[CLOSED] Avalon ASIC chip distribution

[fasmax]

Guess I don't understand either. It doesn't seem like  400,000 chips were sold after June 1.

[fpgaminer]

I don't think I understand this, there are 400000 chips coming, but NOT for orders from April but for orders made in June or later?

What they mean is, they're on schedule to meet the deadlines for all chip orders placed after June 1st.  Anything before that, they have already missed the deadline, so they can't meet the deadline.  It is not saying that these chips are for any specific orders; just statements about deadlines they're currently trying to meet.

[Roy Badami]

Update:

Chips Delivery Update, September Edition

Due to events outside of our control, the delivery of chips have been delayed so far. While the situation are improving and chips are shipping, we have ultimately decided to revert our policy on no refunds and offer the option for customers to request a full refund(in bitcoin) if so desired.

The link to the request form is below, please note this only applies to orders made earlier than June 1st.

In other news, for those who decided to wait or wish to know more about delivery schedule will be glad to note we are receiving a batch of 400,000+ chips on Wednesday, with that we expect to be in good shape for meeting the upcoming deadlines of chip deliveries for orders made in June and later.

In addition, we hope to wrap up generation one, finish shipping the chips, construct the modules and build the 2 module Avalon mini, put this pre-order mess behind us in general and switch gear into 55nm production, tape out generation 3, and start work on improving chip design for generation 4. Only sell what we can produce in a day on the assembly line, and only what's in stock.

Refund

I don't think I understand this, there are 400000 chips coming, but NOT for orders from April but for orders made in June or later?

No,  I don't think that's what he means (at least I hope it's not).  He seems to be saying that he now has enough chips that if you ordered 1st June or later then your chips will be shipped within the promised timescale - hence no option of refund for those orders.  I hope chips from April and May would still get shipped first...

Except, ten weeks from 1st June is 10th August, so 1st June chip orders are already three weeks late, unless he was no longer promising "9 to 10 weeks" by that point.

[dani]

So he has 400k ready, but didn't send them. When will he decide to send them? How much time will be given to request a refund? This step would/should take about a week for everyone to decide, so the chips will not go out avalons door until this happend. again: in two weeks ^tm, it's not even funny anymore.

[Roy Badami]

Except, ten weeks from 1st June is 10th August, so 1st June chip orders are already three weeks late, unless he was no longer promising "9 to 10 weeks" by that point.

Ah, lastest news from YiFu - 1st June was a typo - should have said 15th June.

Now, chips ordered on 15th June orders would already be a week late, but I think that might just be that YiFi miscounted.  If he's claiming that orders after the cutoff date won't be late (by much) then the chips must be shipping in the next few days.

roy

[tiozes]

I want to wait for my chips batch 6. no refund

[Bitcoinorama]

I don't think I understand this, there are 400000 chips coming, but NOT for orders from April but for orders made in June or later?

What they mean is, they're on schedule to meet the deadlines for all chip orders placed after June 1st.  Anything before that, they have already missed the deadline, so they can't meet the deadline.  It is not saying that these chips are for any specific orders; just statements about deadlines they're currently trying to meet.

No no, that early batch of chips for all the group buys we saw pictured delivered to Bitsynocom from TSMC's Shanghi fab on the 25th June with tracking waybills proving they had been delivered, was clearly sold to some other party on the blackmarket for a tidy sum.

He's still stuck with the subsequent batch about to be delivered for orders made after 15th June, so he can't refund those.

[krayzie32]

I don't think I understand this, there are 400000 chips coming, but NOT for orders from April but for orders made in June or later?

What they mean is, they're on schedule to meet the deadlines for all chip orders placed after June 1st.  Anything before that, they have already missed the deadline, so they can't meet the deadline.  It is not saying that these chips are for any specific orders; just statements about deadlines they're currently trying to meet.

No no, that early batch of chips for all the group buys we saw pictured delivered to Bitsynocom from TSMC's Shanghi fab on the 25th June with tracking waybills proving they had been delivered, was clearly sold to some other party on the blackmarket for a tidy sum.

He's still stuck with the subsequent batch about to be delivered for orders made after 15th June, so he can't refund those.

 But he said it was for batch 3.  Yifu would never lie to us.   

[f.baasch75]

I don't think I understand this, there are 400000 chips coming, but NOT for orders from April but for orders made in June or later?

What they mean is, they're on schedule to meet the deadlines for all chip orders placed after June 1st.  Anything before that, they have already missed the deadline, so they can't meet the deadline.  It is not saying that these chips are for any specific orders; just statements about deadlines they're currently trying to meet.

