What happen to butterfly labs?

[lfuribe]

I been looking for butterfly labs or any recent news about the company and so far haven't been able to find anything!!!

Anybody knows what happened? They just disappeared.

[1714789294]

1714789294

[erikalui]

The FTC has previously wielded its authority in the bitcoin space in the case of Butterfly Labs. The agency shut down the failed bitcoin mining equipment manufacturer, citing its “unfair or deceptive business practices,” in a civil lawsuit in late 2014. The bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer later agreed to settle charges with the FTC in early 2016.

There has been no news since 10 months about this company after they settled the charges of $38.6M with FTC in March 2016 for their illegal services. The matter had been pending since 2014 and settled after almost 18 months.

[Eotnak]

FTC shut them down, then let them open back up to make enough money to settle with them.  FTC gets $38.6M, meanwhile people like me are out thousands of dollars for pre-ordering their equipment that wasn't delivered until it was obsolete.

For a while, I was taking phone interviews with FTC lawyers until I realized they weren't going to do shit for me.  I stopped answering the phone.  FTC gets millions of dollars of money from people like me "for the people" 

[lfuribe]

Same thing happened to me. I lost 2100.

[BitcoinBarrel]

The whole Butterfly labs ordeal was the biggest joke. I remember the few people that did receive their rigs were practically ducktaped together, pieces broken or flimsy. It should be a lesson never to pre-order anything.

[maku]

Butterfly Lavs turned out to be fraud company, deceiving their customers. As usuall BFL started as great startup and ended as the target of a federal investigation.
Pieces of hardware clients ordered were delayed or never delivered. In January 2016 company was still taking orders and failed to deliver. I think they are completely gone now.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/bitcoin-startup-butterfly-labs-settles-with-ftc-for-38-6m-but-it-cant-pay/

[bitcoinvest]

I ordered some of their miners back at that time.... they told me in 3-4 months i would have them.
After that and many chats, emails, skype they told me i need wait more... at that time i asked for refund on some of the miners.
And as i paid in BTC to buy they told me i can have refund in USD - EUR only.... before you say this is normal i need inform you in terms of use of website etc there was not written something like that. in the meantime the price of Bitcoin was going up... i believe those people keep the miners they made and mined bitcoin for them, they keep those bitcoin safe and at some point they send out... but in the meantime they stole our Bitcoin or Dollar, Euro etc.... and had a win-win situation for them.. with the USD etc they made arrangement with FCT and run away with BTC.

From my experience ALL the companies that had Exchange, miners etc at that point was not thinking how to make money in legal and normal way, they was thinking how they can rip off all of us.... For example see MtGox, with both i lost about all my BTC at that time....

I remember at that time i filled complain at FCT website and NO RESPONSE AT ALL!!!

[veleten]

I remember with all the hype surrounding the "money printing press from Butterfly labs"
I was so very tempted to preorder ,but then the shipping to my country would have taken for too long and
then the ones who have the orders in que started to sell them en masse I smelt scam and oh boy,how correct was I in my assumption
not sure if they settled with FTC because they would never be able to produce enough equipment to sell for almost 40 mil

[pinkflower]

Butterfly Lavs turned out to be fraud company, deceiving their customers. As usuall BFL started as great startup and ended as the target of a federal investigation.
Pieces of hardware clients ordered were delayed or never delivered. In January 2016 company was still taking orders and failed to deliver. I think they are completely gone now.

What happened to the people who started it? Did they go to prison like they should? Im also confused if they started the company to scam people from the start or were they really legit and later became a scam because of mismanagement of the company.

[Immakillya]

I guess the butterfly labs flew away. They scams a lot of people https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/46g46o/butterfly_labs_gets_away_10m_scam_ftc_says_sfyl/
Afaik this butterfly labs already shut down for about 2 years ago because of operating like a scam. They've scammed $10 million from their clients. They should be jailed in prison.

[bitcoinvest]

I can't recall the name of this man from Butterfly that when i pressed them many with email after email he spoke me on Skype. We had more that 3 calls that he convinced me to wait and he will from me about 3-4 months. After that i can't forget when he changed his Skype picture, he was holding a cigar next to beach and had a face of "this is life".... the time that he not send any order out...And when i asked after that the refund and cancel the order as he failed to deliver inside the promised date, i said you know i paid you with BTC and i want Back BTC. He says me that can't happen... I can only refund you in today rate of BTC on the price you bought. At that point i said i paid with BTC and i want back the amount i paid since NOWHERE in policy is written that. And he answered me ok it's our mistake we will write it soon....

