[Avalon ASIC] Batch #2 pre-Sale Thread

[jgarzik]

Especially as he admits BitSyncom paid him BTC 25 to post a review,

Nope, this is false, as stated in another thread.

The order is:

1. 25 BTC refund/donation received, with no mention of review
2. Months pass
3. Bumped to head of line
4. Review requested.  I was free to ignore the request, and just silently mine bitcoins.

But it seemed like the community would like to know these details, rather than me staying silent.

[SolarSilver]

Yet you call it an infomercial, SellingMyGPUs, which is something that is totally bought and paid for by the client. This is what is called grasping at straws.

So what is the equivalent of product placement in todays social media? I don't have a facetube account so I'm not up to speed with current lingo

Nothing wrong with grasping at straws when you are trying to dig yourself out of a hole.

[Beepbop]

Just a freebie with no strings attached?

Jeff could call the Avalon ASIC a complete pile of shit, and launch it into orbit, and Avalon would have no say in the matter. Yeah, just a freebie with no strings attached. Except it wasn't even free! Jeff paid full price for it, and was given a donation for his substantial work for bitcoin. It's nothing wrong with letting couple of respected third parties (Jeff and the foundation) be prioritized in the delivery. BFL is doing a lottery style split in their delivery, for a whole third of the batch. Avalon has let only two recipients ahead of the queue.

And don't forget that the standard is to give away or lend review units, not just to let people buy them off you.

Ignore for you.

[Korbman]

I did find some of Jeff's notes a bit disconcerting though.

If that box works for 1 month with periodic restarts and then fries itself into a ball of molten plastic, Jeff will still have seen a very nice ROI that is hard to find anywhere else. He made almost 15BTC in less than a day, it's probably paid for itself already by now...

That may be true, but my concerns aren't with just his unit. My thought was that his unit would sort of foretell the problems with other units. Jeff and a number of others may be able to make quite the ROI, but there's a chance that there are a number of others who could receive a product that doesn't meet the standards currently set.

Why do you think that? I would guess it's the other way around; this is the unit that was put together in a panicked last minute rush with whatever parts were closest at hand in order to get it out the door. Future versions might be the ones with newer and better tested software, fans that all match, the right cord, the wifi antenna included, etc, etc.

I see your point, and it does make sense. The way I thought about it was sort of the opposite; ship out the best working product they had on hand so it could be reviewed...fully complete or not. The object would be to make the best impression before the start of the "no refunds" batch #2.

[cypherdoc]

so what does it mean to use WalletBit as the payment processor?  do we need an account there?  do we have to submit BTC's directly to them to pay for the Avalons?

[fimp]

so what does it mean to use WalletBit as the payment processor?  do we need an account there?  do we have to submit BTC's directly to them to pay for the Avalons?

Walletbit processes Bitcoin payments in a way similar to Bitpay. You start checkout, get a bitcoin address to send to, Walletbit receives payment, and notifies store.

[cypherdoc]

so what does it mean to use WalletBit as the payment processor?  do we need an account there?  do we have to submit BTC's directly to them to pay for the Avalons?

Walletbit processes Bitcoin payments in a way similar to Bitpay. You start checkout, get a bitcoin address to send to, Walletbit receives payment, and notifies store.

checkout, i assume, is started from Avalon's website?  thus, we don't have to interact with WalletBit at all?

[fimp]

so what does it mean to use WalletBit as the payment processor?  do we need an account there?  do we have to submit BTC's directly to them to pay for the Avalons?

Walletbit processes Bitcoin payments in a way similar to Bitpay. You start checkout, get a bitcoin address to send to, Walletbit receives payment, and notifies store.

checkout, i assume, is started from Avalon's website?  thus, we don't have to interact with WalletBit at all?

I expect a Walletbit pop-up or page will appear as part of the checkout process initiated on the Avalon site.

[superfastkyle]

I really wish I was this Jeff character.

1. Make bets on betsofbitcoin
2. Post  irrefutable photographic evidence that asic does indeed exist
3. Profit

[Vicus]

Yifu,
So, batch #2 units will have 6 slots for hashing modules.
1. When we have option to order additional modules?
2. Will there be an option to load units with all modules when we order ASIC's from batch #2, #3?
I think at least question #2 need to be answered before preorder starts, because perhaps additional funds in bitcoins need to be injected...

