Avalon going to cut into BFL customers pocket books?

[PuertoLibre]

There are MiniRig customers already asking big questions about the power outlet and overclocking issue. The PSU is only half the problem.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/875-1-2w-per-gh-not-good-mini-rigs-2.html#post12370

BitCoin Magazine article on the FIRST ASIC hashing device. (by Avalon)

http://bitcoinmagazine.com/working-avalon-asic-confirmed/

"Now, only several minutes ago, Garzik followed up with a message on Bitcoin IRC announcing the news that Bitcoin enthusiasts everywhere have all been waiting for: “mining!”, soon followed by a statistic: the machine’s average hashrate is 68252.65 MH/s. This is about thirteen percent higher than the 60 GH/s that Avalon had originally promised, and with the state of the Bitcoin network as it currently is is no small sum; given the current total network hashrate of 22000 GH/s, Garzik will be able to earn an average of about $240 per day. Avalon’s remaining customers will also be able to enjoy highly lucrative rewards, although not quite as extreme; once all of Avalon’s 20 TH/s are added into the picture, each individual ASIC will earn about $120 per day (paying for itself in slightly under two weeks), although revenues will decrease further when Butterfly Labs’ customers get their hands on their own ASICs – an event which, given Butterfly Labs’ current shipping projections is likely to occur around the beginning of March."

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/837-sunday-27-jan-2013-asic-update-discussion-thread-9.html

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[Korbman]

That single ASIC hashing on slush is a huge blow to BFL and their customers investors.

How so? [serious question]

It's sort of a "proof of concept" having Avalon deploy one working unit so far, which is why I'm largely holding judgement on this issue until more units are in the hands of customers. But I don't think BFL has much to worry about until Avalon takes the lead with orders. Avalon just showed that they have a working product..so if BFL doesn't kick into gear and get units out the door soon, they're going to be in trouble.

[creativex]

That single ASIC hashing on slush is a huge blow to BFL and their customers investors.

How so? [serious question]

It's sort of a "proof of concept" having Avalon deploy one working unit so far, which is why I'm largely holding judgement on this issue until more units are in the hands of customers. But I don't think BFL has much to worry about until Avalon takes the lead with orders. Avalon is just showed that they have a working product..so if BFL doesn't kick into gear and get units out the door soon, they're going to be in trouble.

Several reasons, some of which you just alluded to. Avalon is now in another league IMO as they're now an ASIC vendor and not a vaporware vendor that used to sell FPGAs. They've now definitively proven themselves to not be a scam. They've also proven beyond any reasonable doubt that they're capable of delivering what they said they could and on the schedule they said they would. BFL has failed to meet any of these criteria. I believe BFL is in trouble now, not just if/when they announce another delay. Meanwhile BTC continues to march north in price vs fiat and opportunity costs for those that sold BTC to pay for ASICs or paid directly for ASICs continue to climb.

[Korbman]

That single ASIC hashing on slush is a huge blow to BFL and their customers investors.

How so? [serious question]

It's sort of a "proof of concept" having Avalon deploy one working unit so far, which is why I'm largely holding judgement on this issue until more units are in the hands of customers. But I don't think BFL has much to worry about until Avalon takes the lead with orders. Avalon is just showed that they have a working product..so if BFL doesn't kick into gear and get units out the door soon, they're going to be in trouble.

Several reasons, some of which you just alluded to. Avalon is now in another league IMO as they're now an ASIC vendor and not a vaporware vendor that used to sell FPGAs. They've now definitively proven themselves to not be a scam. They've also proven beyond any reasonable doubt that they're capable of delivering what they said they could and on the schedule they said they would. BFL has failed to meet any of these criteria. I believe BFL is in trouble now, not just if/when they announce another delay. Meanwhile BTC continues to march north in price vs fiat and opportunity costs for those that sold BTC to pay for ASICs or paid directly for ASICs continue to climb.

A number of fair points made. I think we're roughly on the same page, though you seem to be able to put "thoughts on paper" a bit more efficiently than I do. 

In any case, the next few weeks will either make or break BFL.

[repentance]

SO, although I'm still a skeptic, the Avalon folks pulled through and delivered a test unit like they said, so kudos to them!

BFL currently has their estimates of shipping their first wave of products to customers February 18th. Avalon is currently (or at lest one) shipping their product to customers and delivering 65Ghash/sec per unit. They SAY they're shipping 12 per day, meaning that let's say they continue to ship between now and the 18th, that'd be 14 THash/sec added to the network before the first BFL box even leaves their facility. That would represent a 50% growth in network speed and (I'm guessing) a 50% increase in difficulty, which (I assume) would mean a 50% drop in income for BFL customers who were counting on a quick ROI assuming they'd be first to market.

