A letter from Avalon

[cedivad]

a Letter from the Avalon Team

The Avalon team would like to apologize, first and foremost, for the poor performance that you may have experienced during the sales of batch two of the Avalon units.
 
This type of incident has however, been accounted for and is within our expectations. As Bitcoin payment processors and merchant solutions are still a relatively young field, much like the Avalon project itself - issues such as these will, unfortunately, show themselves in a real world situation.
 
    There's a saying: "Somebody had to be the first person to eat a crab."
 
Avalon has been bestowed with an unique opportunity to give several different Bitcoin payment processors a real world stress test: a DDoS-like shopping experience. We switch payment gateway and eCommerce solution each batch of orders to promote both decentralization and competition. In batch one, we worked closely with Paysius to hammer out its issues. This has not been any different with batch two and WalletBit. The lead developer of WalletBit, Kris, has been hard at work within the past several days, fixing the kind of issues that have only appeared from this type of real world situation.
 
This event and your brief inconvenience as Avalon customers right now will ensure that, in the future when a client ( who may not be technically-knowledgeable ) use these various Bitcoin payment processors and eCommerce solutions to accept Bitcoin for the first time, their experiences will be much more smooth and hassle-free.
 
    "May they enjoy the coming delicious crabs."
 
A third purpose of this movement is to spread recognition and funding to those services that are less well known; we at Avalon however are not playing any favorites. BitPay, for example, has been chosen as the payment gateway for batch three long before they obtained investor funding. We believe that competition breeds innovation - much like what happened in the ASIC market - and we can not wait to see what new features will result from this process. We view Bitcoin merchant solutions and payment gateways as an important part of Bitcoin adoption.
 
Batch two situation
 
We have ultimately decided not to refund the 0.05-bitcoin partial orders that have resulted from a series of errors, and allowed customers to complete their transactions out of good faith as many used third party services where refunds were not possible. We would like to take this time to warn you not to use Bitcoin addresses that you do not own, including but not limited to the following: InstaWallet, exchanges such as MtGox and others.
 
The nature of Bitcoin makes it separate from human interference and devoid of an centralized architecture. If the order database has been incomplete or compromised, then a fail-safe could be utilized to refund every transaction to their original input address. By using third party systems such as the ones listed above however, you give up the control of your own coins, and you then run the risk of your refunds returning to their input addresses. This defeats the purpose of Bitcoin. You will also not be able to prove original ownership of these coins. Our terms of sale will be updated to reflect this before batch two re-opens for the remainder 300+ units.
 
We have also collected enough money for several parts with long lead times, and these are being ordered now. Consequently, our attention will be diverted to these parts for the moment, and once they and other higher-priority matter are addressed and done, we will then reopen order for batch two. We are currently not in a rush to collect money.
 
Support situation
 
The Avalon team is comprised of a small group of capable people; however, we are also extremely limited in manpower. Every one of us handles multitude of tasks, and for this reason we will have very limited customer support. This means that you will not hear from us regarding your order until the day prior of it being loaded onto a plane heading to your country of destination. No news is good news. We apologize for this, and we do not expect this situation to change until batch three is in its production to shipping stage.
 
Our number one focus right now and always have been delivery time; everything else is considered a secondary bonus. Avalon was turned from a idea into a physical working product in less than six month because of our devotion and focus, and we have received industry attention for it. Avalon do not intent to deviate from this even as we now face a greater amount of endeavors ahead, such as working on next-generation designs and scaling production upwards. All of these are happening in parallel with our current list of to-be-completed tasks.
 
tl;dr; We do not have a date for reopening orders on batch two.

[Keninishna]

tl;dr crabs are ugly but taste delicious. As long as avalon team continues to deliver I can forgive the lack of customer support.

[TAiS46]

They told us nothing about the orders from batch 2 (confirmation emails).
No one knows, if his order was successful.

And the second thing, when they only have a small team,
why they don't hire some friends? Don't they have enough money?

I know that there where a lot people who asking
shit questions and it cost many time to answer to this questions.

But it is the wrong way, to create a shop with wordpress,
and sell items over a payment provider named walletbit.

Nice to read this:

The lead developer of WalletBit, Kris, has been hard at work within the past several days, fixing the kind of issues that have only appeared from this type of real world situation.

Avalon has been bestowed with an unique opportunity to give several different Bitcoin payment processors a real world stress test: a DDoS-like shopping experience.

Hm? How much orders? 300 in the first batch and this was like a DDoS test?
To generate an address who some user will pay some bitcoins and get an confirmation after paying? Thumbs up

What is with the orders from Batch 1?
Why does no one have their tracking id?

