[CLOSED] Avalon ASIC chip distribution

[HeRetiK]

What's new here?  I made it into batch 6, Still hopeful...

check OP, batch 2 has been delivered, no news from the other batches yet.

[Sophokles]

So what is this all about? Publishing date of the article is August 27th, so 4 batches are said to have arrived at Zefir's this last weekend?

BitSynCom, the company behind the 110nm chip, has been promising supplies for months, with significant delays. However, last week, it said it is now shipping 40,000 each day. Tens of thousands went to Zefir, a Swiss party who organized a group purchase. Bitmine CEO Giorgio Massarotto drove to Zefir to pick up between 37,500 and 40,000 chips over the weekend

from:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitmine-to-drop-4phs-of-asic-power-onto-bitcoin-network-before-april/

[Axion_Zen]

So what is this all about? Publishing date of the article is August 27th, so 4 batches are said to have arrived at Zefir's this last weekend?

BitSynCom, the company behind the 110nm chip, has been promising supplies for months, with significant delays. However, last week, it said it is now shipping 40,000 each day. Tens of thousands went to Zefir, a Swiss party who organized a group purchase. Bitmine CEO Giorgio Massarotto drove to Zefir to pick up between 37,500 and 40,000 chips over the weekend

from:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitmine-to-drop-4phs-of-asic-power-onto-bitcoin-network-before-april/

hmmm ?? where did 40k chips come from 

[zefir]

So what is this all about? Publishing date of the article is August 27th, so 4 batches are said to have arrived at Zefir's this last weekend?

BitSynCom, the company behind the 110nm chip, has been promising supplies for months, with significant delays. However, last week, it said it is now shipping 40,000 each day. Tens of thousands went to Zefir, a Swiss party who organized a group purchase. Bitmine CEO Giorgio Massarotto drove to Zefir to pick up between 37,500 and 40,000 chips over the weekend

from:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitmine-to-drop-4phs-of-asic-power-onto-bitcoin-network-before-april/

hmmm ?? where did 40k chips come from 

They obviously got one digit messed up, but besides that, the report seems accurate. Even BitSynCom was cited correctly, since 2 batches, while the least possible number, can be described as 'tens of thousands' chips.

[zefir]

Update: Endgame

With ASICMINER today announcing blades for as low as 3.5BTC, it appeared that Avalon chips that do not mine today are not going to break even any more. While those blades went already out of stock after some hours, the new price for mining rig is officially set. Essentially this means that if Avalon does not ship the remaining chips fully within the next two weeks, they become worth less than their shipping costs.

Driven by this event, today I was flooded with refund requests that built up a queue of ~2000 chips. I do not expect any takers for this and it is realistic to assume that there will be no further refunds.


I am sad to admit that I do not believe in a fast and complete delivery of the remaining batches. This stopped to be a game the moment this group-buy alone funneled $500k to Avalon. Although we have only a small set of 'no BS rules', we still have a written commitment to deliver in time as part of the ToS. With so many community members taking a loss directly or indirectly through Avalon failing to meet their schedule, we (together with other customers) need to consider taking serious actions to end this tragedy.

At this stage our options are as follows:

• A. sit and wait
  That was my tactics so far, assuming that civilized and respectful behavior will ensure to get our chips as fast as possible. This in fact might have been the reason why so far our group-buy got more chips than others, at the same time with a delivery of one batch per month our last will arrive mid 2014 - ready for re-direction to the Bitcoin museum
• B. demand full refund
  The majority would be fine with getting their invested coins back and let this chapter pass into oblivion. According to Avolon's ToS, there will be no refunds. But if they really care about Bitcoin and its community and realize how much harm they caused to so many of us, they might consider playing fair and send us the coins back. This implies that you do not want your chips any more.
• C. negotiate for compensation
  While refunding all orders might exceed Avalon's capabilities, they might prefer offering a compensation in form of free chips or free upgrades to next-gen ones. This implies you would like continue dealing with Avalon.
• D. legal action
  Leave the polite arena and sue them into ground; make an example of them and put an end to the pre-order madness in Bitcoinland. This implies you are willing to throw more good money after the bad - for a very limited expectation. Your money would feed some poor lawyers and Avalon if needed will declare bankruptcy (they said they do not control the collected funds any more).

