.....
1400k+3200k+20000k=24600k Mh/s=$106,863.96 a day??

Check my calculation please, someone?

I'd drop that figure to about 1/5.  No way they're building 20 minirigs a day.

But even assuming they are, compare the price of those (assumed) hardware pieces compared to the mining revenue.

400 x $150 + 80 x $1300 + 20 x $30000 = $764,000 selling price.

So, even if they make $107k/day mining, it still wouldn't make up a substantial portion of their revenues.  And that $107k wouldn't last long either - as more of the units are released into the wild, that revenue would drop to maybe $10k/day, if that.

I'm not particularly happy that BFL is choosing to mine on the main net, but I'm not going to cancel my order over it either.

Neither am I. But it will take maybe a month at full production to catch up all pre-orders (as they said they want to send out an as big as possible first batch), plus the ones coming in once people see they really deliver. In the video shot at the conference bfl guy said they wanted to build a 6000pcs stock, and produce to the point where they can take next-day-delivery orders. I also wish they just use a testnet.

[king_pin]

...so they will be constantly mining with 500 pcs of jalapenos/40Ghs/1TH machines.

I think that they are building 0 ASIC mining rigs a day..... 

[greyhawk]

Yes, I'm sorry if I confused anyone, but we are only shipping the FPGA products at the moment.  The comment above was with regards to the FPGA Singles - our helper monkeys (They are on subcontracted out from EMC) are busily creating more singles as we speak for shipping either later this week or early next week. 

We also have more than 300 boards on their way after that to satisfy current and future orders prior to the ASICs.  It will sure be nice when we have the pick and place ready to go and we don't have rely on a third party to place the components on our boards.

Whoa! I may have to cancel my pre-order. Nobody said anything about EMC being involved. I work for HP, I can't be seen buying anything that's had EMC hands in it.... SO TORN NOW

In my server room I have HP Proliants and EMC NAS cohabitating. Tell you what? They're both great 

[SLok]

...so they will be constantly mining with 500 pcs of jalapenos/40Ghs/1TH machines.

I think that they are building 0 ASIC mining rigs a day..... 

Soon king_pin, soon. Production starts next week.  

[Aahzman]

Yes, I'm sorry if I confused anyone, but we are only shipping the FPGA products at the moment.  The comment above was with regards to the FPGA Singles - our helper monkeys (They are on subcontracted out from EMC) are busily creating more singles as we speak for shipping either later this week or early next week. 

We also have more than 300 boards on their way after that to satisfy current and future orders prior to the ASICs.  It will sure be nice when we have the pick and place ready to go and we don't have rely on a third party to place the components on our boards.

Whoa! I may have to cancel my pre-order. Nobody said anything about EMC being involved. I work for HP, I can't be seen buying anything that's had EMC hands in it.... SO TORN NOW

In my server room I have HP Proliants and EMC NAS cohabitating. Tell you what? They're both great 

Yah, I was being semi-kidding about the EMC angle. Although as an HP employee I am officially required to hate them. ;-)

[poon-TANG]

So if BFL is mining on the "24 hr burn-in" ASIC units....who's to say that AMD isn't doing the same

[greyhawk]

what?

[RoboCoder]

They can make like 500 units per day, these will run a 24-hour burn-in test, so they will be constantly mining with 500 pcs of jalapenos/40Ghs/1TH machines. At 400X3.5G+80X40G+20X1TH.....
1400k+3200k+20000k=24600k Mh/s=$106,863.96 a day??

Check my calculation please, someone?

Well if they truly interested in not upsetting the balance of hash power as they state, they would do their burn in test without actually submitting any shares - i know cgminer/bfgminer have a "benchmark" mode so that do not involve actual mining..

Anyway odds are if the did do a huge burn in initially - we would probably know because a burnin on 300 units would show pretty significantly (see the charts on blockchain.com)..

[squeept]

I've made a fun game out of the absurd knocks against BFL by replacing any mention of BFL with any huge name company, and replacing any instance of ASIC with a high profile product that they make. For example:

OMG BFL IS A SCAM WHY WON'T THEY SHOW ME PICTURES OF THE ASIC AND THEY WON'T KEEP A RUNNING BLOG OF DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AND I'M CALLING A LAWYER BECAUSE THEY TOOK PRE-ORDERS AND MISSED THEIR RELEASE DATE BY A FEW WEEKS!!!!!!

becomes

OMG APPLE IS A SCAM WHY WON'T THEY SHOW ME PICTURES OF THE IPHONE 6 AND THEY WON'T KEEP A RUNNING BLOG OF DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AND I'M CALLING A LAWYER BECAUSE THEY TOOK PRE-ORDERS AND MISSED THEIR RELEASE DATE BY A FEW WEEKS!!!!!!

[RoboCoder]

I've made a fun game out of the absurd knocks against BFL by replacing any mention of BFL with any huge name company, and replacing any instance of ASIC with a high profile product that they make. For example:

OMG BFL IS A SCAM WHY WON'T THEY SHOW ME PICTURES OF THE ASIC AND THEY WON'T KEEP A RUNNING BLOG OF DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AND I'M CALLING A LAWYER BECAUSE THEY TOOK PRE-ORDERS AND MISSED THEIR RELEASE DATE BY A FEW WEEKS!!!!!!

becomes

OMG APPLE IS A SCAM WHY WON'T THEY SHOW ME PICTURES OF THE IPHONE 6 AND THEY WON'T KEEP A RUNNING BLOG OF DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AND I'M CALLING A LAWYER BECAUSE THEY TOOK PRE-ORDERS AND MISSED THEIR RELEASE DATE BY A FEW WEEKS!!!!!!

I think even more suitable:

OMG MICROSOFT IS A SCAM WHY WON'T THEY SHOW ME PICTURES OF THE WINDOWS 8 AND THEY WON'T KEEP A RUNNING BLOG OF DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AND I'M CALLING A LAWYER BECAUSE THEY TOOK PRE-ORDERS AND MISSED THEIR RELEASE DATE BY A FEW WEEKS!!!!!!

Oh wait...

[greyhawk]

Man, I don't know how Apple could fuck up their Iphone 6 pre-orders so much. 

[firefop]

My only question about BFLabs is:

Why would they sell a ACSI equipment for $30,000 that can mine 1,000G/Hash (roughly 4,500 dollars in BTC per day) and you can recover the investment in about 8 days, when they can easily build it for themselves and mine the shit out of it and become millionaires by running 10-20 of those themselves?
If I had the capacity to build such miners, would I build them and sell them at such a low price or would I just mine with them and make my business the mining business?

Just a thought...

You might have a point there - If they're being dishonest: they should put together a sc rig and mine with it while assembling other asic products - then the moment another company releases or starts selling asic products ---- they ship 100% of orders. Completely tank the competition and also (probably) earn out the investment of setting up the asics in the first place.

[volavak]

Adding some fire: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114329.0

[Inaba]

Wow, that added fuel to the fire like throwing water on a campfire adds fuel.

[king_pin]

PPhahahahhahaah - AHAHAHA
http://codinginmysleep.com/first-look-at-bfls-asic-hardware/

So the 25th of September, and all they can show is a rough 3D Cad Image of their produt.... My friends I have lost all hopes that BFL will deliver before 2013.
Actually they are showing it thru a 3rd party (which is actually them pretending to be a 3rd party)

[Inaba]

Mmmm smokey marshmallows.

[squeept]

Screw that, if they don't INCLUDE marshmallows, I'm asking for a refund.

[Inaba]

I've got a minirig who's Maillard browning is so good, if you threw it up into the air it would turn into sunshine.

[QuantumKiwi]

Its a scam, the CEO of BFL is a major scammer and has already been in jail for it too for mail order scam.

If you have already preordered - Don't count on getting your money back.

[pyrkne]

Its a scam, the CEO of BFL is a major scammer and has already been in jail for it too for mail order scam.

If you have already preordered - Don't count on getting your money back.

I thought he was charged with mail fraud because that's what they charged the people involved in the gambling sites? I don't think he actually defrauded someone by mail. Feel free to correct me.

[QuantumKiwi]

Do some research, he spent time in prison............ Says a lot.

[firefop]

Do some research, he spent time in prison............ Says a lot.

It basically says "he paid his debt to society"...

Just because someone had a conviction doesn't mean they can't change. Anyway - if you'd rather not take that risk, there are plent of others who will.

[king_pin]

Do some research, he spent time in prison............ Says a lot.

It basically says "he paid his debt to society"...
Just because someone had a conviction doesn't mean they can't change...

Hi, I am a child molester, but I did 10 years in prison. Would you let me take care of your kids, please?

[pyrkne]

Do some research, he spent time in prison............ Says a lot.

It basically says "he paid his debt to society"...
Just because someone had a conviction doesn't mean they can't change...

Hi, I am a child molester, but I did 10 years in prison. Would you let me take care of your kids, please?

In the words of a wise man:

Shit reasoning is shit.

[Testit]

Why so much  bullshit talk? no life maby

[Richy_T]

Do some research, he spent time in prison............ Says a lot.

It basically says "he paid his debt to society"...
Just because someone had a conviction doesn't mean they can't change...

Hi, I am a child molester, but I did 10 years in prison. Would you let me take care of your kids, please?

In the words of a wise man:

Shit reasoning is shit.

Sound reasoning there.

[atpcas]

they are literally sitting on a gold mine, that IP is going to be very closely guarded

A hardware SHA256 processor isn't exactly rocket science... the fact that they give no updates really smells IMHO.

[kwoody]

Playing the long-con is always the most profitable.

[Inaba]

they are literally sitting on a gold mine, that IP is going to be very closely guarded

A hardware SHA256 processor isn't exactly rocket science... the fact that they give no updates really smells IMHO.

Yes, rocket science is actually much easier. 

I look forward to your ASIC mining device you will be selling soon, right?  Cause.. you know, it's easy.

[Raoul Duke]

Sounds like a scam to me.

So do you, and you're still here...

[king_pin]

So, another scam popped today - GLBSE
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115704.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115669.0

Why is it so hard for people to see that BFL is also a scam!

[Mausini]

we will see

[SLok]

So, another scam popped today - GLBSE
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115704.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115669.0

Why is it so hard for people to see that BFL is also a scam!

WTF links that scam to the company BFL?
Running out of bogus claims, aren't you?

[king_pin]

So, another scam popped today - GLBSE
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115704.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115669.0
Why is it so hard for people to see that BFL is also a scam!

WTF links that scam to the company BFL?
Running out of bogus claims, aren't you?

What?
Are you retarded?
I've never sad that those links are connected in any way with BFL! It is just meant to show you that miners are like little children believing in Santa - ponzi Santa that is.

btw it is the 8th of October - Anyone received their BFL ASIC

[SLok]

So, another scam popped today - GLBSE
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115704.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115669.0
Why is it so hard for people to see that BFL is also a scam!

WTF links that scam to the company BFL?
Running out of bogus claims, aren't you?

What?
Are you retarded?
I've never sad that those links are connected in any way with BFL! It is just meant to show you that miners are like little children believing in Santa - ponzi Santa that is.

btw it is the 8th of October - Anyone received their BFL ASIC

Probably a retard yourself, as everybody knows by now that product release is scheduled for early november. Is someone paying you to post all this shit, or don't you have a life, what's the matter with you that you have to come up with just shit? Invested heavy in soon obsolete gpu's or fpga's? On the end of bfl's order list? Tell me, what is your goal, posting all this anti-bfl crap?

[king_pin]

Oh, so it is November now a month ago it was October, I guess a month from now it will be December and so on....

Dude, you start with the accusations, speaking about me beeing payed by someone, or no personal life and shit, that is the oldest trick in the book, get real or are you really retarded.
I personally thought BFL's ASICs were a scam from the beginning, but after rising my questions, and not getting satisfactory answers, I became certain of it but only time will tell.


