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Topic: Butterfly Labs Announces Bulk Chip Sales - page 9. (Read 15801 times)

hero member
Activity: 924
Merit: 1000
So you're looking at:

1. Maybe 10% more Hash/sec / $  [but no hard numbers]
2. Claimed 50% lower Watts / Hash  [but no hard numbers]
3. Nothing about reference design, documentation.  Nothing to work off.
4. ~14+ week lead time minimum
5. orders starting vaguely sometime in june

Avalon meanwhile has a 10 week leadtime and has been accepting orders for, what, over a month now?

Seems like the only benefit here might be the lack of 10k minimum quantity.  and with BFL's track record, how long is that "100 day" leadtime going to be?

Therefore UNPROVEN... unlike AVALON... they have known values and are beyond the prototype phase. Why trust these jokers? Insanity.
member
Activity: 88
Merit: 10
What income have BFL had for the past8 months? Pre sales.

But what happened? Couldn't deliver then missed their specs. Sales would have slowed and refunds grown. How many people have asked for their 30K back from no chance of getting a mini rig? And for the remaining products the profit has been slashed due to pricing against a spec they couldn't deliver, and they bought ALOT of parts they can't use. (I'm thinking about those boxes of 1500W PSUs they showed us).

Now they are doing something strange - instead of concentrating on delivering the orders they already have they are asking 50% up front for a bulk chip order. Why? Because they need the $$$$$$. They are running out of the money they have been donated for the past 12 months, and their on going income is minimal. I'm thinking they are even struggling to pay for their chip orders and hence they need people to down pay for the manufacturing for both bulk chip sales and chips for what ever BFL is able to deliver.

When will there be a class action against BFL for late delivery and failing to meet promised specs?
legendary
Activity: 1918
Merit: 1570
Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending
Want to see what Avalon said about their Fab production "a while ago"?

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about.html

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about-3.html#post37045

Take a look at the first page where a well known quote from Team Avalon is cited in the first post, then zoom forward "into the future" towards the end. As Josh recently gave the thread a backhand comment for someone bringing it back to bite him in the ass.

The Truth hurts!

Josh lied back then, then freaks out when the thread was necro bumped. From one I can see, Josh is going to be spending more time over here, taking a vacation from over there. Meanwhile, Sonny's crossing off days from the calendar, counting down to when he's no longer on probation, of which lands just prior to the first time BFL needs to report their filings. I believe he misses the blue butterflies in Costa Rica. And when he goes, he won't give a shit what happens to his step-dad, Christ Vleisides, whose name is on the incorp docs.

And the investors who've claimed it was money they could afford to lose, will end up crying wanting their money back. You don't believe me. Let me give you a motherfucking example. I had over 1000 BTC in InstaWallet of which was chump change in dollars, all saying to myself that if I lost it, I would care less. Well, guess what? When that little bit of real money grew to over a quarter of a million dollars and I lost it, I LOST IT! I freaked out! I was pissed! I still am, but have calmed down considerably in regard to that potential lose. You guys with a few thousand invested will go through the same exact emotions.

I was made aware of warning signs just prior to IW shutting down, but my fears were shown to be unjustified, thus didn't worry about it till it was too late. Fortunately, for those still having pre-orders, there's a Nash Equilibrium that can still be exercised.

sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
Funny that hashrate skyrocketed today of all days
hero member
Activity: 761
Merit: 500
Mine Silent, Mine Deep
BFL stop selling and start delivering.
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1003
So bizarre... it makes me wonder if they have money issues? If you intend to sell chips, why not price them below the competition and release schematics, etc. at the same time? A chip cannot cost them even close to $90 to produce... why not charge $30-$50 and actually present a viable option for miners? As it is, there is absolutely no benefit in investing in their chips over Avalon (that I see).

Maybe they need the 50% upfront to scrounge up some money.  The redesigns cost them a lot, their profit margins in their initial offersings (prior to the price double(!)) were not very large.

All the actions BFL has taken over the last few months are a huge red flag they're having money problems.  They didn't budget for their chips being underperforming, slower, and requiring more to get the same hashrate.  They didn't budget for the expanded PCBs with twice as many chips on them as before.  They didn't budget for double the heatsinks.

