Re: Butterfly Labs CEO 25 Million USD Mail Fraud — A Concise Summary of Evidence

[Bogart]

I have seen a lot of people citing the fact that BFL previously delivered working FPGA-based products.  Can we maybe compare the current situation to the one a bit before the release of the FPGA products?  Were any pictures, design documents, etc made available by BFL as the FPGA products were in development, or was the same lack of transparency shown then as is being now?

</selfquote>

Can anyone comment on this?  When the BFL FPGAs were a month from their target release date, was there the same lack of evidence that they even exist that we are seeing now with the ASICs, or were there pictures available, demonstrated prototypes, power consumption numbers, etc?

I wasn't following the scene very closely at the time, so I don't know myself from memory.

[FlipPro]

I have seen a lot of people citing the fact that BFL previously delivered working FPGA-based products.  Can we maybe compare the current situation to the one a bit before the release of the FPGA products?  Were any pictures, design documents, etc made available by BFL as the FPGA products were in development, or was the same lack of transparency shown then as is being now?

</selfquote>

Can anyone comment on this?  When the BFL FPGAs were a month from their target release date, was there the same lack of evidence that they even exist that we are seeing now with the ASICs, or were there pictures available, demonstrated prototypes, power consumption numbers, etc?

I wasn't following the scene very closely at the time, so I don't know myself from memory.

There was stuff everywhere about them.

(pictures, videos, blogs)

[niko]

A list of relevant, specific questions is waiting in the "town hall" thread:
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110786.msg1206139#msg1206139
So far no answers. Decide for yourself - I have decided even before these revelations. My money will only go to transparent businesses. Also, I don't do business with people I don't like after I get to know them. Business is a personal matter.

[kiba]

There was stuff everywhere about them.

(pictures, videos, blogs)

That would be indeed the world's most elaborate scam. However, we should keep in mind that the CEO of butterfly lab is not anonymous and already been on the feds' radar. So the feds are more likely to chase him like bloodhounds more than they do by chasing international anonymous bitcoin thieves and fraudsters.(which is none at all)

[heavyb]

Is it public knowledge who convict's parol officers are? If he is following his instructions, he should be checking in with someone who should have been made aware of his involvement in BFL. If this is true, and the agent has looked into BFL, we should have nothing to worry about.


If he is not, we should make a phone call to have BFL investigated. Thoughts?

[fcmatt]

so after all these posts... i still cannot see a pic of a jalepeno, a pic of a jally running, or anything asic based at all?

just the old fpga stuff that was not worth ordering in my mind.

[FlipPro]

so after all these posts... i still cannot see a pic of a jalepeno, a pic of a jally running, or anything asic based at all?

just the old fpga stuff that was not worth ordering in my mind.

To be fair their FPGA's (singles) are a GREAT product. They are efficient, quiet, and offer a low but competitive entry into the Bitcoin world.

The only thing that makes them "not worth" ordering, is the fact that ASICS are * supposedly* coming out very soon, rendering their offered efficiency obsolete.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Looks like Sonny locked his thread, siting it's the competition's fault (in no uncertain terms). To be fair, he did state that a third post is forthcoming. I'll assume it'll be long, addressing most every question and concern to date.

~Bruno~

[jjiimm_64]

Looks like Sonny locked his thread, siting it's the competition's fault (in no uncertain terms). To be fair, he did state that a third post is forthcoming. I'll assume it'll be long, addressing most every question and concern to date.

~Bruno~

that will be good.

define: 'his thread'

someone give link please..

[elux]

Looks like Sonny locked his thread, siting it's the competition's fault (in no uncertain terms). To be fair, he did state that a third post is forthcoming. I'll assume it'll be long, addressing most every question and concern to date.

Thank you all for your comments...  both positive and negative.  I see many of our competitors in this thread pushing their agenda which isn't surprising but still, there are some very reasonable posts with deserving questions.  Overall, I appreciate the public's reason for concern and I will return and provide answers.

jjiimm_64: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110868.msg1210400#msg1210400

[Shadow383]

Is it public knowledge who convict's parol officers are? If he is following his instructions, he should be checking in with someone who should have been made aware of his involvement in BFL. If this is true, and the agent has looked into BFL, we should have nothing to worry about.


If he is not, we should make a phone call to have BFL investigated. Thoughts?

This is the best idea yet in these threads.

[Desolator]

Oh come on, I could have told you this months ago.  It looks exactly like the existing chassis! lol.  Why would they redesign an entirely new one?  Chips are about the same size in general, it doesn't dissipate more watts (BFL confirmed this) so larger cooling wouldn't be necessary.  The board itself could be larger but that's not real likely so it probably looks identical or incredibly similar to their existing units.

