Butterfly Labs Announces Bulk Chip Sales

[smoothie]

I bet they stop shipping jalapenos after they start to ship chips.  

See what Avalon do first.

Do you get paid by the day or hour to instill confidence of BFL into the community?

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[Quantus]

They are nothing but a bunch of back stabbing con men, liars, cheats, fools and ass hats. The whole company is a circus. They could't assemble a pizza box if their vary lives depended on it.
Every one who works for BFL is curt/ terse demeaning/dismissive or just hateful to customers. They distract, derail threads that are negative. They ban people who complain and cancel their orders. They mark up prices and ask for shipping you already paid for. They change specs and then they change specs again. They delay and delay and if the day ever comes when you get what you ordered it well be worthless.
 

[erk]

I am curious, how do the chip packages that BFL use,  attach and make contact with the PCB, is it a hot air reflow solder thing like QFN?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Is it OK in the US if those damn assholes sell the basic components of a product I already paid in June 2012 to another customer?! They should burn in hell!  

Considering that's not what they are doing, all you have done is shown your lack of comprehension of a relatively simple product announcement. I suggest you go and read it again, perhaps twice.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/3014-butterfly-labs-announces-bulk-chip-sales.html

I've read it more than twice (not being an ass), and here's my other takeaway.

We will allow you to convert current orders with us into chip orders if you would rather design your own.

If you would like to place an order, please email chipsales@butterflylabs.com

Remember the posts where Jody, et al., was complaining about their email workload? This just compounds that problem several fold, but that's okay, for these emails will consist of moneys going to the their coffers, oppose to support of product they'll having trouble producing.

Total pieces of shit!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

We will be providing reference documentation, reference design/schematics, and foundry receipt/documentation.

But they have refused to do exactly this for the current customers of which thousands have been so kind to them in helping fund their endeavor. Now, it's fuck them, we will treat the next batch of cocksuckers better.

[Cranky4u]

Expanding their business line detracts from the orders BFL already has at their feet...NOT HAPPY JAN!

[stripykitteh]

Clearly 0 < 13.

Would the D-grade chips (13 engines or less working) include chips that are non-functioning?

The D-grade chips might be the equivalent of the fruit at the market which is just about to be thrown out. OK for making jam, but that's about it. Problem is jam has a very poor hash-rate.

[erschiessen]

Clearly 0 < 13.

Would the D-grade chips (13 engines or less working) include chips that are non-functioning?

The D-grade chips might be the equivalent of the fruit at the market which is just about to be thrown out. OK for making jam, but that's about it. Problem is jam has a very poor hash-rate.

One isn't expected to pay full retail for the crap that is getting ready for the dumpster.

[cryptograd]

They are nothing but a bunch of back stabbing con men, liars, cheats, fools and ass hats. The whole company is a circus. They could't assemble a pizza box if their very lives depended on it.
Every one who works for BFL is curt/ terse demeaning/dismissive or just hateful to customers. They distract, derail threads that are negative. They ban people who complain and cancel their orders. They mark up prices and ask for shipping you already paid for. They change specs and then they change specs again. They delay and delay and if the day ever comes when you get what you ordered it well be worthless.
 

+5092379381609586958698052753857093587396108045893825038524095723053957093258095358309583

make this man a Mod

[YipYip]

Is it OK in the US if those damn assholes sell the basic components of a product I already paid in June 2012 to another customer?! They should burn in hell!  

Considering that's not what they are doing, all you have done is shown your lack of comprehension of a relatively simple product announcement. I suggest you go and read it again, perhaps twice.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/3014-butterfly-labs-announces-bulk-chip-sales.html

^^^^ BFL PR department

Always one on these threads... as in ( Sockpuppets incorporated)

[Schrankwand]

Does anyone else think the chips are priced ridiculously?

