280 BTC total bets between Micon and mrb (are BFL ASICs real?)

[mrb]

As of Jan 28, we have bet 80 BTC (40 each), sent to the escrow address calculated by casascius' cryptographic escrow app (casascius himself is the escrow). Terms of the bet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135914.msg1460806#msg1460806  Escrow address: 1Btxe5E8E4jCWfDhQMr683sVYnLgNLbA9z

As of Apr 16, we made a second bet of 200 BTC (100 each), sent to the escrow address (dooglus is the escrow). Terms of the bet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135914.msg1861384#msg1861384  Escrow address: 1Dtf7TrZrQr7QooVGoKfd99rxHNoikQ3EH

As of May 5, so far, here are the potential datapoints that could determine the bet winners:

User	Mhash/Joule	Proof
enmaku	191 (at the wall)	5-second average of 5720 Mhash/s while measuring 30 Watt
gigavps	188 (at the wall)	5-second average of 5650 Mhash/s at 30 Watt (not sure if he measured himself)
kano	169 (at the wall)	5400 Mhash/s while measuring 32 Watt (he visited BFL though, excluding him from one of the bet terms)
grnbrg	156 (at the wall)	2-second average of 4065 Mhash/s while measuring 26 Watt
hdsolar	n/a	5-second average of 5100 Mhash/s (unkwnown power consumption)
canton	n/a	5500 Mhash/s (unkwnown power consumption)

--oOo--

Below is the first draft, first attempt to defined a bet...

Micon and I expressed willingness to place a personal 1:1 bet between each other, identical to http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=665 , that is:

Butterfly Labs ASIC is real and will achieve 350+ Mhash/Joule

At least one ASIC-based Butterfly Labs product will demonstrate 350 Mhash/Joule  or more, at stock frequency/voltage, at room temperature, for a sustained period of time of at least 60 minutes, with appropriate current-measuring equipment on the device's power input(s). Power consumption shall be measured by adding up current from all the device's DC inputs (12V jack, USB cable, etc.) It will not be measured "at the wall". The purpose of this bet is to avoid wildly varying efficiencies of power adapters and computer hosts. This bet applies to all ASIC-based products that Butterfly Labs will deliver to the general public. This includes the "SuperComputer" family (Jalapeno, Single SC, Mini Rig SC), as well as possibly any unannounced product that the company will be shipping by June 30, 2013.

This statement is true if, for example, the Single SC achieves 40 Ghash/s at 114 Watt or less (40000/114 = 351 Mhash/Joule) as measured with a clamp meter on its 12V DC input and 5V (USB) input.

This statement is false if all Butterfly Labs products fail to achieve 350 Mhash/Joule, or if Butterfly Labs fails to deliver any product at all.

mrb: agrees with the above statement.
Micon: disagrees with the statement.

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[mrb]

Micon, check your email.

Most of my coins are in cold wallets, but I can move ~850 BTC from my hot ones to prove ownership. How about you?

[Micon]

Micon and I expressed willingness to place a personal 1:1 bet between each other, identical to http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=665 , that is:

Butterfly Labs ASIC is real and will achieve 350+ Mhash/Joule

At least one ASIC-based Butterfly Labs product will demonstrate 350 Mhash/Joule  or more, at stock frequency/voltage, at room temperature, for a sustained period of time of at least 60 minutes, with appropriate current-measuring equipment on the device's power input(s). Power consumption shall be measured by adding up current from all the device's DC inputs (12V jack, USB cable, etc.) It will not be measured "at the wall". The purpose of this bet is to avoid wildly varying efficiencies of power adapters and computer hosts. This bet applies to all ASIC-based products that Butterfly Labs will deliver to the general public. This includes the "SuperComputer" family (Jalapeno, Single SC, Mini Rig SC), as well as possibly any unannounced product that the company will be shipping by June 30, 2013.

This statement is true if, for example, the Single SC achieves 40 Ghash/s at 114 Watt or less (40000/114 = 351 Mhash/Joule) as measured with a clamp meter on its 12V DC input and 5V (USB) input.

This statement is false if all Butterfly Labs products fail to achieve 350 Mhash/Joule, or if Butterfly Labs fails to deliver any product at all.

mrb: agrees with the above statement.
Micon: disagrees with the statement.

