Bitcoin will be at CES2013 (Official Thread)

[nelisky]

I went to a restaurant and paid with my visa card, I got food poisoning... just reported visa to the appropriate health inspection authorities!

lol

[MooC Tals]

Micon, you won't bet more than 10 BTC against BFL.  You were offered a 250, 500 and even a 1000 BTC bet by someone earlier, though I can't recall who.  Why did you not take them up on that?  If you're so sure you're correct, it would be easy money for you.  You're a gambler and a self admitted "Pro poker player" (This is laughable, but whatever) - so gambling a mere 1000 BTC is not an issue for you morally.  It's a sure thing, given your statements... so why not do it?  Or is it because you're just full of shit?  

I will dig up the name of whomever was willing to bet you 1000 BTC if you'll take the bet.  So, Mr. Pro Poker Player, put up or shut up.  

PS - That could have been a picture you took yourself with your the phone you're so proud of owning if you had not acted like an idiot at our booth.  Like I said, we had nothing to hide even though you so desperately wanted us to.

So what's it going to be?  Are you going to pony up and put up 1000 BTC to show you are not full of shit or are you going to hem and haw and come up with excuses why you won't bet on a sure thing, according to you?

Speakin of bets did you indulge in the yes side? I wonder how much you would put to back your company?

One without guilt cast the first stone.

[the_thing]

Micon, you won't bet more than 10 BTC against BFL.  You were offered a 250, 500 and even a 1000 BTC bet by someone earlier, though I can't recall who.  Why did you not take them up on that?  If you're so sure you're correct, it would be easy money for you.  You're a gambler and a self admitted "Pro poker player" (This is laughable, but whatever) - so gambling a mere 1000 BTC is not an issue for you morally.  It's a sure thing, given your statements... so why not do it?  Or is it because you're just full of shit? 

I will dig up the name of whomever was willing to bet you 1000 BTC if you'll take the bet.  So, Mr. Pro Poker Player, put up or shut up. 

PS - That could have been a picture you took yourself with your the phone you're so proud of owning if you had not acted like an idiot at our booth.  Like I said, we had nothing to hide even though you so desperately wanted us to.

So what's it going to be?  Are you going to pony up and put up 1000 BTC to show you are not full of shit or are you going to hem and haw and come up with excuses why you won't bet on a sure thing, according to you?

I remember MNV offering a similar bet about Pirate not being a scammer. When he lost, he just didn't pay people their winnings and created a new account instead. Betting against a scammer is simply stupid. Because if the scammer is exposed he doesn't have a reason to pay as he has already lost his reputation. You're just creating a smoke screen in an attempt to conceal your scam. First you attacked everyone who claimed that the ASIC you had presented was just a box of fans, even though you later admitted it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZUPniBo5UQ#t=04m30s
(David Perry: Now this is just a case, you don't actually have ASICs ready.
You: Right.. we're eagerly awaiting them as everybody else I'm sure)
When lucif posted a photo that proves it, you're acting like everything's ok.

As for FUD, I hate how it became a buzzword that's used everytime someone expresses a doubt. BFL is suspicious and it repeatedly failed to fulfill its commitments. You can't deny it. I think a little FUD is more than appropriate.

[MPOE-PR]

Ahaha that's a great book!

the most ironic thing of all is that lucif is a subscriber to my newsletter since October 2012 and has prepaid all the way thru March 2013.  he refuses to take a refund although i have begged him to do so several times both privately and publicly.  

the earliest i can discern that he's been short is October 2012.  that's a long way down from here...

Wait, you were advising people to short in October? Or?

[ElectricMucus]

Actually while bitpay is innocent in regards to what BFL is doing they are involved enough to say that they matter:

The BFL preorders were their largest chunk of transactions conducted through them. That alone isn't problematic but what would make it problematic is if they had inside information on the status and structure of BFL.
If they would have had reasons to think that BFL is out to scam people more than is publicly known they would indeed be guilty of collaborating.

I doubt it, but just to get things straight... in the world of BTC anything is possible when it comes to (possible) scams.

[cypherdoc]

Ahaha that's a great book!

the most ironic thing of all is that lucif is a subscriber to my newsletter since October 2012 and has prepaid all the way thru March 2013.  he refuses to take a refund although i have begged him to do so several times both privately and publicly.  

the earliest i can discern that he's been short is October 2012.  that's a long way down from here...

