Is Avalon mining with customer hardware? Answer is here.

[rovchris]

Software developer here too.

Given the different difficulty of test net compared to main net, one has to run on the main net to be sure that the customer will not receive a malfunctioning unit. (And yes, I have looked at the Cgminer source code to see how the validation of a block works if the hash is calculated on a CPU, so I know what I am talking about).

I am sure Yifu will come up with a proper destination for the BTC generated, he is not in it for the money, remember ?

And to make the picture complete, I own Avalon units.

What does that even mean - Please explain how using different input data for a QA test run could produce any kind of meaningful results?

How can you compare the output of the test runs if that is the case?

[dan99]

Butterfly  did a refund to a customer who wouldn't shut up .. a drama play out between Garr255 and Inaba, aka Josh, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236794.80

Better shut up or you don't get your Miner seems to be the trend .. kind of scary

edited: Garr255 apologized to Inaba/Josh and he get to keep his order I presumed..

[davecoin]

What a night...

[jerfelix]

This is pathetic.  If you're still able to retrieve your nose, I'd recommend it.  I'm not saying you need to attack them, I'm still of the opinion that what they are fairly honest.  Hold them responsible for their promises though.

I don't feel a promise has been broken.  Never have.

I placed an order, knowing that it was risky, including delivery time.  I fully expected the delivery schedule to slip.  And all signs are that he's busting his butt to get work done.  That's cool by me.

I know stuff happens, and I would much rather have a business relationship with an ethical, smart, hard-working person who isn't on the forums all the time, than someone who is unethical, not smart, or lazy.

So far, Yifu has earned the benefit of the doubt, and I don't feel the least bit let down.   When it comes, it comes.

Buddy I envy your tolerance but the issue is this - it's not a playstaion its a business tool.

[snip]

This is exactly the case for the ASIC miners. None of the companies have behaved in what would be considered a professional manner in any other industry and this is fact. I will say though in Avalon's defence  they are by far the best of bad bunch.

Absolutely agree with the bolded.  And to further your analogy I am assuming your company doesn't get 100% payment for the job before you do a single fucking thing LOL at best I am sure you get a small deposit and possibly a substantial payment on substantial completion (if your lucky and the deal was structured like that).  If the BTC world isn't the modern wild west ATM then I don't know what is!

I recognize it's not a playstation, it's a business tool.  Obviously I bought it expecting a certain ROI, and I realize that every day delayed is delaying "breakeven day" by more than a day.

But I built in those assumptions into my expectations.

People complain that the ASIC companies aren't being professional, but frankly this isn't a professional environment.   Look through this topic of 300+ messages and compare how many messages are of the variety "they're crooks" vs. how many are professional, level-headed posts.  Frankly, if a customer comes screaming into my business that I am a crook, I feel less of a need to reply, until we can get the conversation to a reasonable, business-person to business-person level.  And if they spew venomous attacks on internet forums, any response of mine wouldn't be aimed at them, but aimed at the level-headed customers and prospects.  I have "fired" customers whom I can't make happy - they're just not worth the trouble.

I have been a part of buying IT equipment and software as business tools for 35+ years.  (and on the contrary, I have never touched a playstation in my life!   )  In every case I can think of, the business tools were purchased because it was believed that they would provide a certain Return on the Investment.  MANY weren't "off-the shelf" products, but instead had to be built to specification.  Back when mini-computers broke onto the scene, it was the same way - those early customers knew they were taking a chance with delays, potentially stuff that didn't perform as expected, etc. But I saw very few customers with pitchforks in hand (perhaps because I only dealt with top-tier start-up vendors, if there's such a thing)!

Regarding traditional contracts of not paying in full until the goods are received... I chose to accept the terms being offered.  I could have walked away.  But those terms (including price, risks, and 100% prepayment) were market-driven;  Had I not agreed to them, someone else would have!   So it's somewhat pointless to argue now that somehow we are being screwed because we had to pay up-front.

