1GH/s, 20w, $500 — Butterflylabs, is it a scam? - page 11.

fred0

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Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 29, 2011, 05:24:08 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

I would not pay $20 for gold it is fools like you that keep these ripoff prices in effect, you must bend over for ever new release from Apple too do ya...

I own no Apple products. As far as Gold I though the fair price was production cost + small profit margin. Global gold production costs are ~$600 per ounce. I guess you just indicated the fallacy of your own claim. The "fair price" is what the market will bear.

There is no "sound capitalism" in keeping margins lower than market will bear. If the market won't bear higher prices then you need to ACCEPT lower margins (or possible negative margins, or halt production).

That's why health care is an industry in the good ol' USA. Can't afford to pay what we want, fine go die somewhere. After all fair markup is what the market will accept.

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Quote from: ?? on ??

I would not pay $20 for gold it is fools like you that keep these ripoff prices in effect, you must bend over for ever new release from Apple too do ya...

I own no Apple products. As far as Gold I though the fair price was production cost + small profit margin. Global gold production costs are ~$600 per ounce. That would put the "sound capitalistic price" (your definition) at $650 to $700 right? So why do you value Gold at <$20 per ounce? I guess you just indicated the fallacy of your own claim. The "fair price" is what the market will bear and has nothing to do w/ production cost. You wouldn't even consider a price of 3% of production cost (97% loss for producer) to be "fair".

There is no "sound capitalism" in keeping margins lower than market will bear. If the market won't bear higher prices then you need to ACCEPT lower margins (or possible negative margins, or halt production).

I'll take it you aren't interested in any "high value", "low market" aged dog poop then?

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: sadpandatech on November 29, 2011, 04:32:48 PM

Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 04:23:49 PM

I am not speaking with any first hand knowledge, I'm just speculating... but I think the price increase came from a discussion I had with BFL in regards to the current state of Bitcoin vs some factors relating to used GPU sales...

The possible hashrate decrease I think

I agree and also pointed out in an email to them something along the lines of the price 'not being in the spirit of sound capitalism'...

What you mean that old adage of figuring out the cost of production then putting fair markup on it is not good enough anymore, that used to be the definition of sound capitalism until the fucking MBAs and their price points got involved with their everyone must make sure to gouge as much as possible from the customer.

Fair markup is what the market will accept. For some products that might be 1% for others it might be 70%.

If this product is real then selling it cheaper just because you can was never "sound capitalism".

If the market would accept $700 and you are limited to 100 initial units why would you sell it for a nickle less than $700. To make less money? To take more risk for no increased gain. Obviously if the market doesn't accept $700 they would need to lower the price. If their cost was $3,500 per board well the market likely isn't going to accept that even with 0% markup.

Not sure what "old adage" you are talking about but cost of production + some % has never been the market value for anything. My cost of production for a bag of aged dog poop (70% pure) is $3.95. Will you consider it a good deal at only 1% markup? If I can mine gold @ $600 an ounce would you consider it a bad deal if I sold you as much as you want for 100% markup?

Since you are passing on the "ripoff" gold @ $1200 an ounce let me know how many tons of aged dog poop you would like. I accept BTC or Paypal.

sadpandatech

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Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 04:23:49 PM

I am not speaking with any first hand knowledge, I'm just speculating... but I think the price increase came from a discussion I had with BFL in regards to the current state of Bitcoin vs some factors relating to used GPU sales...

The possible hashrate decrease I think

  I agree and also pointed out in an email to them something along the lines of the price 'not being in the spirit of sound capitalism'...

Not directed at Inaba or anyone inparticular;
  There is no possible hashrate decrease unless you know soemthing we don't. My request to get any kind of report back and placing a range on it, in this case 20%, was simply in the hopes if getting any kind of word back on the performance. It was taken out of context greatly by the next poster. I guess I could have clearified my intentions better. But after reading my request a few times I am finding it hard to see how it could have been percieved as any kind of official statement of performance or willingness to accept the result of -20% at new price.......

  I know my grammar and verbage can be a little rough sometimes but there is very rarely anything to "read between the lines" in my ramblings..

  Cheers,
   Derek

Inaba

legendary

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I am not speaking with any first hand knowledge, I'm just speculating... but I think the price increase came from a discussion I had with BFL in regards to the current state of Bitcoin vs some factors relating to used GPU sales...