Wait, you were advising people to short in October? Or?

no, i was advising ppl to BUY.

[Micon]

Micon, you won't bet more than 10 BTC against BFL.  You were offered a 250, 500 and even a 1000 BTC bet by someone earlier, though I can't recall who.  Why did you not take them up on that?  If you're so sure you're correct, it would be easy money for you.  You're a gambler and a self admitted "Pro poker player" (This is laughable, but whatever) - so gambling a mere 1000 BTC is not an issue for you morally.  It's a sure thing, given your statements... so why not do it?  Or is it because you're just full of shit? 

I will dig up the name of whomever was willing to bet you 1000 BTC if you'll take the bet.  So, Mr. Pro Poker Player, put up or shut up. 

PS - That could have been a picture you took yourself with your the phone you're so proud of owning if you had not acted like an idiot at our booth.  Like I said, we had nothing to hide even though you so desperately wanted us to.

So what's it going to be?  Are you going to pony up and put up 1000 BTC to show you are not full of shit or are you going to hem and haw and come up with excuses why you won't bet on a sure thing, according to you?

Hi Josh Zerlan.  Since you are using deflection to not answer the question of "when will BFL ship ASICs" and "What equipment did you bring to CES" and "How much $ have you collected in preorders" I will simply re-deflect and link to this video of you cursing at me at CES 2013 when I asked you to show me your hardware, cued to when you were extremely rude to me:

http://youtu.be/UlWrmIqGs3Y?t=2m36s

you are the director of a company owing the BTC community many, many $30k devices you already have collected much, much money in pre-orders for that you originally said you would ship in 9/2012 but can't seem to produce.  You are in the middle of getting destroyed across all discussions of this encounter.  Maybe you didn't realize I was the guy that made a big deal when I thought BCST was a scam:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3243200/bitcoin-ponzi-schemes-savings-and-trust

Maybe you didn't realize that I have so much determination when it comes to ridding the BTC world of scum like Josh Zerlan & Butterfly Labs.  Such arrogance in the face of owing the community such a large amount of hardware is disgusting to me.

[SysRun]

Make your case Micon. Do you expect your conspiracy theory to have legs or just blowing off steam?

[elux]

Today, someone wrote something that deserves repeating here.
As an editiorial note, I added line breaks and underlines for clarity.

Thus spoke Inaba:

Seems to me, if you had a working test product, you'd have shown it by now, but maybe not.  Seems silly, though...
if you wanted to be the first, you would show your working prototype, that would qualify you as first at this point.  

What possible reason could you have for not showing a working unit 6 days before you are scheduled to ship?  

I don't care.  You are here, in the BFL thread trolling and you won't even demo a working product 5 days before you are shipping.

Seems like a crazy way go about things, but whatever man.

Like I said, if you're delayed, your project is dead and I believe you know this.  

I hope you aren't rushing things just to be first and shipping a brick in a box that fails to perform or breaks in a month.

I'm not a religious man, but my very first thought was:

...Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_and_the_Beam

[Micon]

Make your case Micon. Do you expect your conspiracy theory to have legs or just blowing off steam?

1)  a semi-serious answer to this question, which I feel is appropriate given Josh's childish nature of responses & repeated personal attacks on myself and my daughter:





2)  but seriously, please ask me exactly what you want to know about anything on my part.  I will answer you as honestly and completely as possible.  If your question is "Micon, how can you convict BFL right now?  Show me proof"  Then I cannot prove.  I can only tell you IMO what I believe, what I think of the men involved with that company, what body language they gave off and such scammer-like responses and deflection in their arguments.   If Josh Zerlan told you that he had a shipping container of ASICs that 100% work and will be here on 2/5/2013 it would be really hard for me to give you concrete proof that is not the case, but I would wager large amounts of coin that Josh Zerlan & BFL is not close to shipping ASIC chips.

3)  Josh Zerlan - since you are so interested in wagering, take the first coin of many I will bet against your scam:  http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1141

[smoothie]

Today, someone wrote something that deserves repeating here.
As an editiorial note, I added line breaks and underlines for clarity.

Thus spoke Inaba:

Seems to me, if you had a working test product, you'd have shown it by now, but maybe not.  Seems silly, though...
if you wanted to be the first, you would show your working prototype, that would qualify you as first at this point.  

What possible reason could you have for not showing a working unit 6 days before you are scheduled to ship?  