We would each send the same amount of coins to a trusted third-party escrow. The winner takes all.

Micon:
- you said you would bet at least 10 coins. But can we raise the stakes? 100 BTC? 250 BTC? 1000 BTC?
- a list of escrows we could trust: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108716.0 - I have personally escrowed hardware sales with Graet in the past (operator of ozcoin) - I would also personally trust nanotube who escrowed a 10000 BTC bet in the past
- I suggest we tip the escrow operator with a fee of 1% (taken out of the total amount escrowed) or 1 BTC (whichever is higher)

1)  we are going to have to work on the statement we are betting on.  Something like "BFL will not ship all pre-orders by 7/1/2013" is something I'd like to bet against.

2)  I feel we are going to come to a wager for sure.  I'm willing to bet 10 btc against the above statement right now.  Escrow will still need to be found

3)  My wife just gave birth to our daughter on 12/27 so I don't have a ton of time right now, please don't take my inaction in this thread as a sign that I'm scared or don't want to bet.  I will give this as much attention as I can.  I usually have a few hrs of daddy-daughter sleeping on my shoulder time and occasionally puking on me (I really don't mind it) during this time of night when I give her mom a rest and can msg-board it up for an hr or so.  I'll check in semi-daily and we'll hammer something out soon IMO.

[BlackPrapor]

Guys, aren't you betting on BFL being a scam/not being a scam? Because if you bet on them not being able to supply an X amount of devices by the time Y, then you're just arguing if that company is performing well, or not so well. That is two completely different things. How about betting if BFL can produce at least one "fully custom ASIC chip" by the time X? No shades, just pure "scam/not scam" bet. To make even one chip, they still have had to go through the whole manufacturing process.

[SysRun]

Micon and I expressed willingness to place a personal 1:1 bet between each other, identical to http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=665 , that is:

Butterfly Labs ASIC is real and will achieve 350+ Mhash/Joule

At least one ASIC-based Butterfly Labs product will demonstrate 350 Mhash/Joule  or more, at stock frequency/voltage, at room temperature, for a sustained period of time of at least 60 minutes, with appropriate current-measuring equipment on the device's power input(s). Power consumption shall be measured by adding up current from all the device's DC inputs (12V jack, USB cable, etc.) It will not be measured "at the wall". The purpose of this bet is to avoid wildly varying efficiencies of power adapters and computer hosts. This bet applies to all ASIC-based products that Butterfly Labs will deliver to the general public. This includes the "SuperComputer" family (Jalapeno, Single SC, Mini Rig SC), as well as possibly any unannounced product that the company will be shipping by June 30, 2013.

This statement is true if, for example, the Single SC achieves 40 Ghash/s at 114 Watt or less (40000/114 = 351 Mhash/Joule) as measured with a clamp meter on its 12V DC input and 5V (USB) input.

This statement is false if all Butterfly Labs products fail to achieve 350 Mhash/Joule, or if Butterfly Labs fails to deliver any product at all.

mrb: agrees with the above statement.
Micon: disagrees with the statement.

We would each send the same amount of coins to a trusted third-party escrow. The winner takes all.

Micon:
- you said you would bet at least 10 coins. But can we raise the stakes? 100 BTC? 250 BTC? 1000 BTC?
- a list of escrows we could trust: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108716.0 - I have personally escrowed hardware sales with Graet in the past (operator of ozcoin) - I would also personally trust nanotube who escrowed a 10000 BTC bet in the past
- I suggest we tip the escrow operator with a fee of 1% (taken out of the total amount escrowed) or 1 BTC (whichever is higher)

1)  we are going to have to work on the statement we are betting on.  Something like "BFL will not ship all pre-orders by 7/1/2013" is something I'd like to bet against.

2)  I feel we are going to come to a wager for sure.  I'm willing to bet 10 btc against the above statement right now.  Escrow will still need to be found

3)  My wife just gave birth to our daughter on 12/27 so I don't have a ton of time right now, please don't take my inaction in this thread as a sign that I'm scared or don't want to bet.  I will give this as much attention as I can.  I usually have a few hrs of daddy-daughter sleeping on my shoulder time and occasionally puking on me (I really don't mind it) during this time of night when I give her mom a rest and can msg-board it up for an hr or so.  I'll check in semi-daily and we'll hammer something out soon IMO.

