Old BFL buyers vs new asicminer prices

[xstr8guy]

I don't disagree with you on any one point. I am one of the many trapped in the web. It is just painful to read.

Here is a question. When is $30000 not $30000?  When its invested in BFL.  No refund, no equivalent BTC mined from late hardware. Just more promises of 'NEW' just around the corner.

This is pretty much a new twist on the ole Bait and Switch with the Monarch and really I can't see why there is no reaction from the forums owner on this... it is fraud and really you shouldn't be taking any advertising dollars from people doing that.

Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts. First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by sales people to consider similar, but higher priced items ("switching").

In a retail store, when the advertised item is unavailable, you are given a rain-check.  And you come back at a later date and get that item at the advertised price.  And if that item is discontinued or otherwise unavailable, you are substituted a replacement item of similar value.

I'm failing to see how this is much different than what BFL is doing.  Other than the fact that the original item and the substitute item might be out-of-stock for several months, lol.

[1713512953]

1713512953

[1713512953]

1713512953

[CoinHoarder]

I hate BFL as much as everyone else, but seriously guys it's getting out of control:

[YipYip]

Well ASICMiner just gave mini rig buyers a punch in the gut.  

Buy from BFL in August 2012. 1 mini-rig 1.5 TH/s @ 3000 BTC
Buy from ASICMiner in August 2013.  20 Eruptor Blades 1.5 TH/s @ 420 BTC
So buy from ASICMiner a year later, no pre-order stress, product will ship in days, spend 86% less, get the same hashing power and receive it sooner.

Things move fast in the mining world so specs only matter if the company can deliver as advertised when advertised.  Those that trusted BFL @ 65nm paid the price, now they want to tell you 28nm will be different.

3000 BTC value in August 2012 in USD: $30,000
420 BTC value in August 2013 in USD: $54,600

So buy from ASICminer a year later, spend 46% more for 1/6th the hashing power @ 3x the power consumption!  Sounds like a good deal to me!  Not.

Now forgive me, perhaps my information is wrong, but aren't the Eruptor Blades 13 GH/s each?  If, so, how do you get 1500 GH out of 20 * 13?  

FUD much?

cry cry ....your time is coming to an end

[dogie]

Josh is seeing ghosts because he knows he is going to jail at some point. Better start beefing up bro.

[Inaba]

cross-post because the posts were moved:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276692.msg3029775#msg3029775

In short: everyone who tries to convince you that pricing mining hardware in USD instead of bitcoin is proper, is either misguided or tries to deceive you. Caveat emptor. What matters is the amount of bitcoin equivalent you spent at the time of purchase.

Really, so you're claiming that 20 * 13 = 1500?  Wow...

the typo is irrelevant for the conclusion. It didn't lead to vastly false numbers.

But lets go back to the USD assessment.  The only way your figures work out is if you have 100% prediction ability or you use hindsight, neither of which are considered acceptable investing methodologies.  

No. An investment into bitcoin mining is a way to buy future bitcoins at current market price. Buyers of the August 2012 minirig bought the prospect of earning future bitcoins (>3000BTC) by spending bitcoins (3000BTC). The fact that they may have spent USD is irrelevant, because it is a different savings vehicle and looking at BTC/USD is only relevant for overhead costs (rent,electricity) which are not priced in bitcoin.
Due to delivery failures that prospect has shrunk to less than the bitcoins spent for buyers who haven't received any hardware to date. On top of that, buyers of ASICMINER now have the alternative to spent 420 BTC on an equivalent amount of hashing power - and that's where the profit loss becomes apparent, because hardware on hand is usually sold around prices similar to the expected ROI.

Once again, your entire premise is flawed.  If you (or anyone) were so good at predicting the bitcoin price back then, why are you not a multi-billionaire?  If you knew BTC was going to go up, especially as much as it did, why were you not mortgaging the house, selling your mother and pimping out your cats and dogs to buy BTC?  You'd be an @#$%@% idiot not to... yet you didn't, why?  

