Topic: Butterfly Labs (Read 9785 times)

Thanks, I wasn't aware that I could do that. I thought it was a mod only feature. Here is an article proving one of my points btw http://www.edn.com/design/integrated-circuit-design/4313790/Making-ASIC-power-estimates-before-the-design.

Since you're the one who started the thread, you can easily close it yourself. Look for the lock option in the lower left hand corner.

This is why I'm asking for the thread to be closed. I don't believe anything more productive can be done here. I've stated my opinion and asked my questions. BFL's ceo has come here and given a direct response. You really can't ask for more than that. I wish for the best from BFL and I hope they can deliver what they have promised.

Am I mistaken or is somebody playing the semantics card with a person whose relatively straightforward and kind in regard to his recent posts, but is being called out as a tool?

I'm not getting this business practice at all. Somebody link me a memo showing that this is the new norm so I can start calling my custom base and suppliers cocksuckers, for currently I'm not on track to beat last year's sales, down about 66% to date.

This is a direct claim that your company has sold the 1500 GH/s rigs under the preorder model. You can claim it is a lie. It looks to me that you guys were pretty certain in the whole 5 GH/s 5 watt consumption estimate until you learned the hard way that ASIC design doesn't always work the way you'd like.

Even if the pre-order claim isn't true, why are you advertising on your site the minirig? https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/1500gh-bitcoin-miner.html. We both know it physically can't exist with the power required for the ASICs you are shipping at the end of the month. Thus you somehow have a dramatically more power efficient design in your lab and you're somehow going to release this in a reasonable timeframe? Don't you see how people can get a little POed with these claims?

I'm asking you to be a good CEO and do two things. First, white an open letter to your customers whom you've put through hell with persistent delays apologizing and promising to do better. It sucks, but its something you have to do as the leader. You guys dropped the ball. Second, pull the minirig from the market and refund any preorders. You have a legitimate product on the market that holds well against the competition. You'll get to the minirig, but we both know it isn't possible with what you have right now.

You guys have done some good work building a real product. The conversation we'd be having if you would have been conservative with release dates and the wattage claims would be nothing but praise for a beautiful and functional product for mainstream miners. You still have an opportunity to get it back on track. Don't waste it.   

According to SEC and FC rules pre-order customers (people paid 100% upfront, no product) are not customers - they are investors. Therefore they do have legal rights to get this kind of information.

Josh, why are you being an arse again? You are missing to opportunity to polish up Butterfly Labs corrupted image.


Old posts from BFL's Facebook page .....
20th September 2012


27th November 2012


13th December 2012


18th January 2013


22nd January 2013


22nd January 2013


26th February 2013


26th February 2013


Made me chuckle.... got to the 26th February and BFL are like "Screw it.... "

Really, can you point to where BFL is currently selling a 1500 GH/s rig?

You have a 1500 GH/s rig listed in your product catalog and jml has claimed you accepted preorders josh.

Can you point out where BFL is claiming that? 

Again, just another example of why the entire premise for this thread is complete nonsense.  You have done exactly zero due diligence and your claims are either invalid, irrelevant or already resolved.

If the top tier product was a 50 GH/s rig, then yes no one would really care. Let's assume the 5 GH/s unit consumed 100 watts. Then when you scale up to 50 (assuming something linear) you can target 1 KW which is on par with a quad-crossfire 7970 rig. You've beat the competition watt for watt dramatically. Everyone is happy and the world moves on.

But when you talk about a terahash. If your 5 Gh/s unit runs at 5 watts, then scaling makes sense. It's still very hot and very hard to cool, but it at least makes sense. In the 40-50 watt range, it doesn't to me and several other members here. More power = more heat.

Also when they were claiming the 5 watt range that meant you could run the unit off of a usb only. Put the unit in a small, very portable case, use a small fan if any at all, and finally long term persistent use is less likely to destroy the unit. Less heat, longer lifespan.

I actually agree with you about the 5 GH/s system which is why I ordered one in the first place. I could care less about the power consumption. My 7950 consumes a heck of  alot more. But it just bothers me deeply they claim to be able to deliver something like a 1500 GH/s rig within any reasonable timeframe. I can't understand how they can justify that claim. Look at Intel with prescott http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1036882/is-intel-prescott-p4-hot-handle

They had units in a lab running at 8 GHz with liquid nitrogen cooling  http://www.geek.com/chips/is-intel-planning-to-clock-pentium-4s-to-8ghz-547912/. It eventually became clear that the roadmap didn't make any sense. They had to bite a very bitter bullet and let AMD trash them while they retooled.