Micon, would you like to restate your position on BFL, because as it stands I believe you're convinced 100% that its a scam.

[mrb]

1)  we are going to have to work on the statement we are betting on.  Something like "BFL will not ship all pre-orders by 7/1/2013" is something I'd like to bet against.

2)  I feel we are going to come to a wager for sure.  I'm willing to bet 10 btc against the above statement right now.  Escrow will still need to be found

3)  My wife just gave birth to our daughter on 12/27 so I don't have a ton of time right now, please don't take my inaction in this thread as a sign that I'm scared or don't want to bet.  I will give this as much attention as I can.  I usually have a few hrs of daddy-daughter sleeping on my shoulder time and occasionally puking on me (I really don't mind it) during this time of night when I give her mom a rest and can msg-board it up for an hr or so.  I'll check in semi-daily and we'll hammer something out soon IMO.

I am not sure I can put a date on "shipping all pre-orders". I am not even sure they will do that by the end of the year(!) as I believe they will run into numerous issues trying to bring the production back from Asia to the US (they claim they want to do that). Anyway I digress... Instead, I would rather bet on something like "at least 4-5 reasonably trusted forum users will report receiving working units by 7/1/2013, and performing at X Mhash/Joule". (Mhash/Joule is equivalent to Mhash/s per Watt). We do need to add this power efficiency metric as it would be unfair for me to win the bet if BFL ships, say, "FPGAs branded as ASICs" completely missing their power estimates.

For reference:
- BFL singles do 10 Mhash/Joule
- BFL minirigs do 20 Mhash/Joule
- All FPGA mining devices do about 20-24 Mhash/Joule as they are all Spartan6-LX150 based
- ASIC vendors have estimated anything from 238 to 1000 Mhash/Joule (BFL claims 1000)

I would put the threshold for our bet at around 200 Mhash/Joule, sufficiently high to prove it is an ASIC. But I have offered 350 Mhash/Joule on betsofbitco.in, so I would go with that for the sake of being fair to you.

You claim the entire BFL ASIC operation is a scam, so my wager details proposed above would make you win, if that was the case. I can draft a document based on these details if you mostly agree with them. We will also need to define corner cases (such as who is a "reasonably trusted forum member", perhaps any forum account created before June 24, 2012, ie. before BFL announced ASICs)

[nathanrees19]

1)  we are going to have to work on the statement we are betting on.

That means that you are not certain that it is a scam.

[Transisto]

If I understand right, it is 10 trusted members claiming to have received bfl asic by June 1 2013 with reported performance 15+ times that of FPGAs.

Trusted members include people like Gigavps who have a pre-ordered early.

[kakobrekla]

Heres a wonderful opportunity for all the pre March belivers.

http://bitbet.us/bet/7/bfl-will-deliver-asic-devices-before-march-1st/

[Transisto]

Heres a wonderful opportunity for all the pre March belivers.

http://bitbet.us/bet/7/bfl-will-deliver-asic-devices-before-march-1st/

The within 10% of performance is what annoys me.

[kakobrekla]

Heres a wonderful opportunity for all the pre March belivers.

http://bitbet.us/bet/7/bfl-will-deliver-asic-devices-before-march-1st/

The within 10% of performance is what annoys me.

Well shit, they did major fuckups in the past, gotta give them some slack, you know, so the bet at least has a chance...

[Micon]

1)  we are going to have to work on the statement we are betting on.  Something like "BFL will not ship all pre-orders by 7/1/2013" is something I'd like to bet against.

2)  I feel we are going to come to a wager for sure.  I'm willing to bet 10 btc against the above statement right now.  Escrow will still need to be found

3)  My wife just gave birth to our daughter on 12/27 so I don't have a ton of time right now, please don't take my inaction in this thread as a sign that I'm scared or don't want to bet.  I will give this as much attention as I can.  I usually have a few hrs of daddy-daughter sleeping on my shoulder time and occasionally puking on me (I really don't mind it) during this time of night when I give her mom a rest and can msg-board it up for an hr or so.  I'll check in semi-daily and we'll hammer something out soon IMO.

