Not very clever when those same people "early adopters" stop buying Avalon products.
+1
Only some of batch #1 customers were happy, the rest just licks their wounds.
By "only some" I think you mean "vast majority". Batch #1 customers have been in hog heaven reaping amazing profits and are probably the biggest "winners" in the ASIC arms race.
I personally am torn on Bitsyncom/Yufi. I wonder how they got so far off track since batch #1 but at the same time I have a hard time feeling sorry for chip customers since all of the signs were there. I was planning on buying a batch of chips but got cold feet because at that time batch #2 was experience a delay that still doesn't add up and I was getting ZERO response from Bitsyncom to my inquiry about bulk chip orders. I personally would never invest that kind of capital with a company that is unable communicate with their customers BEFORE the sale is even complete. Everybody that ordered chips should have known that Bitsyncom was already experiencing "unexplained delays" and was not able or perhaps willing to communicate with it's customers AT ALL. It wasn't a secret. Ordering bulk chips at that time should have been a calculated risk and I believe greed overpowered a lot of peoples better judgement and while it doesn't look good, the race isn't over and there's still a decent chance they will come out ahead as the majority of Bitsyncom customers have...
The batch 3 announcement and this post from Ngzhang stopped me from making a really bad investment:
we discussed batch3 price for a long time.
personally, i do think this is a reasonable price.
batch#1: 1300USD + your trust, batch#2: 1500USD + your trust, batch#3 = ?
why batch 1 and batch2 customers will enjoy such a low USD price and extremly high profit? because they put their valuable trust on us.
last September, most of you think we have little chance to win, or could be a crappy scam, you don't buy.
this January, considerable people think we take Jeff down or just spent 400K to make a prototype, you don't buy.
now, everything on track, machines delivered to your hands are only a matter of time. you want to buy them at a same price or something like 2000USD.
OK, please tell me, what is the price of people most valuable things "trust" should be? 500USD? no, 5000USD at least.
as a core developer, i look upon all Avalons as my son. i will send them to who believe us, not the faithless or buzzard.