Avalon is (unfortunately) a scam. Here is why.

[mrb]

Oops! Shame on me. Damn extra zeros.

If I may adjust my argument and estimation, the Avalon ASIC PCB shows about 15 resistors/capacitors per ASIC. I estimated earlier they will have about 80 ASICs per Avalon, so that's 1200 resistors/capacitors per Avalon, multiplied by 600 units = 720k resistors/capacitors. Not 1+ million but close.

Shouldn't be an issue... I just searched for a few random values picked from projects I've worked on recently.

http://www.digikey.com/scripts/dksearch/dksus.dll?FV=fff40001%2Cfff800e9&vendor=0&mnonly=0&newproducts=0&ptm=0&fid=0&quantity=0&PV1=112&PV16=5

http://www.digikey.com/scripts/dksearch/dksus.dll?FV=fff40001%2Cfff800e9&vendor=0&mnonly=0&newproducts=0&ptm=0&fid=0&quantity=0&PV1=261&PV16=5

http://www.digikey.com/scripts/dksearch/dksus.dll?FV=fff40002%2Cfff8000b&vendor=0&mnonly=0&newproducts=0&ptm=0&fid=0&quantity=0&PV13=40&PV16=5

look at the quantities available..

Also, the capacitors around the IC are likely to be power bypass capacitors, which can easily be substituted for with slightly different values

These links confirmed what I said: only ~5% of the models are available in quantity of 1+ million (eg. only 15 of the 325 models of the 10kΩ resistors you linked to).

I agree that in general they are mostly interchangeable. When I design a circuit, as a hobbyist, I tend to pick the models/manufacturers of components available in greatest quantities, as they are usually also the less expensive. But I am not a designer of Avalon. I don't know their constraints. I don't know their requirements. I can't speak for themselves. All I know is some electronics designers are picky about which specific manufacturer of components they choose.

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[YipYip]

You know they'll fill that 2nd batch in hours right? Even with this total PR fail...

Why do u call it a fail ... once again its unknown ...so unknown can be yes...fear takes hold and...CaChing !

Also Demos always work exactly how u imagine them to work "in your mind"

A key to selling s/w to large orgs is to never show them the software.... talk about it but dont show them

It works exactly how they want it to in their minds eye...even with 3 org reps in the room with 3 different visions of how it operates ...everybody is happy with completely different peices of s/w...lol

Sad but VERY true...

[YipYip]

Your response "stinks", as coming from an insecure person "breathing" lies...

This is precisely why most people running bitcoin businesses or writing bitcoin software think the forum is a ghetto.

Back to ignore, you.

To bad the people running bitcoin businesses are all scammers. Look at bitcoinasic.net.... Who would have thought Tom to be a scammer? What a shame.

The community may talk down on "businesses", but with good reason.

Actually ...All the CC's have refunded (by Dave) so @ this point bASIC is not a scam ..i think there is only 105BTC left

[Bicknellski]

I spent a lot of time during the last days (or weeks) on the forums considering a big investment on the Avalon ASIC. I tough that even if my english is far from perfect, i should have opened this thread explaining my reasons to people that didn't have the time to spend here as i did.

1) Jeff will not receive its order before the batch starts selling
If you pay 400$ to ship something (rumors are that the custom agent was corrupted to let the Avalon unit pass trough) you get a tracking number. God, i just spent 400$ to ship something, i need to know where it is in real time. I need to know when it will arrive. If the parcel was to arrive before the second batch, Avalon would know it and would be confident about it. They are instead suggesting you that hey, you might lose your place on the second batch if you wait for Jeff.

2) They need to order components before this weekend because they cleaned the market out of resistors and capacitors
Hell, yes. We need components! You know, this stuff is hard to find and it takes 4 week to have it. What kind of components? Sci-Fiction stuff? No, resistors. RESISTORS! Once that Avalon discovered the community is smart enough to realize that you can't run out of resistors in China, they changed the supposed-missing components to mosfets and "inductor". People that know their stuff better than i do thinks that the only pratical use for mosfets in the Avalon is to build a custom PSU. Something that doesn't make any sense. You have problems building the Avalon, you don't need to get things worse house-producing a PSU.
They could have said that they need to have some other chips from the FAB and that the fab will work during the CNY (i don't think that intel closes its productions line on their multi billion dollars fabs during the holidays). That would have made sense to me.

3) They will not publish a video of the Avalon mining before the batch starts selling
The original plan was to post it before the end of the 2012. No one saw it. It simply dosen't exist. There is no reasons not to show a little video of the Avalon mining if it does exist. This recalls me Tom when he didn't want to post pictures of the chips he should own.

4) They will not try to smash the network for a small period with their 100 ASIC to prove that they are out there
Just turn them on for 2 hours, we would notice. They didn't do this. They will not.