I am not sure I can put a date on "shipping all pre-orders". I am not even sure they will do that by the end of the year(!) as I believe they will run into numerous issues trying to bring the production back from Asia to the US (they claim they want to do that). Anyway I digress... Instead, I would rather bet on something like "at least 4-5 reasonably trusted forum users will report receiving working units by 7/1/2013, and performing at X Mhash/Joule". (Mhash/Joule is equivalent to Mhash/s per Watt). We do need to add this power efficiency metric as it would be unfair for me to win the bet if BFL ships, say, "FPGAs branded as ASICs" completely missing their power estimates.

For reference:
- BFL singles do 10 Mhash/Joule
- BFL minirigs do 20 Mhash/Joule
- All FPGA mining devices do about 20-24 Mhash/Joule as they are all Spartan6-LX150 based
- ASIC vendors have estimated anything from 238 to 1000 Mhash/Joule (BFL claims 1000)

I would put the threshold for our bet at around 200 Mhash/Joule, sufficiently high to prove it is an ASIC. But I have offered 350 Mhash/Joule on betsofbitco.in, so I would go with that for the sake of being fair to you.

You claim the entire BFL ASIC operation is a scam, so my wager details proposed above would make you win, if that was the case. I can draft a document based on these details if you mostly agree with them. We will also need to define corner cases (such as who is a "reasonably trusted forum member", perhaps any forum account created before June 24, 2012, ie. before BFL announced ASICs)

mrb - thank you for taking the time to reply in detail, and for the metrics on Mhash/Joule vs. the technology type.

I am comfortable making a 10 coin bet with the following terms:

-- BFL equipment is reported to by 10+ "good standing" forum members (I do not believe determining "good standing" will be very hard, and I doubt this bet comes down to "no those were shills reporting hardware" - I think the writing will be on the wall on the date our bet settles.  Also, it may be prudent to appoint 10 confirmed members that all have publicly stated they have placed a pre-order that we can both believe are in no way connected to BFL or would shill for them)

-- 7/1/2013 as the settle date for when 10+ Forum members must have rec'd their pre-ordered BFL ASICs

-- And that BFL achieves 350+ Mhash/Joule on the devices shipped

-- proper escrow decided - I'm good with Vorhees, any1 from bitpay or bitinstant, Jon Matonis, Charlie Shrem

Watching NFL with my beautiful 2 week old daughter today, will check this thread a few times, get a 10 coin bet down at least to get things started

tytyty to mrb for being a complete gentleman going about making this wager.  This is how it feels when I interact with my close poker friends - where both sides act like gentlemen as you decide the terms of a wager.  Not this movie-conjured image of "Lets bet!  you are scared??  ok Pay up on this technicality!!"    Clear terms established at the start make for a fun wager for both the eventual winner and eventual loser - both expectations are properly managed.  The injustices you may see me fight against all involve the mis-management of another human's expectations.

[Bowjob]

Can I join on this bet? I'll add 1 BTC to Micon's side.

[mrb]

Ok, I agree to at least a 10 btc bet on these statements. But we need to clarify one of them:

-- BFL equipment is reported to by 10+ "good standing" forum members (I do not believe determining "good standing" will be very hard, and I doubt this bet comes down to "no those were shills reporting hardware" - I think the writing will be on the wall on the date our bet settles.  Also, it may be prudent to appoint 10 confirmed members that all have publicly stated they have placed a pre-order that we can both believe are in no way connected to BFL or would shill for them)

BFL equipment is reported to what? (Words are missing):
a) to have been merely received by 10+ members, with the Mhash/Joule personally confirmed by at least 1 of them
b) to have been received, and to have the Mhash/Joule personally confirmed by all of them

a) is too weak. b) is too strong. Even to this day, after almost 1 year of sales of the BFL Single FPGA, I don't believe one can find 10+ good standing forum members having personally posted their measured Mhash/Joule. Maybe only a handful did (I was one of them), yet the whole community recognizes the ~10 Mhash/Joule performance as legitimate... What about making the statement:

c) BFL equipment reported to have been received by 10+ good standing forum members, of which:
- 3 must have each personally measured the Mhash/Joule of the devices
- the other 7 may not have necessarily measured the Mhash/Joule, but must have provided reports of having received working devices that seem to validate the existence and plausibility of the devices belonging to the above 3

I too believe that it will be pretty obvious who of the two of us wins the bet. (It will not be a close call and come down to "only 9 users reported working devices, not 10, you loose!"). However, I don't think we are going to be able to round up 10 willing appointees, for the simple reason that not many care about our bet. So do we need to strongly define "good standing" members?