[Bogart]

Do ya think its really that time-critical?
How long after they accepted orders was the 1st Batch sold out?

First batch was sold out for 20 mins max
However there were some units available later, because some folks did not pay.

A lot of the batch 1 units (60-70%) sold quickly, but not all.  I think it may have even been 2 or 3 days until they all sold out.

That's after they fixed the technical issues and had them available to order on a working site.

Of course now that batch 1 is proven, interest may be stronger in #2.

[demkd]

Of course now that batch 1 is proven, interest may be stronger in #2.

May be not. Shipping date is 03/06 - 04/05 and BFL coming too, I don't think it's a good idea to invest money in inferior product with higher price and avalon's developers surely understand this simple fact so we have this money rush... last time rush.
3-rd batch?.. no way without any improvements in tech process.

[Fuzzy]

Batch two has been postponed as of now, stay tuned today for major updates. This gives a chance for more people to acquire bitcoins for the order, it will be at least 24 hours from now before order, but I do not expect the delay to extend past this week.

Any updates on this?

[SolarSilver]

Do ya think its really that time-critical?
How long after they accepted orders was the 1st Batch sold out?

First batch was sold out for 20 mins max
However there were some units available later, because some folks did not pay.

A lot of the batch 1 units (60-70%) sold quickly, but not all.  I think it may have even been 2 or 3 days until they all sold out.

That's after they fixed the technical issues and had them available to order on a working site.

Why does everybody have such a selective memory? Rewriting history? :-)

When they opened orders for batch #1 on the 23rd of September the website got slashdotted and ran out of hosting credits. They had to change to another host but the DNS change did not go well. They created a second DNS entry (from shop.avalon-asics.com to store.avalon-asics.com) but that created also problems as the DNS timeout/refresh was set too high. Some people could not access the new site, kept seeing the old one.

On the 23rd all 300 available were sold for the time the websites were accessible (literally 30 minutes) but not everybody completed their payment.

So on Oct 03 they offered those unpaid units again to the market and then the all got sold.

[Gomeler]

Of course now that batch 1 is proven, interest may be stronger in #2.

May be not. Shipping date is 03/06 - 04/05 and BFL coming too, I don't think it's a good idea to invest money in inferior product with higher price and avalon's developers surely understand this simple fact so we have this money rush... last time rush.
3-rd batch?.. no way without any improvements in tech process.

Not necessarily true. I'd purchase a unit from the 3rd batch if the price were cut in half* or so. Once their fixed costs are paid off it should cost very little to product additional units as they're just paying wafer/packaging costs and chassis/pcb/psu/shipping costs. Let the first two batch customers pay off their gear and then slash the price.


*- fraction pulled out of thin air. I'd have to do the maths but if it paid back in 6-9 months I'd be happy with lower efficiency.

[Bowjob]

Mhm, considering getting one.

[mb300sd]

Just please don't start selling them over the weekend! I'm gonna be out of town :X

[smoothie]

Especially as he admits BitSyncom paid him BTC 25 to post a review,

Nope, this is false, as stated in another thread.

The order is:

1. 25 BTC refund/donation received, with no mention of review
2. Months pass
3. Bumped to head of line
4. Review requested.  I was free to ignore the request, and just silently mine bitcoins.

But it seemed like the community would like to know these details, rather than me staying silent.

Jeff,

Thanks for sharing.

[Tesla71]

Especially as he admits BitSyncom paid him BTC 25 to post a review,

Nope, this is false, as stated in another thread.

The order is:

1. 25 BTC refund/donation received, with no mention of review
2. Months pass
3. Bumped to head of line
4. Review requested.  I was free to ignore the request, and just silently mine bitcoins.

But it seemed like the community would like to know these details, rather than me staying silent.

Yes, as of me I really thank you for sharing details, as all about Asics is more speculative yet (or has been for so long time) we need that infos out of first hand!

Thanks Jeff!

[Beepbop]

Just please don't start selling them over the weekend! I'm gonna be out of town :X

Then it's time that you form a partnership with somebody who can order it for you. For example, you could buy the required amount of BTC - with some headroom - and instruct a local friend or aquaintance who's retired or otherwise available to do the purchase for you. You could pay him, or buy him a beer for the trouble.