Frankly, if my choice up-front was to (A) pay in full (and expedite shipment), or (B) pay 30% down and receive an email when it's getting ready to ship, which would trigger my 70% payment (plus an extra fee to cover the cost of this overhead), and then it would ship upon full payment, I probably would have chosen the former anyway.  But the market didn't even demand this sort of pricing.  Avalon's "no BS terms and conditions" pretty much said it all - that this is not for people without intestinal fortitude.  "Here are the terms, take it or leave it."  I took a deep breath and sent my Bitcoins.

I knew what I was signing up for.  Yes, I'm anxious and disappointed that I don't have it yet.  But, no, I don't feel this is much different from my expectation.

[Matthew N. Wright]

This is pathetic.  If you're still able to retrieve your nose, I'd recommend it.  I'm not saying you need to attack them, I'm still of the opinion that what they are fairly honest.  Hold them responsible for their promises though.

I don't feel a promise has been broken.  Never have.

I placed an order, knowing that it was risky, including delivery time.  I fully expected the delivery schedule to slip.  And all signs are that he's busting his butt to get work done.  That's cool by me.

I know stuff happens, and I would much rather have a business relationship with an ethical, smart, hard-working person who isn't on the forums all the time, than someone who is unethical, not smart, or lazy.

So far, Yifu has earned the benefit of the doubt, and I don't feel the least bit let down.   When it comes, it comes.

Buddy I envy your tolerance but the issue is this - it's not a playstaion its a business tool.

[snip]

This is exactly the case for the ASIC miners. None of the companies have behaved in what would be considered a professional manner in any other industry and this is fact. I will say though in Avalon's defence  they are by far the best of bad bunch.

Absolutely agree with the bolded.  And to further your analogy I am assuming your company doesn't get 100% payment for the job before you do a single fucking thing LOL at best I am sure you get a small deposit and possibly a substantial payment on substantial completion (if your lucky and the deal was structured like that).  If the BTC world isn't the modern wild west ATM then I don't know what is!

I recognize it's not a playstation, it's a business tool.  Obviously I bought it expecting a certain ROI, and I realize that every day delayed is delaying "breakeven day" by more than a day.

But I built in those assumptions into my expectations.

People complain that the ASIC companies aren't being professional, but frankly this isn't a professional environment.   Look through this topic of 300+ messages and compare how many messages are of the variety "they're crooks" vs. how many are professional, level-headed posts.  Frankly, if a customer comes screaming into my business that I am a crook, I feel less of a need to reply, until we can get the conversation to a reasonable, business-person to business-person level.  And if they spew venomous attacks on internet forums, any response of mine wouldn't be aimed at them, but aimed at the level-headed customers and prospects.  I have "fired" customers whom I can't make happy - they're just not worth the trouble.

I have been a part of buying IT equipment and software as business tools for 35+ years.  (and on the contrary, I have never touched a playstation in my life!   )  In every case I can think of, the business tools were purchased because it was believed that they would provide a certain Return on the Investment.  MANY weren't "off-the shelf" products, but instead had to be built to specification.  Back when mini-computers broke onto the scene, it was the same way - those early customers knew they were taking a chance with delays, potentially stuff that didn't perform as expected, etc. But I saw very few customers with pitchforks in hand (perhaps because I only dealt with top-tier start-up vendors, if there's such a thing)!

Regarding traditional contracts of not paying in full until the goods are received... I chose to accept the terms being offered.  I could have walked away.  But those terms (including price, risks, and 100% prepayment) were market-driven;  Had I not agreed to them, someone else would have!   So it's somewhat pointless to argue now that somehow we are being screwed because we had to pay up-front.

Frankly, if my choice up-front was to (A) pay in full (and expedite shipment), or (B) pay 30% down and receive an email when it's getting ready to ship, which would trigger my 70% payment (plus an extra fee to cover the cost of this overhead), and then it would ship upon full payment, I probably would have chosen the former anyway.  But the market didn't even demand this sort of pricing.  Avalon's "no BS terms and conditions" pretty much said it all - that this is not for people without intestinal fortitude.  "Here are the terms, take it or leave it."  I took a deep breath and sent my Bitcoins.

