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Topic: 1GH/s, 20w, $500 — Butterflylabs, is it a scam? - page 49. (Read 123107 times)

full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 102
Bitcoin!
BF Labs Inc. will not be involving itself ...
Sorry for the stupid question... what state is Butterfly Labs incorporated in?
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 500
Hi guys,

Just a quick note.  

BF Labs Inc. will not be involving itself in any wagers.  If our generous friend would follow through on their promise of a $10,000 bounty for producing a unit with performance as described, we'll be happy to claim that amount in the name of a charity of the board's choice.  However, no such bounty has been placed in escrow and I don't think anyone truly expects our generous friend to follow through.

Regarding your individual wagers, I would be careful to allow for some upside flexibility in the performance claims.  It would be unfortunate if you were to loose a wager should the unit exceed expectations, due to a badly worded bet definition.  

I'm not saying the units perform differently than our purchase guarantee as stated on the site.  Just choose your words carefully.

Kind regards,
BFL

   While you're here..

  1. Did you receive my PM a few days ago?
  2. Can you verify the board density in the 1050MHs unit. I.e. is it 1-dual chip board, or 2-dual chip boards? or what?


     Cheers,
         Derek
BFL
full member
Activity: 217
Merit: 100
Hi guys,

Just a quick note.  

BF Labs Inc. will not be involving itself in any wagers.  If our generous friend would follow through on their promise of a $10,000 bounty for producing a unit with performance as described, we'll be happy to claim that amount in the name of a charity of the board's choice.  However, no such bounty has been placed in escrow and I don't think anyone truly expects our generous friend to follow through.

Regarding your individual wagers, I would be careful to allow for some upside flexibility in the performance claims.  It would be unfortunate if you were to loose a wager should the unit exceed expectations, due to a badly worded bet definition.  

I'm not saying the units perform differently than our purchase guarantee as stated on the site.  Just choose your words carefully.

Kind regards,
BFL

full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 102
Bitcoin!
following discussion
full member
Activity: 184
Merit: 100
We will also do our best to accomodate your betting needs. Just let us know. There is already one bet opened:

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=141

And I know people opening a bet with different conditions.
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
I will setup a couple escrow addresses when I get home tonight on my secure client and post them here.  Before anyone sends money/makes a bet, the escrow conditions must be laid out pretty rigidly so everyone knows what to expect as far as conditions go for the money to be released or returned as appropriate.

 
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
Where is the link?  I will bet against.  Honestly if i lost I would be happy.  Sadly I don't think I will lose. 

Its not up yet. Bets apparently have to be reviewed and accepted, I will post the link when its up.

Sounds good.  I will throw some coins on it.  Having a single public and open "bet" can be predictive.  (i.e. Intrade tends to do better than professional pollsters).
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 500
   Yep, Inaba is fine for escorw. As long as he is down for it.  The only thing I would like BFL to verify is that it is 1 or 2 boards in their rig they are claiming 1050MHs with. I do not want to get caught in a textual error due to poor Engrish skills by finding out they have 2 boards(4 chips) in there and just did not convey that properly. My bet would be for the speed of the unit they advertised with whatever is in it, just to be clear.

  As for 'time frame', it would be nice if BFL would make a solid date agreement with sending someone one of the 1050 units so we can set one.  Right now, there really isn't a good time to go by. :/  It would seem they should have everything in order to do it now. I am more than willing to commit to the bet now, without a time frame if we can agree to call it a draw if there is no unit available to test within, say, 2 weeks?  Don't want even my miniscule amount of BTC tied up because a third party is slow.. ;p


   BFL, please come on and send a unit to someone already!



     Cheers,
       Derek
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Where is the link?  I will bet against.  Honestly if i lost I would be happy.  Sadly I don't think I will lose. 

Its not up yet. Bets apparently have to be reviewed and accepted, I will post the link when its up.
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 500
I don't see why I need to send someone money if no one will take the bet. The bet is an offer that so far no one has interest in.

