Maybe everyone here will learn a lesson about pre-orders

[rchapoteau]

I disagree.

ASIC preorders are high risk but they are also high reward.

Take for example Avalon's first batch, which is expected to ship 300 66Gh/s units.  This will double the network hashrate.  A single $1300 unit will return $2200 in a month ($1460 if ASICMINER brings another 20 TH/s online).  This is a ridiculous return on investment that is more in line with investing in a startup than purchasing a consumer product.

I placed early preorders with all three vendors.  I did this with the assumption that my payment would be used to fund development.  I also assumed that I risked losing my money to scams or simply a failure to deliver due to technical issues.  When I ordered the upgrade to my FPGA minirig, I factored in a 10-20% chance that BFL was pulling a long con into my calculations.  The potential benefits of receiving the first batch of 1TH/s miners out-weighed this risk.  If there was no risk, why wouldn't the ASIC companies just mine themselves until it was only marginally profitable, and then sell units to the general public?

There are two optimal points in time to buy ASICs:
1) First in line (high risk, potential for high reward)
2) After the product has shipped (low risk, low but more deterministic reward)

Everything in between is only slightly less risk than being first in line, with significantly less reward.  Should you preorder an ASIC now? Probably not... why not wait until someone delivers instead of handing over your coins to get in the back of a huge lines?  However, I believe that early ASIC orders, while speculative, had a positive expected value.

With regards to customers who placed orders with BTC, it is unfortunate for them that BTC has more than doubled, but no one could have predicted that.  The exchange rate could of moved in the other direction.  There were many opportunities to hedge this risk.

(I just requested a refund from bASIC)

THIS!

Hopefully 5 years from now bitcoins will still be around and traded, and people will just look back on all of this pre-order bs as a blip on a radar.  Some people will have made a nice profit by investing early and others will wish they did.  It will probably make an interesting book for someone to write in the future.

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[meebs]

Essentially these pre-orders were just like how kickstarter works.... essentially you are not buying a product but giving the company money in hopes that they will come out with a product eventually..

still not the best idea...

[Bogart]

I saw the writing on the wall and knew this shit was going to get ugly. I was supposed to actually help Tom put the units together. We had phone calls and numerous communications. Then the communication got slower and the delays started. Something didn't smell right.

I'm kind of embarrassed that I waited as long as I did to request a refund.  I feel like I just *barely* made it out unscathed (aside from missing out on ~20% gain in BTC value).

In retrospect, the hosting plan announcement should have been enough evidence for me to decide to get out.  It said 3 words about the product, and the rest was diversion.

There were many small signs before that too.

FWIW, the hosting thing is my brainchild and was not meant as a diversion.  I just thought we were close enough to a ship date that it could be announced.  Tom actually announced it ahead of me - there were still details left to be worked out. 

I still see it as a good potential business and may yet offer it as a service - that is if my credibility isn't totally shot with this crowd 

That makes sense.  I'm more talking about the way the announcement itself was written, to avoid any attention on the product, and misdirect attention onto the hosting service, with bold ALL CAPS proclamations that it as THE REAL DEAL, and such.

It may still be a viable service (though it's not for me).  Unfortunately, if you do it, I think you'll be hosting something other than bASICs, since I don't think that bASIC will ever come to exist now.

[crazyates]

private venture capital = Bitcoin community.

Ummm no? The announcement was posted before they started taking pre-orders, so that cant' be right. Try again.

[DoomDumas]

Is this all just talks, or there is some real news about any of the 3 main asic company that announced they will never ship ?
I think unless any official talk about not shipping anything at all, the gamble does continue !
By the way, I still keep my funds to see if BFL or Avalon will ship..
If I remember correctly, Avalon are supposed to ship soon !  Still interesting to follow those, even if there is almost no new info scince almost a month !

Hope some of you can point me to some facts, links, news infos I've missed

EDIT : I've found this : https://www.btcfpga.com/forum/index.php?topic=1041.msg3093
bAsic = seems to go out of business, this has'nt been a fact yet, but heading to !