[fcmatt]

The orders of batch one might have required a cash injection to finish them?

[kaerf]

This means that you will not hear from us regarding your order until the day prior of it being loaded onto a plane heading to your country of destination. No news is good news. We apologize for this, and we do not expect this situation to change until batch three is in its production to shipping stage.

Then why has NO ONE from batch #1 been notified?

They told us nothing about the orders from batch 2 (confirmation emails).
No one knows, if his order was successful.

...

What is with the orders from Batch 1?
Why does no one have their tracking id?

That really needs to be addressed. Is our BTC sitting in a blackhole or has it been correctly taken as an order? I know some people are concerned that they've paid for other people's orders because the shopping cart software was so fucked up and showing random people's names and addresses. Without a confirmation, Avalon is just causing undue stress on its customers. Listen, you (Avalon) fucked up. You need to address it. Man up and resolve this open issue.

[wknight]

a Letter from the Avalon Team

Just wondering.. why would you get said letter and why wouldn't this be posted by Avalon themselves?

I could have missed something.. why im asking.

[Elokane]

This means that you will not hear from us regarding your order until the day prior of it being loaded onto a plane heading to your country of destination. No news is good news. We apologize for this, and we do not expect this situation to change until batch three is in its production to shipping stage.

Then why has NO ONE from batch #1 been notified?

They told us nothing about the orders from batch 2 (confirmation emails).
No one knows, if his order was successful.

...

What is with the orders from Batch 1?
Why does no one have their tracking id?

That really needs to be addressed. Is our BTC sitting in a blackhole or has it been correctly taken as an order? I know some people are concerned that they've paid for other people's orders because the shopping cart software was so fucked up and showing random people's names and addresses. Without a confirmation, Avalon is just causing undue stress on its customers. Listen, you (Avalon) fucked up. You need to address it. Man up and resolve this open issue.

Seriously. I've never paid 4500$ for anything without receiving ANY sort of feedback what so ever. 10 days and counting.

[cedivad]

a Letter from the Avalon Team

Just wondering.. why would you get said letter and why wouldn't this be posted by Avalon themselves?

I could have missed something.. why im asking.

I simply reported here what I received on my inbox. Standard practice. Other will confirm that I'm not trolling you, if you feel that there is that possibility.

No update from the 53 units that had the best chance to pass trought the Chinese border, someone must have eaten them.

[regular]

any DHL updates?  I know people were calling and asking if there were any inbound packages to their zip code/name etc.

[wknight]

a Letter from the Avalon Team

Just wondering.. why would you get said letter and why wouldn't this be posted by Avalon themselves?

I could have missed something.. why im asking.

I simply reported here what I received on my inbox. Standard practice. Other will confirm that I'm not trolling you, if you feel that there is that possibility.

No update from the 53 units that had the best chance to pass trought the Chinese border, someone must have eaten them.

I just got the email also.. These days you dont know who is telling the truth on this forum. Sorry about that.

[cedivad]

I just got the email also.. These days you dont know who is telling the truth on this forum. Sorry about that.

Don't worry at all. I always post what I receive and I always have someone complaining about the source

[Phinnaeus Gage]

a Letter from the Avalon Team

The Avalon team would like to apologize, first and foremost, for the poor performance that you may have experienced during the sales of batch two of the Avalon units.
 
This type of incident has however, been accounted for and is within our expectations. As Bitcoin payment processors and merchant solutions are still a relatively young field, much like the Avalon project itself - issues such as these will, unfortunately, show themselves in a real world situation.
 
    There's a saying: "Somebody had to be the first person to eat a crab."
 
Avalon has been bestowed with an unique opportunity to give several different Bitcoin payment processors a real world stress test: a DDoS-like shopping experience. We switch payment gateway and eCommerce solution each batch of orders to promote both decentralization and competition. In batch one, we worked closely with Paysius to hammer out its issues. This has not been any different with batch two and WalletBit. The lead developer of WalletBit, Kris, has been hard at work within the past several days, fixing the kind of issues that have only appeared from this type of real world situation.
 
This event and your brief inconvenience as Avalon customers right now will ensure that, in the future when a client ( who may not be technically-knowledgeable ) use these various Bitcoin payment processors and eCommerce solutions to accept Bitcoin for the first time, their experiences will be much more smooth and hassle-free.
 
    "May they enjoy the coming delicious crabs."
 