I see it as a small company that hasn't learned throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks isn't a good business strategy. Be good to your consumers and treat them like family. Be honest and open. Admit the mistakes you've made and when you over-promise understand that it comes with a cost.

If it's under a hundred watts and I can actually buy one, and it's actually 5 GH/s, that would all be enough for me.

Who cares if its 5 watts or 50 watts?  It's a best guess while you're developing something.

The bullshit comes when you claim you can build a 1500 GH/s rig and you accept money for it when you are having difficulty delivering a 5 GH/s rig under double digit wattage. It would be like IBM saying that they can't get a blade under 5000 watts, but don't worry about the server with 300 blades. You'll be able to cool it. I'm skeptical. I have every right to be. I did not purchase a minirig so I don't have a dog in this fight and Josh gets to do a mega victory dance if he delivers.

And frankly if he does, then I will personally apologize and recommend BFL to everyone. They would have done something really amazing from an engineering perspective akin to when AMD released the FX-51.

...that sounds vastly different from bullshit excuses.

As a disclaimer, my only experience in VLSI is with some projects in the aerospace industry. IMHO, usually the last thing you make a comment on is power consumption. It can take months of fine tuning and hard work, which is why Nvidia and AMD for example almost never comment on power consumption for their new graphics cards until they start shipping review units. Reliability testing and turn around time from the fabricator also has a lot to do with the schedule you live on and your relationship with the fabricator. Generally speaking it depends on the volume you ordered and how much time you have allocated for quality control. Firmware can take a great deal of time as well.

ASIC development is hard and the people who do it well are few and far between. Which is why it is a terrible idea to announce any release date until you have a working prototype in your lab and you're doing things like quality and firmware. Even then small factors can result in delays for several months. For many larger companies, some projects simply die because the internal benchmarks are just simply unobtainable for example Intel's larrabee project: http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2010/05/an_update_on_our_graphics-rela/. Here we have probably the most advanced and respected chip designer in the market admitting defeat for a very public and well financed project. This should give you an idea how hard developing a product can be. I commend BFL for taking on the project and dealing with the delays.

Another example of problems: http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/UPDATE-NVIDIA-Fermi-continues-have-problems-according-multiple-sources

In your experience designing and testing electronics requiring new chips to be designed, what is the average time to market?  What kind of delays do you usually experience, and what reasons/excuses have you found to be valid?

yes I have spent money at BFL. I don't care if it is a lost investment or not as it is sub-500 dollars. I can live. My issue is that their response to any question has always been with personal attacks to both intelligence and character. This is not how you run a company and when bitcoins enter the mainstream, they will be crushed. No one wants to do business with a company that feels it can have long delays without any legitimate excuse while the customer watches other making money with a competitor's products. But again this format has lost its ability to accomplish anything. I request that the thread be closed. 

I think we should do an audit of whether or not you spent any money, or are just bellyachin' for free.

Answering any further questions is pointless. We can't have a conversation in this format. I will wait and see what happens.

You still haven't answered my question - how much money do you have invested in this?

Alright we are done here. Moderator could you close this thread. Nothing more can be accomplished in this format.

They disagree with what?  They choose to reveal trade secrets and that is somehow evidence of disagreement?  This doesn't even make sense.  Do you even know what you're talking about?


Again, what compulsion does BFL have to open their books?  I ask this again.  Post your tax returns and paystubs.  Why are you evading the question?  Why are not posting them?


So disagreeing with you and explaining why your questions are stupid = "red in the face" ... right.  So basically this conversation is already over, you've given up after two posts and moved on to "Nya nya nya, it's this way because I say it is and your logic and common sense have no effect on me!"  GG!

Your statement that "You guys presold the units and yet are holding on to this" is utter garbage.  Do you have proof, or hell, even any EVIDENCE of this?  No?  Why not?  Because it's idiotic, that's why.  This whole question has been answered, ad naseum, on the forum.  You failed to do you due diligence and now you're flailing around trying to justify your stupid questions.


