BFL Labs just like Get-rich-quick-schemes

[smoothie]

Butterfly labs are essentially doing the same thing that say day trading "get-rich-quick-schemes" do. They sell a product to help you make more money or in this case "mine more coins" with "1000 GH.s"...when they could easily use it to their advantage and keep a hold on the "secret".

The same question gets asked about forex software trading robots/software that are going to make you a ton of money, yet the creator of the software is selling it to you instead of just using it themselves.

BFL is doing the same. They have claimed to have created a product that can do "1000 GH/s" and are selling it for $30,000 when they could easily keep their secret to themselves and create just 5 rigs like that and make bank on bitcoins for the LONG-TERM!

This question of "why dont you just mine instead of selling?" is answered by (paraphrasing) "we don't mine, we are hardware enthusiasts and this is what we do".

I will believe the product when I see it. And if I am wrong and they do deliver, then they are retarded for selling their secret.

 

[finkleshnorts]

I was under the impression that they are only able to afford production because of all the pre-orders.

[smoothie]

That makes sense...but still getting private funding without making a public ruckus would still net them a HUGE advantage over the rest of the market.

[Stephen Gornick]

This question of "why dont you just mine instead of selling?" is answered by (paraphrasing) "we don't mine, we are hardware enthusiasts and this is what we do".

I will believe the product when I see it. And if I am wrong and they do deliver, then they are retarded for selling their secret.

Legitimately, these would need to be "burned in" by mining.  So they can do a little of both -- mine some for themselves (while difficulty is low).

Watch for shipments to be timed right at each difficulty adjustment.  (e.g., mine before the difficulty change, then ship, then start the prep for the next batch for shipment 2,106 blocks later).

But they probably could never get the investment funding necessary to design and build these if they weren't pre-selling.  So even though this route does leave potential profit on the table (from not mining themselves), it does allow them to not just remain in the mining hardware vendor space but to remain the leader.

[smoothie]

This question of "why dont you just mine instead of selling?" is answered by (paraphrasing) "we don't mine, we are hardware enthusiasts and this is what we do".

I will believe the product when I see it. And if I am wrong and they do deliver, then they are retarded for selling their secret.

Legitimately, these would need to be "burned in" by mining.  So they can do a little of both -- mine some for themselves (while difficulty is low).

Watch for shipments to be timed right at each difficulty adjustment.  (e.g., mine before the difficulty change, then ship, then start the prep for the next batch for shipment 2,106 blocks later).

But they probably could never get the investment funding necessary to design and build these if they weren't pre-selling.  So even though this route does leave potential profit on the table (from not mining themselves), it does allow them to not just remain in the mining hardware vendor space but to remain the leader.

Private funding allows for them to get these manufactured. less people in on the pie means bigger pie for you.

I guess we should be "thankful" they are wanting to "share" their creation(s) with all of us.

[BR0KK]

Legitimately, these would need to be "burned in" by mining.  So they can do a little of both -- mine some for themselves (while difficulty is low).

Watch for shipments to be timed right at each difficulty adjustment.  (e.g., mine before the difficulty change, then ship, then start the prep for the next batch for shipment 2,106 blocks later).

But they probably could never get the investment funding necessary to design and build these if they weren't pre-selling.  So even though this route does leave potential profit on the table (from not mining themselves), it does allow them to not just remain in the mining hardware vendor space but to remain the leader.

there is a user called burnin at EclipseMC


Also VC wants something back .... they don't lend u a certain amount of money just for the kicks. One part may be that so called "preorder / Exchange program" that were seeing for the second time

But awww what do i care about.Ill just throw more precious BTC at them

[Cablez]

I can't wait to see what the secondary market for these SC devices will look like. Super premiums or dumping rigs, who knows?

[ChanceCoats123]

They are "sharing" their products with us for the cheap because they will make large amounts of money from the initial sales. People will then realize that a single jalapeno sounded great when the difficulty was 1.7M, but oh no, I need more hashing power now that the network is over 200Thash. Hell they are only $150, let's get a couple more!

Before we know it, the ROI time will be years and no one will be earning well. On the brightside, bitcoin as a currency will be very secure.

[mtminer]

They are "sharing" their products with us for the cheap because they will make large amounts of money from the initial sales. People will then realize that a single jalapeno sounded great when the difficulty was 1.7M, but oh no, I need more hashing power now that the network is over 200Thash. Hell they are only $150, let's get a couple more!

Before we know it, the ROI time will be years and no one will be earning well. On the brightside, bitcoin as a currency will be very secure.