Hindsight investing is great, except it's a bunch of shit, which is why comparing the price in BTC of anything in August 2012 to something in 2013 is a bunch of shit.

I understand that you would like to discredit the validity of DeathAndTaxes' assessment. However, this is not hindsight investing. That is market forces at play. Would the USD/BTC be $10/BTC right now, the eruptor blade would still cost 420 BTC, because that's what the expected ROI is in terms of future bitcoins.

I urge you, please don't try to misguide new people coming into the mining game by playing on their insufficient understanding between the relationship of the exchange rates vs. the viability of mining investments. Your company has done enough harm to the mining community by trapping/destroying a vast amount of capital with unfulfilled promises.

ADDENDUM: topic was moved: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283286.msg3029211#msg3029211

This is a completely disingenuous market that is predicated on completely ludicrous assumptions.  Lets look at a few of them, but this list is by no means comprehensive:

1.  If the bitcoin price had tanked and bitcoins were worth $2 per coin in August, September, October, November, December etc... do you really think there would be as much hashrate on the network right now as there is?  Of course not, so you'd be earning more from your purchase.  So your argument that you've somehow "lost out" on funds because of the delay to the tune of thousands upon thousands is false.
2. Ok, you say, but there is SOME loss because of the delay!  Yes, you're right, for some people there is indeed some loss of potential revenue.  However, what most people, including you apparently, seem to assume when you make your calculations is that you would be the only individual purchasing a unit and everyone else would still be mining on GPUs.  This is a false assumption.  There are many, many people who purchased before you and there are many, many people who have purchased after you (though these are less impactful in the short term, but very impactful in the long term), because of this, the difficulty would ramp up before you get your unit.  The actual loss you may or may not have incurred is far, far less than you want others to believe.  If BFL had shipped in November all of the units we intended to ship, the difficulty would be far higher in January than it is right now, thus your income would actually be less.  Under certain circumstances, depending on what you were mining with in mid 2012 and assuming you kept mining at that point, you actually may have made more money than if we had shipped in November.  None of this makes it right that we missed our target ship date, but the simple fact of the matter is your losses are not measured in the thousands you think they are.
3. Bitcoin price - You paid ~$10 per bitcoin in August 2012. You were unable to predict the price (since if you were, you'd be a multi-billionaire right now), so you elected to purchase mining hardware as a hedge against bitcoin going up.  This let you lock in your price of bitcoins, and if it went down you'd be making back many, many more bitcoins than you spent.  If it went up, you'd make less bitcoins, but you'd make more fiat... that is the whole point of mining hardware.  It locks you in at a bitcoin value and gives you the potential to derive more wealth from the unit than you had previous, be it in BTC or fiat, depending on market trends.

Personally, I'd rather have spend $30,000 in USD to purchase something than $54,000 in BTC, just because it's priced in BTC.  Maybe that's just me, but I find the value of $24,000 USD to be signifigant, whether it's valued in USD or BTC.  Maybe you don't, which is why you think comparing 3000 BTC in August 2012 to 420 BTC in August 2013 to be a logical comparison.  However, I'd wager than the vast, vast majority of people on this forum would rather have someone give them $54,000 in USD than $30,000 in BTC.

None of this even considers the fact that the power consumption of the 120 blades would be 3x that of the minirig.  That the blades are sold out.  That the space required for the blades would be significantly more and we won't discuss the aesthetic aspects because I don't think many people care about that as long as it mines, but there are some people that do care.

So here's the real tally:

Minirig: $30,000, uses less power, takes up less space
Blades: $54,000, uses 3x more power, takes up lots more space

Neither can be purchased off the shelf (as it were) at the moment, so there's your comparison.

[Littleshop]

If you want to speculate on BTC, fine enough, but thats no reason to slam BFL— there are plenty of real reasons for that.

I'd like to slam BFL for terrible communications. Everyday I have to go to these pages:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/activity.php

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=8198;sa=showPosts


And filter through endless tirades of misinformation and babble/drivel. Rarely to discover any facts which give me any indication of when and if I'll ever receive my Single or, for that matter, recoup any of the money I invested nearly a year ago.