P.S. And yeah I do have a couple hundred GPUs but they broke even months ago, I have no FPGAs and GPUs are easily sellable so I couldn't care less.
If an ASIC comes out I'll buy it. Actually when an ASIC comes out, I wouldn't care if it is BFL or someone else. So January I'd probably be buying one of the first ASICs.

[powersync]

It does sound like a hoax but damn that hashing power is nice.

ps

[firefop]

Oh, so it is November now a month ago it was October, I guess a month from now it will be December and so on....

Dude, you start with the accusations, speaking about me beeing payed by someone, or no personal life and shit, that is the oldest trick in the book, get real or are you really retarded.
I personally thought BFL's ASICs were a scam from the beginning, but after rising my questions, and not getting satisfactory answers, I became certain of it but only time will tell.


P.S. And yeah I do have a couple hundred GPUs but they broke even months ago, I have no FPGAs and GPUs are easily sellable so I couldn't care less.
If an ASIC comes out I'll buy it. Actually when an ASIC comes out, I wouldn't care if it is BFL or someone else. So January I'd probably be buying one of the first ASICs.

Different world views I suppose. I don't disagree with your plan - if you're in the black on your existing hardware (especially if it's all gpus) then you can afford to wait till some ASIC ship before buying. Personally, I came a bit late to the game, so BFLs upgrade offer was what me going FPGA instead of building a massive gpu farm. In the context of getting 100% trade-in value for their FPGA when you purchase an ASIC and assuming they actually at some point ship an asic. Then you can see the business case for getting them. They're basically instantly profitable... in the sense that you'll be able to 'sell them back to BFL' for purchase price when you upgrade.

[king_pin]

Currently, the most powerful GPU for mining, the AMD Radeon 7970...

Currently the most powerful GPU si 5970!

Otherwise I agree with your opinion.

[Inaba]

I beg to differ, my 7990 is far more powerful than the 5970.

[Gleamwar]

Dual GPU is nice for a gaming rig but for mining I'll just stick with my 7970s.

It would be more convincing if there were more than just mere words on a webpage to convince me of the reality of a product.
Between BTCFPGA, Butterfly and every other person jumping on the bandwagon ( i.e. Avalon ), your telling me there isn't a single
soul in these groups/companies who doesn't want to establish a little e-peen and show a frankenstein prototype actually running to prove they aren't blowing smoke.  I know very little about ASIC production but I thought most of these went from FPGA prototyping to ASIC.
Regardless, if they already went through the foundry for pressing, wouldn't they have all the tests that are conducted there to provide the stress levels etc.

Didn't I read on the forums somewhere that you are working for/with Butterfly now, Inaba?

[king_pin]

I beg to differ, my 7990 is far more powerful than the 5970.

I kinda doubt that you have a 7990, cause they have been out out for like 20 days, and you can't find them in mot countries.
And only PowerColor makes them (I think) and I wont buy PowerColor ever again

But yeah you are right!

[Inaba]

I beg to differ, my 7990 is far more powerful than the 5970.

I kinda doubt that you have a 7990, cause they have been out out for like 20 days, and you can't find them in mot countries.
And only PowerColor makes them (I think) and I wont buy PowerColor ever again

But yeah you are right!

Right... I don't have one.  Just like BFL is a scam.  Whatever.  This is why everything you say is complete bullshit.  You make statements and pronouncements that you have absolutely no ability to back up and you have absolutely no knowledge of, yet you try to proclaim these things as facts.  You know exactly nothing, and anything you say is basically crap.

I'll just leave this here.

[sippsnapp]

I formly ignored all the asic talks so far as in some occasions something that sounds to good to be true eventually is , yeah, not true.
Or in an other context, you can put lipstick on a bear but its still a bear.

[firefop]

I kinda doubt that you have a 7990, cause they have been out out for like 20 days, and you can't find them in mot countries.
And only PowerColor makes them (I think) and I wont buy PowerColor ever again

But yeah you are right!

Right... I don't have one.  Just like BFL is a scam.  Whatever.

I'll just leave this here.

Damn Inaba - don't ever get tired smacking down haters?

[SgtSpike]

Damn Inaba - don't ever get tired smacking down haters?

I hope he doesn't - someone's got to put them in their place!

[bce]

Welcome to bitcoin talk, newbies!

[bce]

Nevermind, I found the original image on Google.

Edit: since the original was removed by Inaba, I removed the one I found on google 

[Inaba]

I think thats been photoshopped. I can tell by the pixels cause i have seen a lot of photoshops in my time.

[squeept]

Is it wrong that I'd rather have those vintage computers than the new video card?

[Kaliecious]

I still have have 3 commodore 64's aand 4 or 5 1541 drives and 3 1581 drives. I wonder what I would get on ebay for them. lol

[reeses]

I think thats been photoshopped. I can tell by the pixels cause i have seen a lot of photoshops in my time.

Just admit that your team is using the parallel processing of the 6502s in the 1541s as hashers and are working on eliminating the thunks before shipping them as SC Singles.

Pixels, or beatific aura?

[Inaba]

What you can't actually see in the picture is the bank of Apple III computers, suspended by an automated pulley system that raises each one 12 inches and drops it back to the floor to reseat the chips.  That is what's doing the hashing, the C64s are just the front end to the networked Apples.  That Apple ][gs Woz Edition is controlling the pulleys.

PS -

The aura is actually all of my awesome trying to burst forth from the picture frame.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Indeed, the bottom line is we are working to improve customer service and our shipping times.  We just shipped orders from the first of August, so we are getting caught up there.  I have been working hard on the customer service issue as well as the shipping issues.  We are also working very hard on getting the ASICs out the door on time.  We are really beefing up our production capacity and moving everything we can in house.  We've purchased a pick and place machine, an oven, stenciler and other equipment to manufacture all the boards in house.  This means we can produce as many boards as we need without being at the mercy of board manufacturers and their timing/runs.  

Our ASIC chip is 100% original IP and we will have as many chips as we need, when we need them.  We are standardizing a lot of our equipment, so we can keep massive quantities of inventory on hand (at least 6 months of production work is the goal), allowing us to crank out units - literally - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if need be.  We've hired more personnel and will be hiring yet more people as we gear up.  

The ASIC generation is going to be much less complex, as well, so there will be less steps to creating a fully functional end unit, and we will also be able to assemble/produce the much faster.  Everything you know about BFL is changing now and will continue to change.  The only thing I can do is assure you we understand the concerns and we are doing everything we can to address the past mistakes.  

<tinfoil hat on>Then we listed the oven on eBay and sold it back to ourselves to make it look like we just purchased an oven as outlined in our recent press release.<tinfoil hat off>

[king_pin]

Right... I don't have one.  Just like BFL is a scam.  Whatever.  This is why everything you say is complete bullshit.  You make statements and pronouncements that you have absolutely no ability to back up and you have absolutely no knowledge of, yet you try to proclaim these things as facts.  You know exactly nothing, and anything you say is basically crap.

I'll just leave this here.

Hahaha I loved that, dude I sad I doubt, I didn't say you don't have one.
I also doubt the existence of a BFL ASIC, but there may be one or two, or I guess there will be, sometimes in late January

And I never sad BFL is a SCAM i sad BFLs ASIC is a Scam (actually not a scam but they are just lying a lil bit)

I admit that I'm a skeptic, but I don't hate BFL I actually had 2 of their FPGAs for e couple of months. They were OK, a bit less performance than BLF claimed, but they worked just fine.

I hope u didn't write that with permanent marker and btw this is a first time someone wrote my nick on his hand. Please next time write it on some hot ( . )( . )

[hackjealousy]

I formly ignored all the asic talks so far as in some occasions something that sounds to good to be true eventually is , yeah, not true.
Or in an other context, you can put lipstick on a bear but its still a bear.

But damn, that bear's got back.

[Inaba]

Boobs, got it... let me see what I can find.  I can write off the boob search as a business expense now, hot damn!

[Gleamwar]

Dual GPU is nice for a gaming rig but for mining I'll just stick with my 7970s.

It would be more convincing if there were more than just mere words on a webpage to convince me of the reality of a product.
Between BTCFPGA, Butterfly and every other person jumping on the bandwagon ( i.e. Avalon ), your telling me there isn't a single
soul in these groups/companies who doesn't want to establish a little e-peen and show a frankenstein prototype actually running to prove they aren't blowing smoke.  I know very little about ASIC production but I thought most of these went from FPGA prototyping to ASIC.
Regardless, if they already went through the foundry for pressing, wouldn't they have all the tests that are conducted there to provide the stress levels etc.

Didn't I read on the forums somewhere that you are working for/with Butterfly now, Inaba?

Let's play guess-the-alt.

I am not the alt of anyone on this board, thank you.
What I do try to do is give a little thought and research into something before shelling out tons of money on it.
I don't walk into the first car dealership I find, and just give my hard earned cash to a car salesman.
I'm more than willing to part with money for ASIC equipment, I just want to be sure I eventually get it.

[Gatorhex]

This is the way I look at it..

BLF said..

"if needed, weekends and 24 hour shifts can keep the production line moving to satisfy quick delivery of customer orders. To this end we've purchased an entire SMT assembly suite and hired a capable team to run it. These units are currently being installed in our new facility."

"BFL_Office - 10-05-2012, 09:47 AM
The setup has a conservative capacity of 300 units per 8 hour shift or 900 units in a 24 hour day."

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/content.php/120-BFL-Invests-in-Assembly-Equipment

..ok if that is true, why is anyone bothering to risk money on a pre-order?  

[greyhawk]

I know that when I buy manually produced tech devices that I would love to get ones produced towards the end of 24 hour shifts. "Can't get enough of your faults, baby."

[Gatorhex]

I know that when I buy manually produced tech devices that I would love to get ones produced towards the end of 24 hour shifts. "Can't get enough of your faults, baby."

I suspect chips that fail to make the grade after the oven will end up in the Jalapeno (it's a slower speed)
I suspect faulty Single SC's will end up sold as Little Singles (with up to half the chips dissabled/damaged)

It's shows they have planned this through. Like bad Ati 5890s are graded down to 5850s and 5830s.

[SLok]

This is the way I look at it..

BLF said..

"if needed, weekends and 24 hour shifts can keep the production line moving to satisfy quick delivery of customer orders. To this end we've purchased an entire SMT assembly suite and hired a capable team to run it. These units are currently being installed in our new facility."

"BFL_Office - 10-05-2012, 09:47 AM
The setup has a conservative capacity of 300 units per 8 hour shift or 900 units in a 24 hour day."

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/content.php/120-BFL-Invests-in-Assembly-Equipment

..ok if that is true, why is anyone bothering to risk money on a pre-order?  

Because:
"As many of you know, we've purchased SMT machines to allow us to manufacture our own boards - and I have mentioned this before, but many have not heard it - we will not be using the SMT equipment to process our first batch of boards; we will be using the same house that did the pick and place for our previous generation products, which means we're still at the mercy of someone else for our first batch shipments. There has been some delays at that stage, but we have the padding, so it's not been a critical issue. There has also been some delays at the foundry, but again, we have padding, so it's not been a critical issue. We are also paying for an expedited run at the foundry (which does not come cheap) to keep our timeline up."

from https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/104-Shipping-in-2-3-weeks?p=1461&viewfull=1#post1461

[bce]

I know that when I buy manually produced tech devices that I would love to get ones produced towards the end of 24 hour shifts. "Can't get enough of your faults, baby."

I suspect chips that fail to make the grade after the oven will end up in the Jalapeno (it's a slower speed)
I suspect faulty Single SC's will end up sold as Little Singles (with up to half the chips dissabled/damaged)

It's shows they have planned this through. Like bad Ati 5890s are graded down to 5850s and 5830s.

There is no 5890, but the 5870's cypress core featured disabled shaders for the 5850 and 5830 lines.  These GPUs were not binned due to defect, but designed for each product line to be physically limited in amount of available shaders.

