[Announcement] Avalon ASIC Batch #1 Ships

[Beepbop]

It's certainly in the Chinese interest to have Chinese citizens try and acquire as many bitcoins as possible.

If I were the Chinese government, I wouldn't be caring about the health of bitcoin as a virtual currency. I certainly wouldn't be investing in them any more than I would be buying up WoW gold for strategic reasons (LOL). My concerns would be two things:
- Tracking illegal transactions.
- Tracking advanced crypto.

I think any prudent government would want to have - or have a law enforcement relationship to a country which has - some nodes that just sit around and listen to the blockchain to see where the bitcoins are flowing. Then they could at least try to backtrace transactions related to a concrete criminal case. ("Follow ALL the moneys!" would be too resource intensive, just as for real money.)

As for the crypto, China already exports computers that are crypto capable - like say those GPUs you're already mining on, but I'd imagine that if they knew about these hashing bruteforcing machines that they've never seen before, they might need a few hours extra of checking maybe.

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[jl2012]

They have no tracking numbers because they never shipped. You always get the number the same day. Sometimes the info is not available but you get at least a number.

Actually that is not always the case, it depends on how they get the packages to DHL. In the example I quoted earlier, if you use an
HK forwarder and release the shippment from Hong Kong Port, then it's only once the packages are on the hands of DHL in HK that you can start tracking online (also depends on where you generate the paperwork before you even know the tracking number).

There are tons of things that can delay the white van driver to get to HK in the first place, customs would be one of them if the export papers are not in order.

Especially this being the first time they do such a shipment, there might be a bit of a learning curve and the pre-orders are the victim. Valuable time could get lost this way, but there is not much that can be done. I would also not start posting publicly about such a goof up, I'd try to fix things first...

I think there is a large culture difference between how US and Chinese companies handle their communications, either publish everything in the open with pictures and make loads of noise versus getting things done, ability and perseverance in the face of hardship.

Could it possibly be that they are unwilling to risk large numbers of ASIC devices and instead used Jeff and the Bitcoin foundations device as the pilot package to figure out where the troubles might be with customs?

If so, then they probably did ship the two packages but are waiting to see the results before risking the rest of the batch by putting it in transit through customs. Perhaps in the meantime they are building the other units and waiting for the results?

I have mentioned this once but it seems get ignored:

Those "customs", "government", "export license", "corrupt officials" excuse are just BS! No one in mainland China has reported receiving the machine! They don't need any kind of "license" or going through any inspection to ship WITHIN Chinese border!

[Beepbop]

That raises the question: How far down the waiting list is the first Chinese customer?

[cedivad]

Will we reach one week from the shipping date without any proof and without any comment?

How do they think to sell us a second batch?

[DutchBrat]

Could it possibly be that they are unwilling to risk large numbers of ASIC devices and instead used Jeff and the Bitcoin foundations device as the pilot package to figure out where the troubles might be with customs?

If so, then they probably did ship the two packages but are waiting to see the results before risking the rest of the batch by putting it in transit through customs. Perhaps in the meantime they are building the other units and waiting for the results?

BitSyncom said they are shipping at a rate of 12 per day and were already up to 40 on Jan 22nd... so no, they are not waiting to see if the 1st 2 ASICs make it safe through customs...

@ BitSyncom
Since you have time to answer all the really nice questions above;
Maybe you have also the time to answer this?
-How many units have you ship so far
-and how much is the expected daily capacity before the CNY?

Or is it a trade secret?
Thanks for your time.

around 12 a day currently, so total about 40, however I am seriously unsure how many actually made it outside of the country, I'll be giving Jeffs tracking number soon as I get it, during business hours I call the people handling the shipping every 2 hours or so for updates.

We are seriously bottle necked by Customs at the moment ( due to upcoming CNY as well ) and are looking for more routes, it isn't really a trade secret as this is honestly beyond our control at this point. God, I hate sounding like BFL.

[PuertoLibre]

In other words, they have already shipped without customer(s) picking the transit options.

Seems like Bitsyncom shipped in whatever manner they chose.

[Pardo]

First unit goes to Jeff Garzik in honor for the work he has done for the bitcoin codebase being the only developer who ordered from us.

we also arranged to ship a unit to the Bitcoin Foundation, whom is going to do a demo.

