Topic: BlackArrow => Scam or not? (Read 5573 times)

Thanks for the great list of sources. I agree that this does look like bfl but from what I've read BA has a much better track record of shipping on time. I'm hoping for less than 1 month delay. Or at least before asicminer gen3 chips go up for sale.

They sold miners through card read factory many moons ago. What do you think "smallest portable magnetic stripe card readers in the world" are used for? Many people on these forums have bought their miners and we've had photos from inside their factory, saw their FPGA to ASIC development hardware, if it's a scam, they went to a lot of trouble to hire a factory and fill it with mining hardware.  

Of course they could fail. Building a board and putting someone else's chip on it it easier than building your own ASIC from scratch. We saw that happen to bASIC, they delivered FPGAs, but later failed to deliver on a subsequent ASIC project.

Many in the community thought Butterfly Labs would be a scam, but they delivered (eventually), on their promises.

If you don't want to risk money in a pre-order buy a 28nm miner from Technobit with PayPal, but even he gets scammer accusations!

It's just the nature of the Bitcoin market... More risk, more reward!


Photos of Flappysocks previous order with Black Arrow.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3866034

Photos from inside Black Arrows factory in China.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3884729

Photo of Black Arrows 22nm FPGA to ASIC development board.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3893629

"Re: Butterfly Labs CEO 25 Million USD Mail Fraud — A Concise Summary of Evidence"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/re-butterfly-labs-ceo-25-million-usd-mail-fraud-a-concise-summary-of-evidence-110805

"TOWN HALL (prep) Meeting: Butterfly Labs"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/town-hall-prep-meeting-butterfly-labs-110786

"The "What Black Arrow does not want you to know" thread"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-what-black-arrow-does-not-want-you-to-know-thread-313049

"Black Arrow Software real or fake?"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/black-arrow-software-real-or-fake-365535

"Blackarrow Software Legit or Scam?"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/blackarrow-software-legit-or-scam-339163

"Re: "BlackArrow" ASIC's, Trustable?"
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/blackarrow-asics-trustable-316214

Blackarrow has shady past? - wtf....

are you just writing this, or you have some source
I asume you're not refering to my post, as i regard a few day old mails or an ~1 1/2 months old order not really ignorable "past".

Source?

Afaik we don't have much info about the development process besides that they still plan to ship on time.

There's lots of people in the Bitcoin industry with a shady pasts, even BFL's Sonny did time, so I wouldn't worry about that.

My thinking is they'll deliver, but deliver last, as they started development later than everyone else on the 28nm node.
That's why their price of $3/GH is the lowest out there to reflect this.

haha, yesterday and today i got 4 emails from blackarrow that "Order #... has been placed successfully. Well i did not do anything....
They all have the same order # from an old order i once placed in December, but despite an inquiry at Blackarrow they never sent me a single reply. And now i'm getting automated mails about it being newly created.

haha. I don't even believe they are humans. Probably just a piece of code working on some server and getting programmed by some - by now - rich guy.

In December, I was sooo close, but now i'm so happy i didn't send the money. Now there is no way i am going to ever submit any money to Blackarrow.

Sure, you could build whatever you want, but you could always just buy something like an IDTech which plugs into your phone or iPad and only costs $50.  Or get the Square device https://squareup.com/ which is free, but you have to use their service.

Bluetooth.  Battery-powered.  Super-thin.  Hmm, sounds like an Apple product

Interesting. Is it possible that it could be used
 for some sort of mobile card reader?

The guys from BlackArrow and CardReaderFactory are probably not scammers, but I question their ethics, as CardReaderFactory sells the "world's smallest bluetooth magnetic stripe readers" - have a look at product MSRv008.  I'm not sure why else someone would drop $2000 on this device other than to build an ATM skimming device.

They may not be scammers, but they like to sell parts to the scammers 

The way I see it is you can either pre-order and maybe get a really good deal or maybe a shitty deal with a ton of delays, or you can buy someones asic in hand for 3 times what they paid for it (also they probably used it to mine and the first week or two is the most profitable for any asic.

Risk vs reward.

Agreed. Its always a risk of some sort, even a KNC order at this point but I put my money where my mouth is and I also have an X3 (first batch) on order.

from my experience on just-in-time delivered fpga´s (17x) back in may,  can say: they re legit and no scam !!! ofcourse, an asic rig with 2,5 TH is more difficult to be (developed&) built than a fpga unit with 398 MH, but also i know blackarrow is a skilled engineer and hes not alone to do the whole work. i strongly believe they can make it, even in time ... ordered 2 x-3´s from 1st batch and have absolutely no doubts about not getting them and get skinned.

this thread was absolutely not needed ! cheers

They also accept wire transfers for payment which makes them seem more legit.  Most scammers tend to only accept BTC since it's easier to disappear with the cash.  BA also allows customers to wire funds to their HSBC bank account in China.  There's still the possibility of them disappearing or going bankrupt, but having that bank account makes them more trackable.

True, but also: never support scammers. I actually plan to go to China in a couple of month maybe I'll can visit them.

Black Arrow Software used to sell their equipment through the Card Reader Factory website. So the two companies were (and probably still are) essentially the same company.

I've purchased about 10 FPGA units from them in the past (as have many others) and everything was very smooth. I had a unit that eventually broke and they wanted me to send it back for a replacement. I never did because by that time the FPGA's were essentially useless for Bitcoin but they at least offered which is more then most companies now a days.

The new box may not be a reality ever, but at least based on their track history they are a legitimate company and not just scammers.

Always remember to only invest what you can afford to lose.

That is some really poor English.
You can always wait it out and see if they're legit or not?

Want to buy the x-3. Lot's of cash to loose, even though I don't think they're a scam I which there was a way to find out for sure.

Black Arrow is based in china and do all there assembly there in there own plant. Thay are legit as we the WPC have done face to face business with them. We should be receiving there Minion chips soon.  For our Minion Wasp Prototype  

Yeah I wouldn't decide if a company is a scam or not based on a video made by the company in question. You never know they could be faking it. Also, there pricing does seem a little bit low which makes me wonder if this qualifies as a "too good to be true deal". They have proven track record of delivering somebody else items but to my knowledge they have never made an asic completely from scratch. I guess that all we can do right now is gather more evidence and wait for testing, prototypes etc