Topic: Re: Butterfly Labs CEO 25 Million USD Mail Fraud — A Concise Summary of Evidence - page 24. (Read 146793 times)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=I5cYgRnfFDA

Our Super Rig SC uses 1.21 jiggawatts, though.  Just FYI.

Specifically that this company that is making money and hiring staff is definitely a long con run by some con artist who has publicly-divulged info about his past. Some people seem to be under the impression it already is a con while others of us are merely skeptical that the timeline is going to be met, power requirements will be reasonable, and etc. BFL is clearly shipping products despite being under Sonny's supervision. Occam's Razor tells us that if increased orders were coming in to justify custom-ASIC, that is the avenue they would pursue. BFL appears to be more than just Sonny, a lesson that even I have learned.


This is definitely NOT what I am saying. We all have people that we just can't trust with certain things in our lives, even if it is family or close friends. We still trust them with other stuff.


Of course he would, it's what made him who he is. Junior ran moonshine, and frankly I don't think most of the people on this forum would find that anywhere near equivalent to scamming in the current environment. I certainly don't. Now he sells it legitimately, so it's a moot point.


I'm curious as to what your opinion is on this:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5967015


I'm not.


I'm trying to stop, if you'll excuse my language for a second here, shit like this:



To clarify, I'm responding to the accusations of people that have already decided this is a scam. It's not even October yet. You'll notice I've been harshly critical of BFL as well, but it's been on pretty obvious Bitcoin-related things other than the CEO's history.

First, I don't like the lack of a timeline or even an estimation of these things. Some of this is explainable, but they set a date of "October" and we still have like zero information about it.

Second, I don't like that they don't have the power numbers down to even a general estimate (we know the Jalepeno isn't likely to require 1.21 gigawatts, but they won't even give a ballpark). And actually, if they are this far along that they'll be able to deliver a product by October 31st, they really probably should have these numbers.

niko, you could put your money where your mouth is on BFL's honesty. Make your accusation in the form of a bet. Otherwise it is kind of irrelevant because we can't punish you when you turn out wrong.


It's doubly bad that this is happening to them yet again which may incline them to release even less info and get more customers that feel like they've been duped. "PR Nightmare" is what they call these things.

I'm just glad "BFL official" forum accounts have not been trolling back, at least that lesson seems to have been learned, just like my aforementioned belief that BFL was one person.

We really need some sort of "ratings" companies or something that build trust and audit organizations on the details that matter and provide an independent review of organizations that your average newcomer can trust. They could fund themselves with a monthly fee so that they can operate, and so that your average scammer isn't going to bother using them and the ones with the long cons will still be exposing themselves to the audit.

Oooh, I would so do that!  I forgot, they're turning it into skynet meets 1984 lol.  Well, british people are pretty darn weird so I feel like people should keep an eye on them too but if I was over there, we're going 100% invisible man get-up.

Also, other dude above me...you misunderstand internet arguments

There's a lot in the documents related to Sonny's past which is incredibly damning and very much at odds with explanations given by Sonny and BFL employees.  But you can't force people to read those documents and nor are you ever going to convince those who believe there was a "government conspiracy" otherwise.

I find it highly unlikely that President/Director Chris is not entirely aware of Sonny's past transgressions, including all of the evidence presented in the indictment.  Yes, it's possible that other directors (if any) have been lied to, but I wouldn't count on it.  If you're a legitimate company, you need all of your directors to be legitimate.  If you're shady, you need all of your directors to be shady.  Whether BFL is legitimate or shady, I suspect that the directors are well aware of Sonny's past - there's just too much potential for grief if they weren't, especially when seeking outside investment.

Swink wasn't an employee and I wouldn't normally expect a contractor doing printing and mail-out work for a company to do much in the way of checking their client's bona fides much less verifying the accuracy of any information contained in the documents they were printing.  Maybe they did know, but plenty of people and small businesses will never verify information given to them about the entities with which they do business - if it sounds remotely plausible, they'll just accept it at face value, especially if those giving the information appear to be prosperous.

People will know soon enough whether BFL can deliver the first run of ASICs on time and to the standard promised.  Their lead time over competitors is not so great that they can afford a major fuck up on either delivery or performance.  

Amount of power, in most companies, depends on how much of the company you own. Sonny supposedly does not hold majority ownership, and thus only has the power to suggest and state his wishes, not make decisions. But it doesn't matter if he confirms or denies it, because you still have to take his word for it.


In the interview, this quote:

Bitcoin seems to attract skuz like a moth to a flame.

Most founders/owners of companies do have such power. I ask that he confirm/deny it.


Which statements?


Where did he state he no access?