That's right, you have no power to compel BFL to open their books.  A court of law and government agency will laugh in your face when you try to get them to compel BFL to open the books.  Here's the way that conversation will go:

Charles: There's this company, Butterfly Labs, that has taken preorders for a product and hasn't shipped mine yet.  I want you to force them to publicly post an audit of their books.
Court: On what grounds do you request we compel an audit?
Charles: I think they are using preorder funds to develop their product.
Court: What evidence do you have for this?  
Charles: Well, I don't have any evidence.
Court: So why do you think they are doing this, have they said they were?  When did you make your preorder?
Charles: No, they said they wern't doing it.  I made a preorder in January.  I think they are a scam and a ponzi scheme.
Court: I see... So you ordered in January, when did you ask for a refund?
Charles: I've haven't asked for a refund.
Court: So, you think they are a scam, but you haven't requested a refund?  Why not?  Has anyone else requested a refund?
Charles: Well, I don't really have a good answer as to why I haven't requested a refund.  Yes, other people have requested refunds.
Court: How many refunds were requested?  How many were denied?
Charles: Well, I'm sure lots were requested.  I haven't heard of any being denied.
Court: So... people have requested refunds and been given them.  You have an order with the company and you haven't canceled it and requested a refund.  You say they are scam, but have no evidence, no one has ever been denied a refund and they are a privately held company. Is that correct?
Charles: Well, yes, basically. But... they haven't shipped my order yet!
Court: Baliff, please escort this man off the premises.  If he resists, I recommend holding him for psychiatric evaluation.

I'd wager that's a fairly accurate representation of what a court of law would say.


No, you've just made unfounded accusations and made ludicrous demands.  I suggest you look up what "order of magnitude" means, since you clearly don't understand it.  I have NFC what you are talking about with regards to building a 1.5 TH machine last year, are you insane, delusional or just confused?

Look, there is a lot of passion in this argument because people have invested a great deal of money on blind faith your corp will deliver a good ASIC miner to the market. I commend you for the hard work and dedication of your engineers and the efforts of BFL to do something as difficult as designing an ASIC that has to run 24/7 reliably while doing billions of hash computations a second. That isn't easy and no one is trying to claim it isn't an accomplishment.

The primary issue I have and many people in the community as well is that we feel you guys made promises without the facts to back them up. If I claim an ASIC will run on 5 watts and I'm off by nearly an order of magnitude, then that is a big issue. Not for small scale miners, but certain when we want to increase to something like a 1500 GH/s rig. We wouldn't be having this conversation if the only product in the queue was a 5 GH/s rig. But you have presold 1500 GH/s rigs that I'm fundamentally skeptical can exist with what you have demonstrated in the marketplace.

Your response is to use personal attacks. How about you grow up and be a real CEO. Issue a press release thanking your customers for their patience and loyalty and give a heartfelt and concise explanation why you didn't reach your benchmarks- remember the ones you set. Then give a reasonable roadmap and shipping schedule. That's how my friend Elon Musk did it when he missed his benchmarks last year at Tesla. That's how a good leader does it. You only get a pass because you are in a small market. Once bitcoin becomes mainstream. Your company will not survive if you continue to manage like this.  

OMG the dumb hertz my eyes!

Charles, how much, exactly, have you spent on hardware at BFL

http://hothardware.com/Articles/An-Introduction-To-Global-Foundries/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphics/display/2012120230059_TSMC_Set_to_Produce_Nvidia_Maxwell_Graphics_Chips_Using_20nm_Process_Technology.html

I guess AMD and Nvidia disagree. Also, a vendor can confirm the order volume without revealing anything else. That would go a long way to prove BFL didn't dip into preorder money for R&D.


And has this ever been verified by any outside party? I understand Josh that you can say no. You have the books. I can't comment on it.  


You ok? You seem a little red in the face? Don't you think asking if BFL has mined with their own product and to what extent is a little legitimate? You guys presold the units yet are holding on to them. Thus you can double dip by using them to mine until the margins lower and then ship the queue. I'm not saying you did that, but it is definitely an option and something the community would love to know. Also how did you do any form of reliability testing without mining for some window of time with the units?


I have no power to compel BFL to open their books. A court of law and a government agency can do that. And they will do that if your corporation continues to delay its shipments while still taking preorders. What I say and do has no impact on that reality. You can deny it, but it doesn't make it any less true.  


Well Josh, I for one never accepted millions of dollars of other people's money off of a promise to deliver something and then spent months delaying until I eventually delivered something that is an order of magnitude outside of spec. Also how exactly are you able to build a minirig running at 1500 GH/s with that kind of TDP? Didn't you sell a few of those over the last year? Surely that meant you guys had a working prototype that allowed you to infer a reasonable TDP for the size.