The possible hashrate decrease I think is a function of trying to get the communication problem(s) they are having worked out and them artificially slowing things down. That's just my gist from talking to them, so don't take any of that as some sort of statement on what's may or may not be happening inside BFL, of which I am not privy.

legolouman

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Decent Programmer to boot!

Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 29, 2011, 03:58:30 PM

Quote from: legolouman on November 29, 2011, 03:51:11 PM

Quote from: plastic.elastic on November 29, 2011, 03:43:32 PM

Quote from: sadpandatech on November 29, 2011, 03:39:30 PM

Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 11:36:22 AM

I just spoke to BFL and they agreed to demo the current development hardware/firmware tonight. However, I am otherwise already engaged tonight and they agreed to do the demo tomorrow afternoon.

Part of the agreement of me viewing the development hardware and software was that no hard numbers are released for this particular demo, although I will confirm what I actually see without providing exact numbers until they have a production version of the software available for release.

Not exactly what I know we all want to see, but at least they are willing to provide something. Having developed both hardware and software products in the past, I am inclined to be a little lenient with expected production issues to a moderate degree.

So anyway, I will report back what I see, just don't expect hard numbers for the demo tomorrow.

Rock on, thanks. Even though you can't give hard numbers can you atleast give us a thumbs up or something if it is within, say, 20% of the stated 1.05GHs? ;p

So this goes from $500 1GH/s to a $700 800MH/s ?

Interesting.

Actually, these prices being raised and numbers being lowered make sense. While I question the legitimacy of this, I think that the prices being raised could mean that production costs, and actual numbers they intended to reach aren't as easy to reach (with early software) as they intended. My understanding is that the hardware is quite capable, but the software isn't yet. I'm open to criticism on that point, but my overall statement I think makes sense.

Well mining software is pretty trivial (relatively speaking no offense intended mining software authors), and open source. My understanding is they are simply taking an open source mining software and modifying it to feed the exact same data in a format understood by their board.

Most of the mining software would be identical to existing software (long polling, pool configuration, share submission, etc) the only part which would be modified it talking to the hashing engine and it is as "simple" as "engine here is a block header. Complete nonces 0 to xxx using this header and return any shares".

Oh, well see I was wrong. I thought FPGA mining software was still very inefficient (and not optimized) I assumed this was the issue. The price increase, and hash decrease could come from a hardware limitation they did not foresee in the past.

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Quote from: legolouman on November 29, 2011, 03:51:11 PM

Quote from: plastic.elastic on November 29, 2011, 03:43:32 PM

Quote from: sadpandatech on November 29, 2011, 03:39:30 PM

Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 11:36:22 AM

I just spoke to BFL and they agreed to demo the current development hardware/firmware tonight. However, I am otherwise already engaged tonight and they agreed to do the demo tomorrow afternoon.

Part of the agreement of me viewing the development hardware and software was that no hard numbers are released for this particular demo, although I will confirm what I actually see without providing exact numbers until they have a production version of the software available for release.

Not exactly what I know we all want to see, but at least they are willing to provide something. Having developed both hardware and software products in the past, I am inclined to be a little lenient with expected production issues to a moderate degree.

So anyway, I will report back what I see, just don't expect hard numbers for the demo tomorrow.

Rock on, thanks. Even though you can't give hard numbers can you atleast give us a thumbs up or something if it is within, say, 20% of the stated 1.05GHs? ;p

So this goes from $500 1GH/s to a $700 800MH/s ?

Interesting.

Actually, these prices being raised and numbers being lowered make sense. While I question the legitimacy of this, I think that the prices being raised could mean that production costs, and actual numbers they intended to reach aren't as easy to reach (with early software) as they intended. My understanding is that the hardware is quite capable, but the software isn't yet. I'm open to criticism on that point, but my overall statement I think makes sense.

Well mining software is pretty trivial (relatively speaking no offense intended mining software authors), and open source. My understanding is they are simply taking an open source mining software and modifying it to feed the exact same data in a format understood by their board.

