NEW info. Everyone is lying about ther ASIC project

[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.