Topic: 280 BTC total bets between Micon and mrb (are BFL ASICs real?) - page 9. (Read 46415 times)

Plus you can then bet on another shipping date after that, ad infinitum, as long as you have takers.

My beliefs vs what the market demands (or will give) are two very different things.

If I believe BFL will never ship, but someone will bet me 25 coins vs. my 50 that BFL will ship in April, well of course I would take that, as if I'm right I get paid in 1 month.  In these cases I can still be wrong and win.

While I will plainly state my beliefs in my BFL scam thread, this thread is only about betting on BFL shipping dates.  Both of us are going to try and get the most favorable terms from the other.

I offered the 2 bets above because 1 was actually booked ~ 24 hrs ago, a clear indicator of the market, and 1 is what I believe an extrapolation of the first bet is when betting 1:1 and not 2:1.


1)  thanks very much for the btc-address tool.  It's potential is enormous.  Escrowing dumb bets is the tip of the iceberg IMO.  Multi-factor private key storage is the real killer app here IMO.

2)  thanks very much for acting as escrow.  I highly doubt there will be any judgement calls on this matter.  On the off chance there is any objection we can go to arbitration without you Mike.   I have a feeling in all cases here the loser will send the winner the string.

3)  I personally keep all the info in a cloud encrypted note service.

Someone please just keep track of these details so that if it gets down to it, I don't have to sort through a mess if I end up having to release the key one way or another.  I trust you guys are gentlemen, but I have been hoping from the beginning that I don't have to do anything more complicated than determine the obvious and release a key uncontroversially if it becomes necessary.  I am unwilling to provide arbitration services, and am unwilling to make more than a cursory effort to determine the winner, just as a matter of personal policy.  Just be aware of the risk that if evaluating the winner ends up becoming too difficult or too indeterminate for me, the only option I'll be able to provide is to release both keys to a different arbitrator more willing to sort through it, which won't be ideal for anybody.  You guys might want to start a shared Google Doc concisely describing what you've agreed to before any of the deadlines arrive, and once you both believe it is consistent with your understanding, PGP sign the text.

I believe I may have misinterpreted your feelings on BFL. It's your position that they aren't going to deliver anything at all, correct? By use of logical deduction, it appears you think it's possible they will deliver a device between May 30th and June 30th with an efficiency below 350mhash/joule but above 110mhash/Joule? Is that correct? If that's not the case, why don't you accept my bet?

If BFL doesn't deliver by June 30th, they are going bankrupt, regardless of if they are a scam or not. I'd have no issue giving you 5 coins at that point.

I am willing to make 2 wagers right now:


1)  I just got 25 more coins down laying a guy 2-1 on April shipping.  I am willing to do the same for you, your 5 coins vs. my 10, end of April strike date 200 Mh/J+ power rating

2) 5/30/2013 (2 full months from now!) strike date, 1-to-1 bet.  My 5 coins vs. your 5 coins 200+ Mh/J power rating. 


Also these are open to anyone, for up to 250 coins.

C'mon now, work with me here. You still plan on winning the bet with mrb right? If they release something with Avalon efficiency, a lot of people would be very angry, including me, but they wouldn't be considered a scam. They've already admit they can't meet the power estimate, at least not for now, perhaps not by June 30th either.

5/30/13 & 200 Mhash/J and u got yourself a 5 coin bet!

also it appears Mr. Teal and I have a bet that swelled to 75 coins total now, settling at the end of April, as he hit the hash with the agreed upon 25 extra coins:  https://blockchain.info/address/1B3EAGAgXoALFd6o9762hitoCyH61JxF4Y

Ok, found this a few posts up.
"by 5/15/2013 Butterfly Labs ships products to 3+ forum members unconnected to the company and the devices achieve 350+ Mhash/Joule"

Let's change to the following and shake on it
"by 6/30/2013 Butterfly Labs ships products to 3+ forum members unconnected to the company and the devices achieve 110+ Mhash/Joule"

What good is a efficiency rating if the device doesn't exist? I do see your point though. If BFL delivers a 4,000 watt 40gh/s SC single composed of 100 FPGA chips, that would be far from what they promised. How about a 1/1 bet similar to the one with mrb and Shipping by June 30th, but at Avalon or better efficiency? I believe Avalon is 66gh at 600 watts? Does 110MHash/Joule or better sound good? Given their specifications, I don't think they will have any trouble beating that number. I want as much leverage as I can get, and since your position is that BFL is a straight up scam, the power numbers should be irrelevant.

