BFL - butterfly labs - a SAD state of affairs

[jasonjm]

let me start by saying I ordered a lot of equipment from them, and I have asked for a refund (failing that I will contest on credit card).

The following is my opinion - these facts may or may not be correct:

1) BFL had a vaporware product and used pre-order money to try develop a product
2) BFL have no idea how to produce this product. The first major red flag was when the device drew 6x the estimated power. Now the cooling doesnt work, the case doesnt work, etc etc
3) BFL to this day have no idea how they will ever produce a mini rig, can you image you dropped 30k on this?
4) BFL have a terrible "front man". maybe the worst I have ever seen. a total PR nightmare if i owned the company.
5) speaking of which the CEO / owner, seems to have some sort of a murky disreputable past
6) BFL have consistently lied about ship dates and progress
7) BFL are now switching suppliers to manufacture their chips??? and still making board and power changes and such? this late in the game?
the competition has passed them asleep at the wheel
9) the maneuver of doubling prices was a stroke of genius to try stem cancellations, but this kind of manipulation wreaks of a slick behind the scenes con man.
10) in my opinion, BFL must have wasted a fortune in money by now. It is my opinion that they will never be able to ship all these products, they do not have the technical skills, and more importantly, once people realize how high the difficulty is, and how long they "might" get their order in will be, they will cancel. And I bet BFL doesnt have money just floating around to continually throw at development and refunds. Unless of course they don't intend on really shipping ever - in which case they will keep the money and not refund most people.


This company is almost a text book case on how not to run a business, unless they never intended on being a business of course.

I will get my money back and rather just buy bitcoins and litecoins and not deal with this headache.

If any of you become rich off butterfly labs, good luck to you.

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[becoin]

I will get my money back and rather just buy bitcoins and litecoins and not deal with this headache.

Not everybody will get their money back. Good luck.

[jasonjm]

I will get my money back and rather just buy bitcoins and litecoins and not deal with this headache.

Not everybody will get their money back. Good luck.

agreed

that is why I paid on an AMEX platinum, so rest assured at least I will get my money back.

[jhansen858]

So your not impressed with the working asics that have already shipped?  So far they have shipped like 84 units or something just today???

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/bfl_jody/165-tuesday-5-21-shipping-updates-page3.html

[jasonjm]

jhansen858 - if that's a sarcastic joke its a good line

if its a serious question, then no I am very very far from impressed.

1) nothing other than jalapeno has shipped
2) they have zero idea how to build any of the other items in the line (and I did not order jalapenos)
3) they ramped out 40 in the last 2 weeks, which is 3 per day. a bit less than the much publicized 400 units per day?

[pstudart]

I was at the Conference in San Jose and they had working two 30g and a jalapeno hashing away at there table, so I think there pretty close to delivery. Now would be the time to place a order. They said pre-orders would arrive next month and full supply by September.

Regards,

[Xian01]

I was at the Conference in San Jose and they had working two 30g and a jalapeno hashing away at there table, so I think there pretty close to delivery. Now would be the time to place a order. They said pre-orders would arrive next month and full supply by September.

 My God. It's full of shills.

[jasonjm]

I was at the Conference in San Jose and they had working two 30g and a jalapeno hashing away at there table, so I think there pretty close to delivery. Now would be the time to place a order. They said pre-orders would arrive next month and full supply by September.

Regards,

I have no faith in them, no respect for them, I don't want anything to do with them, and I would rather just buy bitcoins.

With all these last minute changes, who the hell knows if the new designs and longevity of whatever they are building is even viable, time will tell.

Plus whoever got the ASICS first obviously had the advantage, and avalon has won that race by infinity, my guess is avalon batch 3 will be fully shipped (and their 450 000 chips too) before BFL has seriously ramped up anything.

[phluxx]

I was at the Conference in San Jose and they had working two 30g and a jalapeno hashing away at there table, so I think there pretty close to delivery. Now would be the time to place a order. They said pre-orders would arrive next month and full supply by September.

Regards,

One guy with 9 posts says it's true, while telling you to buy more BFL products, so it must be true.

[GigaWave]

I was at the Conference in San Jose and they had working two 30g and a jalapeno hashing away at there table, so I think there pretty close to delivery. Now would be the time to place a order. They said pre-orders would arrive next month and full supply by September.

 My God. It's full of shills.

