Topic: Butterflylabs Huge SCAM - page 148. (Read 415663 times)

If you used CC (120 days) or PP (45 days), you can recover the money. I did use PP and asked for refund as I did order a Jally in February. By then, shipping dates where between May/June or earlier like they always say.

I agree completely with what you are saying. BFL needs to deliver soon or else they have committed fraud. I do not have an issue with a delivery date being pushed back. Nor do I have an issue with a group of people building specialty hardware having problems fine tuning it completely. Intel at one point at a 10 GHz processor in their roadmap. The difference between a great company and a terrible company is how they manage setbacks and problems with their product.

As for the investment being impossible to recover. You have no way of knowing that. I ordered a 300 dollar unit. When it arrives, we'll see how much I make.

Difficulty has doubled since the beginning of March 2013 from approx 4*10^6 close to 9*10^6; meaning I am getting half the amount of bitcoins. The trend does look indeed that it will grow at a much faster rate as new ASIC miners hash away.

Difficulty is already going through the roof due to Avalon and ASICMiner. The world does not wait for BFL investors who will see losses even if they eventually receive a product.

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/

Again...how is this not a bait and switch? BFL's original power consumption simulations were not "difficult to achieve", they were impossible to achieve across an entire product line. This is how one could tell it was pie in the sky fairy tale nonsense. Why do you seek to compare an unreleased ASIC vaporware product to a current GPU? BFL is not competing with AMD, they're competing with Avalon and ASICMiner, the two ASIC vendors that began their projects after BFL but have both deployed and/or shipped working ASIC mining gear well before BFL.


They're clearly a scam. Funding a kickstarter project is known to carry risks. BFL investors were never properly informed of those risks. These pre-orders were sold as finished products with a clearly defined performance level(1Gh/s@1J) and delivery date(October 2012). Not only have they failed to meet either of these goals, they've repeatedly lied to investors to prevent competition and to slow the flow of refund requests. This is not mismanagement or incompetence it's fraud.

I reckon that the way things are going, bitcoin miners will be for those enthusiasts who has enough capital to fund ASIC devices ($1000+ p/m) (and future ASIC generation developments) or pay mining companies that are centralising hashing power which can be a bad idea; ref, 51% attack.

GPU technology was a slow market in terms of getting higher hashing rates so a miner was not threatened to upgrade within a short time span of acquiring the new hardware. With ASIC developments, it looks like it will be game changing.

Current GPU miners will be so disadvantaged that they may turn into litecoin mining or even force development of other crypto currencies that utilize GPU resources that ASIC's and FPGA's don't have.

They are starting to send out developer units so it seems to actually be turning out semi-legit, although they have no idea what time tables are.

And that's my point. ASICs will become the new GPU. With any market you have many players and some succeed, some fail. Remember Zilog?

i dont think is a scam, they show us the jalapeno working.they will delivery all products to custumers

They will ship someday, I'm sure of that. And when it happens difficulty will skyrocket through the roof. Destroying all non asic miners.

I've worked on several VLSI projects and I can tell you firsthand that the CEO sent a very robust benchmark that is incredibly difficult to achieve. It was probably a mistake in hindsight; however, my AMD 7950 consumes over 100 watts of power and produces 500 MH/sec. They are offering a device that consumes about 30 watts (and yes the number is verified in my youtube link from a working unit) and has an order of magnitude higher hash rate.



I suspect a large chunk of the preorders went to develop the ASIC. Ever hear of kickstarter? Maybe the Ouya console? I agree with you that they are slow and poorly managed, but I do not believe they are a scam. BFL is positioned to own the ASIC market if they deliver. If they don't, I like everyone else who preordered will seek restitution and I will also launch a kickstarter to get ASICs designed in the open domain.

BFL claims to have 22 employees, which constitutes a much larger company than any of their competitors. The final product can "vary", no problem, but the final products from BFL "vary" by hundreds of percent and mysteriously never in their investors' favor. BFL's FPGA products consumed 400% more power than advertised and their ASIC products will follow this trend and consume 5-6x the advertised 1w/Gh/s. Meanwhile BFL's much smaller competitors are somehow able to get their estimates nearly spot on.


I will mine with the Avalons I have on order. The ASICs on the market are very expensive *BECAUSE* of BFL's off the charts fail. Avalon batch one was $1299, Avalon batch two was $1500, Avalon batch three was priced in BTC after numerous Avalon pre-orders were auctioned on eBay for many times their original sale price. Seeing a trend? This happens because BFL has captured a huge portion of the market by lying for several months.

BFL is not even equal to an obsolete 5850, if you put your mind to it you could likely locate and purchase a 5850 for immediate shipping right this second, this is not true of BFL vaporware which cannot be purchased right this second from anywhere. Time to delivery is all that has mattered in the ASIC mining hardware market for several months and BFL and BTCFPGA are the only companies that have failed utterly to deliver. BTCFPGA folded.

I'm interested to see how small ASICs do, say, 1 year from now. Will everyone running GPU miners today own ASICs? Will GPU miners all move to litecon, leaving fewer actual people mining bitcoin?

First, they are a small company developing a ASIC without any support from established manufacturers. The final product will vary as it has with every crowdfunded product.

Second, after ASICs take over the market. What will you mine with? Currently the ASICs on market are very expensive and difficult to get. BFL is the new AMD 5850. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_6mmTRheUzg#!

Right. Please explain how BFL lying for months on end about shipping dates and power consumption to make more money does not equal a scam. Bait and switch is a real verifiable scam mechanism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch

Even if the previously convicted felon that runs BFL does not abscond with the loot this is still a scam. People pre-ordering now will not break even because they'll not receive their products for several months, at which time difficulty will be several times higher than it is now. That is why FTC prompt delivery rules exist in the US. BFL is a US based company and is very clearly in violation of these rules.

http://business.ftc.gov/documents/alt051-selling-internet-prompt-delivery-rules

they are not an scamm. they are just slow

As I know thy send only 4 units to bloggers or specialist like the creators of cgminer and bfgminer.

Well it seems they shipped a few, or that is what i've heard.

They also advertise on bitcointalk.com, does that mean they are legit? Or at least BT supports BFL?