How is it more secure? Going to take the less money to buy 50%+ as it always has in your 200Thash scenario. 6 million. (30k for 1TH box)

Current speed of 13THash using $600-1,000 a gh is 7.8 million to 13 million. (best FPGA to new GPUs)

Total bitcoin market cap is: 67.13 million http://blockchain.info/stats

[ChanceCoats123]

200Thash is a figure I took from a separate thread, which was a rough estimate of the network hashrate two months after the ASIC's are shipped. I'm no future-seer as I know you are not either. No one knows or can know the exact network hashrate once ASIC hits. That said, your idea is correct in its theory, but almost completely impossible. You say it would only take 6M USD, which is true, but that's 200 of the SC mini rig units. If BFL, within the first 2 months of shipping the first units, will be able to send out 200 of their largest, most powerful units to a single buyer while dealing with other orders, then I'll eat my hat.

[OmegaNemesis28]

This question of "why dont you just mine instead of selling?" is answered by (paraphrasing) "we don't mine, we are hardware enthusiasts and this is what we do".

I will believe the product when I see it. And if I am wrong and they do deliver, then they are retarded for selling their secret.

Legitimately, these would need to be "burned in" by mining.  So they can do a little of both -- mine some for themselves (while difficulty is low).

Watch for shipments to be timed right at each difficulty adjustment.  (e.g., mine before the difficulty change, then ship, then start the prep for the next batch for shipment 2,106 blocks later).

But they probably could never get the investment funding necessary to design and build these if they weren't pre-selling.  So even though this route does leave potential profit on the table (from not mining themselves), it does allow them to not just remain in the mining hardware vendor space but to remain the leader.

Private funding allows for them to get these manufactured. less people in on the pie means bigger pie for you.

I guess we should be "thankful" they are wanting to "share" their creation(s) with all of us.

You're forgetting that they are hardware manufacturers that are developing hardware (not just software) for a relatively unpredictable market.
If they were to keep it all a "secret" and just mine themselves, they'd be shooting themselves in the feet.
Why?

If they were to, they start mining like crazy. They, single handedly, raise the difficulty level. Sure, they get some marginal profits initially, but because no one else owns this technology or "secret" - they won't be able to make any SIGNIFICANT money for themselves. Because who knows?  Their bitcoins after their shenangains might not be worth anywhere near as much as their investment into the technology to begin with if difficulty for mining shoots up, no one can mine for bitcoin, prices may or may not change drastically, mining would either stop or halt because this HUGE unknown is pouring out hundreds of Th/s of hash from their "secret" ASIC farms and no one else can hold a candle to it. I mean, this is hypothetical but I cannot see how far off it would be one "group/individual" were to just suddenly be pulling Th/s out of thin air with no one else to compete.

They're making a much larger and SOLID profit by selling the hardware. Bitcoin could flourish in their favor, but it could completely bomb too and they would never recuperate their own ROI on dev. Their profit on most the hardware initially will be full proof. Their selling hardware for profit, not creating hardware for themselves to hypothetically make money on an unpredictable market.

[smoothie]

This question of "why dont you just mine instead of selling?" is answered by (paraphrasing) "we don't mine, we are hardware enthusiasts and this is what we do".

I will believe the product when I see it. And if I am wrong and they do deliver, then they are retarded for selling their secret.

Legitimately, these would need to be "burned in" by mining.  So they can do a little of both -- mine some for themselves (while difficulty is low).

Watch for shipments to be timed right at each difficulty adjustment.  (e.g., mine before the difficulty change, then ship, then start the prep for the next batch for shipment 2,106 blocks later).

But they probably could never get the investment funding necessary to design and build these if they weren't pre-selling.  So even though this route does leave potential profit on the table (from not mining themselves), it does allow them to not just remain in the mining hardware vendor space but to remain the leader.

Private funding allows for them to get these manufactured. less people in on the pie means bigger pie for you.

I guess we should be "thankful" they are wanting to "share" their creation(s) with all of us.

You're forgetting that they are hardware manufacturers that are developing hardware (not just software) for a relatively unpredictable market.
If they were to keep it all a "secret" and just mine themselves, they'd be shooting themselves in the feet.
Why?

If they were to, they start mining like crazy. They, single handedly, raise the difficulty level. Sure, they get some marginal profits initially, but because no one else owns this technology or "secret" - they won't be able to make any SIGNIFICANT money for themselves. Because who knows?  Their bitcoins after their shenangains might not be worth anywhere near as much as their investment into the technology to begin with if difficulty for mining shoots up, no one can mine for bitcoin, prices may or may not change drastically, mining would either stop or halt because this HUGE unknown is pouring out hundreds of Th/s of hash from their "secret" ASIC farms and no one else can hold a candle to it. I mean, this is hypothetical but I cannot see how far off it would be one "group/individual" were to just suddenly be pulling Th/s out of thin air with no one else to compete.