My best guess is that the BFL Little Single will consist of 4 ASIC chips (spaced in a square or diamond pattern as it relates to the released reference board pic), or that it'll have a full 8 chips and a cheaper VRM system, probably with a fixed low voltage that does not allow significant overclocking.  I doubt there will be significant variance in the quality of ASIC chips produced.
 

[bitcoinspace]

I pre-ordered one and it does take about a week for them to answer my questions, but I've only emailed them once since my pre-order for a single back in Jan of 2012.  So I'm awaiting my single in Nov/Dec.

[HolyScott]

Hope not, if it is i'll be in the poor house.

[Bia Yao Ma]

Hope not, if it is i'll be in the poor house.

Never put all your eggs in one basket, especially when that basket is on the internet.

[sippsnapp]

Hope not, if it is i'll be in the poor house.

Never put all your eggs in one basket, especially when that basket is on the internet.

This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qid_WGBrQjA

[king_pin]

I just LOVED this!

Day 0 is expected roughly around November 30th, plus or minus a week:

Day T-10: Four of the five ASIC manufacturers claim to be finalizing the design / optimizing / trying to resolve some nagging power issue / whatever, yet not a single person that pre-paid for an ASIC has one in-hand.
Day T-8: Difficulty of 3.5 million and exchange rate of $15 mean profitability is still acceptable for GPU miners paying average electric rates or less.
Day T-5: A lot more "N Ghash/s for sale" listings will start to appear [Edit: as-in total liquidation of N GHash/s of capacity]
Day T-4: Difficulty for Litecoin rises as miners experiment, causing there to be no chance of profit from Litecoin mining either.
Day T-3: Block 209,664 -- last difficulty adjustment before the block subsidy reward drops (fact, not a prediction)
Day T-1: Last day that anywhere near 7,200 BTC is produced (fact, not a prediction)
Day 0: Block 210,000 hits and only about 3,600 are produced (fact, not a prediction)
Day 1: Blocks slow to about 11 minutes as some GPU miners realize basic math and power down.
Day 2: Exchange rate volatile, both up and down, but returns to previous levels -- about $15.
Day 3: Anger and vitriol from GPU miners who are still "underwater" on their GPUs purchased in 2012.
Day 4: Anger and vitriol from FPGA miners who somehow didn't realize that "much more efficient" doesn't protect against a revenue drop of 50%
Day 5: Blocks slow to about 12 minutes as more GPU miners realize the payouts are dismal and begin to proceed past "denial", the first step in the grieving process,
Day 6: ASIC hardware developers see an even greater number of prepayments for hardware. Much gnashing of teeth on the forums.
Day 7: Hashing on CoinLab's GPU network grows tremendously as miners cash in their built-up loyalty credits.
Day 8: Nearly all NVidia GPUs that were used for mining are now either computing with CoinLab or have been decommissioned.
Day 9: Gamers elated over some really good AMD and NVidia graphics cards available "really, really cheap" on eBay.
Day 10: Blocks slow to about 13 minutes, as not only did the block reward subsidy drop but so did the frequency of blocks -- making mining bring in even less revenue each day.
Day 11: Speculators hoping for the "doubling" of the exchange rate realize it didn't happen (or perhaps already happened, from $5-ish, over the summer), and sell off a little Exchange rate drops to $12-ish.
Day 12: ASIC manfuacturers claim to be finalizing the design / optimizing / trying to resolve some nagging power issue / whatever, yet not a single person that pre-paid for an ASIC has one in-hand.
Day 13: Block 211,680 - difficulty adjusts. Drops 15%. Back to one block every ten minutes.
Day 14: Mining operators are still seeing electric bills from the previous month's consumption. Even more anger, vitriol and gnashing of teeth.
Day 15: Christmas-related activities overtake bitcoin as being the event more important to many mining operators.
Day 25: The daily "average price" remains in a range between $12 and $15.
Day 26: Many "slightly used" GPU cards land in wrapped boxes under trees. Others, particularly those who had a larger investment in their GPU rigs, are using the phrase "bah, humbug" more than they had in any prior holiday season.
Day 27: Difficult adjusts, dropping another 5%. Yawn.
Day 30: ASIC manufacturers claim to be finalizing the design / optimizing / trying to resolve some nagging power issue / whatever, yet not a single person that pre-paid for an ASIC has one in-hand.

[AndrewBUD]

^ will probably end up being true.

[king_pin]

It is the 2nd of November - Any ASICs BFL?

[2GOOD]

I just LOVED this!

Day 0 is expected roughly around November 30th, plus or minus a week:

Day T-10: Four of the five ASIC manufacturers claim to be finalizing the design / optimizing / trying to resolve some nagging power issue / whatever, yet not a single person that pre-paid for an ASIC has one in-hand.
Day T-8: Difficulty of 3.5 million and exchange rate of $15 mean profitability is still acceptable for GPU miners paying average electric rates or less.
Day T-5: A lot more "N Ghash/s for sale" listings will start to appear [Edit: as-in total liquidation of N GHash/s of capacity]
Day T-4: Difficulty for Litecoin rises as miners experiment, causing there to be no chance of profit from Litecoin mining either.
Day T-3: Block 209,664 -- last difficulty adjustment before the block subsidy reward drops (fact, not a prediction)
Day T-1: Last day that anywhere near 7,200 BTC is produced (fact, not a prediction)
Day 0: Block 210,000 hits and only about 3,600 are produced (fact, not a prediction)
Day 1: Blocks slow to about 11 minutes as some GPU miners realize basic math and power down.
Day 2: Exchange rate volatile, both up and down, but returns to previous levels -- about $15.
Day 3: Anger and vitriol from GPU miners who are still "underwater" on their GPUs purchased in 2012.
Day 4: Anger and vitriol from FPGA miners who somehow didn't realize that "much more efficient" doesn't protect against a revenue drop of 50%
Day 5: Blocks slow to about 12 minutes as more GPU miners realize the payouts are dismal and begin to proceed past "denial", the first step in the grieving process,
Day 6: ASIC hardware developers see an even greater number of prepayments for hardware. Much gnashing of teeth on the forums.
Day 7: Hashing on CoinLab's GPU network grows tremendously as miners cash in their built-up loyalty credits.
Day 8: Nearly all NVidia GPUs that were used for mining are now either computing with CoinLab or have been decommissioned.
Day 9: Gamers elated over some really good AMD and NVidia graphics cards available "really, really cheap" on eBay.
Day 10: Blocks slow to about 13 minutes, as not only did the block reward subsidy drop but so did the frequency of blocks -- making mining bring in even less revenue each day.
Day 11: Speculators hoping for the "doubling" of the exchange rate realize it didn't happen (or perhaps already happened, from $5-ish, over the summer), and sell off a little Exchange rate drops to $12-ish.
Day 12: ASIC manfuacturers claim to be finalizing the design / optimizing / trying to resolve some nagging power issue / whatever, yet not a single person that pre-paid for an ASIC has one in-hand.
Day 13: Block 211,680 - difficulty adjusts. Drops 15%. Back to one block every ten minutes.
Day 14: Mining operators are still seeing electric bills from the previous month's consumption. Even more anger, vitriol and gnashing of teeth.
Day 15: Christmas-related activities overtake bitcoin as being the event more important to many mining operators.
Day 25: The daily "average price" remains in a range between $12 and $15.
Day 26: Many "slightly used" GPU cards land in wrapped boxes under trees. Others, particularly those who had a larger investment in their GPU rigs, are using the phrase "bah, humbug" more than they had in any prior holiday season.
Day 27: Difficult adjusts, dropping another 5%. Yawn.
Day 30: ASIC manufacturers claim to be finalizing the design / optimizing / trying to resolve some nagging power issue / whatever, yet not a single person that pre-paid for an ASIC has one in-hand.

This is getting closer to true with the latest BFL November/December shipping announcement.

Day 26 is my favorite line 

[abracadabra]

just wait, just 2 more months

It's 2 months and 1 week.  What are we waiting for?

[king_pin]

What happened to BFL_Josh? Is he alive?

[firefop]

What happened to BFL_Josh? Is he alive?

That's for offical BFL stuff... he still posts here on his personal account (Inaba).

But he's quite active on BFL offical forums.

[king_pin]

And I bet his most commonly used words are:
Tomorrow, Soon, Next Week, Next month ...

[king_pin]

I received my BFL ASIC today it is made out of NOTHING! 

[strideynet]

2 community members are visiting at end of this month. I think it's yochdog. And someone.

[Chloride]

Well, that's capitalism. Take chances, win big or lose your money.

If BFL does have ASICs, then the people who put their money on the line in pre-orders are going to have a heyday when it first gets released and the difficulty hasn't increased yet. The people who decided to wait will still have a chance to mine, but not until after the difficulty has ramped up.

If BFL doesn't have the ASICs... well. That's highly unfortunate, but hey; you're working with experimental technology that works with a relatively experimental e-currency, you have to expect that things might not turn out according to plan. Invest at your own risk.

I haven't pre-ordered (Although I gave the Jalapeno some serious thought with the low starting price), so I think I'll see how it works when the first people begin to get theirs and think about it.

[king_pin]

EDITED:
Here is a quote from BFL's admin:

While I can't give a hard date and say "absolutely" this is the date, it looks like the week of the 11th,

source: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/437-asic-update-26-november-2012-a.html

Interestingly, since the first per-orders the price of BTC went almost double. So will BFL return full refunds or "full refunds"

I am expecting some comment from all who opposed me, blamed that im working for someone, and were defending BFL.

[AmDD]

So did I or did I not say January!
Here is a quote from BFL's admin:

I really can't express the depth of how incredibly pissed off I am about this project (as I am sure you are as well). After hours of meetings and discussions today with my engineering team I don't see any possible way we will be able to release the bASIC before mid January.

source: https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=125.0

Um, thats not BFL, thats BitcoinASIC/BTCFPGA/Tom/Cablepair talking about his product called bASIC.

[bitcoinvideos]

That is a rough place to be for sure.  I remember when I opened my first business and the delays etc almost made me lose it.  I certainly hope they turn out some products for the future or it will disenfranchise the entire BTC community.

[DeathAndTaxes]

So did I or did I not say January!
Here is a quote from BFL's admin:

I really can't express the depth of how incredibly pissed off I am about this project (as I am sure you are as well). After hours of meetings and discussions today with my engineering team I don't see any possible way we will be able to release the bASIC before mid January.

source: https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=125.0

Um you do know you look stupid right?  

The bolded portions are hints.

[king_pin]

Yes, yes I was stupid I quoted the wrong thing!
It's a bit late here sorry.

This is what I wanted you to read:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=105120.0;topicseen

[Aahzman]

So, you're posting a link to the topic we're already reading, which has no new info? 

[squeept]

We're supposed to listen to the judgement of someone that hasn't even mastered "copy and paste"?

[Aahzman]

We're supposed to listen to the judgement of someone that hasn't even mastered "copy and paste"?

Seems legit.

[king_pin]

We're supposed to listen to the judgement of someone that hasn't even mastered "copy and paste"?

Yes, because he told you so, and was right!

[SLok]

We're supposed to listen to the judgement of someone that hasn't even mastered "copy and paste"?

Yes, because he told you so, and was right!

Huh???

Quote: In my personal opinion there is something very stinky about BFL:

    No certain delivery dates.     ----------- no asic vendor gave, besides this was known when you posted, so a useless comment
    No pictures or schemes or anything.  ---------  fail point, pictures shown, if you expect to get schematics, dream on!
    Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).  ------------ Too basic complaint. What do you want to know?
    No one answers their phone.  ------------ How many times have you called? I bet never.
    They answer your e-mail within 2-3 weeks. ------------ utter lie, I had email exchanges with answers between 2 minutes to 2 days at the august peak periods
    All their answers are with a maybe or possibly. ---------- again, what are you asking?
    I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred. ---------- They  are not, but considering it's all about bitcoins, I wouldn't mind if they were
    The broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe. --------- fail, bfl does not sell on ebay, some bloke sells his places in line
    They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman. ------------- fail, fud from months back.
    They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress. --------------  So?
    Up to today no one has either seen, touched or heard their ASICs. (even remotely) ---------- Not heard of their asics? Are you deaf? Do you read magazines, follow more vendors?