I knew what I was signing up for.  Yes, I'm anxious and disappointed that I don't have it yet.  But, no, I don't feel this is much different from my expectation.

TL; DR? Disappointment is par for the course when working with greedy libertarians. ("Fuck you, got mine!")

[BenTuras]

Software developer here too.

Given the different difficulty of test net compared to main net, one has to run on the main net to be sure that the customer will not receive a malfunctioning unit. (And yes, I have looked at the Cgminer source code to see how the validation of a block works if the hash is calculated on a CPU, so I know what I am talking about).

I am sure Yifu will come up with a proper destination for the BTC generated, he is not in it for the money, remember ?

And to make the picture complete, I own Avalon units.

What does that even mean - Please explain how using different input data for a QA test run could produce any kind of meaningful results?

How can you compare the output of the test runs if that is the case?

Code:

test net target: 00000000 00fcff03 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
main net target: 00000000 de000000 00000015 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

Suppose there is a bug in handling the third and higher words of the target which are all 00000000 on testnet and not all 00000000 on main net ?
This would not be discovered when only running on test net.

And to answer your request for explanation:
If the machine generates a block and the network agrees with it, it is probably ok.
If the machine generates a share and the pool agrees with it, it is probably ok.
So feeding different input data is not an issue for Bitcoin hashing QA if you have a whole network validating your "test" result.

I would still also create a testset (and a program that processes the test data) with known input and output and nothing tells me Avalon doesn't have such a program and runs this test on every machine too before connecting to the main net for their final(?) test.

And maybe they also run against the test net as a second test. The value of this test will be limited, given the few machines running here, which is logical, testnet BTC have no value.

Without word from Avalon we're not sure what they do for testing, we can only speculate, just like what I am doing here.

[rovchris]

Software developer here too.

Given the different difficulty of test net compared to main net, one has to run on the main net to be sure that the customer will not receive a malfunctioning unit. (And yes, I have looked at the Cgminer source code to see how the validation of a block works if the hash is calculated on a CPU, so I know what I am talking about).

I am sure Yifu will come up with a proper destination for the BTC generated, he is not in it for the money, remember ?

And to make the picture complete, I own Avalon units.

What does that even mean - Please explain how using different input data for a QA test run could produce any kind of meaningful results?

How can you compare the output of the test runs if that is the case?

Code:

test net target: 00000000 00fcff03 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
main net target: 00000000 de000000 00000015 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

Suppose there is a bug in handling the third and higher words of the target which are all 00000000 on testnet and not all 00000000 on main net ?
This would not be discovered when only running on test net.

And to answer your request for explanation:
If the machine generates a block and the network agrees with it, it is probably ok.
If the machine generates a share and the pool agrees with it, it is probably ok.
So feeding different input data is not an issue for Bitcoin hashing QA if you have a whole network validating your "test" result.

I would still also create a testset (and a program that processes the test data) with known input and output and nothing tells me Avalon doesn't have such a program and runs this test on every machine too before connecting to the main net for their final(?) test.

And maybe they also run against the test net as a second test. The value of this test will be limited, given the few machines running here, which is logical, testnet BTC have no value.

Without word from Avalon we're not sure what they do for testing, we can only speculate, just like what I am doing here.

That was a good explanation and I see we are meeting in the middle here and that a test harness with known variables is the only way.

The real issue is not the testing lets be honest - the issue is they are using hardware that has been paid for by customers and they are generating revenue from it.

If the devices were unpaid for and the property of Avalon then they have every right to do that - but they are not the property of Avalon. They should have considered this before taking full payment.

[Bicknellski]

FUD everywhere by people who can't do math.