+1.  You got a vote equal to the amount of your order.  If you are 1 of 100 customers, you get a 1% say in things.  If you haven't placed an order, well, that puts you in the 0% range.  (Like myself)

I'm going to wait and see if they ship anything, and decide from there.

If they ship all their systems, and it means I have to buy a 50 GH/s rig to mine $1 a day worth of bitcoins, I'm probably not going to buy one.

Now put down the pitchfork, snuff the torch, and:

1.) Ask for your money back if you purchased
2.) Don't ask for your money back if you didn't purchase
3.) Wait and buy
4.) Wait and don't buy

Think that just about covers it.  This forum is starting to get the Glenn Beck tendency of "This is my crazy conspiracy theory, if you don't prove me wrong, it must be right".

Everybody else is just like "Meh, I'm not going to both with this nonsense".

I know you "feel" the questions are legitimate, but they aren't.  Can you give a single compelling reason that BFL would open their financial books to anyone other than the tax man?  Just because you "want to know" and "feel" that you deserve to know does not make it a legitimate reason.  The entire premise is ludicrous.  How about this: You post your last 3 years of tax returns, and your last twelve paystubs, as well as your marriage license if you're married, unredacted, on this forum.  Are you willing to do that?  No?  Why not?


This question has been answered countless times.  The answer has always been no.


This question is ludicrous, even more so than the audit question.  Why does it matter who is fabricating the chips and how could revealing that NOT reveal a trade secret?  Why would BFL be compelled to post a contract between one vendor and BFL to satisfy your curiosity?  How is this a legitimate question?  What company reveals this sort of information?  None.


Another question that has been answered countless times on this forum.  This is what I'm talking about.  Your questions are either already answered or completely ridiculous.  This entire thread is basically an exercise in mental masturbation, resulting in blue balls for those involved.  You are deluding yourself if you think the questions are legitimate and the chances of you getting answers to your unreasonable and completely ludicrous questions is so close to zero that it can't be measured with any instruments known to man.

I am aware of your position and opinion about BFL. And no they are under no legal obligation to answer to me. I feel the questions are quite legitimate and can be structured in a way not to expose trade secrets of BFL. Frankly, answering them would dramatically improve their perception in the community and also their order volume. I'm on hold until orders ship and we will go from there.

Are you under the mistaken impression that BFL is a publicly traded company? They are not compelled to answer any of your questions.  The questions you listed are ridiculous.  I challenge you to take the questions that haven't already been answered hundreds of times on this forum to any corporation in America and see what they say.  Be sure to wear some heavily padded clothes for when you get tossed out of the building on your butt.

An Audit would occur only if an open letter and lingering questions result in a significant cancellation of preorders. As long as the questions are legitimate and fair. The preorder shipping continues to either be non-existent or very slow. And they do not provide a tangible explanation about the 1500 GH/s minirigs. The pressure will continue to build.   

Why would they consent to an audit in any case?

Some points:

1.) They already have your money, they don't need your trust or good will
2.) BitCoin is supposed to be all about independence and security and anonymity.  Why would they open up their books?
3.) The best case scenario for them allowing an audit, would be some people on a forum would trust them more.

They'll either deliver or they won't.

These are by far the most important points. I doubt they will consent to an audit, though that would GREATLY clear the air. Also, an audit would clear up the second point I quoted. If they DID finance with preorder money, which I guarantee they did, they are violating at least one regulation since they are not regulate as a security. I would almost guarantee this and this is the reason the will not consent to an audit

You missed the entire point of this post, but that's OK.  I want you to experience this joy for yourself.  Go legally acquire a copy of Back to the Future and watch it.

Good.  Please place a wager that they WILL deliver.  It ups the odds

Imho they had the first working piece of ASIC hardware in late March 2013. Which leads to the questions: How can they ensure in September 2012 that they can meet the October 2012 shipping deadline?

imho a blatant lie.

90's child detected

Thank you for this link. We can only wait at this point.

Look here for my previous posts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114329.380

During my first posts which is the reason I joined was to warn people that BFL EITHER did not issue full refunds or had a cock up in their billing system. I posted my receipt for my jap and my credit note with an adjustment fee. I posted this in the newbie section and "inaba" quickly made a post saying that what I had posted was made up as I was accusing them that they were taking a cut from refunds. So I challenged him to reply to state why that appeared on my refund and he didn't reply. In the end, I did get my full refund, but this doesn't look good for auditing their books.