I would need the power rating to wager.  Otherwise they can ship whatever and if it hashes once you win.  I'm down to bet 5 coins, if you want 2-1 I can do April at some agreed upon power rating.

If you want 1-1 I can do May 20th at some agreed upon power rating.

Well, you seem to have it figured out.

It's an interesting theory, but here are my thoughts: If they are pulling a long con, they really dropped the ball by not putting the flashy light video up a week ago and tearing away tons of cash from Avalon Batch 3 investors. An adept scammer would have taken a finished SC single case or the big box of fans, hooked up some nice LED lights and scripted out a bfgminer screen showing a hashrate of 1.5th on testnet in a box. Now imagine they did that the night before Avalon started taking 75 BTC Batch 3 preorders, which are scheduled for mid-may deliveries. Is the guy getting ready to buy 5 Avalons going to go through with that purchase the next morning, or is he going to say: "F that, I'm getting one of those fancy mini-rigs!" It just doesn't make much sense to me.

I don't usually gamble unless I'm guaranteed to win, or guaranteed to "lose" somehow (aka bets with Matthew Wright). I don't think this bet is a guaranteed win but I think I have a pretty good chance here. I also don't like large amounts of egg on my face, so let's make this small. Would you take a 10btc(5btc each) bet with me on the same terms as mrb, minus any power requirements?  

Thanks for the questions. 

I bet about ~ 150 coins on this matter to win ~300 total across all forms, this thread has most of the action I think, the prediction sites 2nd biggest, and private wagers are very small. 

I have basically won the 50 coins (25 each from me & Mr. Teal) so there is 1/3 back.  Mr. Teal agree to wager an additional 25 coins at 2-1 by shipping an additional 25 to our escrow'd hash, but he hasn't done so yet and frankly I don't blame him if he doesn't.

This video recently came out:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C4bgho5JSI

and it's basically getting laughed at for the power consumption (i mean, the lights literally flicker at :17 as iCEBREAKER noticed 1st) and all my bets state 350 Mh/J.

So in short yes, I expect to win all bets.

now for the matter of "is BFL a scam, or are they simply inept?"

There are 2 possible scenarios here, and 1 extreme falsehood

the 1, obvious extreme falsehood:  Everything is like BFL says.  A random, nameless investor funded the company, and funded them so well they can flounder over and over and all salaries get paid, all equipment is bought, all office is nice.  Pre-order money was taken in but never spent in any way.  They have all of it waiting for a product to ship like any responsible corporation should. None has been used for salaries or rent or power (they are going to need lots of power it seems) or other utilities or business expenses.  ASIC chips are juuuuuuust around the corner, everything is going to be fine even though it looks like they are in some stage of fisher-price my-first ASIC production play time set.

Scenario 1 of the the 2 believable scenarios: BFL is gambling hard.  They took in millions, JZ told u the cock-n-bull story of how they never use pre-order money for anything business expense and u knew he was lying and BitSyncom did the same thing, gambled pre-order money and came up hard six front line winner + the hardways bet.  U figure BFL is doing the same thing, u don't care, u want them to gamble it up, buy a headshot wafer and chop and screw it into ASICs and u want to be first in line to take the headshot hashrate to the face.  Ur gonna put Jally's all over ur office, $150 bitches that pay for themselves in a few weeks. so you hope they are testing, re-testing, layering, putting on the metal layers like a boss, bumping, wire-bonding, and doing all other manners to cook up an ASIC chip.  This scene is supposed to make you believe they are hard at work:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C4bgho5JSI  but once again take a look at what you see - a shitty laptop, a board of some such, it's not hashing anything, the lights flicker at :17, there is a multi-meter plugged in, that's cool, and once again just absolutely nothing of any substance, marketed as "the next step" in delivering your product.  Well, they could be gambling.  They juuuuust could actually have wafers, they could actually maybe work if they just did the right things to it.  They could have much more sophisticated machines (out of view of the camera) and they could be veeeeery close to making it all work somehow.   I guess u could believe that still