According to the thread you're only getting about 10% more GH/sec per dollar, so they didn't undercut Avalon by much. 


Or having to produce 60,000 units + and only having 60~65 wafers with....1,100 chips each. (assuming 100% perfect chips...which is improbable)

Does anyone see a math problem above?
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1003
Want to see what Avalon said about their [BFL] Fab production "a while ago"?

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about.html

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/500-josh-plz-give-us-some-comments-about-3.html#post37045

Take a look at the first page where a well known quote from Team Avalon is cited in the first post, then zoom forward "into the future" towards the end. As Josh recently gave the thread a backhand comment for someone bringing it back to bite him in the ass.

The Truth hurts!
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
So bizarre... it makes me wonder if they have money issues? If you intend to sell chips, why not price them below the competition and release schematics, etc. at the same time? A chip cannot cost them even close to $90 to produce... why not charge $30-$50 and actually present a viable option for miners? As it is, there is absolutely no benefit in investing in their chips over Avalon (that I see).

Maybe they need the 50% upfront to scrounge up some money.  The redesigns cost them a lot, their profit margins in their initial offersings (prior to the price double(!)) were not very large.

All the actions BFL has taken over the last few months are a huge red flag they're having money problems.  They didn't budget for their chips being underperforming, slower, and requiring more to get the same hashrate.  They didn't budget for the expanded PCBs with twice as many chips on them as before.  They didn't budget for double the heatsinks.

According to the thread you're only getting about 10% more GH/sec per dollar, so they didn't undercut Avalon by much. 

legendary
Activity: 924
Merit: 1000
Think. Positive. Thoughts.
So bizarre... it makes me wonder if they have money issues? If you intend to sell chips, why not price them below the competition and release schematics, etc. at the same time? A chip cannot cost them even close to $90 to produce... why not charge $30-$50 and actually present a viable option for miners? As it is, there is absolutely no benefit in investing in their chips over Avalon (that I see).
legendary
Activity: 966
Merit: 1000
- - -Caveat Aleo- - -
Can't wait to see all the BFL cloners start to announce their boards for sale.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
So you're looking at:

1. Maybe 10% more Hash/sec / $  [but no hard numbers]
2. Claimed 50% lower Watts / Hash  [but no hard numbers]
3. Nothing about reference design, documentation.  Nothing to work off.
4. ~14+ week lead time minimum
5. orders starting vaguely sometime in june

Avalon meanwhile has a 10 week leadtime and has been accepting orders for, what, over a month now?

Seems like the only benefit here might be the lack of 10k minimum quantity.  and with BFL's track record, how long is that "100 day" leadtime going to be?
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1067
Christian Antkow
*mumbles something about Honest Abe*
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
full member
Activity: 465
Merit: 100
What a joke.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
Love how they don't specify their hashing rate, wattage, etc.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
Makes absolutely no sense in buying BFL chips over Avalon chips - presently.

Looking / reading through the docs it doesn't seem like BFL will release PCB schematics.  I looks like they are only willing to release the ASIC reference material / schematics?

Most of the people ordering ASICs are hobbyists trying to launch 'companies' and being a bit bold.  Very few of the orders are for 'non-hobbyists' (as in people doing this full-time and getting paid to do only this fulltime).

The only way buying BFL chips would make sense if somehow bitcoin value would go up through the roof and Avalon chips would become overly expensive.  Another thing is unless someone starts doing open-source PCB design for a BFL chip I don't believe they'll get large interest from the community.