I personally will approach Avalon with options B and C for now and consider combining forces with other group-buy organizers for D if we do not hear back within a reasonable time-frame. If you have a different opinion you'd like to share, please do so either here or via PM.

[bitcoiner49er]

Let's go!!   B & C are worthy pursuits, but no response from YiFu make them worth about as much as his chips. I say he gets one week/7days from the moment Zefir + others request B or C.

I'd say prepare for "D"-Day

(No offense to Eastern bloc bitcoiners)  

[pajak666]

D sue them to the ground, hit the news and spread the word about bitcoin

[Micky25]

B, C and then D, like Zefir suggested.

[Toolhead]

i am fucked

[jimmy3dita]

Definitely B --> C and if nothing else D

even if it seems that the 3.5BTC stock of Asicminer blades have been already sold out.

[giorgiomassa]

Just my opinion about all of you guys suggesting the D option:

we have been evaluating that too with a community member that happens to be a lawyer, while an attracting option it is very, very, very, very hard that this will ever bring anything more than just further costs in lawsuits and lawyers, and it will take extremely long time. Let's be realistic: Bitsyncom's revenues are probably already somewhere else in the world (thanks to Bitcoins, obviously!) so the company is nothing more than an empty shell as of now, no assets to use to compensate the legal claims anyway   so forget about that, we can just hope that Yifu will try to recover its already destroyed reputation by options B or C, otherwise somebody may become seriously angry and go directly to option E, which I won't mention here  

[Toolhead]

i would be for option Z!

[Xialla]

Just my opinion about all of you guys suggesting the D option:

we have been evaluating that too with a community member that happens to be a lawyer, while an attracting option it is very, very, very, very hard that this will ever bring anything more than just further costs in lawsuits and lawyers, and it will take extremely long time. Let's be realistic: Bitsyncom's revenues are probably already somewhere else in the world (thanks to Bitcoins, obviously!) so the company is nothing more than an empty shell as of now, no assets to use to compensate the legal claims anyway   so forget about that, we can just hope that Yifu will try to recover its already destroyed reputation by options B or C, otherwise somebody may become seriously angry and go directly to option E, which I won't mention here  

+1, very nice summary

[Axion_Zen]

Just my opinion about all of you guys suggesting the D option:

we have been evaluating that too with a community member that happens to be a lawyer, while an attracting option it is very, very, very, very hard that this will ever bring anything more than just further costs in lawsuits and lawyers, and it will take extremely long time. Let's be realistic: Bitsyncom's revenues are probably already somewhere else in the world (thanks to Bitcoins, obviously!) so the company is nothing more than an empty shell as of now, no assets to use to compensate the legal claims anyway   so forget about that, we can just hope that Yifu will try to recover its already destroyed reputation by options B or C, otherwise somebody may become seriously angry and go directly to option E, which I won't mention here  

If he directly took our payments and resold them to other buyers there is plenty of legal ramifications that he will have to explain..I would be happy just to see that asshole in court having to answer to a judge as to where the chips went. They obviously have control over thousands of the BTC, he is full of shit if he says anything else

[mmitech]

I cant believe that the mining industry went this far, people paid 50 BTC for blades few months ago and never made ROI, now they are selling for 3.5 BTC, Avalon did mine with customer Units and fucked up all shipping plans, millions of dollars are at the edge, BFL still didn't deliver orders from last year and still have no problem to announce a new product for pre-order.