The avalon team on the other hand is going to make sure the whole shipping process go smoothly. like handling DHL/EMS problem, and other custom issues.

cheers.

for the record, I do not know shipping method, nor have a tracking number

It's been 5 days. Jeff were you given any shipping information?

No tracking/shipping info yet.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6046/whereism.jpg

[PuertoLibre]

Pardo,

Have you received your tracking number?

P.S. Already subscribed and re-subscribed lots of times.

[rchapoteau]

I'm just waiting to hear the update that the Chinese government has determined that these are too powerful to export and they are stuck in customs until after the CNY . . . but we really shipped the units out when we said we did.

[RobertM]

Chinese customs hold the bag 
poorly customs

[SolarSilver]

I think there is a large culture difference between how US and Chinese companies handle their communications...........................

So far as I know, BitSyncom is an American company.

So far as I know,  Yifu Guo has different roots... as does has ngzhang.

Perhaps I should have specified it's not the company's incorporated address but the people that work there that creates the culture?

[jgarzik]

Very existential.  Do I exist?  That is something I must ponder at length.


In the mean time, put down the crack pipe / energy drink and take a deep breath.  In the real world -- i.e. the world outside a teenaged troll's bedroom, the world outside the Internet -- manufacturing and shipping and customs and all that jazz can take weeks for a first run product.  This is not Amazon.com, where products have already been shipped to warehouses weeks or months before your order.

Cryptography is most definitely "export controlled", which means the government pays very close attention to it.  In fact, in the United States, cryptography software was considered "export grade munitions" until year 1996 or so.  Exporting PGP software to Canada required as much paperwork in 1990 as exporting a rocket laucher w/ rockets.

If in the worst case, Avalon is a scam, we cannot rightly be suspicious for a few more weeks yet.  And for the record, I do not think Avalon or BFL are scams at this time.

It is still a race between BFL and Avalon at this point, and -- as we see -- any number of factors may impact the outcome.

P.S. DISCLAIMER: I don't know anything more than you guys do, on this thread, with regards to shipping, customs and arrival.  All of this is speculation, even if it is a bit more informed speculation than most in this thread

[jl2012]

That raises the question: How far down the waiting list is the first Chinese customer?

From: http://bbs.btcman.com/forum.php?mod=redirect&goto=findpost&ptid=1232&pid=9153

qqagent: Yifu早先说已经发了40台了，还说每天大约发12台的样子。是真是假，很快就知道了。 ...

hpmany: 如果这40台都是往国外发的话  那也许是真的， 只能大概一周后（1.20-2.1）验真伪。但是南瓜说过先发媒体测试的两三台，国外是jeff，国内是发给神鱼。yifu说的和南瓜说的矛盾啊。   但是还是祝愿avalon真能成功。

Translation:

25 Jan 2013

qqagent: Yifu said they have shipped 40 units, and said around 12 units per day. We will know whether it is true or not very soon.

hpmany: It is probably true if these 40 units are shipped overseas. We could only verify one week later (20 Jan - 1 Feb). However, NGZ said he would first ship 2 or 3 units to media: Jeff for overseas, Shenyu for China. What Yifu said is contradicting to NGZ. Anyway, I wish Avalon successful.

Shenyu should be a prestigious Chinese bitcoiner.

At this moment, however, there's still no end-user report from China.

[jl2012]

Very existential.  Do I exist?  That is something I must ponder at length.


In the mean time, put down the crack pipe / energy drink and take a deep breath.  In the real world -- i.e. the world outside a teenaged troll's bedroom, the world outside the Internet -- manufacturing and shipping and customs and all that jazz can take weeks for a first run product.  This is not Amazon.com, where products have already been shipped to warehouses weeks or months before your order.

Cryptography is most definitely "export controlled", which means the government pays very close attention to it.  In fact, in the United States, cryptography software was considered "export grade munitions" until year 1996 or so.  Exporting PGP software to Canada required as much paperwork in 1990 as exporting a rocket laucher w/ rockets.

If in the worst case, Avalon is a scam, we cannot rightly be suspicious for a few more weeks yet.