Contrast this with:

https://www.kncminer.com/news

Where I receive clear, un-opinionated facts and information which reassure me and help me prepare for delivery of my Jupiter. Given what I know now, the only emotion that I have is regret for listening to all the bullish hype and over-promising which was the signature of BFL's presence on this forum in September and October last year.

Josh, I mean this nicely, but can you please consider stopping picking fights with everyone on this forum who makes accusations and concentrate on providing clear information to your customers, like me.

Cheers,
Donovan.

Looks like so far KNC has delivered nothing so they would not be a great example.  Avalon makes BFL look quite transparent.   ASICminer is the most straight forward so far doing pretty much what they promise but also the only one of the three competing directly with their customers putting their customers at a huge disadvantage. 


Hmmmmmm
Choices... Choices... Choices...

[Jutarul]

This is a completely disingenuous market that is predicated on completely ludicrous assumptions.  Lets look at a few of them, but this list is by no means comprehensive:

Mining has different market dynamics than you'd like to make people believe. In mining the product is money or a money substitute itself. Thus miners are generally interested in increasing their purchasing power within the money system itself.

Put another way: A miner becomes by definition the issuer of the currency and benefits from the ongoing inflation because they get the new money first before the market can price in the inflation or the mining costs are generally lower than the mining revenue. He thus operates CONDITIONAL on the assumption that the purchasing power of the mined asset increases, stays the same or inflates slower than the expected incoming cash flow. If I would expect the mined asset price to fall, I would NOT buy hardware in the first place, but hedge my asset position by selling them for something else.

Thus, mining investments are similar to doubling down on an appreciation of the mined asset. The miner accepts a certain degree of risk and capital expenditure for the prospect of getting that capital back. If I expect the capital expenditure to outsize the mining revenue, I wouldn't do the investment in the first place. That simply doesn't make any economic sense.

[hchc]

You know, I gave credit to Josh at least he would express his view point vs Yifu pretty much just gave you the finger every time 

[Inaba]

This is a completely disingenuous market that is predicated on completely ludicrous assumptions.  Lets look at a few of them, but this list is by no means comprehensive:

Mining has different market dynamics than you'd like to make people believe. In mining the product is money or a money substitute itself. Thus miners are generally interested in increasing their purchasing power within the money system itself.

Put another way: A miner becomes by definition the issuer of the currency and benefits from the ongoing inflation because they get the new money first before the market can price in the inflation or the mining costs are generally lower than the mining revenue. He thus operates CONDITIONAL on the assumption that the purchasing power of the mined asset increases, stays the same or inflates slower than the expected incoming cash flow. If I would expect the mined asset price to fall, I would NOT buy hardware in the first place, but hedge my asset position by selling them for something else.

Thus, mining investments are similar to doubling down on an appreciation of the mined asset. The miner accepts a certain degree of risk and capital expenditure for the prospect of getting that capital back. If I expect the capital expenditure to outsize the mining revenue, I wouldn't do the investment in the first place. That simply doesn't make any economic sense.

You clearly do not understand the motivations of the vast majority of miners, then.  This may be your way of thinking, but I assure you beyond any shadow of a doubt, most miners are in it to make a profit in USD (or their local currency) not to "increase their purchasing power within the money system itself."  Most miners couldn't give a shit about how much BTC it makes in the end, they just want to know how much USD (or local currency) it makes.

Once again, I challenge you:

Ask an average miner which they'd rather do:

Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 400 BTC, valued at $2 each or
Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 5 BTC, valued at $200 each

Invariably, the answer will be the second option, even though that person could have increased their BTC holdings by 40x!  Very few people want BTC for BTC sake, they want BTC for what value it provides in their local currency.  Again, you may be different, but you are in a very tiny, miniscule minority.

[01BTC10]

This is strange because I bought my Avalon unit with BTC and my goal was to get more BTC and I was successful. But I'm probably only a stupid miner.