I talked to someone at an ASIC company lately who argued that it would be a cinch to build 65 or 28nm chips, their sims showed about 8-10gh/s per chip. He offered that if they ever got to development, the first batch would cost me $50 per chip since the development costs are so high. Should they produce a second batch, he'd give to me for $30. Estimated margin with development costs on a 100k batch was by the way 300-400%.

What you see there is a fucked up margin of unbelievable 1000%, since one of these chips is bound to cost around 10$ including production if there was one 100.000 batch produced and built.

I dont care about how late they are or how mean to their customers, I already got a refund for that. But now selling your chips with a 1000% margin? Are you serious BFL?

[Bitcoinorama]

Does anyone else think the chips are priced ridiculously?

I talked to someone at an ASIC company lately who argued that it would be a cinch to build 65 or 28nm chips, their sims showed about 8-10gh/s per chip. He offered that if they ever got to development, the first batch would cost me $50 per chip since the development costs are so high. Should they produce a second batch, he'd give to me for $30. Estimated margin with development costs on a 100k batch was by the way 300-400%.

What you see there is a fucked up margin of unbelievable 1000%, since one of these chips is bound to cost around 10$ including production if there was one 100.000 batch produced and built.

I dont care about how late they are or how mean to their customers, I already got a refund for that. But now selling your chips with a 1000% margin? Are you serious BFL?

As serious as Avalon are with their margin, or ASICminer with their ludicrous mark-up!!!

[kinitex]

Demands are just too high because people are willing to spend anything on a short supply of ASICs right now

[Schrankwand]

Does anyone else think the chips are priced ridiculously?

I talked to someone at an ASIC company lately who argued that it would be a cinch to build 65 or 28nm chips, their sims showed about 8-10gh/s per chip. He offered that if they ever got to development, the first batch would cost me $50 per chip since the development costs are so high. Should they produce a second batch, he'd give to me for $30. Estimated margin with development costs on a 100k batch was by the way 300-400%.

What you see there is a fucked up margin of unbelievable 1000%, since one of these chips is bound to cost around 10$ including production if there was one 100.000 batch produced and built.

I dont care about how late they are or how mean to their customers, I already got a refund for that. But now selling your chips with a 1000% margin? Are you serious BFL?

As serious as Avalon are with their margin, or ASICminer with their ludicrous mark-up!!!

Avalon's markup is around 300-400%.

That is completely ok.

ASICminer: Im not sure, but it is beyond a lot. He stated that adding 1th/s is at the cost of $10k right now. 1th/s means that is about  100 block eruptor blades. Build costs around $10 per Gigahash. (3 chips, I would guess) Lets assume around 20-30 additional dollars for assembly.

--> Block Eruptor Blade building costs, not factoring development, around... $130-140 Dollars. Sales price 50BTC or 2BTC for small chips. Ok, ASICminer beats BFL, it is okay

Demands are just too high because people are willing to spend anything on a short supply of ASICs right now

Which is incredibly stupid. You need to at least do your calcs. The Block Eruptor USB Miners are fun, small and cool devices. They are several times overpriced though. I would guess that they SHOULD cost 1BTC. That includes shipping, manufacturing, chips and a 400% premium. That is a fair price and a good margin to win at business. 800% is fucking your customers, 5000% is hardly even thinkable...

[Biomech]

Does anyone else think the chips are priced ridiculously?

I talked to someone at an ASIC company lately who argued that it would be a cinch to build 65 or 28nm chips, their sims showed about 8-10gh/s per chip. He offered that if they ever got to development, the first batch would cost me $50 per chip since the development costs are so high. Should they produce a second batch, he'd give to me for $30. Estimated margin with development costs on a 100k batch was by the way 300-400%.

What you see there is a fucked up margin of unbelievable 1000%, since one of these chips is bound to cost around 10$ including production if there was one 100.000 batch produced and built.

I dont care about how late they are or how mean to their customers, I already got a refund for that. But now selling your chips with a 1000% margin? Are you serious BFL?

As serious as Avalon are with their margin, or ASICminer with their ludicrous mark-up!!!