A third purpose of this movement is to spread recognition and funding to those services that are less well known; we at Avalon however are not playing any favorites. BitPay, for example, has been chosen as the payment gateway for batch three long before they obtained investor funding. We believe that competition breeds innovation - much like what happened in the ASIC market - and we can not wait to see what new features will result from this process. We view Bitcoin merchant solutions and payment gateways as an important part of Bitcoin adoption.
 
Batch two situation
 
We have ultimately decided not to refund the 0.05-bitcoin partial orders that have resulted from a series of errors, and allowed customers to complete their transactions out of good faith as many used third party services where refunds were not possible. We would like to take this time to warn you not to use Bitcoin addresses that you do not own, including but not limited to the following: InstaWallet, exchanges such as MtGox and others.
 
The nature of Bitcoin makes it separate from human interference and devoid of an centralized architecture. If the order database has been incomplete or compromised, then a fail-safe could be utilized to refund every transaction to their original input address. By using third party systems such as the ones listed above however, you give up the control of your own coins, and you then run the risk of your refunds returning to their input addresses. This defeats the purpose of Bitcoin. You will also not be able to prove original ownership of these coins. Our terms of sale will be updated to reflect this before batch two re-opens for the remainder 300+ units.
 
We have also collected enough money for several parts with long lead times, and these are being ordered now. Consequently, our attention will be diverted to these parts for the moment, and once they and other higher-priority matter are addressed and done, we will then reopen order for batch two. We are currently not in a rush to collect money.
 
Support situation
 
The Avalon team is comprised of a small group of capable people; however, we are also extremely limited in manpower. Every one of us handles multitude of tasks, and for this reason we will have very limited customer support. This means that you will not hear from us regarding your order until the day prior of it being loaded onto a plane heading to your country of destination. No news is good news. We apologize for this, and we do not expect this situation to change until batch three is in its production to shipping stage.
 
Our number one focus right now and always have been delivery time; everything else is considered a secondary bonus. Avalon was turned from a idea into a physical working product in less than six month because of our devotion and focus, and we have received industry attention for it. Avalon do not intent to deviate from this even as we now face a greater amount of endeavors ahead, such as working on next-generation designs and scaling production upwards. All of these are happening in parallel with our current list of to-be-completed tasks.
 
tl;dr; We do not have a date for reopening orders on batch two.

Is it just me, or are there no grammatical errors in this excellently written copy? I believe this was not written by one of the top two Avalon guys, though believe it did come from their camp.

[fcmatt]

Part of me is upset i did not buy an asic to mess with. Another part of me is glad i avoided this fucking drama.

[hardcore-fs]

They are skipping about the address space to avoid tax and customs... and it is going to end badly if they continue like this.
Gone are the days of inept Chinese customs departments and lazy officials.

Chinese Customs has been honed into a highly efficient machine, designed to deal with and recognize Technology and smuggling operations.(they deal with it every hour of the day.. both in and out of China)
The staff are highly technical with a computer infrastructure to match...,once they have both eyes open, they come down on you in a matter of days....

[PuertoLibre]

[Stephen Gornick]

We would like to take this time to warn you not to use Bitcoin addresses that you do not own, including but not limited to the following: InstaWallet, exchanges such as MtGox and others.

When will this madness end?

Bitcoin transactions do not have the concept of a "from" address.

A few services like SatoshiDICE, BitLotto, etc. send winnings to an address that was used as an input in the wager and there are regularly occurring new reports of people losing their wagers by sending from Mt. Gox or other hosted (shared) EWallet service.

This practice should not be adopted by merchants and payment processors.   Bitcoin has no concept of a from address.  Please don't proceed with any approach that assumes that there is.

[Aseras]

It would be nice if Batch1 got some communication too. When batch one had ordering snafus it was much more responsive. I knows it's a small group and that the effort is on making and shipping but I'm sure someone could spend a few minutes keeping the customers updated rather than feeding the trolls here and taunting Kano or Inaba. I'm sure you'd get volunteers to help if you needed it.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Call me nuts, but the letter copy was too well written, perhaps penned to dwarf recent concerns. Now, I'm curious as to who wrote it, and if that person is part of Team Avalon or some paid entity.

Most of what has been written by the two top dawgs of Avalon, including their above par website, doesn't even come close to this quality copy.

[Dalkore]

Thank you for the update.  No news in good news.   We just need to sit back and let them get units produced. 

[Domrada]

Wait...

They had time to compose and send out this letter, but they don't have time to send out order confirmations to a mere 200 people?

I want my 75 btc back.