Avalon has previously stated that they wouldn't be shipping during CNY so unless something has changed, not everyone from Batch 1 will receive their units in February.  It's just not possible to guess how much Avalon power will hit the network before BFL delivers their first units.  Avalon has now delayed Batch 2 orders - which were due for delivery in early March - so it's quite possible that BFL will deliver a significant amount of units before Avalon delivers batch 2 - although less BFL units are going to be delivered in their first batch than originally expected.

The number of Avalons in the wild before BFL delivers their first units will have some impact on profitability for all miners, but so will BFL's first batch of deliveries.  BFL's first round of deliveries may well have a greater impact on the profitability for all later customers than Avalon's will.  Let's face it - every delivered ASIC essentially increases the ROI period for all ASICs which are subsequently delivered.  High Bitcoin prices or reduced hardware prices may be able to mitigate that somewhat and keep the ROI period at an acceptable period.

[The-Real-Link]

Yeah I'm not terribly worried.  Even if Avalon got all 300 units out to customers by the first of March and hashing away, that's just about another 20TH on the network.  Now compared to the quantities that BFL is going to be shipping in or so is said, I'd imagine their first pre-orders would be significantly larger than Avalon by several times, let alone once the rest of their chips go out.

In short, yeah sure any of BFL's customers will certainly be earning a little less at this point if 30 or 50 or even 100 Avalon customers receive their orders first.  But I think it's not such a drastic climb that it's the end of the world.  I mean, if you're purely profit and time driven, yeah it does suck but anyone who's purchased at this point is committed so can't really change that.  I can only say be fortunate (and not without trying to be disrespectful) that you ordered with one or two companies who have come through in the end.  It'd be unfortunate if someone tied up their money elsewhere to a company that's had to issue refunds or cancel production.

Either way, congrats to Avalon and I do hope that with these good schedules and bullet-points that Josh and crew is able to proceed smoothly to final production and get the units out.

[nathanrees19]

The silence "sounds" to me like BFL is in the backroom talking about the "issue" before them.

Expect promises to come quickly, and actual changes very slowly.

Heh.

I had a feeling that you would defend whatever the magic feature was when released, then fabricate some numbers to make it sound amazing. Adding extra modules to bring an Avalon to 90GH/s is roughly the same as buying a little single to add to your 60GH/s single to get to 90GH/s...Except that the Avalon will cost $1500 to start with, we don't know what the add on modules will cost, it still takes up more space, and the power usage is STILL going to be much higher.

I predicted before that the feature would not be enough to overcome the difference in power usage or make people suddenly cancel their BFL orders. Was I wrong?

[nathanrees19]

I believe Avalon has put BFL in a tough spot.

I think they put them in exactly the spot where they expected to be - a pretty good one if their power usage will be as low as expected.

Miners and BTC in general are likely to benefit from the competition.

Agreed.

[creativex]

Stated otherwise...if BFL is again as lousy at guesstimating their power consumption as they are at guesstimating their shipping dates then they're hosed. You have to have a large vat of kool-aid to think BFL is in a good position when they're set to come in third in a three man race.

[PuertoLibre]

The silence "sounds" to me like BFL is in the backroom talking about the "issue" before them.

Expect promises to come quickly, and actual changes very slowly.

Heh.

I had a feeling that you would defend whatever the magic feature was when released, then fabricate some numbers to make it sound amazing. Adding extra modules to bring an Avalon to 90GH/s is roughly the same as buying a little single to add to your 60GH/s single to get to 90GH/s...Except that the Avalon will cost $1500 to start with, we don't know what the add on modules will cost, it still takes up more space, and the power usage is STILL going to be much higher.

I predicted before that the feature would not be enough to overcome the difference in power usage or make people suddenly cancel their BFL orders. Was I wrong?

Lets see. Part of this observation is going to be long term as people get their rigs and figure out what upgrade path they will put into practice.

Don't be surprised if BFL tries to copy Avalon in the premise.

[nathanrees19]

You have to have a large vat of kool-aid to think BFL is in a good position when they're set to come in third in a three man race.

Um, did I say they were in a good position for the race if they're losing the race? That would be stupid.

Edit: I should clarify. The race is obviously over (Avalon won), which means ASICs are now in the ramp-up phase of the curve (like GPUs right after the first OpenCL miner), but when the curve flattens off and 60GH/s units are normal, it will no longer make sense to use units that are not power efficient. BFL has obviously been targeting the flat-curve phase since they went with 65nm. Avalons will not sell well in that phase.

[nathanrees19]

Don't be surprised if BFL tries to copy Avalon in the premise.

I thought the mini rig was already customisable/upgradeable, meaning that Avalon copied BFL.

[SolarSilver]

BFL has obviously been targeting the flat-curve phase since they went with 65nm. Avalons will not sell well in that phase.

Care to wager when this phase sets in? April? May? June?

Why would Avalon not be able to upgrade to a better design after a few batch iterations? June is 4 months away, it only took them that much time to bootstrap their project from scratch, why could they not leverage their knowledge and do it again with a different 65mn design? Or better. Their design seems to modular and ready for upgrades.