It is fraud. They knowingly took money to deliver products they had no reasonable way of knowing would work. Should the development fail, then there was no way to refund the money nor deliver the product.

I think he is referring to BFL. I believe the community will survive if BFL went toast.

people tried to tell them this and just read (what josh hasn't deleted) his responses.   it is obscene that someone so stupid can be so arrogant.   It was not possible to hit the delivery times they were quoting and people told them.
My only hope was that people would refund and put them out of business instead of what is going to happen and these naive people are going to receive minors that are nice to have but will never pay off for them.

Exactly, just need to scale down, but they started bottom up first not realising the challenges that lie ahead.

I will not wager for something terrible to happen to a community I love. I truly hope I am wrong about BFL.

And that's my issue. If they had a way of running a 1500 GH/s rig, then it would be portable down the product chain. This tells me that made very poor assumptions while engineering their ASICs. One that would have been quickly discredited after they had a working prototype. We are hearing about this now in March/April = they financed the developing using preorders. That my friends is a ponzi scheme

bitbet http://bitbet.us/

yeah hes a fat bastard but he is the most mellow cat ever.  It makes me forget how aggravating people can be.  I think when this whole thing blows up, I shall refer to them as Larvae Labs since a beautiful butterfly emerging just isn't going to happen.

How do I make wagers against it happening?

Unless they base the operation in the north pole and melt what is left of it?

...Or outerspace

Dawe, that's cute

No problem.  I actually just took a great picture of a spare 5870 I have sitting in a box, which my massive Ragdoll cat is sharing, perched lightly on the video card:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/95319871@N08/8681701725/

Which is totally insane. What cooling system could possibility dissipate that kind of heat? Not in that space.

I think mega comes before giga.   you are talking about the output of a nuclear reactor when you "round" like that.   you are not correct.
plus he was asking about what a minirig would require and the answer to that is about 9 kilowatts or more than a typical american house uses

Thank you for introducing some much needed levity.

Let's see... 1500 Gigahashes divided by 350 megahashes... You need 4286 of my 5870 graphics cards, drawing 300 watts each? That's 1,285,800 watts, or... ahem... 1.21 Gigawatts if you round properly

What is my Hash per watt performance and how does this relate to the 1500 GH/s rig?

The PCBs were designed to handle 60 watts of power draw.  While they sort of work with 180 watts of power draw at the little-single levels of hashing, it would not be in the interest of BFL to release such a beast.  They need to properly redesign the PCB to withstand the new anticipated power draw.  They can create Jalepeno units with the old boards because they are only drawing 30 watts - far below what the boards were originally meant to handle.  They are only creating a few of them because they believe the board redesign will also make the units more power efficient.  They just announced that they finished the board revisions, and should hopefully be receiving the new boards in late next week.  At that point, full-bore production of all the product lines can commence.

Make sense?

Which is why I want this community to return things to commonsense land. BFL has a window to prove themselves. I could care less if they shipped something working to Dave. They took money for a product that is physically impossible to build with their ASIC design. 60KW rig? Could you imagine the cooling system? It's madness.

I mean honestly this comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ythpzsu18

This is stupid, and I hope it gets them goxxxed.  Why do people seem to think that if bitcoins are involved, they should throw common sense out the window?

"We're going to have a roller skating rink.  Our entire business is based on a delivery of skates, which we have entrusted to one company, who hasn't even sent us a sample yet".

Sounds retarded, doesn't it?

Did they just make a preorder fee or did they pay everything upfront?

This was the same question I was asking a UK based company called cloudhashing.com. They state they bought 6 minirigs and their business model is entirely dependent on whether BFL delivers. They also have a SLA between them and a mining farm within the same city as BFL are (I already expressed that this kind of centralisation is not good). I asked mainly questions to the PR guy of cloudhashing surrounding reliability and fault tolerance as being an area I am well aware of. So basically their answer was that they have no MTBF or MTTF values or documentation and they depend exclusively on BFL parts to service the rigs if there is a fault and to repair them within 24hrs.

I follow the updates obsessively, if you're interested in a random stranger's opinion based on careful analysis of said updates:

There are 3 main products. Jalapeños, Single and Mini Rig. There are power issues in design of the ASIC chip itself.