I will be willing to bet with more than one person. Please post in this thread if you are interested.
  No need to send anyone money...   What 'spread' are you willing to take.  Right now BFL claim 1050MHs fromt heir dual chip Bitforce1. Are you willing to give a +-10% spread on it?  If so, I got 12 BTC 'in Favor' of their claims.....

  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA   Cry

  best noise I heard all day!
donator
Activity: 2352
Merit: 1060
between a rock and a block!
I don't see why I need to send someone money if no one will take the bet. The bet is an offer that so far no one has interest in.

I will be willing to bet with more than one person. Please post in this thread if you are interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL8jpPHJFAA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL8jpPHJFAA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL8jpPHJFAA
donator
Activity: 2352
Merit: 1060
between a rock and a block!
I said I would make a bet, it takes two people to have a bet. I will not be sending money unless a second party will. I will be happy to use Inaba to hold the money. It seems silly to send him the money if no one is willing to bet that this is not a scam. If anyone is interested in a bet with the expectations listed cut in half even I am more than willing to make the bet.

Anyone interested?


put up the money first.  you might get more than one person to take your bet if you put up the dough.

until you put up the money, this is all you're doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL8jpPHJFAA
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
Why not let everyone have some fun betting this? Im creating the bet, and as a start Ill bet a whopping one bitcoin on this being legit Wink
You will earn more if you bet early, so Im sure you will gladly put 100 BTC against mine and others are free to join if they are certain this is a scam (or isnt)
.
IF BFL is unwilling to match those bets, I think you will have proven your point and whatever you bet ought to be a safe win.

Ill post the bet when my transaction clears. Since I cant vouch for the betting site being safe, I recommend people not bet large sums of money. Lets keep it fun.

Where is the link?  I will bet against.  Honestly if i lost I would be happy.  Sadly I don't think I will lose. 

Reminds me of when I was deployed to Iraq.  The over/under for getting relieved (going home) was Jan 14.  Obviously I took over.  Worst case scenario I win $100, best case scenario I got out of that shit hole early than I planned.  Turned out I lost the best.  We left Jan 1.  Best bet I ever lost.
donator
Activity: 2352
Merit: 1060
between a rock and a block!
Yeah, I wouldnt bet $20.000 there either (or anywhere else for that matter), but Id be surprised Goat would actually put up 100 BTC, let alone 1000 or 10000 and I suspect the butterfly lab guys will gladly match a few 100. Well worth the risk IMO.

Anyway, Ill formulate a bet. How is this as bet:

The Butterfly Labs "Bitforce miner" shown here:
http://butterflylabs.com/
is just a scam, not a real product under development.

Butterfly Labs will not ship a single self designed bitcoin mining "bitforce 256" product in the next 6 months to paying customers

If they ship a single BitForce SHA256 board to a paying customer within this time, and its verified to produce more than 500MH/s while consuming less than 50 Watt, the above statement is deemed false, and Butterfly labs is not a scam.

Butterfly labs will also not let anyone independently verify their custom hardware is real and works. If they do let someone independent, recommended by bitcointalk forum, test and verify their claims, and this person acknowledges the hardware is real and produces results that are roughly inline with the performance claims made on Butterfly's website, it is also not considered a scam and this statement is considered false.


Yes, i cut their projections by half, underdelivering on promises is not the same as being a scam.

I will take this bet with the butterfly labs guy if it is done with in the next 10 days and Inaba holds the money. Cutting the projections in half seems fair to me. Butterfly willing to put down $300 that you are not a scam??? I highly doubt it.

Inaba if this guy is willing to do this please post an address in this thread so everyone can see that we both pay you. Thanks.


Goat, nothing is stopping you from finding an escrow and depositing a $10,000 bounty.  The onus is on you to put up or shut up.