[YipYip]

cross-post because the posts were moved:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=276692.msg3029775#msg3029775

In short: everyone who tries to convince you that pricing mining hardware in USD instead of bitcoin is proper, is either misguided or tries to deceive you. Caveat emptor. What matters is the amount of bitcoin equivalent you spent at the time of purchase.

Really, so you're claiming that 20 * 13 = 1500?  Wow...

the typo is irrelevant for the conclusion. It didn't lead to vastly false numbers.

But lets go back to the USD assessment.  The only way your figures work out is if you have 100% prediction ability or you use hindsight, neither of which are considered acceptable investing methodologies.  

No. An investment into bitcoin mining is a way to buy future bitcoins at current market price. Buyers of the August 2012 minirig bought the prospect of earning future bitcoins (>3000BTC) by spending bitcoins (3000BTC). The fact that they may have spent USD is irrelevant, because it is a different savings vehicle and looking at BTC/USD is only relevant for overhead costs (rent,electricity) which are not priced in bitcoin.
Due to delivery failures that prospect has shrunk to less than the bitcoins spent for buyers who haven't received any hardware to date. On top of that, buyers of ASICMINER now have the alternative to spent 420 BTC on an equivalent amount of hashing power - and that's where the profit loss becomes apparent, because hardware on hand is usually sold around prices similar to the expected ROI.

Once again, your entire premise is flawed.  If you (or anyone) were so good at predicting the bitcoin price back then, why are you not a multi-billionaire?  If you knew BTC was going to go up, especially as much as it did, why were you not mortgaging the house, selling your mother and pimping out your cats and dogs to buy BTC?  You'd be an @#$%@% idiot not to... yet you didn't, why?  

Hindsight investing is great, except it's a bunch of shit, which is why comparing the price in BTC of anything in August 2012 to something in 2013 is a bunch of shit.

I understand that you would like to discredit the validity of DeathAndTaxes' assessment. However, this is not hindsight investing. That is market forces at play. Would the USD/BTC be $10/BTC right now, the eruptor blade would still cost 420 BTC, because that's what the expected ROI is in terms of future bitcoins.

I urge you, please don't try to misguide new people coming into the mining game by playing on their insufficient understanding between the relationship of the exchange rates vs. the viability of mining investments. Your company has done enough harm to the mining community by trapping/destroying a vast amount of capital with unfulfilled promises.

ADDENDUM: topic was moved: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283286.msg3029211#msg3029211

This is a completely disingenuous market that is predicated on completely ludicrous assumptions.  Lets look at a few of them, but this list is by no means comprehensive:

1.  If the bitcoin price had tanked and bitcoins were worth $2 per coin in August, September, October, November, December etc... do you really think there would be as much hashrate on the network right now as there is?  Of course not, so you'd be earning more from your purchase.  So your argument that you've somehow "lost out" on funds because of the delay to the tune of thousands upon thousands is false.
2. Ok, you say, but there is SOME loss because of the delay!  Yes, you're right, for some people there is indeed some loss of potential revenue.  However, what most people, including you apparently, seem to assume when you make your calculations is that you would be the only individual purchasing a unit and everyone else would still be mining on GPUs.  This is a false assumption.  There are many, many people who purchased before you and there are many, many people who have purchased after you (though these are less impactful in the short term, but very impactful in the long term), because of this, the difficulty would ramp up before you get your unit.  The actual loss you may or may not have incurred is far, far less than you want others to believe.  If BFL had shipped in November all of the units we intended to ship, the difficulty would be far higher in January than it is right now, thus your income would actually be less.  Under certain circumstances, depending on what you were mining with in mid 2012 and assuming you kept mining at that point, you actually may have made more money than if we had shipped in November.  None of this makes it right that we missed our target ship date, but the simple fact of the matter is your losses are not measured in the thousands you think they are.
3. Bitcoin price - You paid ~$10 per bitcoin in August 2012. You were unable to predict the price (since if you were, you'd be a multi-billionaire right now), so you elected to purchase mining hardware as a hedge against bitcoin going up.  This let you lock in your price of bitcoins, and if it went down you'd be making back many, many more bitcoins than you spent.  If it went up, you'd make less bitcoins, but you'd make more fiat... that is the whole point of mining hardware.  It locks you in at a bitcoin value and gives you the potential to derive more wealth from the unit than you had previous, be it in BTC or fiat, depending on market trends.