I don't care.  You are here, in the BFL thread trolling and you won't even demo a working product 5 days before you are shipping.

Seems like a crazy way go about things, but whatever man.

Like I said, if you're delayed, your project is dead and I believe you know this.  

I hope you aren't rushing things just to be first and shipping a brick in a box that fails to perform or breaks in a month.

I'm not a religious man, but my very first thought was:

...Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_and_the_Beam

+1 Nice catch. So funny because those questions he is asking are the same questions that when asked of BFL are the same answer as AVALON. No different.

[SysRun]

Trying to see through the malarkey, I hear you.

First question for you, Micon. Can you elaborate on your interaction with Dave on the first day you went to CES? There is some contention on what actually happened. Stomping around exclaiming "Its just a box with fans!" and dropping the F bomb is something you're purported to have done.

Also, the fake badge thing, well it makes you look less credible tbh... Not that you had it, but that you got caught...

But anyway, if you could just address the accusation about your behavior on the first day you visited CES.

I watched the video you put up and my concern is you are offended by your interaction and looking for a fight at any cost so that you feel you've gotten revenge.

[Micon]

Trying to see through the malarkey, I hear you.

First question for you, Micon. Can you elaborate on your interaction with Dave on the first day you went to CES? There is some contention on what actually happened. Stomping around exclaiming "Its just a box with fans!" and dropping the F bomb is something you're purported to have done.

Also, the fake badge thing, well it makes you look less credible tbh... Not that you had it, but that you got caught...

But anyway, if you could just address the accusation about your behavior on the first day you visited CES.

I watched the video you put up and my concern is you are offended by your interaction and looking for a fight at any cost so that you feel you've gotten revenge.

SysRun thanks for your questions.  I did not explain day 1 properly, and really wasn't planning on any of this happening, wasn't planning to make a scene or even come back the next day, but b/c of what happened on day 1 I felt compelled to post here and go back to get the full story the next day.  I told this story to some private skype conversations about BTC I am involved in, but never on these boards, and I should tell my side because Josh is very good at marketing, and instead of working on what must be massive supply chain issues for his company he does 24/7 damage control.

This is to the best I can remember.  I wasn't recording anything day 1, wasn't planning on anything but sneaking into CES to shake some BTC hands as I always do when BTC companies buy booths in Vegas for conventions.

1)  About "sneaking in" to CES:  I always "sneak in" to all conventions I want to go to here in Vegas.  I wear my WSOP media badge from a few years ago and just walk in like a boss.  Sure I could call whatever bitcoin-facing booth is there and have them give me a badge for the ~30 minutes I'll be there.  As will all conferences, the booth buyers usually need to pay extra for another badge, or at the very least pull a "hey let me use your badge and then I walk out with 2 badges and give one to you"   - I "sneak in" because it is +EV for everyone involved.  Next time, if ever, BFL comes to the conference I will acquire a legitimate badge as it was clear they called security to have me removed.  

2)  About the "stomping and cussing" on day 1 that Josh keeps referring to.  First off, Josh was not there day 1.  Only Dave was in the booth representing BFL.  I imagine Josh was off doing Yoga or other form of meditation & self-reflection.  We will get to that in a second.  Let's start at the beginning:

3)  Whenever a bitcoin booth at any conference comes to Vegas, I go to say hi, shake a hand, say "hey, I'm Micon.  I help Freemoney run SealsWithClubs, the market leading bitcoin online poker site."  And just see who is there and what they want to talk about, trade bitcoin ideas for ~20-30 minutes then be on my way.  I have done this many times and met a bunch of BTC industry leaders.  Erik Voorhees I met this way and he is an amazingly awesome human, and Charlie Shrem I met I think at the same Money2020 conference maybe 6 months ago or so at Aria, and I had Charlie on my donkdown podcast for an awesome interview about the bitinstant operation based in New York.  I was skeptical about parts of bitinstant and bitpay at the start, but when I asked the company directors of those organizations I was met with clear answers and follow up interviews.