They're making a much larger and SOLID profit by selling the hardware. Bitcoin could flourish in their favor, but it could completely bomb too and they would never recuperate their own ROI on dev. Their profit on most the hardware initially will be full proof. Their selling hardware for profit, not creating hardware for themselves to hypothetically make money on an unpredictable market.

The wouldn't have to raise the difficulty much to mine a significant amount of bitcoins. You assume that I was thinking they should mine like crazy and that wasn't what i was saying. Just like buying bitcoins one should buy slowly...just like mining with an advantageous set of hardware...mine at a nice steady rate.

[Technomage]

Mining themselves instead of selling would be so stupid that the word "retarded" is not even close to cover the stupidity of it. The Bitcoin network has one achilles heel and that is the 51% attack, if any one entity had that power confidence in Bitcoin would crash. Sure, they can mine while the value of one bitcoin is in the cents, but I doubt that their profits would be anywhere near where they will be now that they're selling those chips and keeping Bitcoin decentralized, as it should be.

[Dargo]

If BFL only built 5 SC mini rigs and used them to mine "at a steady pace" for themselves, the cost of those 5 rigs would be extremely high. Sure, they could still pay them off and make a nice profit, but given the rate of orders we are seeing, it's very likely that they will make more money selling the hardware on a large scale rather than mining on a small scale with it. And of course they couldn't mine for themselves on a large scale since they would take over the network and this would undermine bitcoin and their profits. I suppose if nobody else ever brought ASICs online, BFL could eventually make more by mining on a small scale, but of course that wouldn't happen. BFL may be the first, but they certainly won't be the only, ASIC developer.

[Coinoisseur]

1) Make incredible claims about your future product promise 1 to 1 trade ins on your currently sold product
2) Point all your PR tools to talking favorably about your future product and minimizing your previous failure to meet pre-release numbers
3) Take peoples $ for future orders, this combined with money not spent due to uncertainty reduces your competitors sales and thus available funds to develop their future products
4) Some profit
5) Plow some of that money into developing something that at least might, perhaps come close to your seat of the pants PR numbers
6)
7) More profit

Perhaps I should add:
Actually manage to produce great ASIC chips, make even more profit from mining during QA "testing"

[Cablez]

But this all goes back to who makes more money........the miners or the guy selling you mining supplies.

[Dargo]

But this all goes back to who makes more money........the miners or the guy selling you mining supplies.

Yeah, going with that, a company might make more money digging for gold with the 5 shovels they themselves would need to mine than they would from selling just the 5 shovels. But if instead they don't mine and just sell thousands of shovels to all the miners out there, then they will likely make more than they could have by digging for themselves with 5 shovels. Analogous point for BFL.

[smoothie]

But this all goes back to who makes more money........the miners or the guy selling you mining supplies.

Yeah, going with that, a company might make more money digging for gold with the 5 shovels they themselves would need to mine than they would from selling just the 5 shovels. But if instead they don't mine and just sell thousands of shovels to all the miners out there, then they will likely make more than they could have by digging for themselves with 5 shovels. Analogous point for BFL.

Point #1: No one digs for gold (serious miners) with a shovel now days.

Point #2: Manual labor and running software can't be compared. One is physical and one is more virtual/electrical/automated.

Hardly a good analogy..lol

[johnyj]

Use pre-order money to make the production happen, good business model, especially now when loan generally are difficult to get

I guess BFL were difficult to cover their cost on FPGA operation,  FPGA devices do not really provide real performance leap over GPU, thus ignored by most of the users

And in their eyes, BTC is just a game, they are the gaming device maker, as long as they could make profit by making gaming console, they do not care about the rest, anyway profit in USD has much less risk. BTC's future is always a puzzle

[OmegaNemesis28]

But this all goes back to who makes more money........the miners or the guy selling you mining supplies.

Yeah, going with that, a company might make more money digging for gold with the 5 shovels they themselves would need to mine than they would from selling just the 5 shovels. But if instead they don't mine and just sell thousands of shovels to all the miners out there, then they will likely make more than they could have by digging for themselves with 5 shovels. Analogous point for BFL.

Point #1: No one digs for gold (serious miners) with a shovel now days.

Point #2: Manual labor and running software can't be compared. One is physical and one is more virtual/electrical/automated.

Hardly a good analogy..lol

An analogy is just that - an analogy. It doesnt matter if miners ACTUALLY use shovels now. It's the logic.

And the manual labor/software here is perfectly warranted too. Again, its the logic.

The cost/development of shovels from Miner Company is analogous to the cost/development of ASIC from BFL.
The selling of shovels is analogous to the selling of ASIC devices.
The chance of actually finding gold and selling it is analogous to the difficulty rate/block chain of bitcoin mining.

the logic, not the actual practicality is what matters