[mezzomix]

Is this all just talks, or there is some real news about any of the 3 main asic company that announced they will never ship ?

Did you see an official post from Trendon that he will never pay back his 'investors'?

I bet you will never see an official statement from one of the 'ASIC vendors'. The pattern is shift release date, execuses, silence. If communication enters the last stage, you know the game is over. There will be no official 'game over' announcement.

[PuertoLibre]

private venture capital = Bitcoin community.

Ummm no? The announcement was posted before they started taking pre-orders, so that cant' be right. Try again.

You don't have anything but someones word that they actually had any VC.

Now I am not posting that as anything more than a joke. But that is what it comes down to.

[DoomDumas]

Is this all just talks, or there is some real news about any of the 3 main asic company that announced they will never ship ?

Did you see an official post from Trendon that he will never pay back his 'investors'?

I bet you will never see an official statement from one of the 'ASIC vendors'. The pattern is shift release date, execuses, silence. If communication enters the last stage, you know the game is over. There will be no official 'game over' announcement.

Good point !

So I can presume there is 2 player left on the ASIC scene !

[mezzomix]

2 until the next one bails out! Carefully read the communication and guess who will be next.

[mmortal03]

Essentially these pre-orders were just like how kickstarter works.... essentially you are not buying a product but giving the company money in hopes that they will come out with a product eventually..

still not the best idea...

Kickstarter doesn't charge your credit card until the required amount of money is reached, so it isn't exactly the same. I'm not aware of what happens when a Kickstarter project doesn't produce after that happens, though.

[YipYip]

This is a unique time in Bitcoin's history. I don't imagine this will be repeated again. I think you lack perspective in not realizing that these products would have not been created without the pre-orders. It simply was not possible. In the future you would be a fool to preorder. Most understand that this process was a gamble. Some will win and some will lose.

Bullshit. BFL and other vendors could have gotten private venture capital. Instead they preyed upon the overeager bitcoin nerds who could not see beyond the insanely high hash rate estimates for the different "ASIC" products listed.

+1

Agreed

[YipYip]

private venture capital = Bitcoin community.

'

Everything from BFLso far has proven to be lies & twisted truths

[YipYip]

I saw the writing on the wall and knew this shit was going to get ugly. I was supposed to actually help Tom put the units together. We had phone calls and numerous communications. Then the communication got slower and the delays started. Something didn't smell right.

I'm kind of embarrassed that I waited as long as I did to request a refund.  I feel like I just *barely* made it out unscathed (aside from missing out on ~20% gain in BTC value).

In retrospect, the hosting plan announcement should have been enough evidence for me to decide to get out.  It said 3 words about the product, and the rest was diversion.

There were many small signs before that too.

FWIW, the hosting thing is my brainchild and was not meant as a diversion.  I just thought we were close enough to a ship date that it could be announced.  Tom actually announced it ahead of me - there were still details left to be worked out. 

I still see it as a good potential business and may yet offer it as a service - that is if my credibility isn't totally shot with this crowd 

What can i say ..except "where my fucking money arsehole"

Does that explain where i feel u should be in the scheme of things..

[YipYip]

Essentially these pre-orders were just like how kickstarter works.... essentially you are not buying a product but giving the company money in hopes that they will come out with a product eventually..

still not the best idea...

Kickstarters dont take 2k-5k-30k in USD

[YipYip]

private venture capital = Bitcoin community.

Ummm no? The announcement was posted before they started taking pre-orders, so that cant' be right. Try again.

Con rule number 1

"Make sure it is exhibited that in no way do u need or really want the money "

..its the same as if they started the statement "This is not a scam " so it must not be

BFL are what BFL are ...a convicted con artist Sales machine using other peoples money to try and do something to make more money

The end

[jago25_98]

If you view getting a ASIC via preorder only as an investment then it's a crappy bet. You almost double the money in a month but the certainty that you'll get to do that before others is low. You could be lucky. It's similar to the early investing when Bitcoin was young.

However, if you want a piece of hardware you can run for another reason (getting involved? a decentralised method rather than exchange, bitcoin commitment tattoo) then it's maybe it's worth it.