- Jalapeños can ship with the existing chips, even with their power issues due to the low specs.
- The Bitforce Single SC is not feasible to construct with the original specs, without having new chips produced at the foundry (which will take a long time). Of course if BFL came out and said this then people would be extremely upset, so they will not say this directly or admit it to customers. What they will do is ship multiple products to make up for the difference. For example if you ordered a Single (that's 60GH/s) then they will in fact ship you 2x30GH/s at a higher power rate. That way they will say they are shipping "Single", but they are just playing around with the definition of their products so they can use the faulty chips instead waiting for the new ones.
- The MiniRig is DOA with current power specs. Not happening.

BFL are very clever in managing perceptions, especially with the power issues. They distract from the ASIC power problem (a very large problem) with information about PCB power problems (a small problem). For example you will hear again and again and PCB redesigns and PCB power components and firmware, etc, etc and this makes it seem they are fixing the power issues, but the real issue can't be fixed without new chips. Improving power aspects on the PCB just paints over this! It's kind of funny to watch.

How many watts of power have to go through their rigs? Also have they done any reliability testing at all? These things will be on 24/7 any downtime is lost money.

My question addresses the fate of the later models. My suspicion is that due to unforeseen increased exhaust heat, they will have to look at newer cases/passive heat dissipation, hence further delaying the shipping of those models. The jalap was intended to be a "coffee warmer" size ASIC and it is now the same size of the Bitforce SC.

Your question presupposes they are going to ship prototype ASICs to their customers. As it stands, it would unfair to ask a company to reveal trade secrets about their PCB and ASIC design. It however is fair game to ask when the RTM prototype was finalized  and what reliability testing they have performed. Also how does this scale? If a 5GH/s device is consuming 40 watts of power. How much power will the 1500 GH/s consume? With linear scaling that would be 60 kilowatts.

That was just another question to add to your list.

I can't answer that question nor will I speculate. I'm just going to wait and inform the BTC community that I'm here to help in the event of a likely ponzi scheme.

So they have started to trickle prototype quality Jalaps, so what is going on with the rest of the product line? i.e Litte Single SC, Single SC, Minirig.

His response gives credibility to the idea that BFL used preorder money to fund the development of the ASICs. This is a problem guys because they have an obligation to ship those preorders. Unless their margins are enormous, they will not be able to catch ahead and if there is a disruption in money inflow, BFL will not be able to purchase materials to manufacture and deliver the promised units.

An honest business would have done this with a kickstarter campaign and then we wouldn't be here today. But again, I do not have any hard evidence of these claims just a feeling  backed by the information I have received. I'm going to wait for the units to start shipping and see if the queue clears.

It is important to note that even if the product is poorly constructed, that does not denote a ponzi scheme. Just BFL's poor engineering skills. That is not a criminal act. If they knowingly developed a product off of orders and require a continuous influx of capital to service orders they have an obligation to deliver, then that would be a ponzi scheme.


This question is why I asked about mining in my list of questions. I'd like to get an idea how much they raised in mining profit. We can instantly verify any claims of mining profit from the addresses they provide and sign from.

So then what happened to the so called FPGA financing? I thought this would already have generated profit to fund ASIC development.

I believe what grnberg said has answered a question in your proposed letter as it reads that the Jalapeno was not production quality. Now you need to ask is when was the prototype made and why are they shipping "prototype standard" ASIC miners?

If more people believe BFL will actually ship, then they will have a spike in orders from people on the sidelines. The money can then be used to finance the original orders and continue the process. As long as the queue is filled, BFL stays in business. This is why we need an audit.

so the review prototypes that were sent out were for generating hype. NICE.

There are many unanswered questions and BFL must deliver soon if they wish to maintain credibility. I will reserve judgement and wait for them to act. If they fail to act, then I will rally as many in the community who are willing and take the next step. This stuff is painful and difficult, but very necessary for a growing ecosystem.

Quoting from the site:
================
Update: I have exchanged some email with @BFL_Josh , and some things have been clarified.

My unit is probably closer to prototype than a production-quality review unit. In particular, one of the two chips in my miner is a dud, and non-functional. Production 5GH/s miners will all have 2 functional ASIC chips. Because mine has only one, it has been clocked higher, and is not quite capable of reaching 5 GH/s. But I'm happy with it.

