Facts Based Thread

[Tamerz]

I know this is asking for a lot, but I noticed the mods have finally locked down. I'm not asking for censorship (I'm all for every piece of evidence either way), but could we get a sticky with known facts that is updated without all the speculation and BS?

I'm invested (not as much as some) and don't need to go through 20 threads of who said what. It would be nice if we had one place with facts posted as they happen. Only a mod can do this and only a mod should start that thread.

Then all the speculation and bickering can just continue in other threads. I have no problem with this, in fact I think it is healthy. I think with BitCoin everything should be heavily questioned.

WHAT WE KNOW:

Avalon -
1. Jeff Garzik has received a working miner from Avalon. Jeff's box has 3 modules and mines around 66 GH/s. He has mentioned some issues with rebooting, but also acknowledged that they may be due to his external environment(I missed where he said this had been resolved). Either way, incredible results. The power usage appears to be about 620 watts:

http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/02/avalon-miner-power-usage.html

This is all based on Jeff's posts, but I don't see any reason at all to doubt them. If you have evidence otherwise, please post. I'm taking this as "fact".

2. Bitcoin Foundation has posted a video of a 4 module machine doing 89 GH/s:

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=112

I would assume they would not be lying (and in fact will).

[DobZombie]

you're probably best off going to the producers specific forum.  less trolling there...

[klondike_bar]

lets see:

BFL: appeared at CES with a box of fans. has pictures of casings and LOTS of boxes of fans. pictures of hardware also, but no operational details/demos because no chips are ready yet.

AVALON: has 1 box of fans, with no confirmation of what is inside it. pictures of boards and a single questionable image of operational details from a week ago. Claims to have shipped but no tracking numbers or customers who have received.

[creativex]

The problem is that there are many many here that will accept anything stated by a vendor's rep as *FACT* and anyone that disputes anything stated by a vendor's rep is a *TROLL*.

[Tamerz]

lets see:

BFL: appeared at CES with a box of fans. has pictures of casings and LOTS of boxes of fans. pictures of hardware also, but no operational details/demos because no chips are ready yet.

AVALON: has 1 box of fans, with no confirmation of what is inside it. pictures of boards and a single questionable image of operational details from a week ago. Claims to have shipped but no tracking numbers or customers who have received.

As far as I see, this is all we know so far. Exactly what I'd like to find right away when coming here.

[PuertoLibre]

lets see:

BFL: appeared at CES with a box of fans. has pictures of casings and LOTS of boxes of fans. pictures of hardware also, but no operational details/demos because no chips are ready yet.

AVALON: has 1 box of fans, with no confirmation of what is inside it. pictures of boards and a single questionable image of operational details from a week ago. Claims to have shipped but no tracking numbers or customers who have received.

What questionable about the image showing operational status?

Kano checked the stats and said they look okay and in line with what you would expect.

[fcmatt]

lets see:

BFL: appeared at CES with a box of fans. has pictures of casings and LOTS of boxes of fans. pictures of hardware also, but no operational details/demos because no chips are ready yet.

AVALON: has 1 box of fans, with no confirmation of what is inside it. pictures of boards and a single questionable image of operational details from a week ago. Claims to have shipped but no tracking numbers or customers who have received.

What questionable about the image showing operational status?

Kano checked the stats and said they look okay and in line with what you would expect.

While it was nice for them to post a pic.. anyone with a brain could have created and faked that. Naturally showing that type of picture
will cause avalon to say, "see! we show proof and you still doubt us!".

How about something more substantial that would take about 10 minutes to create with a cell phone that can do video.
Show the insides of the box. Show it hooked up to a computer and clicking on the diff tabs of the web interface.
Show it running and how the operational status actually changes as it works. Show it hooked up to a public mining pool.
That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

[PuertoLibre]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

[fcmatt]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

Do you have 500ish radeon 5830s to point to a public pool to fake what would happen if they
pointed 3 of those 60 gh/s asic monsters to it?

No? hm.. kinda hard to fake such a thing. unless of course the pool operator is now in on it.

[creativex]

A simple third party review by a respected member of the BTC community that's unaffiliated with Avalon and I'm purchasing multiple units. This is what we were told would happen prior to batch 2 pre-orders.

[crazyates]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

Do you have 500ish radeon 5830s to point to a public pool to fake what would happen if they
pointed 3 of those 60 gh/s asic monsters to it?

No? hm.. kinda hard to fake such a thing. unless of course the pool operator is now in on it.

It'd be hard for the average user, but there are people who can do it. Between people running multiple BFL MRs or any other FPGAs, proxy pools, or botnets, it can be pretty accessible to direct 60GH/s to a pool for five minutes.

[PuertoLibre]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

Do you have 500ish radeon 5830s to point to a public pool to fake what would happen if they
pointed 3 of those 60 gh/s asic monsters to it?

No? hm.. kinda hard to fake such a thing. unless of course the pool operator is now in on it.

It'd be hard for the average user, but there are people who can do it. Between people running multiple BFL MRs or any other FPGAs, proxy pools, or botnets, it can be pretty accessible to direct 60GH/s to a pool for five minutes.

See, anything can be faked. And many can subsequently believe it to be faked.