In short, utter fail attempt to score with nothing. Again.

[SLok]

Here is a quote from BFL's admin:

While I can't give a hard date and say "absolutely" this is the date, it looks like the week of the 11th,

source: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/437-asic-update-26-november-2012-a.html

Interestingly, since the first per-orders the price of BTC went almost double. So will BFL return full refunds or "full refunds"

I am expecting some comment from all who opposed me, blamed that im working for someone, and were defending BFL.

The btc payed were the equivalent of the price of the units in $. Refunds are payed at wish in $ or btc, at an equivalent of the actual exchange rate. Jeezzzz, a 5 year old would understand that. So, fail again?

[king_pin]

Well I am not 5y old so I think they can play it in two ways.

Return the exact amount of $ to the people who payed in $ and return the exact amount BTC to the people who payed in BTC, which would be fair.
-or-
Return the exact amount of $ to the people who payed in $ end return the the amount in BTC to people who payed in BTC but according to today prices not the number of bitcoins they payed. Example:
Back then the price was around 8$ per BTC. I payed 100BTC x 8$ =800$ so I gave them 800$, and now they return to me my 800$ / 12$ = 66.6BTC and they give me only 66.6BTC.

Don't you people know how scams work? 

[kjj]

Well I am not 5y old so I think they can play it in two ways.

Return the exact amount of $ to the people who payed in $ and return the exact amount BTC to the people who payed in BTC, which would be fair.
-or-
Return the exact amount of $ to the people who payed in $ end return the the amount in BTC to people who payed in BTC but according to today prices not the number of bitcoins they payed. Example:
Back then the price was around 8$ per BTC. I payed 100BTC x 8$ =800$ so I gave them 800$, and now they return to me my 800$ / 12$ = 66.6BTC and they give me only 66.6BTC.

Don't you people know how scams work? 

Except that no one paid BFL using BTC, assuming that I remember this correctly.  They used a payment service to convert BTC into USD, which was then paid to BFL.

At any rate, because USD has legal tender status in the US, a refund can always be issued in dollars based on the dollar value at the time of payment.  If you try to take it to court, the judge will be quite unhappy with you for wasting his time.

[SLok]

Well I am not 5y old so I think they can play it in two ways.

Return the exact amount of $ to the people who payed in $ and return the exact amount BTC to the people who payed in BTC, which would be fair.
-or-
Return the exact amount of $ to the people who payed in $ end return the the amount in BTC to people who payed in BTC but according to today prices not the number of bitcoins they payed. Example:
Back then the price was around 8$ per BTC. I payed 100BTC x 8$ =800$ so I gave them 800$, and now they return to me my 800$ / 12$ = 66.6BTC and they give me only 66.6BTC.

Don't you people know how scams work?  

Man are you that stupid or do you just play it? SC prices are set in $, not btc!
If you want a Single you pay $1387 (incl. internat. ship) or the equivalent of that amount in btc, at the rate the $/btc is at that moment. BFL gets your btc via bitpay which immediately converts the btc to $1387 that goes to bfl's account.
If you cancel you get $1387 back, or the equivalent of that amount in btc at the rate it is at the moment of a refund. If the btc was $693.50 worth at the canceling, you would get 2 btc, total value of those 2 btc = $1387. You want to spend $1387 in btc and get back $2000 in btc later, you must be joking, or you don't know what scammer means.

[Fjordbit]

To return bitcoin for bitcoin would be highly unfair. It would provide a perfect currency hedge against a bitcoin drop. Just purchase a few hundred thousand in BFL equipment. If BTC price goes down, you can sell your equipment (or even just your preorder ticket) and get your full value back. If BTC price goes up, then you can demand a bitcoin refund. From the way it played out, this would have been a risk free way to double your money.

[king_pin]

WoW, sorry I ain't "that stupid" to buy a BFL ASIC in the first place, so I didn't know that payments went only thru bitpay.

So if BFL refunds everyone right now they will get almost 1/2 of their bitcoins.
Pretty clever scam -  lie till the price goes up, then return 1/2 the bitcoins.
Everyone knew that bitcoin price was going up. Damn they are smarter than I thought. I wish I had come up with the ASIC scheme

[mjc]

I'm still on board. 

[squeept]

WoW, sorry I ain't "that stupid" to buy a BFL ASIC in the first place, so I didn't know that payments went only thru bitpay.

So if BFL refunds everyone right now they will get almost 1/2 of their bitcoins.
Pretty clever scam -  lie till the price goes up, then return 1/2 the bitcoins.
Everyone knew that bitcoin price was going up. Damn they are smarter than I thought. I wish I had come up with the ASIC scheme

And he still doesn't get it. This whole fucking forum is trolltarded.

[dust]

WoW, sorry I ain't "that stupid" to buy a BFL ASIC in the first place, so I didn't know that payments went only thru bitpay.

So if BFL refunds everyone right now they will get almost 1/2 of their bitcoins.
Pretty clever scam -  lie till the price goes up, then return 1/2 the bitcoins.
Everyone knew that bitcoin price was going up. Damn they are smarter than I thought. I wish I had come up with the ASIC scheme

That would be a dumb scam as it is never certain which direction the price will go.  If BFL or other manufacturers were scamming they would just take preorders, issue a few refunds to maintain confidence, and then run with the money.

I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere in this thread, but if you are so sure the asic manufacturers are scamming, want to bet on it? (With me personally, not the ridiculous variable odds of betsofbitco.in)

[SLok]

WoW, sorry I ain't "that stupid" to buy a BFL ASIC in the first place, so I didn't know that payments went only thru bitpay.

So if BFL refunds everyone right now they will get almost 1/2 of their bitcoins.
Pretty clever scam -  lie till the price goes up, then return 1/2 the bitcoins.
Everyone knew that bitcoin price was going up. Damn they are smarter than I thought. I wish I had come up with the ASIC scheme

Man you are retarded, even my 5-year old daughter is brighter and smarter than you. Don't bother to respond, I'm pretty sure you will never get it.

[AndrewBUD]

They used bitpay.. They received USD.. what'cha talkin' bout willis?

[king_pin]

WoW, sorry I ain't "that stupid" to buy a BFL ASIC in the first place, so I didn't know that payments went only thru bitpay.

So if BFL refunds everyone right now they will get almost 1/2 of their bitcoins.
Pretty clever scam -  lie till the price goes up, then return 1/2 the bitcoins.
Everyone knew that bitcoin price was going up. Damn they are smarter than I thought. I wish I had come up with the ASIC scheme

Man you are retarded, even my 5-year old daughter is brighter and smarter than you. Don't bother to respond, I'm pretty sure you will never get it.

Dude, I don't want to be your 5y old retarded daughter, poor thing she has a lying father. jk
How much did BFL pay you to put this in your signature:

60 GH/s BFL Single SC - Pre-Order Yours Today!
`````` Only $1299.99 - butterflylabs.com ````

You understood exactly what I sad and if you haven't. Try denying this:
If BFL bought BTC with the money everyone gave them a long time ago, and issues a refund right now, assuming that they didn't spend any money to develop anything and were just lying, will they make a profit?

Now if you follow my posts, you will see that I don't think that BFL is a scam, but that they are lying again and again about the shipping date, so they can make a few $ more, and catch a few more fish(miners).

I withheld from comenting on this:

We're supposed to listen to the judgement of someone that hasn't even mastered "copy and paste"?

Yes, because he told you so, and was right!

Huh???

Quote: In my personal opinion there is something very stinky about BFL:

   1. No certain delivery dates.     ----------- no asic vendor gave, besides this was known when you posted, so a useless comment
   2. No pictures or schemes or anything.  ---------  fail point, pictures shown, if you expect to get schematics, dream on!
   3. Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).  ------------ Too basic complaint. What do you want to know?
   4. No one answers their phone.  ------------ How many times have you called? I bet never.
   5. They answer your e-mail within 2-3 weeks. ------------ utter lie, I had email exchanges with answers between 2 minutes to 2 days at the august peak periods
   6. All their answers are with a maybe or possibly. ---------- again, what are you asking?
   7. I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred. ---------- They  are not, but considering it's all about bitcoins, I wouldn't mind if they were
   8. The broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe. --------- fail, bfl does not sell on ebay, some bloke sells his places in line
   9. They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman. ------------- fail, fud from months back.
   10. They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress. --------------  So?
   11. Up to today no one has either seen, touched or heard their ASICs. (even remotely) ---------- Not heard of their asics? Are you deaf? Do you read magazines, follow more vendors?

In short, utter fail attempt to score with nothing. Again.

But now I have to:
1. Any serious business gives delivery dates of their products, so your comment is useless!
2. They showed the first picture, when the should've started shipping their ASIC, so they send pics instead, again your comment is useless.
3. When I give someone money, and not a small amount of money I expect information, and a webpage not made with WordPress
4., 5., 6., Are true! 2-3 months ago there was literally no customer support on BFLs side, again you are useless and pointless in your comment.
The next few we have commented.
11. Again 3 months ago, no one had seen their ASIC, I dont think that anyone has seen it yet, but dude, this thread is 3 months old learn to read!
You are giving today's information to 3 month old questions!

[SLok]

This user is currently ignored.

Huh?

[sifo]

Well development of such product is huge project. I believe, those devices are real and will be available soon.
They just made mistake with the fact, that they startet pre-orders before they even started development.
Surely it's good for them, because people gave them money needed for development. But it's not nice of them to make people wait for half a year when they already paid full price.

[Focksbot]

All this still feels unfounded... Let's wait until we see what they do. Which I somewhat hope the ASICs are a hoax so I can at least see more insane rigs that span entire walls. I like that creativity going on. These lunchboxes take out a lot of the fun.

On another note, this guy who is blowing the whistle on BFL sure has a tendency to be a name caller and is more argumentative than trying to actually come up with a logical conclusion.

[greyhawk]

This user is currently ignored.

Huh?

Don't worry. I'll quote it for you:

WoW, sorry I ain't "that stupid" to buy a BFL ASIC in the first place, so I didn't know that payments went only thru bitpay.

So if BFL refunds everyone right now they will get almost 1/2 of their bitcoins.
Pretty clever scam -  lie till the price goes up, then return 1/2 the bitcoins.
Everyone knew that bitcoin price was going up. Damn they are smarter than I thought. I wish I had come up with the ASIC scheme

Man you are retarded, even my 5-year old daughter is brighter and smarter than you. Don't bother to respond, I'm pretty sure you will never get it.

Dude, I don't want to be your 5y old retarded daughter, poor thing she has a lying father. jk
How much did BFL pay you to put this in your signature:

60 GH/s BFL Single SC - Pre-Order Yours Today!
`````` Only $1299.99 - butterflylabs.com ````

You understood exactly what I sad and if you haven't. Try denying this:
If BFL bought BTC with the money everyone gave them a long time ago, and issues a refund right now, assuming that they didn't spend any money to develop anything and were just lying, will they make a profit?

Now if you follow my posts, you will see that I don't think that BFL is a scam, but that they are lying again and again about the shipping date, so they can make a few $ more, and catch a few more fish(miners).

I withheld from comenting on this:

We're supposed to listen to the judgement of someone that hasn't even mastered "copy and paste"?

Yes, because he told you so, and was right!

Huh???

