TOWN HALL (prep) Meeting: Butterfly Labs

[Inaba]

Sonny will answer some or all of the questions in the third post in this thread as time permits.  I hope today (and I am encouraging that time frame).

[BitcoinINV]

Have you always had 229 g/h Inaba?

[jwzguy]

Have you always had 229 g/h Inaba?

No one has "always had" any amount of computing power.

[freeAgent]

Have you always had 229 g/h Inaba?

It's showing about 470GH/s right now.

[BitcoinINV]

He said he would not use butterfly labs to his advantage as a miner? or did I read that wrong? Or did he get rich?

[dooferorg]

A glance at  http://www.bitcoincharts.com/ seems to indicate that everyone's 'slice of the pie' just got a whole lot smaller.

I see Inaba is mining the crap out of the new ASICs before shipping them...

Snapshot at: 9/21/12 4:45PM EST
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/210/fyp22q2.png/

[BitcoinINV]

Q. You are going to have an unfair advantage when it comes to mining equipment, you’ll be able to get as much as you want before anyone else!
 A. I will not be expanding my mining footprint as it would be a conflict of interest.  I will continue with my current obligations and already acquired/paid for equipment but will not be purchasing or utilizing additional equipment as part of my mining operations.  This is one of the hardest changes I will be making, as I firmly believe there are plenty of opportunities in this space that I am going to be missing out on, but I believe I can do more good for the bitcoin community as a whole working to provide that equipment to people as opposed to using it myself.

Just saying... should stick to the plan man... it looks bad to keep your word.

Don't look like your missing out lol

[Bogart]

Q. You are going to have an unfair advantage when it comes to mining equipment, you’ll be able to get as much as you want before anyone else!
 A. I will not be expanding my mining footprint as it would be a conflict of interest.  I will continue with my current obligations and already acquired/paid for equipment but will not be purchasing or utilizing additional equipment as part of my mining operations.  This is one of the hardest changes I will be making, as I firmly believe there are plenty of opportunities in this space that I am going to be missing out on, but I believe I can do more good for the bitcoin community as a whole working to provide that equipment to people as opposed to using it myself.

So how big was your mining footprint exactly when you made that statement?

[SgtSpike]

He said he would not use butterfly labs to his advantage as a miner? or did I read that wrong? Or did he get rich?

He is mining on behalf of other people who are planning to upgrade and elected not to have their units shipped to them, but instead have Josh mine for them.  This saves them the time lag between shipping the old units back and receiving ASICs, as well as shipment-back costs.

A glance at  http://www.bitcoincharts.com/ seems to indicate that everyone's 'slice of the pie' just got a whole lot smaller.

I see Inaba is mining the crap out of the new ASICs before shipping them...

Snapshot at: 9/21/12 4:45PM EST
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/210/fyp22q2.png/

See above.  He is not mining on ASICs.

Q. You are going to have an unfair advantage when it comes to mining equipment, you’ll be able to get as much as you want before anyone else!
 A. I will not be expanding my mining footprint as it would be a conflict of interest.  I will continue with my current obligations and already acquired/paid for equipment but will not be purchasing or utilizing additional equipment as part of my mining operations.  This is one of the hardest changes I will be making, as I firmly believe there are plenty of opportunities in this space that I am going to be missing out on, but I believe I can do more good for the bitcoin community as a whole working to provide that equipment to people as opposed to using it myself.

Just saying... should stick to the plan man... it looks bad to keep your word.

Don't look like your missing out lol

He didn't expand his mining operations.  He had a huge farm already, but he is also mining on behalf of other people.  See above.

[BitcoinINV]

Ok that makes sense, just looked funny. I had not read the other threads with the info in it. But why would he only mine with them sometimes? Whats with the increase and drops in hashrate, if he is mining for someone, Would he not keep it on 24/7?

[color]

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

edit
not my video
/edit

[SgtSpike]

Ok that makes sense, just looked funny. I had not read the other threads with the info in it. But why would he only mine with them sometimes? Whats with the increase and drops in hashrate, if he is mining for someone, Would he not keep it on 24/7?

I think he's hopping between pools?

[Bogart]

He said he would not use butterfly labs to his advantage as a miner? or did I read that wrong? Or did he get rich?

He is mining on behalf of other people who are planning to upgrade and elected not to have their units shipped to them, but instead have Josh mine for them.  This saves them the time lag between shipping the old units back and receiving ASICs, as well as shipment-back costs.

So they are already receiving ppls trade-ins while they have yet to ship a single ASIC?

This should go without saying, but...

Do you know this for a fact (your statement above that Inaba is mining on customers' behalf using their traded-in FPGAs), or are you guessing?  Can you cite a source?

[fuuka]

I was planning to pre-order (or just order...) once pictures of hardware had been posted.  That's what I did with the singles.

Definitely selling my singles now.  Not worth the risk, even with Paypal's shitty protection.

BFL has always been a little shady, not giving timely updates being the worst of it, but this is too much.

[RHA]

He is mining on behalf of other people who are planning to upgrade and elected not to have their units shipped to them, but instead have Josh mine for them.  This saves them the time lag between shipping the old units back and receiving ASICs, as well as shipment-back costs.

So they are already receiving ppls trade-ins while they have yet to ship a single ASIC?

No. They (BFL) will receive these trade-ins not earlier than in day when Inaba (datacenter operator) transport them to BFL office.
It was organized near two months before Inaba was employed by BFL. Now he continues his earlier duties along with helping BFL as BFL_Josh.

[niko]

I would like to know what specific functions Sonny carries out within BFL. Is he a director, president, owner, CEO, founder, employee, or a combination of some or all of the above? Also, what is the history of his involvement with BFL?

[Rassah]

I would like to know what specific functions Sonny carries out within BFL. Is he a director, president, owner, CEO, founder, employee, or a combination of some or all of the above? Also, what is the history of his involvement with BFL?

^ +1. Unlike the other stupid questions, this is really the only one that matters.

[MrTeal]

Q: Have customer preorder funds been used to fund development or inventory costs for the SC line, and if all or a supermajority of your customers requested a refund of their preorder would you be able to provide it?

[bobitza]

Hey guys, maybe we should have some technical questions, so we don't turn this session into a 100% witch hunting meeting.

I would like to know:

1. Details on the delivery of first ASICs
- are they still scheduled for end of October?
- what are the risks to delivery dates? (i.e. we are waiting for some shipments that might or might not come) and what's the impact (will put us 2 weeks/months/years behind schedule)
- is there a "cut-off" date for pre-orders? (aka a date after which the 1/3 shipping rule will no longer apply and is basically first come first served?)

2. Details on the future plans and products
- what's the warranty period for the SCs? (I really hope there is one ...)
- any ASIC v.2 planned in near future or full focus on production?

Thanks.

[Syke]

I would like to know what specific functions Sonny carries out within BFL. Is he a director, president, owner, CEO, founder, employee, or a combination of some or all of the above? Also, what is the history of his involvement with BFL?

It's pretty clear from Sonny's message, "I am not a majority owner." (emphasis added), that he is not just an employee (as frequently implied by Inaba), but is actually an owner of the company.