From what i hear you will have less than an hour window to buy before they sell out. How long was Batch 1 and 2 open for?
Not quite true, but expect them to go out of stock pretty fast.
On the first batch ordering was borked. The sudden influx of buyers DDoS-ed the payment processor and ordering had to be stopped after a couple of hours or so. After about a week of sorting the mess out ordering was re-opened for the units that were left unsold (can't remember if there were only 130 or 200-something left). Either way, it took almost half a day for these units that were left to be sold out.
On the second batch, something similar happened - the sudden buyers influx generated a clusterfuck. Orders were messed up, some people saw other people's carts, payments could not be finished properly etc. It was quite unpleasant, so again, ordering was stopped for a few days - a week. After the payment processor got their shit together, second part of batch 2 went on sale (IIRC about 200 units were left). Again, it took several good hours for all of these to be completely sold out.
The thing you should know is that none of the hiccups was the fault of the Avalon guys. It was mostly the payment processors that screwed up, they weren't expecting such a sudden and huge influx of customers and were caught with their pants down. For the third batch they are using BitPay, which AFAIK is the largest payment processor in the Bitcoin economy. That and the lessons learned from the previous batches should make things go smooth this time. But don't expect the units to last more than a few hours once they're put on sale.
Don't blame the Avalon guys? So there aren't any better ways to gradually roll out an ordering window, with your own private code for X hours, and enforce a certain # per customer? Not buying it. We have the technology for a slow-roll ordering process with a semblance of order. Just sloppy to throw it up and open the floodgates. This doesn't have to be black Friday at Walmart.
The main issue here is they probably need Batch #3 monies to pay for Batch #2 hardware. What will pay for Batch #3 hardware? Did they create a fab lab?
That said, I'd rather get an Avalon than a BFL; they EXIST.