No no, that early batch of chips for all the group buys we saw pictured delivered to Bitsynocom from TSMC's Shanghi fab on the 25th June with tracking waybills proving they had been delivered, was clearly sold to some other party on the blackmarket for a tidy sum.

He's still stuck with the subsequent batch about to be delivered for orders made after 15th June, so he can't refund those.

is it a fact that our chips have been sold elsewhere?

[Ente]

is it a fact that our chips have been sold elsewhere?

They probably are not in shipping (like, in a plane, or in customs) when we can request a refund, right? Or some groups would receive both the chips and the refund.
And since evidence exists that those chips were produced..

Ente

[krayzie32]

is it a fact that our chips have been sold elsewhere?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252233.msg2694806#msg2694806

Inside those cases were Zefir's batch 1 plus others yet only Zefir got his.  Inside that picture of 24 case is 374,400 chips.  The invoice states 135 cases so if the invoice is correct that would be millions of chips which is hard to believe so lets just say it's 370k chips which was enough to do all of the early group buys and from other manufactures.  Those chips other than zefir's disappeared which Avalon states where used for batch 3 but there is another set of pictures that show a ton of skids with Avalon chips that were to be used on Batch 3.

[fasmax]

Could zefir receives shipping info for all of his remaining batches this Wednesday?

[SebastianJu]

So he has 400k ready, but didn't send them. When will he decide to send them? How much time will be given to request a refund? This step would/should take about a week for everyone to decide, so the chips will not go out avalons door until this happend. again: in two weeks ^tm, it's not even funny anymore.

The 400k chips are reaching him on wednesday he wrote. Until then everyone should have done his refund requests i think.

[SebastianJu]

@zefir... i think if you hope to get enough information from your members you have to send everyone a pm and/or an email if you collected this data. You can send 20 blindcopy pms in one pm with a limit of 120 per hour. If i hadnt done this i would have way less data. Of course that wont help fully too.

[Bitcoinorama]

I don't think I understand this, there are 400000 chips coming, but NOT for orders from April but for orders made in June or later?

What they mean is, they're on schedule to meet the deadlines for all chip orders placed after June 1st.  Anything before that, they have already missed the deadline, so they can't meet the deadline.  It is not saying that these chips are for any specific orders; just statements about deadlines they're currently trying to meet.

No no, that early batch of chips for all the group buys we saw pictured delivered to Bitsynocom from TSMC's Shanghi fab on the 25th June with tracking waybills proving they had been delivered, was clearly sold to some other party on the blackmarket for a tidy sum.

He's still stuck with the subsequent batch about to be delivered for orders made after 15th June, so he can't refund those.

 But he said it was for batch 3.  Yifu would never lie to us.    

But that would mean he was starting to assemble Batch 3 long after he promised to deliver Batch 3.

Only in reality Batch 3 had already been assembled, just there was this slight hiccup, when he got caught pre mining Batch 2's as they turned up covered in dust and preconfigured to mining pools, linked to wallets with lots of coins. So Batch 2 (all silver up to that point) was halted mid shipped, and magically these black box Avalons fulfilled the rest of Batch 2's orders.

Thing was those black Avalon boxes used to fulfil the rest of the Batch 2 orders, were actually Batch 3's that were already purposely being held back, whilst they premined Batch 2.

Meaning Batch 3 had to be assembled out of some of the millions of bulk chips pictured, hence the mega delay in Batch 3's, screwing their ROIs and that were, guess what? Black.

This has been commonly known information in the BTCman thread for some time apparently.

[Kartaiv]

If everyone turns to litigation to get compensation from BitSyncom everyone is going to lose. Regulators are going to tighten their grasp on Bitcoins and a lot of money is going to be spent on both ends litigating. The entire Bitcoin community loses.

BitSyncom has been very profitable on these chip orders and should bite the bullet and provide compensation to resolve these issues with his customers before it ends up in the hands of lawyers and governments. It could cost them, and everyone else, a hell of a lot more in the long run if Bitcoins keep attracting negative attention. A refund 10 weeks ago may have been an acceptable solution when they knew chips weren't going to arrive on time. Now that it's another 10+ weeks later, they need to do more than just offer refunds.

These chips were priced based on 10 week delivery time and they were priced with heavy profit margins built in for Avalon. All purchasing parties agreed that it was acceptable based on the terms at the time. Given that circumstances have dramatically changed, prices should reflect that. At the very least, Avalon shouldn't be making a heavy profit when their customers are seeing heavy losses. This situation is dramatically different than B3 units -- there are many groups with money invested for assembly services and parts that can't be refunded. B3 purchasers were able to make a decision for a full refund.