Sonny Vleisides has supposedly - albeit according to sworn testimony - lied to previous employees of his businesses about the nature of the business:


Not sure what, if anything, can be inferred from this, as the Swinks would clearly gain from pleading ignorance.


Is CLOUD a different uncle than the Chris (Not Sonny) Vleisides, President of Butterfly Labs?

I think Rassah has pretty much nailed it.  Those who believe leopards don't can't their spots (or at least no in such a short time) are going to believe that Sonny would surround himself with shady people in any new venture and so not take the word of anyone associated with him, so assurances from others involved in BFL are going to be pretty meaningless to them.  Those who have absolute faith in BFL aren't going to be convinced otherwise by arguments about Sonny's past transgressions.

People need to decide their own risk tolerance here.  Nobody gets a prize for persuading someone to "change sides".

Not often one reads an interview that doesn't feature a single word from the interviewee.

@the_thing Before I only had BFL to base my trust on. Now it's based on BFL, Sonny, Inaba, and David Perry. I happen to believe David more than any of the other previous names. Also, I have not preordered yet, but am planning on buying, so I'm in a neutral position here, not stuck wishing my preorder will be honored, nor wishing BFL will fail because I'm rooting for competitors.


Irrelevant, unless you have proof that Sonny has signature power.


According to the statements, Sonny doesn't have access to the bank account, either. Though we only have his word on that.


Taking money from a business owned account that requires more than one signature is not one of them. Sonny never said how much ownership share he had. It may be small enough that he doesn't have much say if what the company does. We just don't know.



In the interview it was stated that two signatures are required, so Sonny doesn't have access and can't sign by himself. But that was Sonny's own statement. The question is WHO is it, specifically, that needs to state the answers to these questions, that you trust enough to believe?

A "no" to those questions doesn't mean the company won't pay any bills Sonny wants paid or make money available to him through loans, drawings or other means on request.  There are plenty of ways to get funds out of a small, privately owned business without signing the cheques yourself.

Honestly, the information is out there.  If people choose not to evaluate it in depth, then that's their problem and they don't get to cry foul down the track if BFL doesn't deliver what it promised.  From this point on, no-one can say that they didn't have the opportunity to make informed decisions and there's nothing to be gained from trying to persuade people to make any given choice.


Given the amount of time the scam lasted and the number of people involved in it, there's a good chance that those millions were spent a long time ago.

Does sonny have access to millions that have not been recovered from the scam, and is he using bfl to launder the money?

You're really going to compare owning a few shares in a public company to being an owner of a private company? How many of those 500 companies have added your signature to their bank account signature card?


You're right, since you have no access to their bank account.


Owners of private companies have great leaway in what they can do.

BFL can answer these simple questions:

Does Sonny have any access to the BFL bank account (i.e. is his signature on the signature card)?

Can Sonny sign corporate checks?

I'm sorry, but your carelessness worries me. I don't understand how you can trust a scammer just because he said something in an interview. What did you expect him to do? Of course he tried to refute all accusations (saying that he's not the CEO and he doesn't handle money in BFL etc). He would be a poor scammer if he didn't. If I was a scammer, I'd do the same thing.

Yes, there is a non-zero chance that BFL is legit. It is up to everyone to decide how high this chance is, but after everything that happend in this community, I'd expect long time members to be more careful.

I'm a part owner of about 500 different companies. I own mutual funds. That doesn't mean I'm in charge or can run off with anyone's money.
Did you read the interview? Again, we just have to take the word of Sonny and the person who did the interview, but for me, anyway, the "standard corporate finance controls are in place" is good enough.

In my personal view it didn't go from "it's a scam" to "it's legit," either.
It didn't start out with "it's a scam," it started out with "BFL is employing someone with a criminal background in an unknown job function," and that is ALL anyone knew about this. Sonny being the CEO, being in charge, violating his parole by accepting funds directly, or having control of the money or company and able to run off with anything, was never anything but speculation.
That "unknown job function" changed to "He's not the CEO, or in control of money, and all funds are protected using standard corporate controls and business banking practices," which, to me, means Sonny's past history, or current involvement, is irrelevant.

However, this only means that I can trust this business as much as I can trust any other online hardware business that has a history of selling products.

EVERYONE STOP BUYING BFL PRODUCTS!

I have undoubted proof that BFL WILL NOT deliver their ASIC products!

The evidence is all in this thread:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/curseblessing-110513

And if you don't want to check out that thread, I'll put the most important quote from the thread below.

He's a part-owner. He may not be the only one in charge, but he's definitely one of them.

I like how the general opinion has changed from 'BFL is a scam!!!' to 'everything seems legit' so quickly.