It's not like NGzhang is assembling the units himself by hand, he can sit back and start all over again.

[repentance]

Don't be surprised if BFL tries to copy Avalon in the premise.

I thought the mini rig was already customisable/upgradeable, meaning that Avalon copied BFL.

Or they both consider it logical to make a customisable/upgradeable product and it's a commonsense choice rather than anyone "copying" someone else.

I honestly wonder if the level of fanboi-ism would be so great had the products been delivered last year.  It seems to me like people have become irrationally emotionally attached to ASIC products and I wonder if there's going to be a lot of disappointment in them once Avalon, BFL, ASICMiner and Goliath have all thrown significant new hashing power at the network.

Why would Avalon not be able to upgrade to a better design after a few batch iterations? June is 4 months away, it only took them that much time to bootstrap their project from scratch, why could they not leverage their knowledge and do it again with a different 65mn design? Or better. Their design seems to modular and ready for upgrades.

I suspect that any ASIC vendor who isn't already thinking about the design of their next generation products is going to be left behind.  We're going to hit the situation where it's not profitable to buy single units very quickly and the number of people who can just keep buying more units to maintain a constant proportion of total hashing power will be limited.  For everyone else, the level of diminishing returns is going to happen sooner rather than later.

[nathanrees19]

Care to wager when this phase sets in? April? May? June?

It depends on how Avalon's batch 2 goes, how BFL goes and how ASICMINER goes. I'd rather not.

Why would Avalon not be able to upgrade to a better design after a few batch iterations?

Of course they can do that, if they've paid off their initial NRE and have $500k? to spare for moving to a smaller process. The result will be a product similar in efficiency to BFL products, but most likely months after BFL has already met most of the demand.

[nathanrees19]

Don't be surprised if BFL tries to copy Avalon in the premise.

I thought the mini rig was already customisable/upgradeable, meaning that Avalon copied BFL.

Or they both consider it logical to make a customisable/upgradeable product and it's a commonsense choice rather than anyone "copying" someone else.

Agreed, but it was just too tempting to turn Puerto's statement around.

[YipYip]

Don't be surprised if BFL tries to copy Avalon in the premise.

I thought the mini rig was already customisable/upgradeable, meaning that Avalon copied BFL.

Microsoft Proved a better design/product does not win the race..........  

Power will only come into play once we have ~300THash online  how long until then....long enough for Avalon to have a 2nd or 3rd Gen product out there....?

I would like to say at this point "Welcome to our new Chinese Overlords" ...

BFL better

1)Have VC funding
2) Have not spent it all
3) Miss the march deadline by 1 day as the refunds will be 90% of orders

Thank god for competition in this space...

Day 2 Of the arms race  

[MooC Tals]

lol BFL is in a position where the lies and extensions are no longer going to work.

The longer they wait the more anyone is not going to care about wattage and size.

You can speculate all you want guys. Who cares how big and ugly it is. It's gonna crank 250 bucks a day until the next difficulty adjustment.

Guess who's ass that 250 bucks a day is coming from?

Thats right BFL's customers that are swallowing the bullshit that Josh spewing.

TIME=MONEY=BITCOIN

I know it difficult to talk badly about the horse you bet on. Hey don't worry.

I'm sure BFL is working real hard now installing those tables they just ordered when they were gonna ship in OCT.

Remember?

[PuertoLibre]

Don't be surprised if BFL tries to copy Avalon in the premise.

I thought the mini rig was already customisable/upgradeable, meaning that Avalon copied BFL.

Or they both consider it logical to make a customisable/upgradeable product and it's a commonsense choice rather than anyone "copying" someone else.

Agreed, but it was just too tempting to turn Puerto's statement around.

Uh, I think you came out a bit fool-ish in that comparison.

You compared a 30k modular design with a 1.3 to 1.5k modular design.

Are you being serious??

----------------

Beyond that, Revision 2 Avalon units will have up to 6 modules for upgrades (up to 132Gh/s). So the box will likely be a bit bigger but more expandable. Hence the price hike I'd bet.

[Inaba]

Hey... you can get an Avalon unit to do 720 GH/s.  It's totally easy.  Just put 12 BFL singles in the case.  Just a bit more wattage than a 4 card Avalon and you'll have room to spare AND you'll get almost 3/4 of a TH out of an Avalon.

BTW, for creativeIdiot who keeps bitching about BFLs power estimates, I would like to point out that power estimates exceeded expectations for the Minirig.  So if you want to talk track record, it's a wash.  So stop with your lies about how we've never estimated power properly.  We made ONE (count it), ONE mistake and you've been banking on it forever.  Of course, you just can't be bothered to mention that the minirig power estimates came in under spec, for which we over delivered on promises.  God forbid you tell the truth in all your bullshit.