New Drama from BitcoinASIC

[Clearfly]

Tom's drunk again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TehFZ38kt6o

[jborkl]

Our new Canadian overloards...LOL

I do not have any idea why this shit has not been labelled a scam.

1. Chips were done and under lock and key.. last year (lie)
2. PCB design was changed, but now that is all ok (lie)
3. Tom started drunk posting in November (true, at least that is what we are lead to believe)
4. Tom was making bets and appears to have a massive gambling problem (true)
5. Tom and Dave have never been together at the same time, and Dave did not show up in NY after he said he would (true)
6. Lukas goes to NY and Tom does not even bother to show up and Lukas reports back he found "nothing of value" (true)
7. There have been none/to very little BTC refunds (true)
8. Tom goes on another bender, blames all of us for him being a fuck up/scamming piece of shit/drunk (true)
9. Tom and Dave both get hacked. Even though they are really working on security systems as a business (true)  That either means they dumb as fuck or lying
10. The company is being sold to Asian benefactors <what are we concubines? (lie)
11. Old money Bitcoin is riding to the rescue - just wait a little longer (lie)
12. I give my personal guarantee that everything will be ok and we will ship in March (99.9999% lie)

I could keep going, but I think that is enough

[miter_myles]

Hit up the Tom/bASIC scam thread and +1 it - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140472.0

[Transisto]

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT - "Tom" or "Dave" is no longer affiliated with this company in anyway. ...

Look legit, I heard he changed his name to "Mr Drunk Tom" .

[server]

Tom's drunk again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TehFZ38kt6o

Let's hope the boy is not back in town...

[Flying Hellfish]

The way all ASIC vendors so far have forced the community to shoulder ALL the risk basically is unbelievable

How so? The only one that's done it so far is Avalon...

Basically interest free loans, lost opportunity, and the potential for an outright scam.

Any company that takes pre-order money for a product that simply does not exist yet is putting all the risk on buyer.

1)  Best case scenario for an early pre-order customer that one of them delivers and they receive a working ASIC device that has a decent ROI
2)  middle of the road case scenario, customers decided not to wait any longer or manufacture decides to pull the plug on the project and refunds 100% of orders
3) worst case scenario company goes under or is a scam and no devices delivered and no refunds given.

no lets look at the same scenario for the manufacture
1)  deliver working product - Yay everyone is happy!
2) damn we just couldnt do but hey no harm no foul we refunded everyone 100% right (oh but btw we did use that money for many months for what ever the hell we wanted and gave no consideration for it).
3)while this is certainly the worst case for them at the end of the day they declare bankrupcy and walk away lol..

Id say the customer is risking far more the the company and this is not normal for pre ordering products.


This isnt how pre-ordering products work this is more like investing sugar coated by calling them pre-orders.  the only one that is even remotely acceptable is AsicMiner as at least they are calling it an investment giving the appropiate risk reward scenario and are up front about it...

[tigereye]

Sorry.

As a Canadian, I would like to formally apologize for the unprofessionalism displayed by my apparent neighbours.

I assure you that there are many Canadians who know how to use features like spellcheck and understand the purpose of paragraphs.
One can never underestimate the power of proofreading a post before clicking POST.

In short, sorry.
eh.

[Korbman]

The way all ASIC vendors so far have forced the community to shoulder ALL the risk basically is unbelievable

How so? The only one that's done it so far is Avalon...

Any company that takes pre-order money for a product that simply does not exist yet is putting all the risk on buyer.

So, I'm assuming all the risk when I go over to GameStop and preorder the next latest title 6-12 months in advance?

I understand the point your trying to make, but if refunds are a feasible option for the customer "investor", then the risk is limited. Hence why Avalon is the riskiest investment opportunity out there right now...once you give them your money, that's it..nothing else you can do except wait for your product.
At least with BFL (and bASIC there for a while) you can get a refund immediately. With ASICMiner you can just sell your shares (though I'm not sure how liquid they are).