Edit: I forgot to mention -- Shipping weight was 1.54 kilograms - about 3.4 pounds.
============

So basically BFL are selling dud ASIC's with 1 overclocked chip whilst the other chip is non functional. Hmmm, not good in terms of redundancy if the only chip fails!

Well, then let's just wait and see. If I am wrong, then no one has anything to worry about. Let's see if units actually ship to customers who have waited very patiently for many months. 

Dude, inform yourself some more on the latest updates and use the right forum.

BFL News (Twitter)
BFL Haters Forum

I don't think BFL cares about internet police at this point. Real police, if you tried to get them involved, will hear the word 'Bitcoin' and think 'imaginary internet problems'. The only thing that can, and possibly did, make them take any notice was complaints to PayPal (several pre-order customers have stated that PayPal compliance dept. called them on the phone and asked if they had received their products yet).

They are trickling out prototype Jalapeños and might have the prototype of the Single SC completed in a few weeks.

I have seen and actually posted this video in a prior thread. Again, the unit was never opened. Also this does not mean BFL is financially capable of shipping every unit in the queue. If I sell you something, then I have an obligation to deliver it within the conditions of our agreement. BFL did not put a disclaimer: "Only if enough other people buy too!". The ponzi question will be answered naturally by shipping volume. Unless the queue is emptied within a few months, BFL is most likely running a ponzi scheme.

Here is an unboxing video of a unit that shipped earlier this week:
http://codinginmysleep.com/bfl-jalapeno-unboxing-and-demo/

Can he then post something in this thread? And also this does not impact the ponzi potential. Only the shipping volume will determine if BFL is legitimate. Again, they can finance the manufacturing and shipping of previous units with new orders. As long as the queue is filled, they can continue to ship. If BFL can exhaust a large chunk of their queue while staying solvent, then they are not running a ponzi scheme. 

I will back off if units start shipping and simply wait and see.

user grnbrg has opened and dismantled his.   I think his name is bryan greenberg in winnipeg canada.   He has posted pics on butterfly labs site.  

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/hardware-discussion/1983-grnbrgs-unboxing-teardown-new-bitforce-5-gh-s-sc-miner.html

They claim to be developing the firmware in house https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status-2.html.



The first step in initiating a class action lawsuit is usually an open letter alongside a search for victims of a company's actions. This letter will be part of the open domain and it is their choice to respond. I feel the questions are legitimate to ask and absolutely deserve to be answered. Should they ignore them, then the next step is to retain a law firm to commit to a class action suit. They will draft another query and start a victim search. From there a lawsuit will be filed concurrently with a criminal fraud complaint.

This will take a great deal of my time and thus I will commit to it only if my two criteria are met:

• BFL does not start shiping its production units to its queue within the next 30 days
• Independent sources verify an actual ASIC exists developed by BFL (I have not seen a single review unit opened)

I understand delays can occur within any venture; however, the nature of the delays and the way they have handled the delays has lead me to believe BFL financed the production of their ASICs using preorder money. Therefore, they may not have enough cash on hand to actually manufacture and deliver the units they are legally committed to deliver. In Ponzi schemes this is generally handled by a long queue with prior orders financed by future orders. As long as the queue is sufficiently filled, they can continue to deliver some product. Any disruption in order flow would result in a collapse of the company, which is why I am asking if they will commit to outside audit to verify this has not occurred.

It is important to note that I do not have evidence of these claims. This is merely speculation from my experience in the business world and watching the BFL story unfold. I have no desire to rock the boat. But the alternative is accepting that hundreds of people on bitcointalk could have been defrauded and the media runs another hit story on how terrible bitcoins are.

(If anyone in this community has received a product from BFL, then could you please verify that it is indeed to the specifications they have claimed after their most recent delay? I will drop this matter if someone can verify that the unit exists from BFL and a large volume of units are being shipped)

BFL has responded to nothing so far.  But I'm sure an angry letter will change that! They'll read it and panic and reply immediately, I'm sure!  

Or they'll ignore it and laugh while sitting on their pile of money.  Stop wasting your time.

Not sure why anyone would hand over cash to a company that doesn't have any product to deliver, especially if they are a new company, unless you have money to burn that is.

Maybe ask someone that you just met to hold some gold for you for a few months, then demand they give you a nice crisp paper receipt in return so you can sleep at night?

Can't see any business being in business for long operating on this model moving forward.

