Butterflylabs Huge SCAM

[CryptoCluster]

It’s all about definition of scam.
If you understand scam as take other people money and run, then they are not a scam.
But if you believe that scam is also when someone deludes other people that he will deliver something on certain conditions, knowing that it is not possible from the beginning, then they are a scam.
They will finally deliver, but it is far from what they promised.

[bigdude]

What is now the truth ?
Are they scammers or not ?

bad communicators ... yes
poor project managers ... probably

but scammers ... no ... they are delivering, so can't say they are scammers

[Rescla]

I didn't know Josh still posted?

Anyhow, I still have an order with BFL. A little single to be precise. To be honest I went into this assuming everything I put into it was lost anyway so while it's a shame if it turns out I won't get my miner it isn't the end of the world. That said, with BFL shipping Jalapenos it's safe to say they at the very least have a working product. Far behind schedule, but still.

The choice a new customer has to make at the moment is whether or not BFL will deliver the product before the ROI takes too long. In my case I have a mid August order so I'm probably not in too bad a shape, but I'd imagine that a new order is going to take a while to be fulfilled.

[junglist.massive]

if they will work on their PR they can become huge

[junglist.massive]

and they've got best design on btc market right now

[xauberer]

according to that:

http://youtu.be/9O9fFBIoeXM

they have the product ready, including a working app for android.


by delaying the deliveries, they did a big favor to everyone who have just found out the bitcoin, thanks to recent newsflash in the RT and numerous other mass media sources.

if their entry level ASICs were flooding the market by now, you wouldn't be able to earn with your bought-for-plenty-of-other-reasons Radeon a 0.1 BTC minimum to make a cash out from your favourite mining pool.

as of today - it is still possible and doesn't take forever.

without it - it would be very hard for many people (me too) to even consider bothering with bitcoins and bitcoin mining at all. I do gfx for living, so investing in a good gfx card is a zero-risk venture for me, because I will use it anyway.

as for a suspiciously looking "black-boxes" or even more suspiciously looking home-made electronic boards, they are everything what good you can say about them - but definitely they look like a high risk to take for newbies in a totally new environment.

I was talking to many of my old, trusted friends, and currently only I am taking the risk to go further into this area. probably only because I managed to get through the first steps, taking smaller risks one at a time.

it is all about building trust, step by step, not just to BFL but to bitcoin in general.

[freakying99]

hopefully BFL will start producing the units in much faster rate

[tinus42]

hopefully BFL will start producing the units in much faster rate

Once they have the design right they should be able to find a manufacturer in the Far East that churns who can churn out hundreds or thousands of units per day. If they build them themselves with a small team it would take ages.

[BitCoinzRUS]

I found a better place to put your money. 64 G/H per second anamurminer. Get yours now for only $13,500.

The best thing is it's ready for instant delivery! Which means you make tons of money without the wait!


It's not a scam as we all know it is tremendously difficult to design a black box and then make unsubstantiated claims about it. It is also extremely difficult to fabricate black screens with text on them.

http://anamurminers.com/asic-miner

[FloridaBear]

We will just have to wait and see. Me I just ordered one of those jalapeños so its not like I stand to lose thousands.

You just won't make any money by the time you get it. There is still a huge backlog.

I calculate B/E date for a Jallly at sometime in September (diff=~60M). Before that, you're ok; after that, money-loser. This is pretty much true of EVERY BFL device since they are all pretty close in terms of GH/$. After that, the current generation of BFL ASICs have negative ROI at current pricing (in order to keep selling them after that, it would be wise for BFL to drop prices every couple weeks to match increases in difficulty). Honestly, I think 18% is conservative, as we will likely see a whole lot of TH come only in July-August timeframe. We may have a few increases under 18% prior to that, but once the raw chips are shipping, there will be LOT of hashing coming online. The last two increases have been 28% and 24%. At a 25% average, 60M difficulty arrives in August, and we're at 90M by early September.

So if difficulty is approaching 50M and you have no BFL device yet (new improved pricing), my recommendation is to cancel.

Assumptions: 18% increases ~every 12 days or so; BTC=$100 (constant); devices use ~6 W/GH, $0.11/KWh.

[Inaba]

Sorry Floridabear, your math is off.  At $0.15 kw/h power cost, a Single is still profitable to a worthwhile degree even at 900 million difficulty.  It's going to be a bit of time before we see 900 million difficulty, from 19 million now.

[aboron]

I came in late to the BFL party - only ordering in March - so I got to read up quite a lot of whining in advance.  It has been a daily source of entertainment for me watching all the complaining flying around. 