[cosmicone]

Sorry.

As a Canadian, I would like to formally apologize for the unprofessionalism displayed by my apparent neighbours.

I assure you that there are many Canadians who know how to use features like spellcheck and understand the purpose of paragraphs.
One can never underestimate the power of proofreading a post before clicking POST.

In short, sorry.
eh.

Ditto... I was about to post a similar note.

[Nemesis]

Sorry.

As a Canadian, I would like to formally apologize for the unprofessionalism displayed by my apparent neighbours.

I assure you that there are many Canadians who know how to use features like spellcheck and understand the purpose of paragraphs.
One can never underestimate the power of proofreading a post before clicking POST.

In short, sorry.
eh.

Last time I checked, not all Canadien has English mother tongue. They could be Frech Canadians.

I'm not Canadian btw, just recalling that I visited Canada last time (Quebec city)

[Flying Hellfish]

The way all ASIC vendors so far have forced the community to shoulder ALL the risk basically is unbelievable

How so? The only one that's done it so far is Avalon...

Any company that takes pre-order money for a product that simply does not exist yet is putting all the risk on buyer.

So, I'm assuming all the risk when I go over to GameStop and preorder the next latest title 6-12 months in advance?

I understand the point your trying to make, but if refunds are a feasible option for the customer "investor", then the risk is limited. Hence why Avalon is the riskiest investment opportunity out there right now...once you give them your money, that's it..nothing else you can do except wait for your product.
At least with BFL (and bASIC there for a while) you can get a refund immediately. With ASICMiner you can just sell your shares (though I'm not sure how liquid they are).

This is my point the risk is there and the customer took it small, big w/e the customer floated the risk thats all i am saying at this point.  There isnt a guarentee of refunds hence why i belive it should have been called an investment and not a pre-order

I disagree about the gaming analogy, you are buying a game for entertainment (more like buying movie passes or concert tickets) and there is virtually no chance of "making an ROI".  Games are designed and sold as entertainment ASIC hardware is not sold for entertainment.  Also when I purchase entertainment products I probably wouldnt have used that money to invest with so I dont care how long it takes to get the game to me.  If someone used the money for investing in bitcoins instead of hardware they would be in for a nice little ROI currently, but alas the vendors had the money tied up in R&D so I lost the oppotunity to make money.  This is the risk you as a customer took all under the guise of a pre-order.  Just fucking tell me I am investing that is all I would have asked.  If I wanted smoke blown up my ass I would be at home with a pack of cigarettes and a short length of hose.

Just because Avalon is/was the riskiest does not mean there is/was no risk from the others. 

I have a feeling that so far anyone who paid bASIC in BTC and has yet to receive their refund is feeling like they took a lot of risk (and lost) at this point.  Just because some vendors honoured refunds does not mean there was no risk in the first place (there was never a guarentee refunds would be honored hence the risk)

I get what they were doing what I don't like is how they sugar coated it calling pre-orders.  What all the vendors have done is ask for an investement/ interest free loan from the community but called it pre-orders.. 

By the way why didnt they go to a bank or an investement firm for R&D costs?  I am guessing an interest free loan from the community was much easier to get and much more economically appealing...

[Korbman]

This is my point the risk is there and the customer took it small, big w/e the customer floated the risk thats all i am saying at this point.  There isnt a guarentee of refunds hence why i belive it should have been called an investment and not a pre-order.

We seem to be on the same page here.

I disagree about the gaming analogy, you are buying a game for entertainment (more like buying movie passes or concert tickets) and there is virtually no chance of "making an ROI".  Games are designed and sold as entertainment ASIC hardware is not sold for entertainment. 

I'm not sure you understand what a return on investment is..but you can make one on anything, it just doesn't have to be positive

And ASICs can be quite entertaining when put in front of the right audience

What all the vendors have done is ask for an investement/ interest free loan from the community but called it pre-orders.. 