The reason that Avalon chips have been a hit is primarily because of the mostly complete miner designs being released.  It isn't just because chip sales started happening.  It's more 'hack n slash outfits' buying the Avalon chips than 'full time PCB/ASIC design outfits'.
legendary
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1028
Duelbits.com
YCNMIU  Grin
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1003

One avalon chip costs $10.0109. If one $97 with 16 engines has 2880MH/s and one chip of avalon has 282MH/s then the MH/s for avalon would cost: $0.0355 and bfl's MH/s $0.03368. Man i hope thats correct finally... Smiley


Thats about what I got. Its almost 1:1. With no real big power savings either  Cheesy

Its getting the PCBs made for these things and then getting them assembled that scares me. Not that I ever expect these to show up in quantitys. The thing that amazes me is that they are offering a 20% discount on orders over 10,000 chips. Like anyone will be spending $8,000,000 on chips alone. Do you think they could deliver 10,000+ of these in the next 100 days? Its just like the miners where they are taking as many pre-orders as they can, and they will quickly get in over their heads on this as well.
Gotta power the next die shrink...though honestly, if they are getting 110nm performance at 65nm with their designs...I doubt a die shrink will do them much good.
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1003
I think what's going on is that BFL can not order chips in large enough quantities to fullfil their orders... they just order a certain amount at a time and their product is just trickling out.

now if they have a way to raise a gazzilion dollars again (let's sell chips!!) then they could place very large orders of chips.

then they will use the chips received to fullfil the orders while those who ordered chips will wait again...

Let's rob Peter to rob pay Paul.
Bingo, that my reasoning and speculation as well...
legendary
Activity: 966
Merit: 1000
- - -Caveat Aleo- - -
So one chip has 180MH/s. 14 engines per chip means $89/chip. $89000 per 10k. -10% means $80100 for 10k chips. Avalon charges 782.1BTC * $128 = $100109. Doesnt sound bad. But avalons chips have 282MH/s standard. So the GH costs $3.55 for avalon and $4.45 for BFL. The half power usage doesnt mean much at the current time. And isnt it still open if that is true at the end?

Then 100 days mean 14,28 weeks. Avalon claims to need 9-10 weeks only.

So im not sure if BFL will make a fortune with this... but... when i think about it... i believe most BFL customers will happily get their chips instead nothing. At least they know the chips are working. Even when this means they have to wait some time to have a working miner... its still more reliable to wait for someone in the community to build a miner.

Maybe some people will prefer to buy BFL chips too instead having to trust a groupbuy. Its a good move to lower the minimum amount of chips needed to order.

Something wrong with my calculations?

Yes there is something wrong there. As soon as I saw this chip sales I did the math on it.

$89 per chip x 10k chips is $890,000 -10% for $801,000. When Avalon sold chips in april (when most of us bought chips) it was about $80,000 for 10k chips. So you get about 10x the number of chips from Avalon as you do from BFL.

This is important to note because 10x the speed of an Avalon chip is 2.8Gh and thats just under what a BFL chip can do. Its about more than just delivery times and speed. Avalon pcbs are hard enough for us to sort out. Trust me, Im working on it and its not easy.

Just imagine how hard it will be to get the BFL pcb straight and working perfect compared to the Avalon pcb we are still sorting out. Not only that but the cost and time to assemble these boards vs Avalon pcbs could make it even worse. You end up with a BFL unit that costs way more in time and money to finish. If you ever get your chips that is.


I think you are confusing chips with engines.

The  $97 BFL "chip" has 16 engines that each get 180 mh/sec for a total of 2.88 GH per chip (after all doesn't the Jalpeno have 2 chips?)

The $107 Avalon chip gets only 282 mh/sec

So the BFL hashrate is 13 times cheaper than Avalon's.



Each BFL chip has 10 times the transistors and 10 times the hashrate of the avalon chips. Could be a game changer if they can deliver.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1402474

One avalon chip costs $10.0109. If one $97 with 16 engines has 2880MH/s and one chip of avalon has 282MH/s then the MH/s for avalon would cost: $0.0355 and bfl's MH/s $0.03368. Man i hope thats correct finally... Smiley
For me it looks like BFL might chose the price by looking at avalon and underbidding them a little bit. In fact they made their MH/s 5.13% less costly. Im not sure that its less enough to invest. At least with the longer waiting time and no miner available. But maybe this will change soon.

They are unproven... and likely never ship in time.

Thanks no.

The chips are proved to work as far as i know. Jalapenos are working already. So buying these chips would be a relatively safe bet.

So sorry your math is correct. I was using .83btc instead of .083btc for price of each avalon chip.
I have 27.7 mh per dollar for Avalon. 29.7 mh per dollar for BFL. 1:1.1
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