1GH/s, 20w, $500 — Butterflylabs, is it a scam?

[btc_artist]

I still think Inaba's in on it.









JUST KIDDING!

[P4man]

I don't disagree with any of that.  Not really sure what you are refuting.

You seemed to insinuate their pricing made no sense and that it was evidence of scam. But apparently I misunderstood and you seem to agree with me that particularly in the scenario they use s-asics, that their pricing strategy is likely completely sensible?

If so, good.
I also think you -along with everyone else- agree that the performance and power consumption claims are completely believable if this is an s-asic. I think everyone agrees the pictures and PCB look pretty damn real. BFL people dont seem to meet Inaba wearing a face mask and sunglasses. They dont seem to make any fuzz about canceled orders.

Someone remind me, what evidence was there again of this being a scam?

[DeathAndTaxes]

I don't disagree with any of that.  Not really sure what you are refuting.

You seemed to insinuate their pricing made no sense and that it was evidence of scam. But apparently I misunderstood and you seem to agree with me that particularly in the scenario they use s-asics, that their pricing strategy is likely completely sensible?

If so, good.
I also think you -along with everyone else- agree that the performance and power consumption claims are completely believable if this is an s-asic. I think everyone agrees the pictures and PCB look pretty damn real. BFL people dont seem to meet Inaba wearing a face mask and sunglasses. They dont seem to make any fuzz about canceled orders.

Someone remind me, what evidence was there again of this being a scam?

A recap (assumming the company is pretending to be using sASICS):
* Company is offering pre-orders before product is ready (which isn't necessary as they would have had to already acquire the sASICS)
* Company claims product will ship in 4-6 weeks but the prototype isn't even working yet 7 weeks later (the 6 weeks from initial claim was on 11/18 so they already missed that).
* Company also puts all shipping estimates for new pre-orders at a continual 6 weeks out which just happens to put every single order (both past and future) outside of Paypal chargeback period.
* Speaking of Paypal.  The company has the assets to acquire a multi-hundred thousand dollar sASIC design and run but can't accept credit cards via their established merchant account and instead relies on Paypal which has much less protection for the consumer.
* Company calls themselves "Butterfly Labs Inc."  but there is no "Butterfly Labs Inc." in the US.  There are 12 BF Labs Inc (and one B.F.L. Inc) in the US but nothing on the website links them to that particular entity and no information available for BF Labs Inc link them to Butterfly Labs.
* Company claims to have decade of experience but has no prior products and didn't exist 6 months ago.
* Company planned a public demo 2 weeks ago but was unable to have product working in time.
* Company has never explained how 32 boards = 50x performance.
* Company claims that product is useful for medical imaging (which would be incompatible w/ sASIC design).
* Company performance claims are not impossible (although improbable) w/ high end sASIC but board voltage and onboard flash loader would indicate high end FPGA not a sASIC. 
* Company now plans a public demo in which no hard numbers can be provided.
* Company "knows" board will produce 1.05 GH (note the 3 significant digits) but actually hasn't mined anything yet.  They also know the rig box will produce exactly 50.45 GH (an uneven multiplier) despite the simpler product not yet working at the claimed speeds.
* Company (in one of the very few announcements) claimed it wouldn't put rig box up for pre-order until singles had been demoed yet it failed to live up to that claim.

[bulanula]

Great.


First advertise some wonderful prices and performance ( 1 GH/s and $500 ) then shaft us and advertise higher prices and ( GASP ! ) LOWER performance ( $700 and 800 Mhash/s ). How does the last bit exactly work ? Are they the next Intel limiting their chips and the performance ?

[legolouman]

Great.


First advertise some wonderful prices and performance ( 1 GH/s and $500 ) then shaft us and advertise higher prices and ( GASP ! ) LOWER performance ( $700 and 800 Mhash/s ). How does the last bit exactly work ? Are they the next Intel limiting their chips and the performance ?

At $700 for 800Mhash is still far better $/H ratio than any video card I know of (new of course). Not to mention the power benefits. I'm beginning to think this is too good to be true again.

[rjk]

I'm beginning to think this is too good to be true again.

"Again"?

[Mousepotato]

At $700 for 800Mhash is still far better $/H ratio than any video card I know of (new of course). Not to mention the power benefits. I'm beginning to think this is too good to be true again.

wait... wat?

[DeathAndTaxes]

At $700 for 800Mhash is still far better $/H ratio than any video card I know of (new of course). Not to mention the power benefits. I'm beginning to think this is too good to be true again.

wait... wat?

Maybe he means far better than any solid gold video card.  

[Turbor]

Did i miss something ? Who is talking about lower performance ?

[sadpandatech]

I think the 'big box' stores have proven in a so called capitalist economy, selling quantity far outweighs selling at an acceptable market price

  I most certainly agree that "a fast nickle beats a slow dime", IF there is sufficient inventory to back it up.