Personally, I'd rather have spend $30,000 in USD to purchase something than $54,000 in BTC, just because it's priced in BTC.  Maybe that's just me, but I find the value of $24,000 USD to be signifigant, whether it's valued in USD or BTC.  Maybe you don't, which is why you think comparing 3000 BTC in August 2012 to 420 BTC in August 2013 to be a logical comparison.  However, I'd wager than the vast, vast majority of people on this forum would rather have someone give them $54,000 in USD than $30,000 in BTC.

None of this even considers the fact that the power consumption of the 120 blades would be 3x that of the minirig.  That the blades are sold out.  That the space required for the blades would be significantly more and we won't discuss the aesthetic aspects because I don't think many people care about that as long as it mines, but there are some people that do care.

So here's the real tally:

Minirig: $30,000, uses less power, takes up less space
Blades: $54,000, uses 3x more power, takes up lots more space

Neither can be purchased off the shelf (as it were) at the moment, so there's your comparison.

..blah blah blah ....

Why are you pointing to some form of business facts & figures ...when you & BFL are the poster child of the most EPIC fail of how to rip/scam & totally alienate a community... it just boggles the mind... some of your performances I have witnessed WILL go down as MEMES

As soon as the community is given any form of opportunity's not associated with your HIJACK\HOSTAGE marketing plan

They are GONE GONE GONE !!

&

You & your band of Grifters will be exposed for what you are SCAMMERS !!

Trendon-Josh Shavers-Zerhlan  

I would rather stick a coke can of angry wasps up my arse than even think of doing business with you & BFL...I can tell you that 90%+ peopel feel the same way

Love & Kisses

[bcp19]

This is strange because I bought my Avalon unit with BTC and my goal was to get more BTC and I was successful. But I'm probably only a stupid miner.

Yes, but can you do it again and again and again?  Anyone can get lucky once.

[Syke]

Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 400 BTC, valued at $2 each or
Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 5 BTC, valued at $200 each

Invariably, the answer will be the second option, even though that person could have increased their BTC holdings by 40x!  Very few people want BTC for BTC sake, they want BTC for what value it provides in their local currency.  Again, you may be different, but you are in a very tiny, miniscule minority.

Ok, you give me 400 BTC and I'll give you 5 BTC. We can use John K. for escrow if you're uncomfortable with the trade. I'll even pay the escrow fee.

[k9quaint]

This is a completely disingenuous market that is predicated on completely ludicrous assumptions.  Lets look at a few of them, but this list is by no means comprehensive:

Mining has different market dynamics than you'd like to make people believe. In mining the product is money or a money substitute itself. Thus miners are generally interested in increasing their purchasing power within the money system itself.

Put another way: A miner becomes by definition the issuer of the currency and benefits from the ongoing inflation because they get the new money first before the market can price in the inflation or the mining costs are generally lower than the mining revenue. He thus operates CONDITIONAL on the assumption that the purchasing power of the mined asset increases, stays the same or inflates slower than the expected incoming cash flow. If I would expect the mined asset price to fall, I would NOT buy hardware in the first place, but hedge my asset position by selling them for something else.

Thus, mining investments are similar to doubling down on an appreciation of the mined asset. The miner accepts a certain degree of risk and capital expenditure for the prospect of getting that capital back. If I expect the capital expenditure to outsize the mining revenue, I wouldn't do the investment in the first place. That simply doesn't make any economic sense.

You clearly do not understand the motivations of the vast majority of miners, then.  This may be your way of thinking, but I assure you beyond any shadow of a doubt, most miners are in it to make a profit in USD (or their local currency) not to "increase their purchasing power within the money system itself."  Most miners couldn't give a shit about how much BTC it makes in the end, they just want to know how much USD (or local currency) it makes.