They maybe started with good purpose but after a while the see all the orders falling like rain and most of them in BTC, of course the run away with BTC in pocket in my personal opinion..

[rngkll]

They maybe started with good purpose but after a while the see all the orders falling like rain and most of them in BTC, of course the run away with BTC in pocket in my personal opinion..

Totally agreed, I owned two Butterfly Labs miners and they worked fine, at the start they seemed totally legit. Probably some bad decisions and greedy people let the company rot from the inside.

[cozk]

What happened to alphatech and their VIPER scrypt asics lol

Curious

[^.^]

They maybe started with good purpose but after a while the see all the orders falling like rain and most of them in BTC, of course the run away with BTC in pocket in my personal opinion..

Totally agreed, I owned two Butterfly Labs miners and they worked fine, at the start they seemed totally legit. Probably some bad decisions and greedy people let the company rot from the inside.

Agreed my mate got the jalapeno very very early on and they where quite well made he still has the not my in anymore but still working. If I remember something happens they either got find or a supplier had problems then someone in the company was using it as his piggy bank and everything went down from there, it's a real shame could have been such a good company too

[alyssa85]

What happened to alphatech and their VIPER scrypt asics lol

Curious

Alphatech went bust without producing a single ASIC. Last anyone heard was they were being sued for non delivery. I think the owners got indited too.

[gueorguiev]

I ordered some of their miners back at that time.... they told me in 3-4 months i would have them.
After that and many chats, emails, skype they told me i need wait more... at that time i asked for refund on some of the miners.
And as i paid in BTC to buy they told me i can have refund in USD - EUR only.... before you say this is normal i need inform you in terms of use of website etc there was not written something like that. in the meantime the price of Bitcoin was going up... i believe those people keep the miners they made and mined bitcoin for them, they keep those bitcoin safe and at some point they send out... but in the meantime they stole our Bitcoin or Dollar, Euro etc.... and had a win-win situation for them.. with the USD etc they made arrangement with FCT and run away with BTC.

From my experience ALL the companies that had Exchange, miners etc at that point was not thinking how to make money in legal and normal way, they was thinking how they can rip off all of us.... For example see MtGox, with both i lost about all my BTC at that time....

I remember at that time i filled complain at FCT website and NO RESPONSE AT ALL!!!

Shame, I had quite a different experience with them. I was waiting on a order for 2 miners, and with all the delays I figured it would be best to back out. They told me strictly that they would only do a refund in BTC, and since I had made the order the price had gone down quite a bit so the refund I got back was worth 1 btc more.

Butterfly labs went under a month or so later.

[leowonderful]

The whole Butterfly labs ordeal was the biggest joke. I remember the few people that did receive their rigs were practically ducktaped together, pieces broken or flimsy. It should be a lesson never to pre-order anything.

Unfortunately today unless you're buying a miner that is in stock or from a third-party you're still buying a pre-order. This is the case with pretty much every single major miner manufacturer. Avoiding preorders is difficult, but if you wish to do so only pre-order from trusted companies like Bitmain and Avalon / Whatsminer that have actually delivered their products and are reputable companies.

[WinMar]

I still have one of their miners. I think it will be worth something someday as a collectible. A nostalgic reminder albeit an unpleasant one for most people of the golden age of bitcoin mining.

[em_zet]

today is seven years since i received my first jalapeno.

i still have it (in the box) and bitcoins too... profit

https://imgur.com/a/XtOJQwZ

https://imgur.com/a/8U2qRGA

[KonstantinosM]

I still have one of their miners. I think it will be worth something someday as a collectible. A nostalgic reminder albeit an unpleasant one for most people of the golden age of bitcoin mining.

I threw my Little Single in the trash a while ago.

It's funny I ordered in october and thought I'd have it in before the first bitcoin halving. 10 months later I got it and mined a bunch of bitcoin, I also mined a few different altcoins just for fun.

I actually spent 0.5 Bitcoin on an $100 Amazon gift card.