Quote: In my personal opinion there is something very stinky about BFL:

   1. No certain delivery dates.     ----------- no asic vendor gave, besides this was known when you posted, so a useless comment
   2. No pictures or schemes or anything.  ---------  fail point, pictures shown, if you expect to get schematics, dream on!
   3. Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).  ------------ Too basic complaint. What do you want to know?
   4. No one answers their phone.  ------------ How many times have you called? I bet never.
   5. They answer your e-mail within 2-3 weeks. ------------ utter lie, I had email exchanges with answers between 2 minutes to 2 days at the august peak periods
   6. All their answers are with a maybe or possibly. ---------- again, what are you asking?
   7. I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred. ---------- They  are not, but considering it's all about bitcoins, I wouldn't mind if they were
   8. The broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe. --------- fail, bfl does not sell on ebay, some bloke sells his places in line
   9. They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman. ------------- fail, fud from months back.
   10. They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress. --------------  So?
   11. Up to today no one has either seen, touched or heard their ASICs. (even remotely) ---------- Not heard of their asics? Are you deaf? Do you read magazines, follow more vendors?

In short, utter fail attempt to score with nothing. Again.

But now I have to:
1. Any serious business gives delivery dates of their products, so your comment is useless!
2. They showed the first picture, when the should've started shipping their ASIC, so they send pics instead, again your comment is useless.
3. When I give someone money, and not a small amount of money I expect information, and a webpage not made with WordPress
4., 5., 6., Are true! 2-3 months ago there was literally no customer support on BFLs side, again you are useless and pointless in your comment.
The next few we have commented.
11. Again 3 months ago, no one had seen their ASIC, I dont think that anyone has seen it yet, but dude, this thread is 3 months old learn to read!
You are giving today's information to 3 month old questions!

[Peter Jelinek]

2013 will be interesting year indeed 

[king_pin]

All this still feels unfounded... Let's wait until we see what they do. Which I somewhat hope the ASICs are a hoax so I can at least see more insane rigs that span entire walls. I like that creativity going on. These lunchboxes take out a lot of the fun.
On another note, this guy who is blowing the whistle on BFL sure has a tendency to be a name caller and is more argumentative than trying to actually come up with a logical conclusion.

It is taking all the fun out I agree.

And at first I wasn't blowing any whistle, but I have some experience with projects and a easy calculation told me that the earliest they can deliver is mid January, so all their claims for October were ridiculous and kind of got me pissed off.

Anyways, we can only wait, and laugh at the "fuzzy dates" that BFL_Josh gives us


P.S. thanks greyhawk

[super3]

I think that by time BFL actually releases the ASICs the reward for mining will have dropped so much that it won't ever be mathematically worth it.

[Inaba]

And at first I wasn't blowing any whistle, but I have some experience with projects and a easy calculation told me that the earliest they can deliver is mid January, so all their claims for October were ridiculous and kind of got me pissed off.

I just had to LOL at this. 

Reminds me of this:



Is that you, King_pin?  Do you have some "experience" little guy?  Just like you had "experience" with the Devil 13?

[super3]

I think that by time BFL actually releases the ASICs the reward for mining will have dropped so much that it won't ever be mathematically worth it.

all depends on the value of the btc's

It really does, but they have been pretty stable at ~$10-12 for the last couple of months. While no one can predict the long term exchange rate of Bitcoins, the longer they come to out the less the mining reward will be either way.

[nixu]

Well, we will see. In any case if you invested in ASIC you should have done so with more than one vendor in order to mitigate risk.

[king_pin]

Well, we will see. In any case if you invested in ASIC you should have done so with more than one vendor in order to mitigate risk.

I could not disagree with that more!
You should invest in ASIC only after you have seen one delivered to someone somewhere.

4 months ago, when the first pre-orders started, if u invested 10 000$ in BTC or in GPUs, now (if you sell the GPUs) you would probably have 15-20 000$ depending on how smart and lucky you are. Although this is a very very rough estimate, how is investing in a ASIC 4 months ago a better than this?

Now if we assume that ASICs come today and difficulty rises 2-3 times. If you buy ASIC after you will miss the most profitable period, but that would be roughly compensated from the 50-100% income of mining or just playing on the BTC market or doing something else with your money for 4 months. So lets say that its relatively the same.

But what if ASICS don't come out, or come out in 2-3 months.  

[rchapoteau]

Personally I figure what the hell I might as well jump in for a Jalepeno.  $150 isn't that bad as far as an investment goes.  They seem to be pretty good with refunds so I wouldn't call it a scam.  They may not be completely transparent with what is going on, but I believe they will start shipping before the end of the year. 

[super3]

Well, we will see. In any case if you invested in ASIC you should have done so with more than one vendor in order to mitigate risk.

I could not disagree with that more!
You should invest in ASIC only after you have seen one delivered to someone somewhere.

4 months ago, when the first pre-orders started, if u invested 10 000$ in BTC or in GPUs, now (if you sell the GPUs) you would probably have 15-20 000$ depending on how smart and lucky you are. Although this is a very very rough estimate, how is investing in a ASIC 4 months ago a better than this?

Now if we assume that ASICs come today and difficulty rises 2-3 times. If you buy ASIC after you will miss the most profitable period, but that would be roughly compensated from the 50-100% income of mining or just playing on the BTC market or doing something else with your money for 4 months. So lets say that its relatively the same.

But what if ASICS don't come out, or come out in 2-3 months.  

You make a good point there. The problem with the ASICs is that they are vaporware(this is hardware. is that the right term?) right now. As long as Bob down the street has one, then its just a supply problem, and you could get yours to in a reasonable timeframe.

[firefop]

Well, we will see. In any case if you invested in ASIC you should have done so with more than one vendor in order to mitigate risk.

I absolutely agree, no matter who ships first, you want to be in that first shipment... ROI over a few days or a week or 3...

We'll still have to see who ships when - but I have a feeling it's going to be bfl.

[IbuyGuinnesswithBTC]

There's a reason that I only bought the jalapeno. $150 isn't much to lose if they're corrupt.

[Frizz23]

So BFL cancels one delivery date after the other, because they are supposedly only waiting for parts (mainly the ASICs themselves!) - yet they are still fiddling around with the final design of their casing?!?!

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/459-new-single-sc-pics.html
BFL_Josh: "I was taking some pics for some promotional stuff tonight, so I thought I'd share some of the pics. This is the new, taller case to accomodate some better airflow, ..."

So BFL cancels one delivery date after the other, because they are supposedly only waiting for parts (mainly the ASICs themselves!) - yet they are still fiddling around with the design of their casing?!?!

One could expect that they by now have tons of casings ready just waiting for the PCB to be plugged in - yet they don't even have that!

[SgtSpike]

So BFL cancels one delivery date after the other, because they are supposedly only waiting for parts (mainly the ASICs themselves!) - yet they are still fiddling around with the final design of their casing?!?!

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/459-new-single-sc-pics.html
BFL_Josh: "I was taking some pics for some promotional stuff tonight, so I thought I'd share some of the pics. This is the new, taller case to accomodate some better airflow, ..."

So BFL cancels one delivery date after the other, because they are supposedly only waiting for parts (mainly the ASICs themselves!) - yet they are still fiddling around with the design of their casing?!?!

One could expect that they by now have tons of casings ready just waiting for the PCB to be plugged in - yet they don't even have that!

1) You have not proven that the previous case had inadequate airflow. Just because airflow has been improved does not mean that previous airflow was inadequate for use at the speeds advertised.
2) It is entirely possible that they decided to revise their cases after announcing a speed increase (and thus estimated heat dissipation requirements).
3) They very well may have tons of casings ready for the PCB.  Maybe these taller cases are for a future revision?
4) Perhaps the cases are made locally and have a short leadtime.  They aren't anything more difficult than simple punches out of sheet metal - they could be made in bulk very quickly.

[rchapoteau]

I've had to deal with fabrication before, and I can tell you that several of my designs wound up changing at the 11th hour before production.

I don't know what will go into the assembly of this unit, but hopefully they can turn everything around fairly quickly once they have the chips in hand, which for them is the hard part.

I wish they had all of the parts on hand now and ready to ship, but I'll be patient.  I'm confident that they will eventually ship . . . eventually.

[Frizz23]

I've had to deal with fabrication before, and I can tell you that several of my designs wound up changing at the 11th hour before production.

For BFL it just seems that almost all parts are changed at the 11th hour. Their ASICs even in the 13th hour. Which lets the chance of getting a working product approach zero.

[Inaba]

A new case rev takes us between 2 and 5 days to go from design document to product in hand.  It's not really an issue.

[Frizz23]

A new case rev takes us between 2 and 5 days to go from design document to product in hand.  It's not really an issue.

So I assume on the day the little Chinese leprechauns bring you your ASICs all the other problems, redesigns, difficulties in delivery, etc. are solved mysteriously and the "magic" (aka everything is working together nicely) happens. Somehow. And one day later your have a working product that you can ship. Yes?

[destruct]

So I've been reading the BFL forums for a while now and got to thinking about past products and honestly the only -mistake- BFL has made here is requiring 100% of the money before they are remotely ready to ship.

But many video games (GTA V and Duke Nukem) for example blow past the expected release dates.. Tesla cars same thing.. endless list of collectibles do the same.

Honestly, every company has unforeseen delays just seems you guys are more impatient then the rest of the world purchasing other products with delays.

[Frizz23]

But many video games (GTA V and Duke Nukem) for example blow past the expected release dates.. Tesla cars same thing.. endless list of collectibles do the same.

Or as Inaba would say: "OK BFL sucks. But bASIC/Tom sucks even more".
Or like Hitler would have said: "OK I suck. But Stalin sucks even more".

Two wrongs doesn't make one right ...

[destruct]

But many video games (GTA V and Duke Nukem) for example blow past the expected release dates.. Tesla cars same thing.. endless list of collectibles do the same.

Or as Inaba would say: "OK BFL sucks. But bASIC/Tom sucks even more".
Or like Hitler would have said: "OK I suck. But Stalin sucks even more".

Two wrongs doesn't make one right ...

Well of course not. But to call them liars and flame them doesn't seem to be helpful either.

But our current society of "I want it TODAY or else I'm going to rage to try and get something free" isn't helping anyone and that time could be better spent.. you know.. going outside, learning something new, maybe help an old lady across the street.. almost anything else you could possibly think of.

They get the point that customers are upset and are probably upset themselves at all the delays caused by the suppliers. Which if you watch shows such as Shark Tank / Dragon's Den you will understand more about the troubles ALL businesses come into.

[BFL_Theo]

Under some Mexican lady's name whaaa!? lmfao this a joke.

BFL doesn't want there rival  company's to get the best of there information and what they have had worked and paid for just like any other company, Sony, Microsoft Etc. as small as the information it might be but anything that might be used against BFL, BFL would rather not take a chance and Disclose the information, if you don't like it, take your money some where else, new product lines come out every week from big name company's and you don't see people going nuts over little information that is not given. and honestly there trying to build there company up, would it kill anyone to keep a little information away from public? i don't think so.

[kjj]

Or as Inaba would say: "OK BFL sucks. But bASIC/Tom sucks even more".
Or like Hitler would have said: "OK I suck. But Stalin sucks even more".

I'm invoking Godwin's Law.  This debate is over, please lock the thread.

[rchapoteau]

A new case rev takes us between 2 and 5 days to go from design document to product in hand.  It's not really an issue.

So I assume on the day the little Chinese leprechauns bring you your ASICs all the other problems, redesigns, difficulties in delivery, etc. are solved mysteriously and the "magic" (aka everything is working together nicely) happens. Somehow. And one day later your have a working product that you can ship. Yes?

Of anything, this is what I think worries me the most.  There are usually working samples made before final fabrication to make sure you are getting what you want.  I would imagine that they should have at least 1 working prototype right now that they should be showcasing even if it isn't a final design with final performance.  A ton of things can go wrong once they finally have all of the pieces together and ready for assembly . . . then again that might be why we are delayed up till this point now.  For the most part we haven't heard a real story as to the exact nature of the delay.

[Frizz23]

There are usually working samples made before final fabrication to make sure you are getting what you want.  I would imagine that they should have at least 1 working prototype right now ...