[elux]

Posting this here, as the thread was downvoted into invisibility on /r/bitcoin:

It has been demonstrated that BFL Single is a pair of Altera EP3SL150F780 chips.

This chip is no longer manufactured, and the official price from digikey, Altera's authorized distributor, is $2,184.99 per chip.

That's almost $4,400 per board just for the chips.

Obviously since the single sells for $600 they are not paying anything close to full price for these chips. But since they are no longer manufactured there is a finite supply, and with the huge demand they surely can see that the End Is Near for the Altera-based product line.

So now it fits together: they aren't ruining a good thing -- the good thing is over whether they like it or not.

They have run out of cheap chips. Without the insane more-than-5x cost advantage over the competition they can't compete anymore, so they pretty much have to close up shop.

But wait.

If you have to close up shop anyways, why not go out with a bang? Especially when you have an experienced fraudster running the company? The company is toast without the cheap chips anyways, so why not run off with a pile of preorder cash? Better yet, tell the people you sold product to that they can send the boards back as part of a "trade in". Remember, there are no more cheap chips, so the supply of these boards is about to get cut off. And mining boards turn electricity into anonymous, untraceable cash, so running off with them is about as safe as running off with BTC.

You may or may not believe their ASIC announcement is a scam, but either way the claim that "oh they have so much to lose by scamming people why would they do that" doesn't hold water. Their existing product line has a fixed lifespan -- ASIC or not.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1084b1/why_would_bfl_turn_a_good_thing_into_a_scam/

[Inaba]

You know what I wonder?  Are all you whiners crying about a scam going to pony up an apology when the ASICs ship? 

My prediction:  Crickets.

I hope someone bumps this particular post after we ship the ASICs, I want see the rush of apologies.  I'll hold my breath.

[Desolator]

Inaba, if you think everyone should trust anyone in the bitcoin world for anything involving money ever, you're wrong They should not.  Like I said before, there's a member here with 6,600 posts, hero status, etc and he's now marked as a scammer.  Anyone can rip off money from anyone else.  If we don't know someone's blood type and what their first words were as a baby by the time a deal goes down, the bitcoin community didn't do its job.  And BFL's ex-con employee's record is not helping the situation, lol.

[niko]

Worth quoting here:
 

Josh told me that the owner of Butterflylabs has a buissness history of keeping stuff secret and silent.
And he certain doesnt have any experience with posting on a forum or maintaining websites.
Thats why (untill now) stuff has seem so shady and all I guess.

[Desolator]

Btw I saw someone in some post asking what their facility look like.  Dunno why, as that's not hard to find lol.

[niko]

You know what I wonder?  Are all you whiners crying about a scam going to pony up an apology when the ASICs ship? 

My prediction:  Crickets.

I hope someone bumps this particular post after we ship the ASICs, I want see the rush of apologies.  I'll hold my breath.

Why would anyone need to apologize for voicing perfectly reasonable concerns today? Even if ASICs do ship as promised, the concerns were perfectly reasonable and deserve explanations.

[malevolent]

Worth quoting here:
 

Josh told me that the owner of Butterflylabs has a buissness history of keeping stuff secret and silent.
And he certain doesnt have any experience with posting on a forum or maintaining websites.
Thats why (untill now) stuff has seem so shady and all I guess.

This doesn't make sense.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110868.0

The internet was an exciting development.  I started webspawner.com in 1995.  It was my focus for many years.  Do a search for 'free webpages' on google.  I'm currently president of that company, not BFL.

In the late 90's, I found myself face to face with a great new concept.  It was called jurisdictional arbitration.  That's where you're able to leverage technology to profit from differences in law from one jurisdiction to another. The hotbed of it was in offshore gaming where a Costa Rican license could be used along with satellite telecommunications to offer gaming services to clients all over the world, even in the United States.  I thought this was pretty cool, so I started a software company to provide the back end for these systems.  We operated services as Sportsbook Solutions and the SportsPulse platform.  It was a lucrative and fun time.  I saw it as a libertarian adventure in challenging the authorities of the world while earning a good living.

[ydenys]

With all of these annoying BFL/ASIC threads you cannot help it but to think that any legitimate company would have already released at least some minor verifiable details about their key product to avoid losing any more customers. However you may choose to under/overestimate intelligence of the key people in this tiny company and compare it to their customers’ one, there is a clear business fault and continuous loss of custom/repute/funds which is taking place now. I would normally think that no sane business owner would stand such evident and easily rectifiable loss unless he/she had some hidden agenda.