Best of luck to all that ordered.

Suppose you draft and send off the letter and BFL PR never answers back? What would be next? Sue them?

Now my question:
Since they have also outsourced the procurement of ASIC chips, did they also outsource firmware development of the mining devices? This would also add delays if problems are spotted on the way.

Look at it this way though, if they ARE truly going to put these products out, it's essentially going to be the end of mining for most of us.

Good luck with this. As a newcomer to the community, I am pretty unimpressed by BFL's practices, mainly their lack of truthful communication with the community and inability to deliver on promises and timelines made. There are indeed questions to be answered, and the threat of a class-action lawsuit would surely motivate them to be more forthcoming.

I'm taking preorders for my Lunar Lander home assembly kits... ;-)

I wish you luck, sincerely.  I think the damage they have done is real and will last, hopefully raising the bar on future businesses.  On the bright side, for people mining, they have removed a lot of competition for a long time from the market. 
 I think you can trust Greenberg up in winnipeg and he has dismantled the 4GH/s thing that they sent him.  He is easy to PM and quite responsive I am sure.   He has one, they are 'real'.   Not what was sold nor what was hyped, but real.

I am beginning to doubt that actually ever built a functional product. The questions I have asked will determine if this is true and also explain the persistent delays. As for leverage, an open letter is the first step in a legal process for a class action lawsuit and I will also use some of my friends in the government to pursue a consumer fraud investigation. The more public the open letter gets and the more questions that get broadcast to the open domain, the more cancellations will occur. Also if they refuse to answer basic questions regarding their operations, then it is my hope this forum will pull their ads of BFL.

I am completely serious about this pursuit. We cannot allow fraud to exist in this form in our community. It would be one thing for a failed kickstarter or if a company was transparent with their failures, but it is entirely different to make bold market claims and then consistently not deliver without any explanation while continuing to take orders.

If by ponzi scheme you mean they have funded R&D and operational expenses with pre-order money, I do not think there can be any doubt of that.   But why do you think they are going to tell you that?  Why would they, as it is not to their advantage and it would hurt their image.  I do not understand what leverage you think you are going to have over someone that regularly belittles anyone who criticizes him and has made it obvious that he does not even have the technical knowledge to understand that some of the criticism could have saved his company money and time as it was pointing out major FLAWS in BFL's claims.

People have been warned and have bought with knowledge of the risk, let them lose their money assuming they will get out before it becomes unprofitable.  

That's valid; sounds reasonable.  I don't have any pre-orders myself so maybe I'll just not get involved in these threads...

This is not necessarily true. Almost all legitimate companies accept preorders only when they have a clear concept that the finished product is within some scope of completion. Delays can certainly occur, but not in the years and not so far outside spec. The wattage spec increased by an order of magnitude. This isn't something that is common from prototype to finished product unless they didn't have one when they were accepting preorders. That's fine, but they have a legal obligation to inform those ordering that their orders are going to fund the creation of a completely new product. This would be a kickstarter project.

 It has entered the realm of possibility that BFL is actually a ponzi scheme. We as a community need to determine this quickly.

Think it's all been said many times. Much of those bullets above can be found with some forum searching. At this point I think it's just up to customers to either get a refund for their 'pre-order'  (aka a good faith investment in the development of product that didn't exist) or just continue to wait another 1.5 / 2 months when they are making the products finally, in bulk.

After much discussion on this forum regarding the business practices of Butterfly labs [BFL], it has become clear to me that there are several unanswered questions. Should BFL not commit to a ship date for their ASICs by the end of April and independent members of this community verify that they have received the product they ordered, I will draft an open letter to BFL. Its purpose is to determine the following:

• When did BFL have a working prototype of at least one of the ASIC products and how did they infer their engineering claims for both performance and power consumption?
• Will BFL consent to an independent audit of their corporation accounts?
• Did BFL finance (in part or fully) the development of their product line from preorders?
• Who is currently fabricating the chips within their products and can BFL produce on demand the contract signed with said fabricator?
• What is BFL's estimated shipping volume for ordered units per month
• How was BFL able to sustain itself during the delays?
• Has BFL engaged in mining and if so for how long and to what extent?

This list is a starting point. I'd like the engineers, accountants and legal professionals in this community to chime in to contribute their concerns. We have a duty to self-regulate and root out fraud where it occurs. Many people here have invested in BFL products and this forum runs ads.