At this point it isn't "toxic malformed greed" from the community. Forget profits -- it's people desperate to even have a chance of getting close to breaking even. Prior to this delays on units only diluted profits. Now the delays are costing people more and more money. I really hope Yifu considers these aspects of the equation.

[AdamKD]

Not only would litigation cause issues for the community but a mere refund for the chips does not address the main problem:

A community of people (Burning, BKK, TerraHash, etc) developed themselves and invested around Avalon.  Now this community gets screwed by Avalon.

Not only will this result in legal action against Avalon but fighting/litigation within said community as many of these community members will not be able to offer refunds.

Therefore, 'refunds for chips' are not the same as 'refunds for miners'.  Not only is Avalon screwing a community that developed around their product but they are alienating it.  I highly doubt that said community will likely support Avalon in the future unless a better alternative than a refund is offered for chips.

A refund option the instant Avalon KNEW the chips were late would have been acceptable.  A refund option with regards to chips so delayed when there has been a significant investment by the community alienates the community and, in reality, is unacceptable.  I doubt people will be buying Avalon products in the future if this is the best they offer to their customers.

This isn't about greed.  This is about righting a wrong and the 'no bullshit' policy that's become 'pure bullshit'.

[flyonwall]

While I agree that there should be no litigation involved unless we want all of the Bitcoin business to be heavily regulated, I don't necessarily agree with compensating those who designed and built systems. I am speaking as one of those who have built clones, and even though I spent less in terms of design time to build the clones, the total time and material spent is comparable to those spent by BKKCoins and Burnin. We all went into this knowing the risks involved, and besides whatever compensation scheme devised will fall short of expectation.

I think what we need to do is negotiate in good faith. I suggest we go into some kind of arbitration. We need a disinterested third party, someone or a group whose interest lies in seeing the Bitcoin space grow, who can do the arbitration. I am thinking of the Bitcoin Foundation. It is very important that we keep this issue within the Bitcoin community. If this is litigated, yes, I agree we will all be losers.

We should demonstrate to the world that the idea of a crypto-currency can be an economic force for good, and can remain a frictionless medium of exchange. Once we let the regulators in, that would only demonstrate that the idea of a frictionless medium of exchange is bunk, that high fees are needed for every transaction to pay for rent-seekers and lawyers.

We should refer this matter to the Bitcoin Foundation.

[amincd]

I've also already paid burnin for assembly. Just to clarify, is Bitsyncom still offering to deliver chips to those who ordered, or is a refund the only option? If the former, since I can only get a 50% refund on the assembly cost, I would have to factor that into any decision on whether to wait for the chips or get a refund.

Also, could you (Zefir) possibly ask Bitsyncom if they are willing to provide some other additional compensation, (e.g. future discounts) to those who have already ordered assembly services?

[iikun]

I've cut this quote down to just the most important part:

Rest of the stuff you said, I agree. We are a team of 4 people ( it'll stay that way for reasons I'll not get into for the time being.) and we will learn and grow as a team, I have no problem admitting to issue and mistakes. The only got I really got to comment on is the chinese reseller chip thing you mentioned that keeps coming up over and over. As far as I understand it, some one ordered ~2k chips from somebody in china, then a whole shit storm starts on how we have been selling chips to resellers and delaying everyone else, this simply is not true. I said before(and been ignored.) more than 50% of the chip orders originates from china. We've shipped out chips, a few hundred thousand a best so far. there is simply no resellers with volume. People keep asking for evidence on how we have NOT "sell-out" to these resellers, but where is the evidence on the fact they have chips?

Anyhow, If people think I'm trying to screw the people who ordered from 15th to the 22th of June that is just silly, and false in their assumption. Here's the new deal,

The form will extend to orders made before the 22nd, which is exatly 10 weeks. and every order after, on the date it is suppose to ship, we'll send out a email asking if a refund is desired.

While I have no problems issue refunds, compensating for delay and such, I got no patience for people complaining when their orders are not late. Not too surprisingly, the people complaining the loudest are people whose order are not late yet(so more people refund and they can get their chips earlier maybe?), and people who have no orders(standard trolls of bitcointalk).

Most people who have chip orders are much more understanding to the situation, whom are either taking refunds, or working out some sort of compensation model.  

Does anyone know anything on this compensation model he is talking about? I would prefer to keep my order if (adequate) compensation is provided but I don't want [edit: "him"] to suddenly ship worthless chips without any compensation, that would honestly be the worst case scenario right now.