Forgot the second part too.  They have been saying that for what...7 months now?  And wait.....1 month hmmm. So they started out saying, 1 more month, 1 more month.  Then it was 2 more weeks, 2 more weeks....now where back to 1 more month......:facepalm:

EDIT:
I have a feeling based off all this other competition and the pre-orders still flowing in, that mining with a ASIC  will quickly become a cost and it not be profitable at all or extreme margins in short time.  Remember, these devices are using a lot of power. They are comparable or even worse to top end GPU's.  Seems like to many people are just plugging hashrates in to a basic calculator and going $$$$$!  Those people are in for a rude awaking.

Anyone else notice how BFL shipped at least 20 units(iirc) about a month ago, and the site( bfl.ptz.ro ) that list orders and shows delivery status, shows only two delivered?  I hope that site is remotely close the the number of bfl orders, because if not...well you do the math, and just remember. They haven't really proved they can ship, Just imagine how many orders will come in when they do.

[maz]

I'm surprised so many people fell for it.

[pstudart]

I was at the Conference in San Jose and they had working two 30g and a jalapeno hashing away at there table, so I think there pretty close to delivery. Now would be the time to place a order. They said pre-orders would arrive next month and full supply by September.

Regards,

I have no faith in them, no respect for them, I don't want anything to do with them, and I would rather just buy bitcoins.

With all these last minute changes, who the hell knows if the new designs and longevity of whatever they are building is even viable, time will tell.

Plus whoever got the ASICS first obviously had the advantage, and avalon has won that race by infinity, my guess is avalon batch 3 will be fully shipped (and their 450 000 chips too) before BFL has seriously ramped up anything.

Ya I haven't invested a dime in ASIC myself, personally building a pretty nice collection of Litecoin Mining Rigs. If I was waiting on a preorder, I would be kind of upset that they had 3 of them for display at the conference. Mining over 60g, whats the incentive to ship is the problem.

[SosDk]

As long as no one confirms that we've received their order BFL can say what they want....

[Gavin Andresen]

As long as no one confirms that we've received their order BFL can say what they want....

I received my pre-ordered (day 2, I think) Jalapeno today.

[gbx]

I was at the Conference in San Jose and they had working two 30g and a jalapeno hashing away at there table, so I think there pretty close to delivery. Now would be the time to place a order. They said pre-orders would arrive next month and full supply by September.

Regards,

I have no faith in them, no respect for them, I don't want anything to do with them, and I would rather just buy bitcoins.

With all these last minute changes, who the hell knows if the new designs and longevity of whatever they are building is even viable, time will tell.

Plus whoever got the ASICS first obviously had the advantage, and avalon has won that race by infinity, my guess is avalon batch 3 will be fully shipped (and their 450 000 chips too) before BFL has seriously ramped up anything.

Mining on testnet I'm sure.  They'd never mine on the production blockchain with other customers equipment, right?

Ya I haven't invested a dime in ASIC myself, personally building a pretty nice collection of Litecoin Mining Rigs. If I was waiting on a preorder, I would be kind of upset that they had 3 of them for display at the conference. Mining over 60g, whats the incentive to ship is the problem.

[vemrion]

As long as no one confirms that we've received their order BFL can say what they want....

I received my pre-ordered (day 2, I think) Jalapeno today.

What's the verdict? Good quality and hashrate?

[jhansen858]

As long as no one confirms that we've received their order BFL can say what they want....

I received my pre-ordered (day 2, I think) Jalapeno today.

Gavin, did you order only that or did they fulfill a partial order?

[jhansen858]

just read the update...https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status-3.html

We are expecting several thousand chips next week from our new packaging facility and expect to start shipping all product lines next week. Beyond that, we will be receiving thousands of chips per week at an ever increasing pace between now and until all of the remaining 68 wafers are used up. We have additional wafers on order and they should be ready about the time we've used up all 68 wafers should we need them. Soon after, we hope to have product on the shelf for immediate shipment, depending on how many orders come in between now and when we catch up the backlog.[\quote]

[ripple]

I noticed on the pool that Bitcoin Block number 237487 (ID# 000000000000005c7e7d570bf0a56c608c59cd83) was found today at 8:01 by user "BFL".

Someone must have a wicked sense of humour as Butterfly Labs Inc couldn't possibly be using one their four associated mining farms in Kansas to be mining for themselves.

[Malawi]

As long as no one confirms that we've received their order BFL can say what they want....

I received my pre-ordered (day 2, I think) Jalapeno today.

You are a central figure, and may have jumped the queue. A confirmation from some random pretty anonymous but long-term user would count a lot more in this case.