Most of the mining software would be identical to existing software (long polling, pool configuration, share submission, etc) the only part which would be modified it talking to the hashing engine and it is as "simple" as "engine here is a block header. Complete nonces 0 to xxx using this header and return any shares".

legolouman

hero member

Activity: 504

Merit: 504

Decent Programmer to boot!

Quote from: plastic.elastic on November 29, 2011, 03:43:32 PM

Quote from: sadpandatech on November 29, 2011, 03:39:30 PM

Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 11:36:22 AM

I just spoke to BFL and they agreed to demo the current development hardware/firmware tonight. However, I am otherwise already engaged tonight and they agreed to do the demo tomorrow afternoon.

Part of the agreement of me viewing the development hardware and software was that no hard numbers are released for this particular demo, although I will confirm what I actually see without providing exact numbers until they have a production version of the software available for release.

Not exactly what I know we all want to see, but at least they are willing to provide something. Having developed both hardware and software products in the past, I am inclined to be a little lenient with expected production issues to a moderate degree.

So anyway, I will report back what I see, just don't expect hard numbers for the demo tomorrow.

Rock on, thanks. Even though you can't give hard numbers can you atleast give us a thumbs up or something if it is within, say, 20% of the stated 1.05GHs? ;p

So this goes from $500 1GH/s to a $700 800MH/s ?

Interesting.

Actually, these prices being raised and numbers being lowered make sense. While I question the legitimacy of this, I think that the prices being raised could mean that production costs, and actual numbers they intended to reach aren't as easy to reach (with early software) as they intended. My understanding is that the hardware is quite capable, but the software isn't yet. I'm open to criticism on that point, but my overall statement I think makes sense.

plastic.elastic

full member

Activity: 168

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Quote from: sadpandatech on November 29, 2011, 03:39:30 PM

Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 11:36:22 AM

I just spoke to BFL and they agreed to demo the current development hardware/firmware tonight. However, I am otherwise already engaged tonight and they agreed to do the demo tomorrow afternoon.

Part of the agreement of me viewing the development hardware and software was that no hard numbers are released for this particular demo, although I will confirm what I actually see without providing exact numbers until they have a production version of the software available for release.

Not exactly what I know we all want to see, but at least they are willing to provide something. Having developed both hardware and software products in the past, I am inclined to be a little lenient with expected production issues to a moderate degree.

So anyway, I will report back what I see, just don't expect hard numbers for the demo tomorrow.

Rock on, thanks. Even though you can't give hard numbers can you atleast give us a thumbs up or something if it is within, say, 20% of the stated 1.05GHs? ;p

So this goes from $500 1GH/s to a $700 800MH/s ?

Interesting.

sadpandatech

hero member

Activity: 504

Merit: 500

Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 11:36:22 AM

I just spoke to BFL and they agreed to demo the current development hardware/firmware tonight. However, I am otherwise already engaged tonight and they agreed to do the demo tomorrow afternoon.

Part of the agreement of me viewing the development hardware and software was that no hard numbers are released for this particular demo, although I will confirm what I actually see without providing exact numbers until they have a production version of the software available for release.

Not exactly what I know we all want to see, but at least they are willing to provide something. Having developed both hardware and software products in the past, I am inclined to be a little lenient with expected production issues to a moderate degree.

So anyway, I will report back what I see, just don't expect hard numbers for the demo tomorrow.

Rock on, thanks. Even though you can't give hard numbers can you atleast give us a thumbs up or something if it is within, say, 20% of the stated 1.05GHs? ;p

fred0

sr. member

Activity: 349

Merit: 250

The BitForce Saga Act II - The Demo

BFL: Hi Inaba, good to see you again. We hope that as a trusted source for forum members you can witness the historic bitcoin widget, err, BitForce SHA256 Single.

Inaba: Yes, good to be here. Hopefully the glitches have been worked out.

BFL: Yes, well, here is the widget, along with updated software.

Inaba: Yes, I'll just plug this in.

BFL: Remember our agreement about hard numbers.

Inaba: Yeah, well look at that.

BFL: Yes. I hope this puts any doubt to rest.

Inaba: Well this forum lot is a stubborn group.

to be continued in Act III - The Crisis

Transisto

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Quote from: Inaba on November 29, 2011, 11:36:22 AM

.... no hard numbers are released for this particular demo, although I will confirm what I actually see without providing exact numbers ...