5)

Did they told you (chinese customers) the reason of the delay in shipping? It cannot be customs there.

No, I personally have heard no Chinese customers receiving their products. There was no explanation in this post.

I will change my idea if:
1) There is a video of the Avalon mining that convinces me and my standards
2) Jeff receives the Avalon at least 6 hours before the second batch, so that he has the time to show us something.

The BS about keeping the competition at the obscure of the fabulous progresses the Avalon team did in the dark field of the ASICs doesn't hold anymore.

I hope my thread to be appreciated. By no reasons i want to troll. I wanted to be a customer.

1. Actually, chance of Jeff getting the unit on Thursday is pretty good, but of course there is a chance he won't like I mentioned. if you choose to read that has Jeff will not receive the unit that's not my problem.

2. It is what it is. there's a mountain of shit to order.

3. Let me explain something to you, and everyone else here, all of the evidence, short from a review from a trustworthy third-party can be faked. I rest easy thinking Jeff and Bitcoin Foundation is a good choice.

4. Let me quote Inaba here: "You are a fucking idiot."

The BS about keeping the competition at the obscure of the fabulous progresses the Avalon team did in the dark field of the ASICs doesn't hold anymore.

Why the fuck not? I think I should have taken orders like BFL, screwed people with their backorders, then I'll not run into any of the problem I currently run into order parts and shit. Now some how I'm the greedy one? Get real. In addition, We at Avalon still do not believe BFL will ship a working product during the next month, Feb, 2013, so we are being cautious. Or consider this, a real bigshot IC company comes out and produces a 40nm, or lower Bitcoin Mining ASIC, and everyone will be kind of screwed. small batches allow the network to scale properly and minimize risk for both parties, the seller and customer. Whatever though, at this point I don't expect anyone to understand.

But speaking of greed, Let me give you a dose of potential reality you should actually worry about instead of this bullshit. Let me tell you a story about greed, there's a follow situation as described on a Chinese forum which refreshed what I thought was the rock bottom for evilness in the human heart.

The person, described Avalon as a scam, but not in the traditional sense where we did not make a working product but rather. We would upon "smoking day" chip success, issue a complete refund and start mining ourselves telling everyone the chip failed, then proceed to mining bitcoins at a rate about $40,000 a day.

tl;dr; It is much easier for Avalon to scam people than you thought. Clearly you have been worrying about the wrong things. Don't order from us if our terms is not good enough for you. Please, save us both the trouble.

Too bad I have to sift through all the BS to find the info because of the trash chucked about in this forum. Thanks for the info BitSyncom I can see that your level of frustration is growing and it is hard not to lash out. I appreciate that from what I have read of the Avalon posts from you and your team you are doing this as you go and are trying whatever you can to adapt to the given situation. Although it might seem implausible to some what you are putting out is a risky for both your business as well as the consumer. I wish you the best and I hope that you can push through the next few weeks and be vindicated. I see consistency in your vision and what you have put out to the community about your product and the development.  I think it is right that people should NOT risk purchasing any ASIC unless you are willing to lose your that money considering the fact the product is untested. The buyer has to BEWARE here and that is the bottom line. Weigh the risk if you are not willing to part with 1500 USD then don't do it simple as that. There is no SCAM. The conditions to pre-order this device are clear. If you don't like the terms don't put the money down. Pretty simple.

[Korbman]

There is no SCAM.

Ah, nice. You must have quite a bit more information at hand than hundreds of the rest of us. Care to explain?

[creativex]

He's been here since Christmas Eve man! ...obviously knows everything there is to know about all the principles.

[axus]

2) They need to order components before this weekend because they cleaned the market out of resistors and capacitors
Hell, yes. We need components! You know, this stuff is hard to find and it takes 4 week to have it. What kind of components? Sci-Fiction stuff? No, resistors. RESISTORS! Once that Avalon discovered the community is smart enough to realize that you can't run out of resistors in China, they changed the supposed-missing components to mosfets and "inductor". People that know their stuff better than i do thinks that the only pratical use for mosfets in the Avalon is to build a custom PSU. Something that doesn't make any sense. You have problems building the Avalon, you don't need to get things worse house-producing a PSU.
They could have said that they need to have some other chips from the FAB and that the fab will work during the CNY (i don't think that intel closes its productions line on their multi billion dollars fabs during the holidays). That would have made sense to me.

3) They will not publish a video of the Avalon mining before the batch starts selling
The original plan was to post it before the end of the 2012. No one saw it. It simply dosen't exist. There is no reasons not to show a little video of the Avalon mining if it does exist. This recalls me Tom when he didn't want to post pictures of the chips he should own.