  Again, I must apologize to those sensitive to 'capitalism' for not clearifying what I meant by "sound capitalism".  I was simply meaning to state that, in this one particular instance, that the price was not in the good natured spirit of competition in capitalism. And, that at the stated performance and assumed cost to produce of these units and the low volume availabe, the price was well below the market value.  I am not sure how that was taken to support the 'American addage' of cut throat, rip your ass off health care, or anything else for that matter. ;p  

  To those that think there is something inherently wrong with 'markup', you try running a company and see how long you can afford to 'float' it with a 1-5% markup.  Capitalism in itself is what drives the economy, in its ability to earn money. Currupt business practices and monopolistic price gouging are not problems tied to the definition of capitalism but to the people that run those unethical companies.  There is of course a LOT more to capitalism and I am sure there is much more to debate, as has been done in many threads here already. But, if we want to discuss more of the topic, we should create a new thread in economy and bash each others' brains on the keyboards there.

   Cheers,
     Derek

[sadpandatech]

Did i miss something ? Who is talking about lower performance ?

  No one, I made the mistake of trying to explain how something I requested Inaba to try and do when he reported back the results, since he cannot give hard numbers, was mistaken.  Apparently, no one read my explanation and again only hawk eyed in on the numbers in my post. :/

[DeathAndTaxes]

Did i miss something ? Who is talking about lower performance ?

  No one, I made the mistake of trying to explain how something I requested Inaba to try and do when he reported back the results, since he cannot give hard numbers, was mistaken.  Apparently, no one read my explanation and again only hawk eyed in on the numbers in my post. :/

I don't think anyone was going off your post.  Inaba statement from the company that they won't allow hard numbers to be revealed alone is enough to generate talk about reduced performance.  I mean if it was hitting 1.5GH/s I doubt they would want to keep that a secret.

[Turbor]

let's wait and see...

[btc_artist]

I mean if it was hitting 1.5GH/s I doubt they would want to keep that a secret.

They might if they planned to throttle it to 1GH/s and then in six months come out with an improved version that does 1.5GH/s for a higher price.

[legolouman]

I'm going to defend what I said now, while feeling kind of stupid.

The 5830: Where can you find it new? How much does that cost? For what 250 mhash or so?

The 5970: Okay, yes Newegg sold the last bit they had for $300, that was an awesome deal. Where else can I buy a 5970 for $300?Keyword being new! I need to snatch up a bajillion.

As for some of the other, lower end 6xxx series. I feel quite stupid and spoke before thinking. It proves the point of 'sneezing the wrong way will cause a flame war,' at least on this forum.
In that case, I'm going to say that I also took into account the power usage, and obviously the heat/cooling involved.

[sadpandatech]

I'm going to defend what I said now, while feeling kind of stupid.

The 5830: Where can you find it new? How much does that cost? For what 250 mhash or so?

The 5970: Okay, yes Newegg sold the last bit they had for $300, that was an awesome deal. Where else can I buy a 5970 for $300?Keyword being new! I need to snatch up a bajillion.

As for some of the other, lower end 6xxx series. I feel quite stupid and spoke before thinking. It proves the point of 'sneezing the wrong way will cause a flame war,' at least on this forum.
In that case, I'm going to say that I also took into account the power usage, and obviously the heat/cooling involved.

  hehe, no need to feel dumb, m8. I knew what you meant by it. Thanks for explaining though.  It's one of the caveats of forum communication that we are not able to instantly correct ourselves in conversation. It can be quite frustrating in a fast paced convo when we don't give ourselves the time to recite our thoughts.

  cheers

[Transisto]

At $700 for 800Mhash is still far better $/H ratio than any video card I know of (new of course). Not to mention the power benefits. I'm beginning to think this is too good to be true again.

5970, 800mhs , 300$

You have to mention power benefits for it to be news worthy.

[Litt]

So I just finished reading this thread.

I demand a refund of my time wasted. ANYONE?

what a waste of time.. 

[2112]

I don't understand why anybody here is surprised by the prohibition of publishing any results of a benchmark. Nowadays it is pretty much standard operating procedure that publishing any benchmark results without vendor's agreement is a breach of license.

http://www.xilinx.com/ise/license/core_license_agreement.htm

http://www.xilinx.com/ise/license/license_agreement.htm

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/database-11g-express-license-459621.html

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/solaris-studio-license-169628.html

I would be more surprised if anyone could show me a current licensing terms for an American product withouth the anti-bench-marking clause.

[fred0]

I don't understand why anybody here is surprised by the prohibition of publishing any results of a benchmark. Nowadays it is pretty much standard operating procedure that publishing any benchmark results without vendor's agreement is a breach of license.

http://www.xilinx.com/ise/license/core_license_agreement.htm

http://www.xilinx.com/ise/license/license_agreement.htm

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/database-11g-express-license-459621.html

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/solaris-studio-license-169628.html

I would be more surprised if anyone could show me a current licensing terms for an American product withouth the anti-bench-marking clause.

I don't think anybody is looking at this with benchmarks in mind. However, some degree of measurement of real performance in its intended purpose must be available.

For example, while a car might have a top speed of 120 mph, what I care about is can I drive the car on the highway?

Can I drive the BitForce widget on the highway?