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Topic: 1GH/s, 20w, $700 (was $500) — Butterflylabs, is it for real? (Part 2) - page 67. (Read 146936 times)

sr. member
Activity: 349
Merit: 250
With $599, $3.10/BTC, $0.115/KWh, 830 MH/s, 80 W, and current difficulty (1155038), it will take 9.75 months to pay off an investment in BitForce Singles. I want a warranty that assures me the hardware will last at least that long.

BFL: Please consider offering a 1 year warranty, perhaps for a small additional fee if you must.
I've always considered the "extended warranty" a scam.  If BFL offers one, would BFL be scamming?

I suppose a one year warranty would be useful to manage risk of failure for the payback period.

On the other hand if an optional extended warranty is offered, I'm likely to not buy, since it's likely to be a revenue enhancer for BFL, like most other extended warranties.
rjk
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
1ngldh
warranty isn't going to help if they're not going to honor it Wink
Wait, are we still on this "new company, therefore scam" shit? They have working units that have been tested (Luke-jr has one, and Inaba has tested one too), and have been open about their revised performance claims. Please, go back to your cave now.
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1000
How does being a legitimate company make a lick of difference to the warranty?  I've had plenty of warranties from "legitimate companies" that wern't worth the paper they were printed on.

BFG immediately springs to mind.  Visiontek (or that other tek company, I can't remember). Plenty of other examples.

On the flip side of that, since nzheng and the XF6000 people aren't legitimate companies, are their warranties worthless? No...
legendary
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1452
With $599, $3.10/BTC, $0.115/KWh, 830 MH/s, 80 W, and current difficulty (1155038), it will take 9.75 months to pay off an investment in BitForce Singles. I want a warranty that assures me the hardware will last at least that long.

BFL: Please consider offering a 1 year warranty, perhaps for a small additional fee if you must.
warranty isn't going to help if they're not going to honor it Wink
hero member
Activity: 681
Merit: 500
With $599, $3.10/BTC, $0.115/KWh, 830 MH/s, 80 W, and current difficulty (1155038), it will take 9.75 months to pay off an investment in BitForce Singles. I want a warranty that assures me the hardware will last at least that long.

BFL: Please consider offering a 1 year warranty, perhaps for a small additional fee if you must.
sr. member
Activity: 349
Merit: 250
So I take it that your miner, for the duration of the limited test time, out performed the hashrate of the modified ufasoft miner by about 18 MHash.  Good job! Is that a fair conclusion?
Probably more like somewhere in the range of 5-20 MHash/sec and I'm not entirely confident about that. It's a bit difficult to actually estimate performance that accurately.
Still, I like the idea that you can have an alternative miner for a product yet to be released. Bravo! Backup pools are a necessity.

I am anxious to see how the production version performs, particularly based on Inaba's comments from his testing.
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 564
So I take it that your miner, for the duration of the limited test time, out performed the hashrate of the modified ufasoft miner by about 18 MHash.  Good job! Is that a fair conclusion?
Probably more like somewhere in the range of 5-20 MHash/sec and I'm not entirely confident about that. It's a bit difficult to actually estimate performance that accurately.
vip
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1000
AKA: gigavps
All these discussions on scams or no scams, maybe one member should just spare the $600 get a unit and start mining to see if it is as claimed.

I'll report my findings when my bitforce single arrives. I have ordered one and can detail my experience. If anyone is wondering about my credentials:

My WOT rating (top 30) -> http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=gigavps

My rig building cred -> https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/winner-gigavps-voted-best-bitcoin-mining-rig-builder-in-the-world-pic-51350

My mining farm -> https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--7216

Butterfly labs could effect my operations in a big way, hence my purchase of the single. I look forward to it's arrival and putting it to the test.
sr. member
Activity: 349
Merit: 250

Also, I managed to get remote access to a machine with a BitForce board attached for the purposes of testing my poclbm-based miner, and came to a few conclusions:
  • The board does appear to run at the (reduced) speed stated, though obviously I could actually be mining on wreckage from Roswell or something Wink
  • I'm getting the odd hash verification error, not sure if it's a bug in my code or something else
  • Either something weird in their network is mangling long polling horribly or there's a truely bizarre bug somewhere


(This is a slight overestimate - I calculate closer to 850 MHash/sec including stales due to the broken long polling, which for some reason masterpool.eu isn't showing. This roughly aligns with the performance I was told to expect.)
So I take it that your miner, for the duration of the limited test time, out performed the hashrate of the modified ufasoft miner by about 18 MHash.  Good job! Is that a fair conclusion?
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1007
BFL with a warranty of only SIX months and without any other use of your device other than bitcoin you don't convince me to buy your product. Show me another application where i can use your product and i might put the warranty aside or provide some insurance about the warranty.
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 564
Look up process agents...you need one to operate an incorporated entity. They are essentially a figurehead. They merely forward along any legal matters to the proper party...like, if you wanted to sue an LLC, you serve papers to their process agent. They can be absolutely anyone with a physical address in the state the LLC is incorporated in and have no link to the business other than being required to pass along paperwork to the owner. It can be the owner themselves, a friend/relative or a complete stranger working for a registration company.
That's roughtly of the impression I got, actually. It's still kind of murky, but the murkiness seems to lie partly in the way the US handles incorporation and partly in Wyoming for some reason having a register of corporations that doesn't necessarily list anyone actually involved in said corporation. (Which is really quite daft.)