1. these are not batch #1,2 or 3 units.
2. all the openWRT firmware is burnt from a single image in batches,
3. the openWRT is used in more than just production units.
4. all burn-in is 24 or more hours, you all think we seriously only would have 700+ bitcoins if they were mining? LOL
        I can't believe I'm repeating myself by saying we are not mining with batch #2 or #3 units.
5. complains will just lead into refunds, since clearly people are not happy with Avalon ASIC.
        personally I'd love to issue these refunds so these people can go find the next thing to complain about and I can get some peace n quiet.
6. I'm going back to deal with trade-in and damaged orders.

Asked and answered... next problem please.

[Bitcoinorama]

If they are mining for a day or two, I don't see the problem, that's a test in my mind whether it's live on the network, or not. It's only *if* they are deliberately delaying shipments to maximise mining gains for their own ends, over delivering completed hardware to paid and waiting customers that is unacceptable...

[ThickAsThieves]

If they are mining for a day or two, I don't see the problem, that's a test in my mind whether it's live on the network, or not. It's only *if* they are deliberately delaying shipments to maximise mining gains for their own ends, over delivering completed hardware to paid and waiting customers that is unacceptable...

In what scenario is a manufacturer able to get only enough parts and labor to ship a only handful of units every few weeks?

[Bitcoinorama]

If they are mining for a day or two, I don't see the problem, that's a test in my mind whether it's live on the network, or not. It's only *if* they are deliberately delaying shipments to maximise mining gains for their own ends, over delivering completed hardware to paid and waiting customers that is unacceptable...

In what scenario is a manufacturer able to get only enough parts and labor to ship a only handful of units every few weeks?

http://www.butterflylabs.com/ ...

[ScaryHash]

Can they finish the 'testing' before I can still make my money back?

Things are getting not-so-good for batch #2, and quite ugly for batch #3. Hope they can speed up the shipping process or there will be a lot of people mining at a loss

I don't understand why everybody claims that things are going to get so bad that people will be "mining at a loss".

If you plug in the numbers for an 66 Gh/s avalon unit, at 66 Gh/s, 600 W power draw, and about $8000 unit cost (depending on when you got it, btc value, etc...approximate), at the current difficulty of 19.2 million, you're making $180ish a day for 2 weeks.

Change that difficulty to 25 million, that is still $140ish/day. For two weeks, that's almost two grand.

Change the difficulty to 30 million, that's still $117is/day, depending on power costs, for two weeks, that's about $1600ish.

You add all that up, even with bumping up the difficulty by 5 million, every two weeks, and your ROI is somewhere around 2 months.

Granted it's not a 3 week ROI, but you can't have everything.

I think that's pretty good, as long as you didn't get raped on the up-front costs. Now, if you include waiting time for the unit, and the money you COULD have been making, that changes the formula.

Including the full waiting time into the formula changes things, but I don't think that's entirely fair, because nobody really knew how this would all play out. Surely, the earlier you mine at a lower difficulty, the greater the ROI, but nobody really had any control over that, not even Bitsyncom.

So, if they mined with their units for 2 weeks,or even a month, that probably made up, in their minds, for whatever project delay, and it served the purpose testing the longevity of their units out. They should be thanked for that, not criticized.

Look at the positive side.

Seriously, there is too much negativity around here sometimes.

[rovchris]

If they are mining for a day or two, I don't see the problem, that's a test in my mind whether it's live on the network, or not. It's only *if* they are deliberately delaying shipments to maximise mining gains for their own ends, over delivering completed hardware to paid and waiting customers that is unacceptable...

Issue is - Only a set number of Bitcoins can be mined. When they are gone they are gone.

So the manufacturer is kindly decreasing the available bounty for their customers.

If you bought a bottle of spirits and the store clerk takes a swig from it after you had paid for it claiming he needs to test it.

a. Would you take the bottle and put it somewhere the sun does not shine.
b. Feel reassured that the bottle of spirits has been tested even though you receive less.

Answers on a post card please

[jspielberg]

If they are mining for a day or two, I don't see the problem, that's a test in my mind whether it's live on the network, or not. It's only *if* they are deliberately delaying shipments to maximise mining gains for their own ends, over delivering completed hardware to paid and waiting customers that is unacceptable...