I became so sensitive about the word pre-oreder, I cant even explain how much I get upset when I hear it, it made me so blind that I bought 3 BFL Jalas from a friend for 500€ each, just when I plugged them I thought what the f**k did I do.....

something needs to be done here, Mining with my GPUs was way better then this shit .


how to explain a ponzi scheme ? isn't this the biggest one ? aren't we the guys down the pyramid ?

[tiozes]

B, C and then D, like Zefir suggested.

+1111 

[giorgiomassa]

Just my opinion about all of you guys suggesting the D option:

we have been evaluating that too with a community member that happens to be a lawyer, while an attracting option it is very, very, very, very hard that this will ever bring anything more than just further costs in lawsuits and lawyers, and it will take extremely long time. Let's be realistic: Bitsyncom's revenues are probably already somewhere else in the world (thanks to Bitcoins, obviously!) so the company is nothing more than an empty shell as of now, no assets to use to compensate the legal claims anyway   so forget about that, we can just hope that Yifu will try to recover its already destroyed reputation by options B or C, otherwise somebody may become seriously angry and go directly to option E, which I won't mention here  

If he directly took our payments and resold them to other buyers there is plenty of legal ramifications that he will have to explain..I would be happy just to see that asshole in court having to answer to a judge as to where the chips went. They obviously have control over thousands of the BTC, he is full of shit if he says anything else

Unfortunately there is plenty of ways to move revenues outside of a company by using other companies (special purpose vehicle), if he's using Chinese companies then you'll never get to demonstrate anything 

There is one thing though: last time I checked, the wallet where he got payments for the ASICs was left untouched and Yifu failed to answer to the questions when he was asked to justify how could the money be "gone to pay the foundry" if the bitcoins were still there. In a lawsuit he could however say something like "Oh damn I lost the private key, it was in my USB dongle and my dog ate it!", so once again, either he's going to save its reputation willingly or there's no way that option D will bring anything positive.

[bitcoiner49er]

Just my opinion about all of you guys suggesting the D option:

we have been evaluating that too with a community member that happens to be a lawyer, while an attracting option it is very, very, very, very hard that this will ever bring anything more than just further costs in lawsuits and lawyers, and it will take extremely long time. Let's be realistic: Bitsyncom's revenues are probably already somewhere else in the world (thanks to Bitcoins, obviously!) so the company is nothing more than an empty shell as of now, no assets to use to compensate the legal claims anyway   so forget about that, we can just hope that Yifu will try to recover its already destroyed reputation by options B or C, otherwise somebody may become seriously angry and go directly to option E, which I won't mention here  

If it is started as a class action, then they would be paid out of the recovery. Obviously it will take bitcoin knowledgeable lawyer(s) to invest in this action. I highly doubt YiFu has "no assets". Even if there is no way of recouping loses; YiFu can spend his time incarcerated and unable to spend/enjoy his precious bitcoins.

[tiozes]

I just lost 80% confidence in bitcoin

[SebastianJu]

Option D: I think even if giorgiomassa already asked a lawyer the next step should be to ask a lawyer how he sees the situation. Is a product description part with lead time anything Yifu could be sued about or is it nothing we can catch him on? Depending on that it decides if option D is an option.

Option A means having to check out how to minimize loss. Its probably the solution we have to go regardless if we want or not.

Option B would be the best outcome, though not for burnin and other developers.

Option C cant work. Even if you get 50% refund it would be only 25% refund because the chip price is only half of the price of a miner. Its different from Yifu refunding parts of a complete miner. Saying that... even when he would refund 100% and we could keep the chips we would have to pay for assembly and its not long until even that price wouldnt break even.

Its really sad to read that the chinese Avalon Chip Sellers are real. I saw a photo today that shows 500 Avalon Asics offered from a chinese reseller in Czech Republic. The chinese offers are real. So it looks to me like our chips are with those chinese resellers instead with us. If Yifu would have been scammed and an employee or someone in his line ordered more for himself he would have told us to redirect the blame from himself.