Topic: Avalon is (unfortunately) a scam. Here is why. (Read 37929 times)

No I have not and you miss the point. Whatever the cost. Undeniably it would be covered by the amount received in the initial ordering. Even if it took 75% of those initial funds to produce the just 2 or 3 prototypes. At the end of the second phase it still leaves Avalon sitting on over US$1,000,000.00 in totally untraceable, unrecoverable funds.

A considerable chunk of change! 

Yes, consider the cost of producing 2-3 one-off ASIC prototypes...  because apparently you have not done so.

It's about the same as producing 300, in terms of the chips produced.  ASICs have huge setup costs, compared to per-chip costs.

Only about 38 units were sold from batch #2.  Not 600.

Discard the hyperbole and review what little has actually happened to date:  

1:-As it seems to stand at the moment we have only 2 or 3 confirmed Avalons “in the wild”  One of those was shipped “express” to an individual who has a “high profile” within the BTC community,  assuring widest exposure of its release and performance. Consider what would be the cost to produce 2 or 3 “one-off” prototypes.

2:-To date, there appears to be nobody else posting with great glee, that they have their Shipping Number or a shipping confirmation. Avalon is reticent about if they will actually ship the complete first batch before Chinese New Year

3:-There is still, as always, very limited communication from Avalon themselves. They are far from forthcoming. Just feeding tid-bits as necessary to keep the ball rolling. That is apart from the opening of the second release orders. Stressing-”no proof” “no refund” “Bitcoin only”

4:-The second tranche of orders is sold out in 24 hrs - 600 units @US$1500 =  US$900,000.00 All of which is all absolutely non trace-able, non retrievable.
    EDIT: The second tranche is not sold out: Due to issues with Bitwallet. Does anybody seriously expect the second tranche to NOT sell out ASAP?

5:-We are now approaching the Chinese New Year which as Avalon has stressed previously will close them down for two weeks.

The execution of a successful scam relies on creating trust, by taking a small payment and providing  what was initially agreed. Setting the atmosphere of confidence and trust for the “big take”
In addition in this particular scenario, we also have the Chinese New Year just co-incidentally occurring just at the time of the opening and closing of the second batch of orders. Potentially giving two weeks grace for somebody, should they be so disposed to vanish.

I am not saying it is, but I am saying that at this point in time. It is difficult to avoid recognising just how closely this situation fits the criteria of a classic scam.  

Yes, you can. It's called locking.

Already did my apology, can't close the thread.

make an apology and close the thread. on to the next potential scam.

God, we are the same...

Nah. He delivered a working device. It is not vaporware. He has delivered 3 diff products now. He is legit.

911 controlled demolition: I believe.
Fake moon landings: I don't believe, but some pics were modified.
Face on Mars: I don't believe.
2012 doomsday: I believed.
JFK having more than I one shooter: I believe.
Sandy Hook: IDK what this is
BFL delivers: 90% believe.
Avalon is not a scam: 90% believe.
But I believe that they are lying about what state of production they are in now. They have some crappy prototype, IDK if there are actually more than one, and they post pics of it, first with 3 than with 4 modules and a vid in which you cant actually see what is making those 80+GH/s

+American government knew about Perl Harbor: I believe

911 controlled demolition: I believe.
Fake moon landings: I don't believe.
Face on Mars: I used to believe.
2012 doomsday: I never believed.
JFK having more than I one shooter: I believe.
Sandy Hook: 50/50 believe.
BFL delivers: 98.6% believe.
Avalon is not a scam: 98.6% believe.
theymos has sockpuppet(s) as mod(s): 50/50 believe. (apologies to theymos for this one)

The amount of retardness on this forum is amaizing!

Let's assume Jeff isn't in on it.

That still doesn't mean it's legit.

He's got a box with spinning fans - that he's pointed at a pool or bitcoind somewhere... whats to stop that machine from relaying this information to an fpga or gpu farm in wherever and them turning on the mining for him.

Sanity requires additional verification from multiple sources.

Until we ~300 users saying "hey I got mine and it's working right now" the jury is still out on Avalon.

The only people who vouched for pirate were in the "lending" business, ran PPTs, or were invested with pirate.
The Bitcoin Foundation and Jeff Garzik are much more trustworthy than any previous scammer.  When has a core dev scammed anyone, or vouched for a scammer?

I am willing to bet Avalon will deliver.  Want to take me up on it?

I believe the little man that lives inside the fridge who turns the light on and off might also be in on the 'scam'.
Everyone PLEASE check your fridges today.

I agree here totally btw.
And Nope they don't have to bring it, although I'd love that, just make a nice video showing everything (not some 23 second crap from a YouTube profile that was made the same day), or when someone else, who isn't on AVALON's payroll posts a nice video, or 10 people post crappy videos

I understand your point, but I think it was completely obvious that pirate was a ponzie scheme. Everyone seemed to know it, they just went with it due to greed. There was no technical reason to believe it was true. It was a straight up "just trust me".

The Avalon ASIC on the other hand does not seem far fetched by any means. The technology seems completely novice compared to the rest of the devices we see now days. It just took a lot of investment to make it even worth trying for this particular application.

The thing that bothers me the most about this so called proof is, the reason most of you believe avalon delivered as fact is because a reputable member is telling you so. Have you not learned anything? From Bitcoinica's owners running off with a half million, pirate (who everyone vouched for) $5 million plus theft, theymos trying to sell worthless stock, Nefario's bullshit, Patrick's bullshit, Matthews bet failure. I don't believe anyone on this forum and I'm not going to start anytime soon.

They'll probably be blamed if Bitcoin fails as well.  What can ya do?

The idea of debris weakening it so it could fall directly through the path of greatest resistance(str8 down) at the maximum acceleration allowed by the earth's gravitational pull is so absurd I find it insulting that you even bothered to type it. How can tons and tons of steel and concrete offer ZERO resistance? The answer is painfully obvious btw. If that's all you got then there's no point in wasting a thread as claiming the laws of physics didn't apply that day is not evidence.