I'm looking forward to setting up my BFL rig in a corner attached to my always on pc at work and forgetting about it - just look at the wallet every few weeks and smile.

[MooC Tals]

What is now the truth ?
Are they scammers or not ?

bad communicators ... yes
poor project managers ... probably

but scammers ... no ... they are delivering, so can't say they are scammers

Lets say you sell Tommy Hilfiger t-shirts and they're in style but your out and a sales man walks in and gives you a sweet deal 1,000,000 t-shirts for 5 bucks each. In your mind your thinking "shit I'll make a killing on these if I sell them for 35 bucks each" In the retail stores they're about 90 dollars.

So you wait and a month goes buy and you decide to call the sales man. He says he's working hard on getting the shirts made and the products are back logged and it will take another month at the most but he's pretty sure he will have it sooner but just to be sure he does not want to give you a firm ship date.

6 months goes by and you are seeing the fad slowly dieing but thats ok you can still sell them for 20 dollars each. Now keep in mind you are not the only purchaser and they're are 500,000 others that have pre-paid for 1,000,000 t-shirts and are waiting.

3 more months go by and some ask for their refunds and get it, while others still think they can turn a profit and believe that the sales man will deliver these shirts.

Now in retail stores they are still selling these shirts for 45 dollars and people are still buying them. They used to be 75 dollars a month ago and now they seem to be a great deal.

As more refund requests pour in the manufacturer advertises the price of the 1,000,000 pre-orders have gone to 10 dollars. So now some of those that are waiting for the t-shirts are wondering if they cancel now ordering them later when they have them available will be bad for their profit so they hang in there. After all they got in early and for 5 bucks.  

However now the fad is slowly dieing and the manufacturer starts to sell the t-shirts directly to the public for 20 dollars and every dam person out there has a Tommy Hilfiger shirt.

The manufacturer knows that soon the fad will be over and they used the pre-order money to build the facility to create the t-shirts and need to make the money before the fad runs out. So now they really start pumping out t-shirts and ship some out to show the other pre-orders that its not a scam but they're very slow at it and the back log seems hopeless.

The manufacturer is now sitting on huge sums of money from selling directly to the public for 20 dollars and start pumping out pre-orders but not the 5 dollar ones first. They start pumping out the later 10 dollar pre-orders first.

Now everyone has a t-shirt and the fad is over so everyone who asks for their refund gets it back. The ones that held on gets 5 dollar t-shirt or can request for his refund and no one breaks the law. Its all legal.

Is that a scam?


 

[John122]

BFL isn't a scam, they just made a few mistakes that cost them a LOT of time...

[Amph]

Sorry Floridabear, your math is off.  At $0.15 kw/h power cost, a Single is still profitable to a worthwhile degree even at 900 million difficulty.  It's going to be a bit of time before we see 900 million difficulty, from 19 million now.

profitable it mean, that it will make roi x2 at least, x 3 if you want to race with the difficulty, so you can buy the next device

[Alexander The Great]

Butterflylabs is and has been a scam. No one listened to me 3 months ago...

[msk]

Butterflylabs is and has been a scam. No one listened to me 3 months ago...

....says the guy that doesn't have a jalapeno because he didn't order...

[xyzpdq]

Can anyone confirm they have received an ASIC from BFL?  Pictures mining would be nice.

[Inaba]

Butterflylabs is and has been a scam. No one listened to me 3 months ago...

That's because then, just as now, you have no idea what you're talking about.  Why do you think people would listen to someone who is a nutcase?

[nosurrender]

Sorry Floridabear, your math is off.  At $0.15 kw/h power cost, a Single is still profitable to a worthwhile degree even at 900 million difficulty.  It's going to be a bit of time before we see 900 million difficulty, from 19 million now.

It´s understandable you don't want your devices called unprofitable. But - no offense - your post didn´t contain any math at all.

You´re using US-Dollar (power cost) as the base of your argument. You could do that. But what exchange rate Bitcoin - Dollar did you assume to come to your conclusion? Todays 100? Last weeks 120? Last months 150? Or the 13 half a year ago? Your reasoning makes no sense without that.

Or your basing your argument on Bitcoin. Thats of course only valid for those who bought your device with Bitcoins that haven´t been exchanged for FIAT. And even then, at least power costs have to be paid in Dollars - so you have to calculate break-even based on BFL price and power in FIAT. You see? Same same.

That said - and with all the love in der world - maybe you should not argue break even or profitability of BFL devices seeing the difficulty going up immensely since months without a chance for your customers to participate in time.