It is still a race between BFL and Avalon at this point, and -- as we see -- any number of factors may impact the outcome.

P.S. DISCLAIMER: I don't know anything more than you guys do, on this thread, with regards to shipping, customs and arrival.  All of this is speculation, even if it is a bit more informed speculation than most in this thread

Again, I have to emphasize that "export control" is not a founded reason because no one in China has received it.

[jgarzik]

Again, I have to emphasize that "export control" is not a founded reason because no one in China has received it.

That implies zero internal security, and we all know China is a heavy-surveillance state.

It would not be unheard of for the entire batch to await approval, foreign or domestic.  State security looks at the cryptography devices, and gives a yes-or-no answer for the entire hardware type.

[jl2012]

Again, I have to emphasize that "export control" is not a founded reason because no one in China has received it.

That implies zero internal security, and we all know China is a heavy-surveillance state.

It would not be unheard of for the entire batch to await approval, foreign or domestic.  State security looks at the cryptography devices, and gives a yes-or-no answer for the entire hardware type.

I totally agree that China is a heavy-surveillance state. However, you probably only learn it from newspapers or films without much first-hand experience. I am pretty sure that no one in the Chinese government would care the domestic shipping of Avalon. If bitcoin had already caught their attention, the first thing they would do is to deny the access to bitcoin.org and this forum.

And don't forget, they shipped Icarus and Lancelot without ANY problem, domestic or overseas!

[Dhomochevsky]

Lancelot/Icarus were small scale operations, coordinated from a guy's bedroom/living room. The packages were taken to the Post Office with a moped, they were small and didn't have that much of a dollar value attached, at least not the value Avalons carry. So it's very likely they didn't draw that much of an attention. The story is different for Avalon. However, I really wish that getting stuck in customs on the shipping end is not the case here, otherwise everyone is in for a bit of a wait. I still think these kind of problems are unlikely, I can't see why they would go in that much detail when describing the units for customs, they could just as easily export them as some sort of rack mountable computer. It's simple, it's inconspicuous and better yet, it's true. It's more likely that there are some snags with shipping the units in general - no transport/shipping companies are busy/customs are busy, stuff like that. But I'm speculating too. I, too, don't see this as a scam and it's hardly been a week since they started shipping ops, so I'll give it some more time before I start questioning their honesty.

[Carlton Banks]

More importantly, Lancelot/Icarus were multi purpose technology. Avalon chips function only as cryptography processing devices, so it does make sense that there would be no special scrutiny attached to the previous boards from ngzhang. Still, the silence is deafening

[MooC Tals]

It would be an interesting (if not disappointing) revelation if it turns out that the Chinese  government does indeed understand bitcoin and ASIC mining and decides that ASICS are prohibited for export. If you think about it- at this point of time unique possession of ASIC's and thus the lions share of HASH power for a cryptographic financial system, would  indeed constitute a type of national security- if not national resource. I think any government official aware of Bitcoin would come to this conclusion quite quickly. It's certainly in the Chinese interest to have Chinese citizens try and acquire as many bitcoins as possible.

If that was the case then they just nationalized the factory and are pumping out thousands an hour and their setting them all up to do a 51% attack. The USA government will take it as an attack and blame it on Iran hackers and then Russia and China will defend Iran from US then WW3.

All because of no fucken tracking numbers. 

[PuertoLibre]

It would be an interesting (if not disappointing) revelation if it turns out that the Chinese  government does indeed understand bitcoin and ASIC mining and decides that ASICS are prohibited for export. If you think about it- at this point of time unique possession of ASIC's and thus the lions share of HASH power for a cryptographic financial system, would  indeed constitute a type of national security- if not national resource. I think any government official aware of Bitcoin would come to this conclusion quite quickly. It's certainly in the Chinese interest to have Chinese citizens try and acquire as many bitcoins as possible.

If that was the case then they just nationalized the factory and are pumping out thousands an hour and their setting them all up to do a 51% attack. The USA government will take it as an attack and blame it on Iran hackers and then Russia and China will defend Iran from US then WW3.

All because of no fucken tracking numbers.  

I have raised the alert status of Avalon to Defcon 3.



Bitsyncom is logging in every few hours. But is apparently ignoring the clamor for a status update.