1Ghs more or less 15% would that be vague enough a number ?

bulanula

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So then what exact time is this ? I am really watching this with anticipation. Thank you !

makomk

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Quote from: gmaxwell on November 29, 2011, 11:46:32 AM

You can validate the subsystem .. e.g. you give it a work unit it and it completes all 2^32 nonce values in XX seconds. without having a completely working system. Doing so you can be relatively confident of the performance of the final system, as much as you can be with any pre-production setup.

Not sure this makes sense. They appear to be using an FPGA, and until you have a final working FPGA bitstream for your board complete with any IO logic there's really no way to be sure what clock speed you're going to reach. The placement and routing tools can be incredibly temperamental. If they have got one, it'd be surprising to say the least if they couldn't get very close indeed to its full performance.

coinjedi

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Quote from: P4man on November 28, 2011, 10:39:16 AM

Agreed they should close the bets now. But it does go both ways. If inaba publishes its findings and announces the first units are being shipped, anyone can still bet a few 100 BTC against the statement diluting my bet completely even though I was one of the first to bet against it when odds where 4-1 of this being a scam.

If there is an official announcement and confirmations, we will close betting and cancel those large bets done after the announcement. Betting deadline is not strict. We'll try to protect you as much as we can not to dilute your initial bets. Let me know if you have any concerns.

BTW, for those of you who are not following, the bet reached almost 250 BTC. This is probably the largest public bitcoin bet ever:
http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=141

Inaba

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Quote from: gmaxwell on November 29, 2011, 11:46:32 AM

Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 29, 2011, 11:41:50 AM

So if they have no software capable of 1.05 GH how do they know it can do 1.05 GH?
I mean 1.05 GH not ~1GH or at least 1 GH. 1.05GH indicates some level of confidence and validation that obviously doesn't exist.

You can validate the subsystem .. e.g. you give it a work unit it and it completes all 2^32 nonce values in XX seconds. without having a completely working system. Doing so you can be relatively confident of the performance of the final system, as much as you can be with any pre-production setup.

If I correctly surmised what I was seeing last week, then I believe this is what/how they got the numbers they did.

btc_artist

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Bitcoin!

Quote from: gmaxwell on November 29, 2011, 11:46:32 AM

Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 29, 2011, 11:41:50 AM

So if they have no software capable of 1.05 GH how do they know it can do 1.05 GH?
I mean 1.05 GH not ~1GH or at least 1 GH. 1.05GH indicates some level of confidence and validation that obviously doesn't exist.

You can validate the subsystem .. e.g. you give it a work unit it and it completes all 2^32 nonce values in XX seconds. without having a completely working system. Doing so you can be relatively confident of the performance of the final system, as much as you can be with any pre-production setup.

But they still should have qualified the performance specs with "expected" or "estimated", no?

gmaxwell

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Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 29, 2011, 11:41:50 AM

So if they have no software capable of 1.05 GH how do they know it can do 1.05 GH?
I mean 1.05 GH not ~1GH or at least 1 GH. 1.05GH indicates some level of confidence and validation that obviously doesn't exist.

You can validate the subsystem .. e.g. you give it a work unit it and it completes all 2^32 nonce values in XX seconds. without having a completely working system. Doing so you can be relatively confident of the performance of the final system, as much as you can be with any pre-production setup.

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

So if they have no software capable of 1.05GH how do they know it can do 1.05GH?

I mean 1.05GH not ~1GH or at least 1 GH. 1.05GH indicates some level of confidence and validation that obviously doesn't exist.

Inaba

legendary

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I just spoke to BFL and they agreed to demo the current development hardware/firmware tonight. However, I am otherwise already engaged tonight and they agreed to do the demo tomorrow afternoon.

Part of the agreement of me viewing the development hardware and software was that no hard numbers are released for this particular demo, although I will confirm what I actually see without providing exact numbers until they have a production version of the software available for release.

Not exactly what I know we all want to see, but at least they are willing to provide something. Having developed both hardware and software products in the past, I am inclined to be a little lenient with expected production issues to a moderate degree.

So anyway, I will report back what I see, just don't expect hard numbers for the demo tomorrow.

Topic: 1GH/s, 20w, $500 — Butterflylabs, is it a scam? - page 11. (Read 123109 times)