Scenario 2:  Either it started out with best intentions or Sonny is just a mail order scammer 4 life and this is another version of a mail order scam.  Call it a pre-order scam.  Josh orders himself.  He is out 90k for 3x minirigs.  Sonny convinces him to work for BFL, either pays him or promises him more hardware, maybe Josh is too stupid to know it's an obvious scam, maybe Sonny is a fantastic puppetmaster.  Maybe Josh was pulled in early and Sonny says "there is no fucking way these are going to work.  but if you help me..." Josh is clearly the type of psychopath that would do something extremely dishonest like that.  He has a record from DirecTV cheater cards supporting that fact.  I still hold out that Josh Zerlan may be too stupid to know, but for sure Sonny & Nasser do.   The ASIC production, however it began, doesn't look now like it's anywhere close to completion, if they even started production at all!  The deafening silence the past 2 weeks until this weak ass video are a very telling sign.  IMO BFL is in the death throes, having burned up all the pre-order money on advertising to get more pre-order money until that proposition is no longer +EV, the massive backlash of angry miners having sunk their hardware budget into BFL instead of anything else is bubbling over every forum and outlet.  The massive pre-order media buys are certainly having their effectiveness degrade each day.  Now there is anti-BFL advertising on these forums, and congrats to those that put that together.

A little ranty, but that's where I'm at about it ATM

Micon, have you conceded that you will lose your 80 btc bet to Mrb, or do you expect to still win that one as well? It appears you may have hedged that bet with some shipping date bets; have you fully covered the 80 btc bet with wins from those bets yet? I'm just curious...

While you weren't able to convince all members that pirate was a ponzi, I believe your persistence did convince some people to stay away and I think it's important that we have vocal skeptics in this community. It's a bit sad looking at some of the older member's profiles who were heavy investors and seeing they haven't been online in months. I wonder how many of them lost their life savings and are in serious trouble...

I do believe you are incorrect about BFL though. While their estimates have been way off, it's obvious that they are working to deliver a product. Pirate only accepted bitcoin and either believed that would be enough to prevent a conviction, or he was fooled into a larger ponzi himself. BFL accepts fiat and is running out of the US, making them a guaranteed target for investigation and prosecution in the event they didn't deliver. They've delivered FPGA products with a comparable delay in the past. What spurred you to start calling BFL a scam and do you still think they are a scam, or just overly optimistic about delivery dates?

cool, hit the hash within the next ~ 12 hrs and ur on.

Sounds good to me.

so essentially I am giving you 2-1 on BFL shipping in April to 3+ at the agreed 350Mh/J+ terms.  your additional 25 coins vs. my 50 coins now sitting in the hash.

I wanted so badly to test the btc-address tool and rip those coins out of the blockchain, but you have offered me an amendment to the wager that I cannot refuse.  I respect you for your gamble and i can't deny a man his action.

http://blockexplorer.com/address/1BXEoc3tKs9APcZVEi5CLUDPgt3Xsw95gm

hit the hash within 24 hrs and you have yourself an increased wager Mr. Teal.

Yeah, it's looking like I've pretty much lost our wager.

Given the rather poor news that BFL is talking about scaling back the hashrate of their boards to keep power in check and some of their boards have tested as high as 4J/GH (250MH/J) and even one at 6J/GH, I can't justify another 1:1 wager on BFL, especially since they really aren't that much further along than when I last bet in mid-Feb. If you're interested though, I would offer a compromise bet. Instead of May 15th (45 days from April 1), I would cut that down and say BFL will ship in April. I would send an additional 25BTC to our existing address, and if BFL doesn't ship by in April and meet those other terms (350MH/J, 3 independent people), you get my 50BTC instead of the 25BTC.

Well, it looks like we are days away from testing the btc-address escrow tool.

I am interested in betting on future BFL shipping dates.  

If anyone is looking for a bet, I will bet 5 coins minimum and 250 coins max that the following statement is false:

"by 5/15/2013 Butterfly Labs ships products to 3+ forum members unconnected to the company and the devices achieve 350+ Mhash/Joule"

I have a feeling this bet, like the previous 3, will not have an issue determining the winner, i.e. I don't think it will be "close" but if so the escrow we have used is Mike Caldwell to call it.  His btc-address tool will be used for escrow, with Mike in control of both invite codes.  

Its almost April fools.  Imma go to Walmart to get

WTF?