Topic: 1GH/s, 20w, $500 — Butterflylabs, is it a scam? - page 2. (Read 123109 times)

Dont put words in my mouth. If by some incredible oversight PR people misunderstood the design goals of the engineers, then thats obviously not fixable in software. But my point is this hasnt happened. A test board for whatever reason could have substantial higher power usage, I see no reason to assume they cant achieve their original goals or at least damn close to it.

How badly do people want this to be a scam?  Are we turning on one of our own now? 

Inaba, be honest, did they give a discount for all the time you spent?

If so how much?

Ok then Inaba why dont you buy 7k of the boards off them then? The problem is the money they got from the preorders went to finance the development of the product. If they cannot develop everyone just loses their money. Why not produce something that can make the numbers they claim? Well thats simple they obviously just cant. By showing any product they make it look like they are more legit.

Given that they seem to have told many untruths I have a hard time accepting any of their claims now. Yes there are legitimate companies that scam and you can buy stuff from illigitimate companies but that is another red herring. When you are hiring several staff members as they claim to be you wouldnt be running out of your house still. To me the simplest explanation is that they just cant deliver on their claims. They seem very dishonest overall.

I normally wouldn't bother responding to one of these types of posts, but either you or someone else keeps posting this list and I'm going to go over why MOST of it is completely bullshit:


Many companies pre-announce products.  This has absolutely no bearing as to whether or not something is a scam.  If it were, most tech companies would be scammers.  This point is invalid.


You could easily argue with equal weight that his is evidence that it is NOT a scam. Since if it were a scam, why not show something that has the actual numbers?  This point is invalid.


Completely immaterial as to whether or not they are scamming.  See next point, which is basically a rehash of this point.


While they may or may not be an illegal "company" this also has absolutely no bearing as to whether or not they are scamming.  They can be operating an illegal "corporation" and still provide a viable product. Conversely, a scamming company can be operating a perfectly legitimate company and still scam people without shipping any product (eBay et al does this all the time).  So, that being the case, both points 3 and 4 are completely invalid.


Possibly the only semi-legitimate gripe.  However, I offer you Occams Razor as a rebuttal.  Why go through all this trouble to produce actual working product (if not at the target estimates) to scam people when they could provide mock up fake hardware to look even more legitimate and scam people with far less effort, time and money?


I've not seen this, but I'll take your word for this that it's happened.  Assuming it has, so what?  How is this, once again, evidence of a scam?


Yet ANOTHER straw man.  I have in the past and currently run my corporation from a residence.  I have been in business for over 10 years.  So what?


So could any company.  So could any start up.  So what?  Another invalid point.


Rehash of point number 2.  Already demonstrated to be an invalid point.


And this is different from literally EVERYONE ELSE that sells something online, how exactly?  Invalid point.


This is effectively a rehash of point 5 in a frilly dress... that said, Occams Razor applies.


Really?  That must have been an epic scam, then.  In either case, if it does end up being a scam, it truly will be epic.  However, I think far more likely that if it ends up being a complete bag of fail, it would be through over-reaching design and over-promising product and not through any intentional attempt to scam.

So you have one semi-valid point which can be fairly convincingly dismissed by applying Occams Razor.  Now there may be other reasons to think it's a scam, but there's nothing from this list that is even remotely valid.

I would say just order the best one thats actually available. You may be waiting forever for something that doesnt pan out. Also think of the BTC you could have made with that FPGA in the time you have been waiting. It seems to me like they are quite a way off from actually shipping anything.

I think one bad thing about the delays are it is kinda stopping me from investing into other FPGA boards.

Your 8th bullet point looks kinda... shady...
YEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

I think those dismissing this as not a scam from the fact they put on a semi functional demo are overlooking a few things:
1) They have yet to ship any boards
2) Their numbers do not match their claims
3) They claim to be incorporated but have not provided a business license
4) Since they are not legally incorporated and they claim to be they are an illegal organization
5) They could have just made up a couple boards they thought would get the numbers they claimed (and failed) to try and show they werent scammers
6) They keep on bouncing between Bitforce Labs and Butterfly Labs as a name (seems odd)
7) Their so called business address is actually residential
Even if they are "legit" they could still go bankrupt and no one gets anything
9) As mentioned in the previous post by someone else the power numbers are way off - the whole benefit of fpga boards
10) If they can produce the boards with the numbers claimed they can just run off with the boards, close shop and not ship anything (Paypal buyer protection is a joke and wont protect you from this)
11) With a $26k box for preorder they have a lot more incentive to keep people believing that they are legit in the hopes to get some orders (big money) for this

It is still way too early to say this isnt a scam. I have been fooled by more elaborate scammers before.