They don't have a working prototype. They already admitted that.

[king_pin]

Another interesting thread!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126456.0;all

[rchapoteau]

There are usually working samples made before final fabrication to make sure you are getting what you want.  I would imagine that they should have at least 1 working prototype right now ...

They don't have a working prototype. They already admitted that.

I know, and that's the thing that is the most worrisome about the whole thing.   Hopefully they don't have any issues with assembly.

[Frizz23]

Hopefully they don't have any issues with assembly.

At least not yet

At the moment they have problems with the chip itself (they also admitted this. finally, after tons of bullshit excuses). Hence the need for a rev2 (or even 3, or 4 ... who knows).

Problems with assembly can still come after that ...

[Rudd-O]

Well, that's capitalism. Take chances, win big or lose your money.

If BFL does have ASICs, then the people who put their money on the line in pre-orders are going to have a heyday when it first gets released and the difficulty hasn't increased yet. The people who decided to wait will still have a chance to mine, but not until after the difficulty has ramped up.

If BFL doesn't have the ASICs... well. That's highly unfortunate, but hey; you're working with experimental technology that works with a relatively experimental e-currency, you have to expect that things might not turn out according to plan. Invest at your own risk.

I haven't pre-ordered (Although I gave the Jalapeno some serious thought with the low starting price), so I think I'll see how it works when the first people begin to get theirs and think about it.

I don't think BFL's behavior is capitalist, nor is this affair a capitalist affair.  It depends, right?  If BFL ever delivers, then this affair was only a bad investment (I'll leave it to the finance experts to figure out why).  If BFL does not deliver, then this affair was an example of fraud.  Fraud is not capitalism.  Investments are.  So the jury's still out.

[Mytche]

I don't think they lied.  They are just making projections. 
Most new products without a large customer base are too agressive on their projections it seems.

[jcortez1594]

Hopefully we can see shipments start to go out between the 24th and 31st...if not, refunds on January 1st were promised to be available.

[repentance]

Hopefully we can see shipments start to go out between the 24th and 31st...if not, refunds on January 1st were promised to be available.

They've already said it's going to be at least another 30 days (whether that's when they expect the chips to be completed or when they expect to receive them isn't clear).

They've also said that anyone who wants a refund can have one now.

[jcortez1594]

Hopefully we can see shipments start to go out between the 24th and 31st...if not, refunds on January 1st were promised to be available.

They've already said it's going to be at least another 30 days (whether that's when they expect the chips to be completed or when they expect to receive them isn't clear).

They've also said that anyone who wants a refund can have one now.

Unofficial yet...but I was referring to "Assuming that date is correct, we would contractually have the chips in bulk no later than the 24th" on https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/251-more-jalapeno-pictures-shipping-update-44.html

Thanks for the update was unaware of the change in refund policy.

[repentance]

Hopefully we can see shipments start to go out between the 24th and 31st...if not, refunds on January 1st were promised to be available.

They've already said it's going to be at least another 30 days (whether that's when they expect the chips to be completed or when they expect to receive them isn't clear).

They've also said that anyone who wants a refund can have one now.

Unofficial yet...but I was referring to "Assuming that date is correct, we would contractually have the chips in bulk no later than the 24th" on https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/251-more-jalapeno-pictures-shipping-update-44.html

Thanks for the update was unaware of the change in refund policy.

10 December update.

After talking with our liaison tonight and still having not received a final confirmation date, we were as tired of this as everyone else is, so we continued to push for a date and they gave us 30 days from today.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/519-10-dec-2012-bfl-asic-update.html

From Jody's blog regarding refunds.

If we have extended our date beyond your ability to stick with us, we at Customer Service are ready to refund money for those who want to get out of the line.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/bfl_jody/55-so-we-get-have-holiday.html

[king_pin]

Damn, even I didn't believe that BFL were a scam, but it more and more seems that way.

[Silverbug]

Hmmm I hope this doesn't completely blow up in their faces.

[tidus3]

damn I was thinking about preordering the jalapeno

[smoothie]

just wait, just 2 more months

LOL GOIN ON 4 MONTHS NOW. HINDSIGHT IS HILARIOUS! 

[firefop]

just wait, just 2 more months

LOL GOIN ON 4 MONTHS NOW. HINDSIGHT IS HILARIOUS! 

As you'll recall - I said it would be march at the earliest. I'll be pleased if they show up any sooner than that.

[BFL_Theo]

I see that we all are a little Disappointed but lets all just put a smile on, every company's has hick ups so please everyone be calm, I'm sure this time everything will be fine.















NOT A BFL STAFF

[haorenzaoli]

It looks like a scam.

[bce]

Well at least we now know that the fab isn't in China, so no Chinese New Year delays.

[2GOOD]

Well at least we now know that the fab isn't in China, so no Chinese New Year delays.

That's no relief at all, the point is that we are 4 months away from advertised date.

[Inaba]

Just curious how the months of November and December add up to 4?  By my count, that is two.  Even if you include all of January, which is unlikley, that's 3.  So where does 4 come from?  Last I checked, 1 + 1 = 2 and 1+1+1 = 3.

[Gamesfreak13563]

I've been wondering whether or not it'd end up being profitable buying ASICs and what to get from them, or if it's better to just give up on bitcoin altogether. Would one Little SC be worth it? I don't want to wait ten months to make up all that profit

[Raneman]

BFL is liking waiting for all the dates to expire by which users can return items, so they can take the money and run.

[SgtSpike]

BFL is liking waiting for all the dates to expire by which users can return items, so they can take the money and run.

Because waiting for return policies to expire makes taking the money and running any more legitimate?  If they were going to run, they would have done so long ago.

[Nachtwind]

BFL is liking waiting for all the dates to expire by which users can return items, so they can take the money and run.

Because waiting for return policies to expire makes taking the money and running any more legitimate?  If they were going to run, they would have done so long ago.

Still enough braindeads here who still buy into their "queue". With every day they do not run off they make more money...
*edit* A bit like the pirate situation: Everyone knows its a trap but most people fall for it due to their greed..

[repentance]

Well at least we now know that the fab isn't in China, so no Chinese New Year delays.

But we do know that it's in Asia and other Asian countries have their own Lunar Year holidays which need to be taken into account.  Plus a lot of people don't think of Taiwan as being "China" but it's very much affected by Chinese New Year traditions.

[smoothie]

just wait, just 2 more months

LOL GOIN ON 4 MONTHS NOW. HINDSIGHT IS HILARIOUS! 

As you'll recall - I said it would be march at the earliest. I'll be pleased if they show up any sooner than that.

Hey Dumbass...no one was talking to you.  LOL

[smoothie]

Just curious how the months of November and December add up to 4?  By my count, that is two.  Even if you include all of January, which is unlikley, that's 3.  So where does 4 come from?  Last I checked, 1 + 1 = 2 and 1+1+1 = 3.

Hey dumbass if you read the guy's post he was posting in August and said it was 2 MORE MONTHS UNTIL YOU ASSHOLES WOULD SHIP YOUR FAIRY TAIL BULLSHIT UNITS.

So now it going on 4 months after his post in August.

Comprende?   LOL!!!

HERE IS THE QUOTE JUST FOR YOU SO YOU CAN KEEP UP OK? ROFL!:

just wait, just 2 more months

[BFL_Theo]

If they had never, ever delivered a functioning product in the past I'd be far more suspicious.  But they have.

I Agree Also, that's the only reason why i have faith still in the company








NOT A BFL STAFF

[SgtSpike]

BFL is liking waiting for all the dates to expire by which users can return items, so they can take the money and run.

Because waiting for return policies to expire makes taking the money and running any more legitimate?  If they were going to run, they would have done so long ago.

Still enough braindeads here who still buy into their "queue". With every day they do not run off they make more money...
*edit* A bit like the pirate situation: Everyone knows its a trap but most people fall for it due to their greed..

Please do explain how they make more money every day they don't run off?  They're giving out refunds, while I haven't heard mention of a new sale in days, maybe a couple of weeks.  To me, it seems they are losing money each day they don't run off.

[zThermal]

they are probably busy. 3months+ backordered

[shep]

In my personal opinion there is something very stinky about BFL:

• No certain delivery dates.
• No pictures or schemes or anything.
• Very limited information (actually there is no information on the ASICs).
• No one answers their phone.
• They answer your e-mail within 2-3 weeks.
• All their answers are with a maybe or possibly.
• I never got it why are BITCOIN payments preferred.
• The broke the law of e-bay - 2 months to appeal and ask for a refund with their 2 to 4 to 6 months delivery - maybe.
• They are a business registered in Massachusetts on the name of some Mexican woman.
• They are playing with millions yet their website is made with WordPress.
• Up to today no one has either seen, touched or heard their ASICs. (even remotely)

So what is your opinion, I personally believe that they are developing something but they are quite away from delivering it or with the given characteristics.
Some of my friends think that all of it might be a lie.

EDIT:
So after 3 months this is what BLF has to say:
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/437-asic-update-26-november-2012-a.html

"fuzzy" date

Got to love that!

Old proverb - If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it may well be a duck.

[king_pin]

Now I understand that BLF are still "waiting" for their fuzzy chips to arrive,... they said something like 30 days
Lets see what will they come up win 30 days.

[bce]

Now I understand that BLF are still "waiting" for their fuzzy chips to arrive,... they said something like 30 days
Lets see what will they come up win 30 days.

It is understandable why no specific dates will be given on anything at this point-  they have been burned pretty bad by over-promising.

[bigb159]

Pull out the tin foil, guys. I smell a conspiracy.

[BFL_Theo]

I think people should understand when having millions of dollars and at such sudden rate company's would and will do anything to keep it until providing the actual product. they didn't have maybe have the interest of the people when telling everyone the shipping dates but dont get me wrong they are trying to keep a hold of the amount they have without people asking for refunds so its kinda understandable.






NOT A BFL STAFF

[smoothie]

I think people should understand when having millions of dollars and at such sudden rate company's would and will do anything to keep it until providing the actual product. they didn't have maybe have the interest of the people when telling everyone the shipping dates but dont get me wrong they are trying to keep a hold of the amount they have without people asking for refunds so its kinda understandable.






NOT A BFL STAFF

I think that them having millions of customer funds they should deliver when they promised. Making more excuses and being vague only shows how unprofessional they are. They should have estimated better on timing before putting out their TARD order form back in June for pre-orders that "will be" delivered in October of this year.

Bullshit.

[king_pin]

...Making more excuses and being vague only shows how unprofessional they are....
Bullshit.

It is obvious that they are total amateurs, with the funny excuses they give us, just like my teenage daughter - "daddy it wasn't my fault, she made me do it"
But maybe they are geniuses, making us think that they are amateurs, while being professionals at scamming people.

[tshirtninja]

I'm convinced they dumped most of that money into btc investments and are cashing out slowly and refunding people while making filthy amounts of money on the BTC growth over the last months. They will end up sending out a soso product after the first company or two beats them to the punch then will claim they still sent out what they promised performance wise which at this point I wouldn't trust.

[RenegadeRunner]

When did they start planning their ASIC production? 3 months seems like a short time for ASIC production from scratch.

[jago25_98]

[greyhawk]

[BFL_Theo]

I'm convinced they dumped most of that money into btc investments and are cashing out slowly and refunding people while making filthy amounts of money on the BTC growth over the last months. They will end up sending out a soso product after the first company or two beats them to the punch then will claim they still sent out what they promised performance wise which at this point I wouldn't trust.

I wont lie but your story seems pretty legit but no one know for sure so all we can really do is sit and wonder but i don't advise that.








NOT BFL STAFF

[bce]

I'm convinced they dumped most of that money into btc investments and are cashing out slowly and refunding people while making filthy amounts of money on the BTC growth over the last months. They will end up sending out a soso product after the first company or two beats them to the punch then will claim they still sent out what they promised performance wise which at this point I wouldn't trust.