4) They will not try to smash the network for a small period with their 100 ASIC to prove that they are out there
Just turn them on for 2 hours, we would notice. They didn't do this. They will not.

2. It is what it is. there's a mountain of shit to order.

3. Let me explain something to you, and everyone else here, all of the evidence, short from a review from a trustworthy third-party can be faked. I rest easy thinking Jeff and Bitcoin Foundation is a good choice.

4. Let me quote Inaba here: "You are a fucking idiot."

Why does everything need to be ordered right away?  Let the first shipment go out, take a break.  There's no rush to start a second batch.  The first batch will get there.  Right?

By the way, are there any examples where people have called out a Bitcoin scam, and been wrong?

[Korbman]

He's been here since Christmas Eve man! ...obviously knows everything there is to know about all the principles.

Ha, I know right. There's been quite a number of defensive newbies coming around all of a sudden. Seems suspicious

Or maybe we're just jaded after being here for quite some time... 

[creativex]

I may be jaded, but I'm pretty sure sockpuppets exist. I saw one riding a unicorn just a bit ago.

[cedivad]

I may be jaded, but I'm pretty sure sockpuppets exist. I saw one riding a unicorn just a bit ago.

+1

They are also too easy by far to detect. The result is confirming that I don't want to have nothing to so with avalon anymore.

[nbtcminer]

I may be jaded, but I'm pretty sure sockpuppets exist. I saw one riding a unicorn just a bit ago.

+1

They are also too easy by far to detect. The result is confirming that I don't want to have nothing to so with avalon anymore.

@ cedivad:


Edit: bah I'm tired... Walletbit is the payment processor.

[creativex]

It should be clear to everyone by now that producing an ASIC miner is significantly more difficult than producing FPGAs. Therefore evidence of successful FPGA products is not firm evidence that vendor xyz is capable of producing an ASIC mining device.

[cedivad]

It should be clear to everyone by now that producing an ASIC miner is significantly more difficult than producing FPGAs. Therefore evidence of successful FPGA products is not firm evidence that vendor xyz is capable of producing an ASIC mining device.

Yes, it was the way i was gonna reply.

I also have no idea ho how they plan to convert 50kBTC to $ in a few hours without touching the market.

But hell, tomorrow is gonna be a hell of a day for the market.

[PuertoLibre]

He's been here since Christmas Eve man! ...obviously knows everything there is to know about all the principles.

Ha, I know right. There's been quite a number of defensive newbies coming around all of a sudden. Seems suspicious

Or maybe we're just jaded after being here for quite some time...  

BFL: Oh shit! They showed a screenshot!
BFL: <Wrings hands with worry>
BFL: Send in our Newbie clones! (Ala Star Wars)
Josh-Mual: We shall let our customers know of our delay in, I.N.C.R.E.M.E.N.T.S.

(Joking only)

[Korbman]

I feel that the conditions for Avalon's batch #2 don't seem to make any sort of financial or business sense. I'm actually really curious as to how they plan to get a vendor to accept 100k + of BTC and what the heck any vendor would do with such a large amount of BTC. Dumping it on the markets would simply devalue it and holding on it would not pay the bills.

Exactly! BFL utilizes BitPay to convert any BTC payments right to USD so they can cover their bills. Avalon just wants BTC sent to an address (as far as we've been told)...which is incredibly sketchy WalletBit. Not to mention I  doubt their mysterious supplier accepts Bitcoin to begin with...though it is possible, don't get me wrong.

From my point of view, this reeks of business incompetence...and we've seen how that turns out for other companies, from GLBSE to bASIC.

[CoinHoarder]

Avalon just wants BTC sent to an address (as far as we've been told)...which is incredibly sketchy.

Umm. Where did you read this?

Certainly Avalon will be using a payment processor like Bitpay or a similar processor. That just doesn't make since to me.

[PuertoLibre]

Avalon just wants BTC sent to an address (as far as we've been told)...which is incredibly sketchy.

Umm. Where did you read this?

Certainly Avalon will be using a payment processor like Bitpay or a similar processor. That just doesn't make since to me.

They will be using WalletBit. (Not some anonymous address)

[Korbman]

Avalon just wants BTC sent to an address (as far as we've been told)...which is incredibly sketchy.

Umm. Where did you read this?

Certainly Avalon will be using a payment processor like Bitpay or a similar processor. That just doesn't make since to me.

They will be using WalletBit. (Not some anonymous address)

My apologies for spreading FUD, seems I missed that part.

Adjusted original post.

[cedivad]

And now the next question will be, why in earth they plan to convert to usd if they want to run with the money? The answer is that they will not IMO run with the money, they simply had production problem they hope to fix with this money.

[creativex]

I agree. I think they had problems and hope to fix it. If this is the case, I wish they'd just come clean.