4) Ok so I was on the same grind on day 1 CES - just go and meet the boys again, shake some hands, congratulate bitpay on the round of funding, etc.  My daughter was born ~ 2 weeks ago but I made time before picking my parents up at the airport to stop by CES to do this because I feel it is very important, + I'm a huge nerd and CES is nerd porn.  Right after the nerd porn convention they have a real porn convention here but that's not the point of this story.  When I found the Bitpay booth,  I didn't realize they would be sharing a booth with BFL, in fact I was very excited to see BFL equipment on display and I planned on asking some extremely nerdy questions about how the hardware will solve the proof-of-work problem much, much faster than current equipment.  I also wanted to understand the metrics of what ASIC will do to the network hash rate, as I understand mining conceptually but not technically.

5) Dave immediately engaged me when I walked near the BFL equipment.  I congratulated him on selling a large amount of pre-orders.  he said in a smug way "yeah... we've done very well"  To a studied poker professional such as myself, his body language gave me the impression that this man felt by collecting the pre-order monies he has already done well.   If I were in his shoes, the first thing I would have said was "We have a huge responsibility to get these things shipped ASAP.  The community has handed us a large amount of money"   I would feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders to make good on the massively distributed promise of sending these machines.  Dave felt like a winner, IMO.

6)  I asked very plainly "is this your ASICs" or something to that effect.  This is when it got predatory.  He showed me the box of fans + 1 android tablet and said that is where ASIC chips will eventually go, and the android device will be the output screen to show you how fast it's mining and other stats.  I asked what the cube connected to a second android sitting on top of the fan-box was, and Dave said it's an FPGA miner that BFL used to sell, but it wasn't currently mining and you can't buy it from BFL anymore.  I asked Dave what items were available for purchase right now from BFL that they could ship immediately, he said there were none.  I then asked when they would ship ASICs, he said "in a couple of weeks," and showed me 3 cases that ASIC chips would come inside.

7)  After it was clear I was no longer a friendly and was asking some tough questions, he hit me with a classic scammer line something to the effect of "if you don't believe in BFL, then you don't believe in bitcoin."  This is where the "stomping and profanity" as Josh put it came in.  Please don't take Josh's or My word for it - Ask the bitpay guys about this next part - I give a very intelligent response to Dave, certainly using profanity for emphasis (but not in the personally derogatory way that Josh Zerlan does to me here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m43s ) more like "I believe so much in bitcoin that I wear this fucking button (point to bitcoin button I always wear when leaving the house for any reason) each day, and help run the market leading bitcoin online poker site, dedicating most of my awake time to the betterment of this technology."  Ask the bitpay guys.  I was certainly pissed off, and this guy used a classic scammer line on me and IMO it required a forceful response so Dave understands that I'm a real guy with real BTC credentials, and his line is bullshit and +1's in my head that he and his company are dishonest.

 After my response, emotions briefly settled, and I asked him when filled with ASICs how fast this machine would hash at.  He said something like 1+ T-hashes per second.  I.e. 1000 ghashes/s , would produce in terms of Dave did not know network hashrate.  I told him it wasn't a test, just tell me about how many T-hashes/s the network hash rate was.  Dave said he still didn't know, so I quickly looked it up on my Galaxy Note II by Samsung running Android Jellybean OS by removing the S-pen and quickly speaking into google "total bitcoin network hashrate"   This site came up: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/  and to me it looks like the current total bitcoin network hashrate is around 20-25 Thash/s - which means that if Dave was right, just one of these boxes could have ~ 6% of total current network hashing power.   I was surprised he had never run the math before...

9) so after this, I post the pic I took and illustrated that BFL did not bring anything worthwhile to CES.  I posted on bitcointalk that I'd be back tomorrow to film closely and ask the tough questions.  Obviously we all saw Josh Zerlan's response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWrmIqGs3Y&feature=youtu.be&t=2m43s


If there is anything that needs clarification please ask.  I am 100% transparent.  I further state that it is possible I have made a small chronological or grammatical error of some sort.  I feel I captured the general feel of the day 1 CES experience as it relates to BFL.

[SysRun]

That helps us piece together the events. Thanks.

If I haven't said it before, congrats on becoming a father. I hope all is well on that front.

I've never interacted with Dave from BFL, so I can't speak to how competent he is.

It sounds like Dave relayed the story to Josh and may have missed your intentions for being there.

My suggestion is to let tempers cool a bit and have Josh on your podcast sometime AFTER BFL ships.

It would, of course, be more entertaining to cointinue the drama, but some of us are more interested in facts. Now back to your regularly scheduled trolling.