The future price of BTC relative to fiat = directly related to how useful and secure BTC can be made to be.  Generally, the sooner ASICs can be evenly distributed across BFLs customer base, the safer BTC can be in the short term against attack by a central authority.  Butterfly Labs has every reason to want the network to be more secure.

[SgtSpike]

When did they start planning their ASIC production? 3 months seems like a short time for ASIC production from scratch.

Back in early 2012.

[bce]

They are working out some kinks

[Scrat Acorns]

looks real to me

[bitcoinroad]

I will purchase my ASIC on www.Bitmit.net, because if you were wise and don't care about mining, an idiot will sell their miner their for double for what is worth.

That is where you will find me paying double for a merchandise such as this.


On the other hand....


It could be the wizard of oz all over again, and BFL has you in their poppy patch sniffing all the pretty flowers.  Shit might not be real. 

Very good/valid points.  Doesn't mean I won't stop trading or being your Number 1 broker of BTC to keep you anonymous.

www.bitcoinroad.com

[squeept]

I'm convinced they dumped most of that money into btc investments and are cashing out slowly and refunding people while making filthy amounts of money on the BTC growth over the last months. They will end up sending out a soso product after the first company or two beats them to the punch then will claim they still sent out what they promised performance wise which at this point I wouldn't trust.

Hello, insane person. I have bridges and medication for sale.

[Lab_Rat]

Make the wait a little more interesting?

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1030

[repentance]

I'm convinced they dumped most of that money into btc investments and are cashing out slowly and refunding people while making filthy amounts of money on the BTC growth over the last months. They will end up sending out a soso product after the first company or two beats them to the punch then will claim they still sent out what they promised performance wise which at this point I wouldn't trust.

What BTC investments?  On the whole, BTC investments have had a pretty crappy track record this year. While it's possible that they converted customer payments to BTC and put everything in MtGox hoping to ride the exchange rate wave, it's not especially likely.  Remember that Bitcoin prices weren't that great when ASIC pre-orders opened which is why so many people were investing in HYIPs.  If BFL was converting pre-order revenue into BTC and placing it in HYIPs, I suspect that someone would have broken ranks and leaked that information by now.

[Rudd-O]

Make the wait a little more interesting?

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1030

I can't possibly bet on that action.  It'd be like taking candy from children.

[king_pin]

WoW BFL more and more seems like a scam!
Today I learned, that another manufacturer, has posted real pics of their chip, not like BLF's fake pics.

After a long and anxious waiting, we have finally got our packaged chip samples at hand. Everyone would be busy in the following 2-3 weeks.

The following pics are taken from my cellphone.

30GHash/s of computing power on one table:


Top and bottom side of the chips:


A closer look at our baby:

They still have a long way to go but it seems they are way ahead of BFL.
I'd love some comments from those who give BFL money and were thinking they are so smart, and  those who sad that I'm some troll or been payed to talks smack about BFL.

[SgtSpike]

Why in the world is this thread in Other --> Newbies?

[greyhawk]

Why in the world is this thread in Other --> Newbies?

OP was a newbie when the thread was first posted.

[Richy_T]

They still have a long way to go but it seems they are way ahead of BFL.
I'd love some comments from those who give BFL money and were thinking they are so smart, and  those who sad that I'm some troll or been payed to talks smack about BFL.

Dude, it's not over until the BFL guys post to say they turned up to work and the doors were locked and the execs aren't answering their phones.

Though I'm not necessarily saying that will happen.

[msm595]

It's suspicious, but they have delivered before.... Just really late xD

[king_pin]

Some funny new sh*t from BFL

An interview with BFL Josh and his fake ASIC box:
http://youtu.be/5ZUPniBo5UQ


A real photo of the ASIC BOX (miner):

[hope2907]

we all don't know

[vhaasteren]

BTCers love to speculate 

[Exception]

Some funny new sh*t from BFL

An interview with BFL Josh and his fake ASIC box:
http://youtu.be/5ZUPniBo5UQ


A real photo of the ASIC BOX (miner):
http://www.picvalley.net/u/2390/7091294924542137231357823445DbRNmg2gF2jIslD4gXBg_m.JPG

I would have liked to see some nice graphs

[Frizz23]

Some funny new sh*t from BFL

An interview with BFL Josh and his fake ASIC box:
http://youtu.be/5ZUPniBo5UQ

4 minutes of hot air. The interesting part starts at 4:30.

David Perry: "So this is just a case ... you don't actually have ASICs ready?"
Josh: "Um... right ... but we are eagerly awaiting them as everybody else I'm sure ..."

[cosmicone]

Some funny new sh*t from BFL

An interview with BFL Josh and his fake ASIC box:
http://youtu.be/5ZUPniBo5UQ


A real photo of the ASIC BOX (miner):

Probably my fav post.. the youtube was funny too.. I mean why bring the 'case' only?

[teodor87]

Yeah. That stuff about the android phone was kinda fishy.
I hope they're hones though.

[king_pin]

I'm selling emptiness in a box with an Android taped to it phone for just 1'200$ PM me for more information
 - That's what BFL_Josh sad.
(btw his original nick was Inaba IDK why he changed it)

[Third Way]

They have deplorable customer service. It's the main reason why I may go with a totally different ASIC provider.

Yeah, good luck with that.  

Let us know how that worked out come January.

Well It's JAN 20 and Avalon is beginning to ship. How's that Febuary deadline looking for you?

[lenny_]

ANNOUNCEMENT: BFL just uploaded photos of their mighty ASIC technology:

 

[bce]

ANNOUNCEMENT: BFL just uploaded photos of their mighty ASIC technology:

 

That is indeed a mighty ASIC - one of the best sounding ASICs ever built!  Long live the C64!

[creativex]

I agree...it's entirely possible there could be some delays.

It's also entirely possible BFL reps will lie through their teeth about said delays to hold on to as many pre-orders as possible. This in addition to the falsified initial timeline to ship their ASIC products which effectively stifled competition and brought FPGA sales to a virtual halt. Who'da thunk a company run by a convicted thief would employ such tactics?

[dpcman]

Well, let's have faith shall we?

[king_pin]

I've had faith in them from the beginning, I believed that they will start shipping in March

[constitution]

Well, that's capitalism. Take chances, win big or lose your money.

If BFL does have ASICs, then the people who put their money on the line in pre-orders are going to have a heyday when it first gets released and the difficulty hasn't increased yet. The people who decided to wait will still have a chance to mine, but not until after the difficulty has ramped up.

If BFL doesn't have the ASICs... well. That's highly unfortunate, but hey; you're working with experimental technology that works with a relatively experimental e-currency, you have to expect that things might not turn out according to plan. Invest at your own risk.

I haven't pre-ordered (Although I gave the Jalapeno some serious thought with the low starting price), so I think I'll see how it works when the first people begin to get theirs and think about it.

[Richy_T]

Well, that's capitalism. Take chances, win big or lose your money.

If BFL does have ASICs, then the people who put their money on the line in pre-orders are going to have a heyday when it first gets released and the difficulty hasn't increased yet. The people who decided to wait will still have a chance to mine, but not until after the difficulty has ramped up.

If BFL doesn't have the ASICs... well. That's highly unfortunate, but hey; you're working with experimental technology that works with a relatively experimental e-currency, you have to expect that things might not turn out according to plan. Invest at your own risk.

I haven't pre-ordered (Although I gave the Jalapeno some serious thought with the low starting price), so I think I'll see how it works when the first people begin to get theirs and think about it.

In the meantime, if the current rally is for real, those people who already paid in bitcoins are falling further behind.

[creativex]

30% in a couple weeks is real enough for me. :p

[SgtSpike]

Well, that's capitalism. Take chances, win big or lose your money.

If BFL does have ASICs, then the people who put their money on the line in pre-orders are going to have a heyday when it first gets released and the difficulty hasn't increased yet. The people who decided to wait will still have a chance to mine, but not until after the difficulty has ramped up.

If BFL doesn't have the ASICs... well. That's highly unfortunate, but hey; you're working with experimental technology that works with a relatively experimental e-currency, you have to expect that things might not turn out according to plan. Invest at your own risk.

I haven't pre-ordered (Although I gave the Jalapeno some serious thought with the low starting price), so I think I'll see how it works when the first people begin to get theirs and think about it.

In the meantime, if the current rally is for real, those people who already paid in bitcoins are falling further behind.

This is true...! (though also true for those who paid by any other method, as they could have instead invested those funds into Bitcoins at the time of purchase).

I paid 450 BTC for my two SC singles.

My only consolation is that I know I wouldn't have kept that much in BTC anyway had I not bought the singles.

[creativex]

OUCH!

$7807 for two singles at current exchange rate, that suxxors man.

[constitution]

WoW BFL more and more seems like a scam!
Today I learned, that another manufacturer, has posted real pics of their chip, not like BLF's fake pics.

After a long and anxious waiting, we have finally got our packaged chip samples at hand. Everyone would be busy in the following 2-3 weeks.

The following pics are taken from my cellphone.

30GHash/s of computing power on one table:
http://img3.douban.com/view/photo/photo/public/p1823831858.jpg

Top and bottom side of the chips:
http://img3.douban.com/view/photo/photo/public/p1823831931.jpg

A closer look at our baby:
http://img3.douban.com/view/photo/photo/public/p1823832020.jpg

They still have a long way to go but it seems they are way ahead of BFL.
I'd love some comments from those who give BFL money and were thinking they are so smart, and  those who sad that I'm some troll or been payed to talks smack about BFL.

What exactly is that?

[kjj]

What exactly is that?

That is a QFN package.  There may or may not be a chip inside it, and that chip may or may not be an ASIC, and that ASIC may or may not be useful for mining.  The long plastic tubes are pretty standard for shipping such things.

Seeing the picture is very reassuring, but it shouldn't be, because if you don't think they can deliver, then you shouldn't trust the picture.  And if you do think they can deliver, you shouldn't need the picture.

[constitution]

Dont know if they are liars but they definitly dont have good service.

[mOomOo]

Fingers crossed they will get there... soon... 

[constitution]

Fingers crossed they will get there... soon... 

Hopefully!

[king_pin]

NEW
Deepbit's excuse:
DeepBit Reclaimer ASIC

AVALON's excuse:
We shipped but Santa hasn't delivered yet, he has stolen them planing a 51% attack, but we will give him our 2nd batch too

[Andynerd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neHHrC3qgIE

Looks real to me this is their old bitforce.

[kjj]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=139089.0

[king_pin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neHHrC3qgIE

Looks real to me this is their old bitforce.

Dude, this has absolutely nothing to do with ASICs
(there is a FPGA thread some ware else)

[falconae]

Anyone else see that they have done away with the "names"?
the Jalepeno is now called the BitForce 5 GH/s SC...
And it is now $274.00 https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.html

[TCollar]

Their $30k bitcoin miner is "out of stock".  I guess they ran out of fans and Android tablets, or they said "holy crap...if we are gonna screw people over we better only screw them over for less than $3k"

[teodor87]

I did not think it was a scam until recently, when I checked their website and they have actually increased the price of their "PRODUCT"  

What exactly are they selling? I don't know. And probably most of you won't know, or at least won't know soon.

But it is a proven fact, that if you increase the price of something that doesn't exist, it's probably a pyramid scheme. Why would they increase a Pre-Order price? Because they know their "customers" have coins and coins have increased in value.

As far as I know until now only Avalon have shipped ASIC products, and with great delays - several months.

The only option to be able to go and buy a BTC device is if the major semiconductor companies, who know how it's done, pick it up.

However I do not think banks would appreciate that.

And I do think that they are not able to produce the ASIC miners fast, because of the following simple reasons:

1. Greed - instead of buying equipment and hire people capable of making the process faster, I bet most ot them CEOs bought houses and cars and expensive accessories for their girlfriends/wives/husbands (most of them are gay I assume  ).