Avalon's markup is around 300-400%.

That is completely ok.

ASICminer: Im not sure, but it is beyond a lot. He stated that adding 1th/s is at the cost of $10k right now. 1th/s means that is about  100 block eruptor blades. Build costs around $10 per Gigahash. (3 chips, I would guess) Lets assume around 20-30 additional dollars for assembly.

--> Block Eruptor Blade building costs, not factoring development, around... $130-140 Dollars. Sales price 50BTC or 2BTC for small chips. Ok, ASICminer beats BFL, it is okay

Demands are just too high because people are willing to spend anything on a short supply of ASICs right now

Which is incredibly stupid. You need to at least do your calcs. The Block Eruptor USB Miners are fun, small and cool devices. They are several times overpriced though. I would guess that they SHOULD cost 1BTC. That includes shipping, manufacturing, chips and a 400% premium. That is a fair price and a good margin to win at business. 800% is fucking your customers, 5000% is hardly even thinkable...

While from a personal perspective, I agree, from a business one I don't. The USB is a novelty item, really. But you don't see any gathering dust, do you?

If people are willing to pay outrageous prices, the producer is a fool to NOT offer outrageous prices while he has a defacto monopoly. When somebody credible comes to market at lower prices, ASICMiner products will lower theirs to something more reasonable. Right now they are mining fools as much as bitcoins. And if you have ever studied the history of gold rushes, mining fools is often initially much more profitable. Friedcat isn't screwing anyone. He's just allowing fools to screw themselves. And he IS delivering the product.

Me, I'm waiting till he has some competition. I still might buy his devices, when the price comes down. Or I might go with the competition. These things are going to have a short lifespan unless somebody figures out a way to repurpose an application SPECIFIC integrated circuit. ASIC mining will be immensely profitable for a minute, fairly profitable for a little while, and a note in history a bit after that.

[Schrankwand]

If people are willing to pay outrageous prices, the producer is a fool to NOT offer outrageous prices while he has a defacto monopoly. When somebody credible comes to market at lower prices, ASICMiner products will lower theirs to something more reasonable. Right now they are mining fools as much as bitcoins. And if you have ever studied the history of gold rushes, mining fools is often initially much more profitable. Friedcat isn't screwing anyone. He's just allowing fools to screw themselves. And he IS delivering the product.

He isnt screwing anyone, of course.

I think that in the longterm, if he sells thousands of these, he might create thousands of haters, who didnt break even and then rant on Bitcoin. If he is into it selling long term, he might make more money not pissing customers off that later say "Ah, i wont buy new, i wont break even anyway."

Hard decision. Short term i agree with you.

[Bitcoinorama]

If people are willing to pay outrageous prices, the producer is a fool to NOT offer outrageous prices while he has a defacto monopoly. When somebody credible comes to market at lower prices, ASICMiner products will lower theirs to something more reasonable. Right now they are mining fools as much as bitcoins. And if you have ever studied the history of gold rushes, mining fools is often initially much more profitable. Friedcat isn't screwing anyone. He's just allowing fools to screw themselves. And he IS delivering the product.

He isnt screwing anyone, of course.

I think that in the longterm, if he sells thousands of these, he might create thousands of haters, who didnt break even and then rant on Bitcoin. If he is into it selling long term, he might make more money not pissing customers off that later say "Ah, i wont buy new, i wont break even anyway."

Hard decision. Short term i agree with you.

Still it's not sharing the love, or the wealth to be *potentially made. It's centralising profits to themselves and leaving their *customers with a product that may...or may not give some reward one day in the future. I see no difference there between ASICminer and putting my money in a modern bank with a piss poor interest, other than I'm putting myself out to change funds to bitcoin and acquire a device which I'm then responsible to ensure remains working, whilst they profit!

To me that's an utterly selfish and stupid reason to sell at such a price. You didn't see graphics card manufacturers decide to raise prices because consumers discovered away to turn their products into additional fundraising devices did you?