In the very unlikely scenario where the outcome of the bet is ambiguous or unclear (eg. either fewer or more than 10 reports are available, depending on who you consider to be a "good standing" member, and the Bitcoin community itself is somewhat divided on who of the reporters are trusted members), if you and I cannot come to an agreed outcome, I promise I will be a gentleman and offer to cancel the wager :-)

Bowjob: arrange the details with Micon directly. I want to interface with only 1 person to simplify things. I would of course match both of you at 11 btc total. In fact I would want to bet a lot more if possible.

[Tuxavant]

I'm on the first round of pre-order deliveries. I'll volunteer to report in if y'all think I'm worthy enough.

[SysRun]

I'm on the first round of pre-order deliveries. I'll volunteer to report in if y'all think I'm worthy enough.

Same here.

[BlackPrapor]

I can report too, if you want. With photos and videos etc.

[Micon]

Ok, I agree to at least a 10 btc bet on these statements. But we need to clarify one of them:

-- BFL equipment is reported to by 10+ "good standing" forum members (I do not believe determining "good standing" will be very hard, and I doubt this bet comes down to "no those were shills reporting hardware" - I think the writing will be on the wall on the date our bet settles.  Also, it may be prudent to appoint 10 confirmed members that all have publicly stated they have placed a pre-order that we can both believe are in no way connected to BFL or would shill for them)

BFL equipment is reported to what? (Words are missing):
a) to have been merely received by 10+ members, with the Mhash/Joule personally confirmed by at least 1 of them
b) to have been received, and to have the Mhash/Joule personally confirmed by all of them

a) is too weak. b) is too strong. Even to this day, after almost 1 year of sales of the BFL Single FPGA, I don't believe one can find 10+ good standing forum members having personally posted their measured Mhash/Joule. Maybe only a handful did (I was one of them), yet the whole community recognizes the ~10 Mhash/Joule performance as legitimate... What about making the statement:

c) BFL equipment reported to have been received by 10+ good standing forum members, of which:
- 3 must have each personally measured the Mhash/Joule of the devices
- the other 7 may not have necessarily measured the Mhash/Joule, but must have provided reports of having received working devices that seem to validate the existence and plausibility of the devices belonging to the above 3

I too believe that it will be pretty obvious who of the two of us wins the bet. (It will not be a close call and come down to "only 9 users reported working devices, not 10, you loose!"). However, I don't think we are going to be able to round up 10 willing appointees, for the simple reason that not many care about our bet. So do we need to strongly define "good standing" members?

In the very unlikely scenario where the outcome of the bet is ambiguous or unclear (eg. either fewer or more than 10 reports are available, depending on who you consider to be a "good standing" member, and the Bitcoin community itself is somewhat divided on who of the reporters are trusted members), if you and I cannot come to an agreed outcome, I promise I will be a gentleman and offer to cancel the wager :-)

Bowjob: arrange the details with Micon directly. I want to interface with only 1 person to simplify things. I would of course match both of you at 11 btc total. In fact I would want to bet a lot more if possible.

After reading your part C) it is clear we will have a wager soon.  I will accept your part C as the terms of "if BFL shipped" 

Let's find an escrow / I'll send 10 coins right now / then we have 1 bet and can start talking bigger. 

I appreciate the users early on pre-order that have volunteered to report.

How much BFL paying for those signatures?  don't you think it's time to stop giving them currency until they start sending ASICs?

[becoin]

This includes the "SuperComputer" family (Jalapeno, Single SC, Mini Rig SC), as well as possibly any unannounced product that the company will be shipping by June 30, 2013

What? ... June 30, 2013? For the 'upcoming' products announced on June 16, 2012? Are you nuts?

[SysRun]

Micon,

About BlackPrapor's sig... he was one of the first FPGA MiniRig orders. The FPGA lot all shipped a while back. BFL has been fairly good to some who ordered back at the beginning of 2012. BP, are you in the black yet? By my calculations you should be.

The other signatures you see are leftover from a weekly drawing on the BFL forum that has run its course. People are just being lazy about changing it to something else.

If you'd like a primer on BFL's history PM me and I'll do my best to answer your questions.