2. Laziness - How hard it is to organize a manufacture if you have 10s of millions of dollars of preorders? Well sapphiretech one of the major graphics card manufacturer started with 5 million and outsourced. And they are one of the most famous brands for graphic cards right now.
Why - because they know how to organize their work. But they work and think all day.

And all ASIC "manufacturers" pick their noses all day. Most of them perhaps have never worked a day in their life, which explains their inadequacy.

Let me tell you something else - once they have the layout for the chips (semiconductors) and PCBs there is nothing else to it. They just have to produce massive quantities and assemble them. Testing could be done automatically - the same way processors, videocards and RAM memories are tested. And they are manufactured in the hundreds of millions a year.

3. Stupidity - A smart man once said that the difference between the idiot and the smart person is that the idiot is always proud and happy with himself.

I mean how stupid one has to be in order not to do anything in a situation like this.

Its obvious that they don't work on the miners. They could at least have went away and stopped lying to people.

Their intentions might have been good, however as another smart man once said "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

And another thing - you have to be very stupid if you received massive amounts of money in a short time frame and you see that your company doesn't do what it is supposed to, and yet not speed it up.

I bet 90% of your money have gone for Porsches, and BMWs and Mercedeses and all kind of crap, but semiconductor assembly lines - which HAD to be purchased.

If they had those they could produce 1000 of these things a day. Not 8 months for like 180 of them.

And only one "company" has actually achieved that.

I wish all who ordered luck, but If I were you I'd get my money back while I still can.

[haderach]

For the avalon ASICs, who is going to spend 75 BTC for one that will be delivered months from now. It feels like the opportunity has passed considering the starting price was just $1300.

[Larynth]

I would agree that one should always beware any "business" based out of a city not known to be a major player in their industry. Not that KC isn't large enough to house a company like BFL, but why would you set up shop so far from any of your suppliers. The answer lies in the question: what else does KC offer? Are they a fraud? The only way to prove that they are not would be to deliver product.

[TCollar]

each product "available" is less than $5k.  In the USA, over $5k means it can be taken up in civil court, not small claims.  Small claims court means footwork for the claiment  in the jusidiction of the company.  I bet they refund the $30k to the folks who paid for the big rig to avoid a real hassle.  Then the people who win judgements plus interest still have to collect the money themselves and I bet every identifiable person in BFL claims to not own the company or claims to have just been acting as a "consultant".

[teodor87]

each product "available" is less than $5k.  In the USA, over $5k means it can be taken up in civil court, not small claims.  Small claims court means footwork for the claiment  in the jusidiction of the company.  I bet they refund the $30k to the folks who paid for the big rig to avoid a real hassle.  Then the people who win judgements plus interest still have to collect the money themselves and I bet every identifiable person in BFL claims to not own the company or claims to have just been acting as a "consultant".

Because of that I'd advise people, if they decide to buy these "products" to pay with a credit card (not debit card). Because of the chargeback option.

Your bank will never deny the chargeback and they will back you up in 99% of the cases, especially if you've waited for months and they give you lousy excuses.

[MSO]

As a retired firmware developer, I can say that a project such as this one by BFL is perfectly normal. We use to have a standing rule: Estimate your development time and then double it.  The project leader would accept the your times and then double them again. The final boss would then double the leaders time.  BFL, obviously, doesn't have enough depth in its management to get everything doubled enough to suit its customers.

[TCollar]

As a retired firmware developer, I can say that a project such as this one by BFL is perfectly normal. We use to have a standing rule: Estimate your development time and then double it.  The project leader would accept the your times and then double them again. The final boss would then double the leaders time.  BFL, obviously, doesn't have enough depth in its management to get everything doubled enough to suit its customers.

Did you offer your product online for full payment in advance before you even had a prototype?  Asside from that aspect of their business model I agree...being really late is really right on schedule for this sort of product but taking payment for things that don't exist is very fishy.

The simplest scam in the world is to offer either something that does not exist or that makes money without doing much of anything, and BFLs products cover both quite well.

[teodor87]

As a retired firmware developer, I can say that a project such as this one by BFL is perfectly normal. We use to have a standing rule: Estimate your development time and then double it.  The project leader would accept the your times and then double them again. The final boss would then double the leaders time.  BFL, obviously, doesn't have enough depth in its management to get everything doubled enough to suit its customers.

OK then. I agree to some point. However, they could have outsourced the firmware to another company, while they're working on the hardware.

I think they relied solely on other people's money with no self involvement.

Even banks request a person to invest 10% of the amount if a credit is taken.

Otherwise how could you prove that you're capable of doing what you're doing?

They took 28 million dollars - more than enough to manufacture everything on time.

They're just, greedy, lazy and stupid.

As I said - money are spent on bullshit. A videocard gpu costs 15$ off the assembly line.

An Asic chip could not be more than that. All the effort and materials used could add up to... say 300$ for the 50GHs TOPS.

And they are pre-"selling it" for 2499.

It's a Scam with a capital S. It means that they did not buy equipment with the money, and they are trying to keep as much as possible for them and manufacture the hardware and software by themselves. Which obviously is impossible.

[AlexanderB]

The simplest scam in the world is to offer either something that does not exist or that makes money without doing much of anything, and BFLs products cover both quite well.

exactly my first impression, I can't believe people don't see right through this..


I mean, if I could build a small device that makes free money, the very last thing I'd do is sell it..

[AlgoSwan]

7 billion people, silent BTC revolution, but just two companies producing ASICs. Why?

[resma]

Since BFL is not delivering, Avalon seems to have a monopoly in the consumer ASIC market, and the lucky receivers of their second batch are making far too much bitcoin in a short period, effectively giving them too much power in the bitcoin economy. There should have been more ASICS, or none at all... The current situation is not good IMO.

[metavox]

each product "available" is less than $5k.  In the USA, over $5k means it can be taken up in civil court, not small claims.  Small claims court means footwork for the claiment  in the jusidiction of the company.  I bet they refund the $30k to the folks who paid for the big rig to avoid a real hassle.  Then the people who win judgements plus interest still have to collect the money themselves and I bet every identifiable person in BFL claims to not own the company or claims to have just been acting as a "consultant".

Because of that I'd advise people, if they decide to buy these "products" to pay with a credit card (not debit card). Because of the chargeback option.

Your bank will never deny the chargeback and they will back you up in 99% of the cases, especially if you've waited for months and they give you lousy excuses.

I thought the same thing, so I went through the BFL purchase process just to see what they offer for payment options.  Guess what... Bitcoin, Paypal, and wire transfer only!  For a company making even thousands, the overhead of supporting credit cards is nominal.  So why not?  Prevent chargebacks is the best thing I could think of.  I laughed and closed my browser.

We'll find out soon enough though, since they say they are shipping in a "week".

[wrastler6]

His point was that it seems unprofessional and maybe even a rush job. But it works for them, it works well. Should it be changed?

Yes I have always sad that if something works well it shouldn't be changed, so that maybe one down but it still remains a big list

Yes

[teodor87]

Since BFL is not delivering, Avalon seems to have a monopoly in the consumer ASIC market, and the lucky receivers of their second batch are making far too much bitcoin in a short period, effectively giving them too much power in the bitcoin economy. There should have been more ASICS, or none at all... The current situation is not good IMO.

If a big semiconductor company, or at least a semiconductor company lead by specialists, who had previously developped some system was making those ASIC miners they would be selling very cheap, very fast. Why? Demand, and BTC price stabilizing somewhere in the 5 - 15$ range.

However, BFL never had a concept before, never had a layout before, never had experience before. What they did was buying a domain, creating a stylish website and advertising on google. The rest is history.

[metavox]

Since BFL is not delivering, Avalon seems to have a monopoly in the consumer ASIC market, and the lucky receivers of their second batch are making far too much bitcoin in a short period, effectively giving them too much power in the bitcoin economy. There should have been more ASICS, or none at all... The current situation is not good IMO.

It would be helpful if the mining algorithm could be modified to minimize the impact of processor type.  Supposedly litecoin was designed in address this.  It might not be feasible for bitcoin to change that much at this point, but it's possible that Satoshi considered this early on and isn't concerned with the implications.  Only if we see the network hash rate really spike, and make the difficulty jump with it, will we know the impact on the network as a whole.  Smaller miners, like myself, might just bail if the block mining expectancy jumps by years.

[Sekioh]

7 billion people, silent BTC revolution, but just two companies producing ASICs. Why?

I think at this point the delay before anyone STARTING now would be too long for people to trust to invest in, most of the BTC/inflow of cash is already diluted into these companies. I mean, I'd do research, and I know a little about chips, but don't work in the field, and nobody's going to really trust anyone else taking their BTC for development when they'd be 'so far behind'... (even though they may still beat some of the asic companies! ;P)

[teodor87]

7 billion people, silent BTC revolution, but just two companies producing ASICs. Why?

I think at this point the delay before anyone STARTING now would be too long for people to trust to invest in, most of the BTC/inflow of cash is already diluted into these companies. I mean, I'd do research, and I know a little about chips, but don't work in the field, and nobody's going to really trust anyone else taking their BTC for development when they'd be 'so far behind'... (even though they may still beat some of the asic companies! ;P)

Well imagine the following.

You said you know a little about chips. However, you decide to build an ASIC, and you figure something in your head, register a company, domain, website, etc.

And you start collecting money, based on an idea. And lots of it.

But when you get the money, you start to want more. And you increase the price of something that no one has actually ever seen. No one knows if it exists.

And call me Nostradamus, but I predict that they will not ship by next week. In fact I think they won't ship at all!

You can only imagine how much time would it take for these jokers to write the technical documentation.

Let's say there is some really small chance that they will ship. What if it breaks?
It took them months to create, then it will take them several more months to "repair".

I bet they did not think of that either.

[AlgoSwan]

I think they will ship now. Just check out recent BTC prices. The insiders sold almost all of their BTC holdings today (one day quick chrash). And guess what? These insiders are working with BFL. No? Lets wait another two weeks. I'm pretty sure they will deliver these ASICs with current BTC prices maybe a little lower.

[resma]

Since BFL is not delivering, Avalon seems to have a monopoly in the consumer ASIC market, and the lucky receivers of their second batch are making far too much bitcoin in a short period, effectively giving them too much power in the bitcoin economy. There should have been more ASICS, or none at all... The current situation is not good IMO.

It would be helpful if the mining algorithm could be modified to minimize the impact of processor type.  Supposedly litecoin was designed in address this.  It might not be feasible for bitcoin to change that much at this point, but it's possible that Satoshi considered this early on and isn't concerned with the implications.  Only if we see the network hash rate really spike, and make the difficulty jump with it, will we know the impact on the network as a whole.  Smaller miners, like myself, might just bail if the block mining expectancy jumps by years.

I was a smaller GPU miner myself, however the current difficulty combined with the electricity prices here in the Netherlands, make mining unprofitable with a bitcoin below approx. $180. If BFL would deliver a 5GH/s box for $250, that would only consume some 5W power, mining would be profitable again for people not willing to spend a fortune on hardware. However, I don't think BFL will ever deliver...

[Sekioh]

I could understand if they tried to base it on the exchange rate cause they have to pay the chip manufacturers. But you're right, I can't see any reason you'd raise your product price in the middle of the pre-purchase phase just cause that's what competitor sold at and 'you can' to exploit the market, especially since BTC has been climbing since the beginning of the year (except for this little hitch fluctuation this week) if anything you'd sell for same BTC and still be profiting more.

Granted, they could actually have products being worked on, but as mentioned, they could have ran over their estimated salary budget and now are compensating by jacking up the price (read: pyramid scheme) even if it's not a pyramid scheme to run off with, they're using the new members to pay for their newly ordered hardware PLUS compensating for the earlier preorders costing more effort to debug. I would imagine that the rise in BTC, STILL, would have compensated though.

[teodor87]

 

[Richy_T]

Not cool, dude.

[jojo69]

totally cool dude

[bitrider]

very unlikely outcome from BFL