Also, I managed to get remote access to a machine with a BitForce board attached for the purposes of testing my poclbm-based miner, and came to a few conclusions:
  • The board does appear to run at the (reduced) speed stated, though obviously I could actually be mining on wreckage from Roswell or something Wink
  • I'm getting the odd hash verification error, not sure if it's a bug in my code or something else
  • Either something weird in their network is mangling long polling horribly or there's a truely bizarre bug somewhere


(This is a slight overestimate - I calculate closer to 850 MHash/sec including stales due to the broken long polling, which for some reason masterpool.eu isn't showing. This roughly aligns with the performance I was told to expect.)
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
Slightly murky.
But not necessarily evil or scam. Roll Eyes

Most definitely not murky, evil or scammy.

Look up process agents...you need one to operate an incorporated entity. They are essentially a figurehead. They merely forward along any legal matters to the proper party...like, if you wanted to sue an LLC, you serve papers to their process agent. They can be absolutely anyone with a physical address in the state the LLC is incorporated in and have no link to the business other than being required to pass along paperwork to the owner. It can be the owner themselves, a friend/relative or a complete stranger working for a registration company.

Attack the fact that all BFL's claims are bullshit, not something that is completely legitimate but of which you are completely ignorant.
legendary
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1452
Note, I'm not a lawyer and this should not be taken as legal advice, but here's the answer to your question...

Corporate registry in any state requires a local address of record.  Certain states (Delaware and Wyoming are good examples) have worked hard to create attractive corporate taxation policy.  They do this mostly by not taxing assets or profit as long as they're out of state.  However, since an in state address must be provided for yearly filings and correspondence (minutes of record, board meetings, charter renewal etc) to maintain the legal body active and healthy from year to year, a registered agent specializing in these interactions is commonly retained.  This keeps the corporate assets and profits, which are out of state, free from in state taxation.  I think a casual review of business norms would reverse any thoughts about this being a murky practice.  It's simply how business is done and also why the vast majority of the US fortune 500 are registered in either Wyoming or Delaware.

Regards,
BFL
Like I said, just claiming a registration belongs to you isn't enough. You can say you own xyz.com all you want, but unless you do something to prove that you actually control that domain (update whois or add a subdomain), no one will believe you. The same applies to business registrations. You need to provide definitive proof that you control the registration. I also find it odd that you are suddenly replying to this concern, considering this was brought up over a month ago.
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 504
Decent Programmer to boot!
All these discussions on scams or no scams, maybe one member should just spare the $600 get a unit and start mining to see if it is as claimed.

Someone took the time to read the thread(s).

They haven't shipped yet, and also aren't operating to what BFL claims they will
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
All these discussions on scams or no scams, maybe one member should just spare the $600 get a unit and start mining to see if it is as claimed.
sr. member
Activity: 461
Merit: 251
Care to explain why it's registered under Nancy Hernandez?
It appears that Nancy Hernandez is most likely an employee of Pacific Registered Agents, Inc, the corporation acting as their registered agent in Wyoming. Slightly murky.

Not sure if we can take bittenbob at his word but according to him (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.615545):
Quote
I understand the services these type of business provide and I have emailed an adminstrator with this company requesting information if BF Labs Inc. is registered there and if it is also Butterfly Labs inc. I have alerted them to the possiblity that this may be a scam and will update this thread when I hear a reply.
Quote
Got a reply and its pretty definitive:

"No, they are not

Chad Sorensen

Sent from my iPhone"
BFL
full member
Activity: 217
Merit: 100
Note, I'm not a lawyer and this should not be taken as legal advice, but here's the answer to your question...

Corporate registry in any state requires a local address of record.  Certain states (Delaware and Wyoming are good examples) have worked hard to create attractive corporate taxation policy.  They do this mostly by not taxing assets or profit as long as they're out of state.  However, since an in state address must be provided for yearly filings and correspondence (minutes of record, board meetings, charter renewal etc) to maintain the legal body active and healthy from year to year, a registered agent specializing in these interactions is commonly retained.  This keeps the corporate assets and profits, which are out of state, free from in state taxation.  I think a casual review of business norms would reverse any thoughts about this being a murky practice.  It's simply how business is done and also why the vast majority of the US fortune 500 are registered in either Wyoming or Delaware.

Regards,
BFL
rjk
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
1ngldh
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 564
Care to explain why it's registered under Nancy Hernandez?
It appears that Nancy Hernandez is most likely an employee of Pacific Registered Agents, Inc, the corporation acting as their registered agent in Wyoming. Slightly murky.
legendary
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1452
The legal entity is BF Labs Inc. which is a Wyoming corporation.  We operate under the brand entity Butterfly Labs with related dba filings underway for the various permutations of that name.  Any formal interaction with the company such as purchases and communication clearly states BF Labs Inc.

Here is the official entry in the Wyoming state corporate registry :
https://wyobiz.wy.gov/Business/FilingDetails.aspx?FilingNum=2011-000606261
Care to explain why it's registered under Nancy Hernandez?

I hate to call you a liar, but what's preventing you from claiming that is your registration when it's not really yours? I can make up a site called xyz inc, and all i have to do is find a company with a similar name and i'm "registered". 

Why don't you update the registration to reflect your real address or provide another way to verify that registration is yours?
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