By the way why didnt they go to a bank or an investement firm for R&D costs?  I am guessing an interest free loan from the community was much easier to get and much more economically appealing...

You might want to go back and check your facts on that one. Avalon, BFL, and bASIC all had income from their FPGA sales, which primarily fueled their ASIC development. Butterfly Labs also has outside funding besides their previous sales. Whether or not each company used preorder funds to help in the development process is up for debate, but my hunch is that most companies took the more ethical route.

And for all we know, others could have gotten external funding as well. It's not like they're publicly traded companies with the requirement to disclose such information.

[Flying Hellfish]

This is my point the risk is there and the customer took it small, big w/e the customer floated the risk thats all i am saying at this point.  There isnt a guarentee of refunds hence why i belive it should have been called an investment and not a pre-order.

We seem to be on the same page here.

I disagree about the gaming analogy, you are buying a game for entertainment (more like buying movie passes or concert tickets) and there is virtually no chance of "making an ROI".  Games are designed and sold as entertainment ASIC hardware is not sold for entertainment.

I'm not sure you understand what a return on investment is..but you can make one on anything, it just doesn't have to be positive

And ASICs can be quite entertaining when put in front of the right audience

What all the vendors have done is ask for an investement/ interest free loan from the community but called it pre-orders..  

By the way why didnt they go to a bank or an investement firm for R&D costs?  I am guessing an interest free loan from the community was much easier to get and much more economically appealing...

You might want to go back and check your facts on that one. Avalon, BFL, and bASIC all had income from their FPGA sales, which primarily fueled their ASIC development. Butterfly Labs also has outside funding besides their previous sales. Whether or not each company used preorder funds to help in the development process is up for debate, but my hunch is that most companies took the more ethical route.

And for all we know, others could have gotten external funding as well. It's not like they're publicly traded companies with the requirement to disclose such information.

I am aware of what ROI means... guess I should have put +ROI but I think you're knit picking and understand my point. Simply put purchasing a game is not an investment its for entertainment (for the vast majority of consumers at least).  Purchasing ASICS is to try and make money (or potentially other more noble reasons) but I think primarily its to see if a few bucks can be made.

If they had profits and outside investments, why exactly did they need to take full payment pre-orders?  if they didnt need customer money why not take a small deposit to hold the clients place, this is what normal real world companies do?

[cosmicone]

Sorry.

As a Canadian, I would like to formally apologize for the unprofessionalism displayed by my apparent neighbours.

I assure you that there are many Canadians who know how to use features like spellcheck and understand the purpose of paragraphs.
One can never underestimate the power of proofreading a post before clicking POST.

In short, sorry.
eh.

Last time I checked, not all Canadien has English mother tongue. They could be Frech Canadians.

I'm not Canadian btw, just recalling that I visited Canada last time (Quebec city)

To be honest, we don't consider the francophones real Canadians anyway.. They are Canadiens..

[bobitza]

Not sure why the discussion now is around Canadians. For all I care, it could be the Russians, the Italians, the Godfather and so on ...

Oh, I get it; they use Canada to try to look legit, you know Canada, close to U.S.? ... North America? ... cousins?

I think this is a watch and wait. Wait for a video, wait for the products to be ready to ship, hell, even wait for someone to order first. Based on that eye-bleeding wall of text, I wouldn't order from that company even if my life would depend on it.

[Korbman]

I think you're knit picking nitpicking.

Oh most definitely  

If they had profits and outside investments, why exactly did they need to take full payment pre-orders?  if they didnt need customer money why not take a small deposit to hold the clients place, this is what normal real world companies do?

Meh, why not? As a small company, it's vastly easier to have everyone pay in full right from the start. When the time comes to build, package, and ship, it's nice to know that you have X amount of customers that have already paid, compared to X [fully paid], Y [partially paid], and/or even Z [not paid]. It negates the "Oh wait, did this person pay the rest of their bill before I ship?" type of mentality.