[fcmatt]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

Do you have 500ish radeon 5830s to point to a public pool to fake what would happen if they
pointed 3 of those 60 gh/s asic monsters to it?

No? hm.. kinda hard to fake such a thing. unless of course the pool operator is now in on it.

It'd be hard for the average user, but there are people who can do it. Between people running multiple BFL MRs or any other FPGAs, proxy pools, or botnets, it can be pretty accessible to direct 60GH/s to a pool for five minutes.

See, anything can be faked. And many can subsequently believe it to be faked.

60 gh/s? Sure. But they made, supposedly, 300 of these units. Turn on 5 of them. 300 gh/s at btcguild.com would get noticed
from one user. Turn on 10 of them! Whatever.

But now if this conspiracy has grown to include people not even directly connected with avalon.. well.. they pulled off a good scam.
Getting a person to assist them with that kind of hashing power is doable but you just show so much hashing power it becomes
impractical to fake. Just for 30 minutes or so. Then donate the money made to some cool thing and reap in the kudos.

What bothers me about your way of thinking is.. why show anything at all if everything can be faked? That is silly.

But another poster had an excellent idea too. Wait until a 3rd party actually gets a fricking unit they said they shipped. Delay the
2nd batch sale until then. But eh.. it sounds like they have no idea when that will be.

[RoboCoder]

As far as I see, this is all we know so far. Exactly what I'd like to find right away when coming here.

THen you need to start the list by updating your original post with the 1 Fact we are sure of.  You could add a second list in your original post that is for Unverifiable Facts, like the hash rate and the ship date. etc.

That way they will know right away without having to read through the pages of ensuing discussion.

[PuertoLibre]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

Do you have 500ish radeon 5830s to point to a public pool to fake what would happen if they
pointed 3 of those 60 gh/s asic monsters to it?

No? hm.. kinda hard to fake such a thing. unless of course the pool operator is now in on it.

It'd be hard for the average user, but there are people who can do it. Between people running multiple BFL MRs or any other FPGAs, proxy pools, or botnets, it can be pretty accessible to direct 60GH/s to a pool for five minutes.

See, anything can be faked. And many can subsequently believe it to be faked.

60 gh/s? Sure. But they made, supposedly, 300 of these units. Turn on 5 of them. 300 gh/s at btcguild.com would get noticed
from one user. Turn on 10 of them! Whatever.

But now if this conspiracy has grown to include people not even directly connected with avalon.. well.. they pulled off a good scam.
Getting a person to assist them with that kind of hashing power is doable but you just show so much hashing power it becomes
impractical to fake. Just for 30 minutes or so. Then donate the money made to some cool thing and reap in the kudos.

What bothers me about your way of thinking is.. why show anything at all if everything can be faked? That is silly.

But another poster had an excellent idea too. Wait until a 3rd party actually gets a fricking unit they said they shipped. Delay the
2nd batch sale until then. But eh.. it sounds like they have no idea when that will be.

I hoped you would have realized I was being facetious.

[firefop]

The interesting thing about this whole thing to me is... Serious miners don't care about Avalon.

The simple fact is, the power consumption is just too high.

Based purely on the power being drawn... it may very well be hybrid design using fpga or maybe existing sha2/3 chips in large arrays to produce the hashing. Nothing wrong with it as an offering... But it is what it is... inferior technology. I for one won't be buying any.

The other option is that it's simply a scam in the sense that they're losing money on each unit... in which case, they'll release 1 test box - claim the rest are delayed by CNY then accept orders for the second build (only in bitcoin) and harvest a million or so in orders for batch 2 before rolling up and vanishing.

[creativex]

Until there's something better the Avalon is by far the most efficient mining device on the market.

BTW there are now two confirmed in the wild(7 modules).

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=112

[crazy_rabbit]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

Do you have 500ish radeon 5830s to point to a public pool to fake what would happen if they
pointed 3 of those 60 gh/s asic monsters to it?

No? hm.. kinda hard to fake such a thing. unless of course the pool operator is now in on it.

And thus is reborn the ever eternal paranoia that is bitcoin.

[Tamerz]

I'll try to keep this updated even though it was never my intention to do so since I am only a 1.7 GH/s miner. I only know what I read here, but I will try to only use what I think is reliable data. If you have evidence otherwise, please post it here.

[YipYip]

That would shut up 99% of us and we would say.. uh yea.. they got something there. Can I order now?

Are you sure about that?

Do you have 500ish radeon 5830s to point to a public pool to fake what would happen if they
pointed 3 of those 60 gh/s asic monsters to it?

No? hm.. kinda hard to fake such a thing. unless of course the pool operator is now in on it.

It'd be hard for the average user, but there are people who can do it. Between people running multiple BFL MRs or any other FPGAs, proxy pools, or botnets, it can be pretty accessible to direct 60GH/s to a pool for five minutes.

See, anything can be faked. And many can subsequently believe it to be faked.

Look its hard to accept (for some) AVALON are real and have delivered....end of story

This photoshop bullshit is really about DENIAL ..(BFL driven maybe) DENIAL

Congratulations to AVALON..  FACTS so far AVALON 1 the rest 0

There is no more proof needed...how many units can they produce... dont know but they have the goods

BFL can go suck on all of their vile/bile & negativity...results speak louder than words....