(Add)

Hey fred0 I see your sig says 2.85 Ghash/s and total ABCPool hash rate is 288 Mhash.... I guess that makes you the 1%! lol

I agree that the explanation is far-fetched, but it is not BFL's explanation simply speculation.

You are making an excellent observation. I doubt it is something fixable in software.

It could be a hardware flaw, hardware design flaw, or simply a sales pitch lie.

In any case, your observation is not to be dismissed.

Hi rph.  Sent you a PM a while back.  Very interested to know if you'll be sharing/selling your DIY guide.  Interested in putting together a 50-100 FPGA cluster myself. It would a very fun project.

Or you could say they lied and misled people.  Depends on how you look at it.

Almost 20W per chip its a very high value. If that chip have Rthjc (junction to case thermal resistance) =>3C/W then they will fry that chips (and more propably they will fail to do the job correctly). 20C of ambiet temp + 20W*3C/W= 80C core temp. Industrial chips can work on that level of temperatures. And if the ambient is higher then FAIL....

I guess it depends on what the individual considers a scam.  If you pre-ordered, the only stats you had to make your purchase decision on was the ones they gave.  If these turn out to be false then I would consider that pretty scammish.

If I pre-ordered a 60" inch TV and then was sent a 40" TV instead I think I might feel a bit scammed even if it was a really nice 40" TV.

It seems funny for people to call victory about it not being a scam if the company can't deliver a product they promised.  Though I suppose it is great news for scammy people and businesses everywhere that so many such people exist.

"Look guys, we can make false promises that we fail to meet and people will be so happy about it not being a COMPLETE scam they will rub it in the face of skeptics!"

Of course I suppose it's possible that they do hit all their numbers and ship them in a reasonable time, that should be the point at which victory is called though.

Its not about hardware, its about common sense. You are not going to make a mistake like that on one of your 2 key selling points and keep repeating that mistake over and over for months without someone noticing. It also doesnt rhyme with rig box, or you think they got it wrong by a factor 2x there too? Last but not least, in the unthinkable scenario this somehow did happen and they discovered it yesterday (OOPS) they aint gonna say a software fix is being worked on.

My apologies, I don't have the hardware know-how that other forum members have.  What am I missing, some obvious application of Occam's razor?

The 2x19W is bullshit. Common, think it through.

  I agree about the wattage, if that is even the case. I was speculating on it being 2x19.8w. And of course should have included that if that were the case it was likely a language/communication issue between engineers and marketing.

  Yea, pretty likely it is not a scam.  But, just the same I hope they learn that such claims without solid repensentation to back them up will make bulding trust a slower process than admiting they are not sure of performance or what they should state is 'expected' performance, etc.

  Cheers

Well they did have a pre-order period with special pricing of $499. True.  If you pre-ordered, you knew the price would rise after the pre-order period.

Their 1.05 GH seems to be based on what they may have been able to do in the past.  The jury is still out, but a preliminary debug version hit ~760 MHash.  Will the shipping version hit 1.05  GH/s? I am willing to believe BFL, they seem capable, and confident that they will hit their numbers.

19.8 vs 19.8 x2. This may be due to a language problem between engineers and marketing. I don't know and speculating will lead to no useful outcome.  Should it be the case that it is a communications problem, it should be rectified by updating the website with the correct numbers, if in fact that is what has happened.

TBH, I can hardly consider this a scam.  Bernie Madoff was a scam, who committed fraud to gain the trust and wealth of his victims.

I just can't conclude the same of BFL, unless they ship bricks to all the pre-order customers. 

Maybe the were a bit too optimistic. People make mistakes. That's life.