[bennybong]

We have enough chips on order to satisfy all preorders. Any orders we make now to satisfy bulk chip sales would come after the chips arrive for the pre-orders.

Does anyone know how many pre-orders they have?

[Biomech]

If people are willing to pay outrageous prices, the producer is a fool to NOT offer outrageous prices while he has a defacto monopoly. When somebody credible comes to market at lower prices, ASICMiner products will lower theirs to something more reasonable. Right now they are mining fools as much as bitcoins. And if you have ever studied the history of gold rushes, mining fools is often initially much more profitable. Friedcat isn't screwing anyone. He's just allowing fools to screw themselves. And he IS delivering the product.

He isnt screwing anyone, of course.

I think that in the longterm, if he sells thousands of these, he might create thousands of haters, who didnt break even and then rant on Bitcoin. If he is into it selling long term, he might make more money not pissing customers off that later say "Ah, i wont buy new, i wont break even anyway."

Hard decision. Short term i agree with you.

I really don't think he will, because he's been quite up front about it. And, given that half of the profits go back to Bitfountain, He is probably using it for R&D for smaller more badass chips. When he has serious competition, I suspect he'll be able to play the undercutting game and gain bonus points because of his reputation. Plus, his initial model was more about the profits to the shareholders than dissemination to the general public. Gen 2 chips, as I understand it, should have immensely more hashing power and be cheaper to produce (excluding the cost of the mask), so he could be positioning himself long and short rather well.

BFL isn't likely to deliver. Despite having had a civil argument with Inaba (which surprised the hell out of me) I've just seen too much hype without enough substantiation. Sure, they have developed the machines. I just don't think they have what it takes to actually take them to serious production in time to be relevant. I could be wrong, of course, but I will be very surprised if they hit the market before at least one competitor hits with better chips, cheaper. We already know there is a lot of interest in this, and there are rich men interested in it. Despite the scams out there, the odds are very good that some VC group is working quietly and has been for some time. They could easily come out of left field and change the whole game. As Yifu said, if his group could do it in four months, then a well funded group could EASILY do it.

I have seen production figures suggesting that the chips themselves will cost in the neighbourhood of .50 to 2.00 USD each to produce after initial cost, so there is a lot of margin for undercutting the market when someone is ready.

It's a hell of a game. I'm late to the party, but I'm enjoying the ride

[Biomech]

If people are willing to pay outrageous prices, the producer is a fool to NOT offer outrageous prices while he has a defacto monopoly. When somebody credible comes to market at lower prices, ASICMiner products will lower theirs to something more reasonable. Right now they are mining fools as much as bitcoins. And if you have ever studied the history of gold rushes, mining fools is often initially much more profitable. Friedcat isn't screwing anyone. He's just allowing fools to screw themselves. And he IS delivering the product.

He isnt screwing anyone, of course.

I think that in the longterm, if he sells thousands of these, he might create thousands of haters, who didnt break even and then rant on Bitcoin. If he is into it selling long term, he might make more money not pissing customers off that later say "Ah, i wont buy new, i wont break even anyway."

Hard decision. Short term i agree with you.

Still it's not sharing the love, or the wealth to be *potentially made. It's centralising profits to themselves and leaving their *customers with a product that may...or may not give some reward one day in the future. I see no difference there between ASICminer and putting my money in a modern bank with a piss poor interest, other than I'm putting myself out to change funds to bitcoin and acquire a device which I'm then responsible to ensure remains working, whilst they profit!

To me that's an utterly selfish and stupid reason to sell at such a price. You didn't see graphics card manufacturers decide to raise prices because consumers discovered away to turn their products into additional fundraising devices did you?

You would have if there was only one or two options available. Early graphics cards were ridiculously expensive for what they did when they DIDN'T have any other purpose. (I mean way back, early 80's. A 16 color graphics adapter frequently cost more than the IBM PC you were putting it in). But as soon as Hercules got competition, the prices became reasonable very quickly.