Agreed... it is the temptation and potential conflict of interest that is causing all the drama.

I believe Yifu to be an honest man of integrity.

I also believe that Vicus' node truly was delivered with an eligius address that was pushing 3.5TH/s 3 to 4 weeks ago.  I think the simplest explanation is that someone in the supply chain seems to have gone off the reservation.  If it won't slow down processing and shipment of the current backlog, I would recommend that Yifu, as CEO and face of the company, do an internal investigation rather than dismissing it out of hand.  

Also maybe put up controls so that this PR issue won't happen again in the future.  As stated before, I think Bitcentury with their testing/validation methodology for the Bitfury products is well conceived.

"Good artists copy, but great artist steal." - T.S. Eliot jspielberg

[ThickAsThieves]

No, seriously, in what scenario is a manufacturer able to get only enough parts and labor to ship a only handful of units every few weeks?.

[rovchris]

Also it needs to be pointed out the total cost of development of an ASIC chip is around $250,000 for something as established as SHA256 encryption. They did not have to develop the encryption technology all they did was take an existing technology and put it on an ASIC chip

Add all the revenue received from pre orders and you will see that it was basically a no risk venture for them.

You the punters took all the risk and now they are rubbing salt in your wounds.

Also just checking http://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate there has been a massive drop in hash rate.

Would someone care to explain this?

To me it looks like a significant number of ASIC's have just gone offline


It's amazing that they would actually sh*t on their own doorsteps and then take issue because we are complaining about the stench.


Average block time is heading towards 20 mins at the moment - so whoever was responsible - NICE ONE.Now we are all going to be sitting around longer trying to generate the same revenue. This is a classic lesson in how to shaft everyone in the Bitcoin mining community in one go.

So not only are their customers being denied revenue - everyone else that was mining is now suffering.

[pajak666]

Average block time is heading towards 20 mins at the moment - so whoever was responsible - NICE ONE.Now we are all going to be sitting around longer trying to generate the same revenue. This is a classic lesson in how to shaft everyone in the Bitcoin mining community in one go.

Hate to say that, but that is actually good news for all folks who are waiting for their Avalons to arrive, It means that current difficulty will stay a bit longer, and current asics owners will generate lower income due to lower number of blocks generated.

What about that promised update they have mentioned in newsletter? they promised picture of a ton units ready to be shipped. Can't wait to see them, with little explanation which batch are they.

[Wayne_Chang]

Forget the newsletter. I just want to receive my Avalon machine.
I saw someone with 21XX order number already received. But my 13XX order still nothing updated.

[rovchris]

Average block time is heading towards 20 mins at the moment - so whoever was responsible - NICE ONE.Now we are all going to be sitting around longer trying to generate the same revenue. This is a classic lesson in how to shaft everyone in the Bitcoin mining community in one go.

Hate to say that, but that is actually good news for all folks who are waiting for their Avalons to arrive, It means that current difficulty will stay a bit longer, and current asics owners will generate lower income due to lower number of blocks generated.

What about that promised update they have mentioned in newsletter? they promised picture of a ton units ready to be shipped. Can't wait to see them, with little explanation which batch are they.

Buddy what you are talking about their is MARKET MANIPULATION so in that light it is fine to punish everyone that has not bought an Avalon?

So now instead of Bankers and Market traders manipulating the stock market we have someone doing the same with the Bitcoin Difficulty.

This is really going to help the project as a whole?

Guys with these attitudes your Avalons are not going to be worth shit when people decide that this behaviour is reprehensible and stop trading bit coins and move onto the next thing.

It is basically I am OK Jack but F**k the rest of you and the project as a whole.

How do you not see this.

[rudrigorc2]

Forget the newsletter. I just want to receive my Avalon machine.
I saw someone with 21XX order number already received. But my 13XX order still nothing updated.

Did you follow the instructions on how to open the ticket? Exactly how it was written?
Just wait now, you are in China probably wont get the tracking number