[Bitinvestor]

Copy/pasta:

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT - "Tom" or "Dave" is no longer affiliated with this company in anyway. We are a specialized devision of a huge corporate electronics manufacturer in Canada and we want you to get to know us before we take even 1 order. Ordering has been suspended for now and we are sorting out the banking and tax issues with Tom. Hopefully he does the right thing and for his credit he has givin us zero indication that he does not have full intention of doing the right thing. Luckily for everyone Tom seems to be doing the best he can to refund every single customer in a timely fashion. Now I know we lost most of our customers and that is fine. We plan to show full video proof before we take 1 single order and unlike some competitors these shipments willl be coming from the USA and will include USPS tracking numbers (DHL for international customer) Now for the hard truth We have strong reason to believe that BFL has been stringing you along all this time beause it needed your money to cover their R&D / NRE costs, its quite likely they are even using Pre-sale orders to pay their employees saleries which i am not sure of US law but is illegal in Canada. BEWARE OF BFL. ITS ALL LIES. Their terms of service contract is basically setup so they can legally take your money and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes Finally! Avalon comes out with the first ASIC device but how many will we actually see in customers hands by months end. How about the end of Febuary, March? These numbers will be very low. The sheer unprofessionalism of the supossid leaders in this industry is down right appaling talking about Bitcoin in general it's mind boggling - how these companies like BFL and bASIC can just string their customers along for months and no one comes out with anything better. My company has been developing custom ASIC and FPGA based solutions for decades we work in the military and telecommunications sectors and can accomplish this task at ease. We currently have a full functioning and hashing prototype which we plan to bring to production next week. We understand time critical solutions and it is our specialty. Instead of a full Standard CELL ASIC whch takes AGES to complete low success rates and extremey high NRE we are using FPGA hard copies of what is probably the best FPGA Bitcoin mining core in history (no it is not open source sorry ). Our ASIC chips can mine at over 2 gh/s comfortably and at a very low clock, which will ensure excellent heat disapation as well as chip longetivity. The inexpensive nature of the manufacturer of these chips will allow us to build machines that will use a large number of cheap chips and still keep electrical rates down to a reasonable level. These will be fully enclosed devices, not as cleaver as as our friends at Avalon with their stand alone wifi devices but they will include 25 FPGA hard copy ASICS which will use a maximum of 200watts per device. They will however require a host computer. The best part of our device is the speed at which we can develop them. We have a fully functional PCB fab and electronics assembly as well as a fully functional SHIPPING DEPARTMENT in house and we have already begun this process. I know it's a bit late in the game to introduce a product such as this but we wanted our news to get out there in the main stream. Tom is out. We are in. the bASIC is officially DEAD. Get ready for a 50Gh/s ASIC Based device shipping from the US with tracking and no none sense. There will be no deadline back outs and no B.S. We purchased this company from Tom for many reasons but the main reason is his un revealed completed design that can easily be converted to support 25 hard copy ASICS. The hardest work for us is already completed , Believe it or not, this IS happening and like I said before you will see a youtube video of this device hashing along before we ever ask for one red cent from the community. We cannot give an exact date at this time but It would not surprise me in the slightest that our first device ships before BFL. Professionals have taken this over and professionalism which is long over due in this industry will make all the difference. Please watch our you tube channel (coming soon) for a video of the device hashing by next week at the latest. Once the video has been shot we have decided to ship the device to conman who in my opinion develops the best Bitcoin mining software available. Please check back for more updates.

This makes absolutely no sense, just like all the other recent posts of Tom. I think he's hallucinating.

[hardcore-fs]

This text has been updated several times.. so far....
So obviously who ever it is , is reading the threads.

[GenTarkin]

This text has been updated several times.. so far....
So obviously who ever it is , is reading the threads.

LOL .. it has?! weird...

[repentance]

This makes absolutely no sense, just like all the other recent posts of Tom. I think he's hallucinating.

There's always more, and it's always worse.