Topic: BFL RIP OFF... price up 90%, 50GH/s for 2499$. - page 7. (Read 13878 times)

They've changed specs on all their vaporware, increased prices big time and yet still have NOTHING. Are they expecting a whole slew of pre-orders with this new line up? Are they running out of money or something. For a company that actually doesn't sell anything is doing quite well I guess. Only in the BTC industry can you sustain a 10+ employee company and actually not have a product or service to sell. I would almost think they are slinging heroin or crack out the back door or something.

Yeah who cares?  They could set the price at $10,000 each if they wanted like Avalon did.  That doesn't make it a rip off - don't buy it if you think it is.  No one is forcing you to buy ASICs.

Free market in action.

That occurred to me also, hence thinking to keep a fire under them.

Its ok son.... you can cry. Shouting will make you look like a pos.

WTFFFFFF

they HAVEN'T EVEN SHIPPED ANYTHING YET AND THEY ALREADY UPPPED THE PRICE AND LOWER THE HASH?

WTF IS THIS!!!!!!!

Avalon plain greedy ?  

Avalon are anything except greedy !  come on..

They sold batch 1 and 2 and production cost, maybe under.. Before announcing price hikes for batch 3 im pretty sure they were in the red..  No one in the Avalon team are rich.  
It's fine to price batch 3 like they did, for 2 reason;

1 - This investment will return full BTC within 3 month, that's a truly good investment.  Find any investment the recoup under a year..  

2 - The millions aquired by batch 3 will fund for developement and production of Avalon V2, wich will be so great that it will left BFL and/or any real new comer far behind.

Avalon are commited to BTC and mining decentralization, so I'm pretty impressed with their behavior and their values.  Like they said, we must stop thinking in USD/fiat, and get it to the root : BTC.  

They got it, they will fight and would sell their Mom for protecting BTC future.  Mining decentralization are a priotity for them, this is fact, as they limit the number of unit a single person can order.  I truly beleive in Avalon !  

Great job team Avlaon, keep up the good work, the BTC community owe you so much for keeping those good value as priority !

mostly get enforced by the munis at that building inspection level for UL.   or when a fire inspection happens.   Now if a company ships from a location in a state these units that violate UL, usually state AGs will get involve if the fire under their butt is large enough.     It is like everything in america, bureaucrats do their jobs when they fear being exposed for NOT doing their jobs.   Other than that, they desk hibernate.

Do those regulations ever actually get enforced or are they one of those requirements which everyone ignores without consequence?

This was my biggest beef with being a BFL customer.

"We're shipping October November December January February March April?"

They knew damn well there would be no finished products in October, but they insisted they were shipping each month after that as well. The were pulling in more pre-order monies as time went on, because people thought they were shipping next month every month.

They are running thin on pre-order monies because of the problems in the R&D (which was funded at the very least in part from pre-order monies) + they've been paying who knows what kind of salaries to themselves to live off of. They're wearing thin on money, so they raise prices of order numbers 99999999999999999999999999999999999 and greater. That's the reason for no more refunds. You may receive your ASIC sometime next year.

Hey good luck with that PG. BFL's Chief Bridge Troll ever get back to you on the FCC submission discrepancies? Definitely don't hold your breath. 

Because if they didn't lie about their progress, people would pull their pre-orders and BFL would go bankrupt..

I've reached mine! If I have anything to do with it, nothing is leaving their facility without a UL or FCC tag attached to each unit, specific to each model including any changes. And that's only the beginning.

The problem with BFL is the dishonesty. If they know they have to rethink and rebuild all their boards, order and test new heat syncs, fabricate all new cases... chances are they aren't going to be shipping within 2 weeks. Just be honest with people. What's the point of disappointing people every 2 weeks?

this is stupid we will be making less so why should we pay more

Hindsight?  I posted that the whole schedule was bullshit the day of the announcement last June.

I was thinking the same thing - but then what about this: They did it silently. If I was really in dire straights for money, I'd announce "Last week to buy it at the low price before we raise it to the new price" to get people's money. Raising it silently doesn't do anything besides reduce the number of orders you get, which is the opposite of what a cash strapped company would want.

The silent move makes me feel like they are fine with money and are just trying to find the spot on the demand curve where they can maximize profit. Thoughts?

It's not often that vaporware goes out of stock.

These changes point to one of two scenarios IMO.

Scenario 1

BFL now knows what they can and can't do, they are almost ready to ship and the new specs and prices are the obvious result of the current market for ASICs/bitcoins.  This would be wonderful news for BFL customers.

Of course, if you are paying attention to the problems they are having with their current prototypes then this scenario does not seem at all likely.  It's not likely that they yet know how to fix these problems, or even if they can fix them at all.


Scenario 2

BFL is burning through their capital at an alarming rate, their window of opportunity is closing and the supplier/investors/customers are getting restless.  They did this because they are desperate.  They need to stem the flow of refund requests.  They need to bring in more capital ASAP.  They are not a scam in the sense that they are an actual business trying to create actual products, but they are a scam in the sense that they know they now need a miracle but they will continue to mislead current and potential customers because that is their only chance.

Companies in this type of situation do not cut back on advertising and they certainly do not publicly admit that they are in dire straights.  They always claim that everything is normal.  They are praying they can turn cash flow positive before they run out of cash.  Or maybe they already have and the time suppliers/investors say "ENOUGH" and bring down the hammer is approaching.

This seems like a far more likely scenario to me.  BFL has a lot of expenses and a lot of liabilities.  They don't have much time to get their products to market before it is too late, and they probably don't have enough capital left to make good on the promises they have made to existing customers (honoring hashrate specs, etc.)  Besides their many expenses in trying to finish a working product, it's likely that cash is flying out the door in the form of refund requests.  That 1K in BTC they owe to charity is the least of their problems.

For example, the rig they list as "Out of Stock" is clearly just vaporware that they have finally concluded it is impossible for them to produce.  They will have to go to those customers and offer them a choice of a refund or an "equivalent" product(s).  If a bunch of people request $20K refunds, it could be curtains for them.

IMO, the 2nd scenario is far more likley.  I don't see how anyone who has read BFL's recent progress reports can believe that they now have it all figured out.  I realize that this has all been said before and that none of this is new, but I figured I would lay it out anyway because some people still seem to be confused and are assuming this is automatically good news.  

Thanks.  I just found it as well: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1740976

This is actually quite smart on BFL's behalf.  When they ship units that produce less hashes and consume more power they can point to the web site and say "look, you're getting a steep discount on the price of a new unit!"  I ordered seven months ago and would be delighted to get anything at this stage.

There's also the little matter of bitcoin's price booming in the last four months so why not raise prices to take advantage of the little money printing machines?