[Uglux]

blablabla... I was certainly pissed off, and this guy used a classic scammer line on me and IMO it required a forceful response so Dave understands that I'm a real guy with real BTC credentials, and his line is bullshit and +1's in my head that he and his company are dishonest. ... blabla

Micon can teach his daughter a lesson about honesty in some years ... "Sneaking" into a convention.

[CharlieContent]

Josh from BFL is such an ugly fucker. IT people in general aren't much to look at, but he has a truly awful face.

[mrb]

I don't remember these 4 events causing a decrease of Bitcoin's price.

Then your memory isn't very good. See here re Pirate. MtGox hack destroyed bitcoin for three quarters, it went from 30 to .01 and the recovery is not complete to this day. Etc.

You are wrong about MtGox. I reported on the hack: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=55 The price never went down to .01 as these were bogus trades that were later reversed. And you failed to read my explanation of the bubble popping:

The reason of the price decrease between Jun and Dec 2011 was an popping of the valuation bubble, not the MtGox hack. In fact, BTC had already lost half of its peak value ($30 down to $15) before the hack had even occurred. I would even argue that the hack helped slow down the rate at which BTC was loosing value: MtGox suspended trading for a full week, allowing traders to cool down, and its rate managed to stay above $15 for a full 2+ weeks after trading was re-opened, a period during which anybody who wanted out presumably sold. It then progressively decreased over the next few months, but it was obviously a continuation of the popping of the valuation bubble.

Besides, why would the hack affect the price multiple months later? Some investor waking up in December after a 6-month coma, telling himself, "damn MtGox was hacked in June, I should sell now!" This makes no sense. If anything, the hack should have affected the price in the days (not months) following the re-opening of the market, but it did not.

[mrb]

the red circle shows the fall of the price after Pirate's operation shut down.
the blue circle shows the fall after glbse getting closed.

I remember the day of the event of the red circle: this was pirate placing a handful of very large sell orders (he was announcing them on IRC minutes before doing it). But as the graph shows, the market recovered very quickly after this day. So, again, I fail to see any evidence that pirate caused Bitcoin to lose its value on the long term. On the contrary, people were buying BTC to invest in pirate, causing the price to slightly increase for multiple months, until BTCST defaulted.

As to the blue circle, it is not evident that this was caused by glbse. It just seems to be regular volatility. Even if glbse was the cause, this was not a significant event.

[the_thing]

I don't remember these 4 events causing a decrease of Bitcoin's price.

I remember the day of the event of the red circle: this was pirate placing a handful of very large sell orders (he was announcing them on IRC minutes before doing it). But as the graph shows, the market recovered very quickly after this day.

So you basically contradict yourself.
>Pirate didn't cause a decrease of Bitcoin's price
>Pirate caused a decrease of Bitcoin's price, but it recovered quickly

[Micon]

That helps us piece together the events. Thanks.

If I haven't said it before, congrats on becoming a father. I hope all is well on that front.

I've never interacted with Dave from BFL, so I can't speak to how competent he is.

It sounds like Dave relayed the story to Josh and may have missed your intentions for being there.

My suggestion is to let tempers cool a bit and have Josh on your podcast sometime AFTER BFL ships.

It would, of course, be more entertaining to cointinue the drama, but some of us are more interested in facts. Now back to your regularly scheduled trolling.

TYVM about my little girl - she changed my life instantly.  I'm not very emotional in general, and cried for the first 5 days whenever I would see my beautiful wife holding my beautiful daughter and realized how insanely lucky I have gotten in this world and how I should enjoy every second of these special moments.  I basically have been on auto-show any other human I come in contact with my baby pix, and I never understood why ppl did that to me when I didn't care about their baby, but I totally get it now.   Her name is Anna Micon and I call her the annamicon (ah-nah-mah-con) & she is a singularity & she will continue the crypto-activist revolution born from this currency.  All the nerds will follow the hot & smart female crypto-anarchist or crypto-activist whichever she prefers.

BFL Josh Zerlan or anyone else from Butterfly labs is welcome on my podcast any time they wish.  It usually runs Wed. 7pm live, then podcasted later, but i'll make time day or night to have this debate.  No editing of any sort and if BFL is concerned we can do exactly equal time to speak.  Others can record and upload to make sure no edits or funny business.  I highly doubt a company like BFL, which I can poke endless holes through their business by asking the tough questions, would ever agree to this.  Offer on the table for literally any time, day or night, starting now.