Topic: did i make a mistake with BFL's - page 2. (Read 2630 times)

I ordered 2 of the 50GH/S units in Dec

Would it be absolutely pointless to order an ASIC from BFL now?

I mean, by the time I recieve my ASIC will it even be worthwhile?

I'm new to the mining-scene, however, I've been in the 'bitcoin' scene for over a year now.. Just never had a chance to really invest until now.

I wish we had seen more demonstrations of the BFL kit. Just to let us know they aren't vapourware like.

Yes but that doesn't change the fact that it exists lol? Right on the website it says they are subject to performance deviation of 10%. Off the 60GH/s model they are allowed to be as low as 54GH/s. Hes losing out on 4GH or 6.6 coins in a month (at current difficulty). More likely less than one coin in a month once the difficulty spikes by the time he gets his hardware. But i see your point. 

Didn't he by 60GH/s? Thats 10 GH/s less then advertised..... Or 10 GH/s more depending on witch standpoint ;P ....

Do you follow their hardware greyhawk?

Do me a favor and go here...

https://products.butterflylabs.com/hdmijaijwo3625sqpkc0953nxoq540md.html

All the hardware has been changed to the 'new' specs of 5/25/50/1500. He will still receive a 50Gh/s as the initial numbers were projections not actual results as well as the power consumption issue they are currently dealing with.

You can read the unofficial twitter at www.twitter.com/BFL_News  It links to the articles and happenings and you will find what you are seeking there.  BFL does not have a standard location for news updates, various individuals post blog updates or make posts.  It's unfortunate but that's how it is.  So the twitter feed helps in collecting the various info and putting it there.

As for making money, this all depends on the price of Bitcoin when you get your Jalapeno.  If it's worth $1 you're not going to make any money.  If it's worth $5,000 you will make a lot of money.  Somewhere in the middle is where it'll be and then it just depends on the difficulty and the Bitcoin value.  Don't listen to everyone so focused on the difficulty shooting up.  If the coins are worth more, mining will be worth it regardless of difficulty.  But at the same time, you could have a very low difficulty and the coins may be worth nothing.  You have to pay attention to both factors.

I also think that the estimates on how many units have been sold are greatly exaggerated.  The unofficial preorder list has a couple thousand units (Total) listed.  Even if we assume that list is 4 times smaller than reality, it's still not enough units to ruin hashing with a Jalapeno and making your money+ back.  

Of course, whether you ever get your unit is still up for debate.

Using search function or google .... Isn't that hard

Were is the info that they have started shipping units?

It's just 4-6 weeks away ....

Well, since they've actually started sending Jalapenos out I suppose it's just a matter of time now.

I honestly don't believe that they raised the "prices cause they know how much people will be making".

The reason I don't believe it is because as more of the basically miners come online, the higher the difficulty. It will autobalance itself.

I think they increased to make more money(people will buy regardless of the price if they think they will get rich), also if I ran bfl , I would not have the preorder price the same as your retail price. The preorder price would be a discount to get people in on the unit. I hope this means they are getting ready to ship!

Also it could be that production cost have increased, inturn costing us more.

Because they realize how much money people will be making mining. They know people will still be buying if the raise the prices.

They have recently increased prices by almost 50% out of nowhere.

I would tend to agree, especially on the ASIC front. On the GPU side of things there are some companies that have built, utilized themselves and are ready to share that equipment with other miners, both old and newcomers to mining.

As a company we are currently in the development phase for some ASIC rigs as a manufacturer but we're running into issues getting the chipsets from our provider (US Based supplier with over 40 yrs) if a semiconductor company with 40 yrs experience with ASICs has issues delivering, im certain a company in China will definitely have teething problems too, especially on technology that, for all intents and purposes is *new*.

it's just a very long wait... I ordered on august 1, I have order number 4943. I have any GPU's and FPGA, all obsolete as soon as I receive my order... when and if...

This is exactly the information I was looking for, and I didn't even know it was what I wanted to know. Thank you!

Very well said...

My take is that they're not experienced, they're understaffed, and they're unprepared for inevitable changes that must take place in the production process... But they're genuinely working on the chips and they will ship eventually.

I've spent some time trolling the BFL chat (within their forums) and Josh comes on rather regularly (usually Fridays,) to answer questions and explain some things. An explanation he gave for the many delays is that they changed manufacturing processes (from 120nm -> 65nm over a few steps, if I recall the nm sizes correctly,) because they realized they wouldn't be competitive if they didn't do that. That being said, the chip designs were originally for the bigger processes and a lot of changes had to be made that they didn't anticipate. He was also asked what he would do differently if he could do it again (this was an entirely separate question, at a different time,) and he explained that he would have sold some of the 120nm chips then made a redesign and sold the more competitive ones as a next product line.

Essentially, they're just a really immature company in the sense that they don't have very much experience... But what company dealing with Bitcoin *is* experienced these days? The issues with Mt. Gox over the past few days should shed some light on that question. Most every bitcoin company is faking it until they make it, except for, maybe, BitPay. It's just a part of the game right now.

Either it is a scam or it isn't a scam and they're completely incompetent 

Take your pick of reasons not to buy from BFL.