Once again, I challenge you:

Ask an average miner which they'd rather do:

Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 400 BTC, valued at $2 each or
Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 5 BTC, valued at $200 each

Invariably, the answer will be the second option, even though that person could have increased their BTC holdings by 40x!  Very few people want BTC for BTC sake, they want BTC for what value it provides in their local currency.  Again, you may be different, but you are in a very tiny, miniscule minority.

You should never spend 10BTC to get 5BTC. That is a fools errand. You are reducing your BTC holdings and hoping the exchange rate will rise to bail out your poor decision making.
Always spend 10BTC to gain 400BTC. You cannot control the fluctuations in the exchange rate. Ideally, spend 10BTC to get a product that ships immediately, so you can begin mining and not wait a year.

[bcp19]

Invariably, the answer will be the second option, even though that person could have increased their BTC holdings by 40x!  Very few people want BTC for BTC sake, they want BTC for what value it provides in their local currency.  Again, you may be different, but you are in a very tiny, miniscule minority.

Hey Josh, while I realize this is a bit off-topic to this discussion, PG locked the other thread.  I was wondering, since you invited him to come look around and he is kind of an oppenent in regards to you and BFL, I live about 4 hours away and could, with your permission, run down and 'tag along' during the tour.  That way you'd have people from 'both sides' present.  I'm semi-retired and my schedule is very flexible.  Let me know.

[dogie]

So here's the real tally:

Minirig: $30,000, uses less power, takes up less space
Blades: $54,000, uses 3x more power, takes up lots more space

ROFL, vapourware does tend not to take up much space, handy that.

[derr777]

Getting back to the original topic.  What would stop those of us outside of the BFL inner circle, who might have more knowledge of the situation than us, from thinking that the coming price war wouldn't put them in serious jeopardy of not remaining a going concern.  While ASICMINER sold out on some blades, the price is not going to go back up when they come back in, which seems to be always pretty darn quick.  Even if the math presented above is slightly off with regard to mini-rig and X blades at Y price, the very real possibility that hashrate is available at a significantly lower price than a BFL May preorder, (which there were a ton of due to price spiking of BTC,) definately exists.

[YipYip]

Getting back to the original topic.  What would stop those of us outside of the BFL inner circle, who might have more knowledge of the situation than us, from thinking that the coming price war wouldn't put them in serious jeopardy of not remaining a going concern.  While ASICMINER sold out on some blades, the price is not going to go back up when they come back in, which seems to be always pretty darn quick.  Even if the math presented above is slightly off with regard to mini-rig and X blades at Y price, the very real possibility that hashrate is available at a significantly lower price than a BFL May preorder, (which there were a ton of due to price spiking of BTC,) definately exists.

The inside vibe of BFL will be PONZI city...they dont have teh funds as they will have been spent !!!

Price war...i loled ... they cant even buy enough components to fulfill current orders 10x over

A gentle breeze will fold the house of cards that is BFL

[teek]

This might be a good time to point out you can pre-order your ANTI-BFL T-Shirt at http://www.wtcr.ca/catalog/product/sh-abflw-01  as well you can also pre-order ASICMINER products and receive them in 4-6 weeks¹.




¹_{just kidding, shirts, blades, and usbs, ship IMMEDIATELY.}

[Cablez]

Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 400 BTC, valued at $2 each or
Purchase a widget that costs 10 BTC and will generate 5 BTC, valued at $200 each

Invariably, the answer will be the second option, even though that person could have increased their BTC holdings by 40x!  Very few people want BTC for BTC sake, they want BTC for what value it provides in their local currency.  Again, you may be different, but you are in a very tiny, miniscule minority.

Ok, you give me 400 BTC and I'll give you 5 BTC. We can use John K. for escrow if you're uncomfortable with the trade. I'll even pay the escrow fee.

I know right? Its like BFL has no idea who they are selling their hardware too...........or maybe they do?   Hint: clueless noobs with the rest getting sucked in too.