Your next post should be showing which escrow you deposited 10K with.
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 564
Everyone knows that ASICs and FPGAs are coming and are going to change the game. These guys are the first ones out the door with a nice clean package (not to detract from the other projects, but they all look like experiments in progress). It is a must buy at that price. 20 - yes, twenty - 10+10 - 5+5+5+5 watts. That beats the hell out of the 670w that I am drawing from the wall for the same speed. You do understand that electricity is the prohibitive cost in mining, right?
Well, it has a payback period of 7 months at current prices if I'm doing my calculations right, so if you're still mining and you're sure it'll still be worth mining in a year it makes sense. (Remember that unlike a GPU you're probably not going to be able to sell these second-hand should the bottom drop out of the mining market.) If the price was 4 times what they're charging it'd be more expensive than the X6500 boards for the hashrate you get and have a payback time of over 2 years, by which point Bitcoin may be dead or such a wild success that new generations of FPGA or ASIC have driven down your profitability.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Why not let everyone have some fun betting this? Im creating the bet, and as a start Ill bet a whopping one bitcoin on this being legit Wink
You will earn more if you bet early, so Im sure you will gladly put 100 BTC against mine and others are free to join if they are certain this is a scam (or isnt)
.
IF BFL is unwilling to match those bets, I think you will have proven your point and whatever you bet ought to be a safe win.

Ill post the bet when my transaction clears. Since I cant vouch for the betting site being safe, I recommend people not bet large sums of money. Lets keep it fun.
donator
Activity: 980
Merit: 1004
felonious vagrancy, personified
The most current dedicated (non-bot) miners are from Russia/Eastern Europe/ex-USSR, and are, frankly, artless opportunistic criminals (the worst sort IMO). They use streetlight/communal blocks’/schools’/gov. buildings’/etc. electricity due to lax laws/detection/enforcement/etc. and the only entry barrier for them is getting high hash rate hardware. (just check adoption levels/deepbit’s teams/IP spectre/ exchange use/sell off rates/etc.)

Evidence? (more specific than the "just check" bit, which sounds interesting but vague)

To mine you need both electricity and a network connection.  I don't think a streetlight is going to cut it unless it happens to be right outside the window of your house... in which case the odds of getting noticed might be low, but the personal consequences are a lot higher than simply having your gear confiscated.  Same goes for mining at a university you attend or office building of the entity you work for.

I mean, I'm sure this happens all over the place on a one-or-two-GPU-per-site basis, but I just can't imagine the risk/reward calculation making sense for serious multi-gigahash installations.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Yeah, it is. Maybe not in every case, but with regards to a product that fails to perform to advertised standards, it most definitely is.

No it isnt, not for an unreleased product. There are a million ways butterfly labs could handle it, by offering rebates or refunds.  But think about it, how many people do you think would cancel their preorder if this turns out to be real, but with 10% lower than projected performance? My guess: no one. Im pretty sure most will in fact order more,  thats how scammed they would feel. Lets keep in mind, if BFL only  achieve 50% of their claimed performance at double the powerconsumption, this will still be about the best mining product in the market. It would be nonsensical for BFL to undermine (no pun intended) their credibility by deliberately overpromising like that, if they are indeed actually sitting on by far the best product in the market. It makes no sense. 

So either butterfly labs is a real scam and has nothing (or a 486 under that heatsink with bogus software making fake proofs), or they are legit. Something inbetween, like were I drew the line for the bet,  just is not  gonna happen.
member
Activity: 96
Merit: 10
Whatever the outcome of this interesting thread - there is a simple truth most of you are ignoring. The current mining landscape would not be changed much (if at all) by such a product (unless sold far below manufacturing costs, which is highly improbable). The most current dedicated (non-bot) miners are from Russia/Eastern Europe/ex-USSR, and are, frankly, artless opportunistic criminals (the worst sort IMO). They use streetlight/communal blocks’/schools’/gov. buildings’/etc. electricity due to lax laws/detection/enforcement/etc. and the only entry barrier for them is getting high hash rate hardware. (just check adoption levels/deepbit’s teams/IP spectre/ exchange use/sell off rates/etc.) As it stands, a specialised mining product with no other use and lower resale value than a graphics card would not be an attractive investment for those individuals, but only for less than a quarter of total miners, who are in fact ‘legit’ (want to/believe in the idea for whatever reason, but with consequences). Out of those, i’d think, only half can really afford such a setup, regardless of investment considerations/bitcoin price. So all-in-all scam or not – this is nothing to be so excited about.
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