Topic: Why QQ? - page 11. (Read 10987 times)

Same topic, but maybe I moved to fast for you. We were talking about the market's response to BFL's products and whether they thought that BFL could deliver. Their latest "product" offering fell flat on it's face. That is an actual market response. If what you were saying was true, there should have been enormous uptake in the BFL chip offering. Quite the opposite.


Jalapeno's are rare and existing ones command a good price. Nobody is arguing that. The entire reason they command a good price is people think BFL won't be able to deliver their orderbook in any reasonable time frame. If people believed that BFL could deliver a Jalapeno ordered today, they would simply order it from BFL and get it in a reasonable amount of time. They would not pay 20 BTC for the rarest of rare treasures, a BFL device in the wild.

Those auctions are very different than a pre-order for a  50GH/s device that does not yet exist that is slated for delivery 90 days from now from a company that has never once met a deadline. I have demonstrated that BFL's latest product offering fell flat on it's face. You are conflating sales of what exists with pre-orders of yet to be developed devices.

Maybe BFL will eventually get the singles and mini-rigs working and shipped. But I doubt they would survive a mass of refunds from those who ordered those devices. That is 93% of their order book according to the only data we have.


They certainly have money in the bank. If they didn't, we would see notices of eviction actions and lawsuits to recover money owed by BFL filed in the courts. How much money is the question. If they spent half their pre-order cash funding 8 extra months of development, then they are vulnerable to a mass of refund requests.

Probably because they didn't consider the negative legal and public-relation repercussions, or choose to deal with the matter civilly ?

(And I saw your edit before you back-pedaled on it - jabbing me for buying 20 Erupter USB's

Oh how cute. Josh says that their FPGA sales have been providing the last 10 months of operating costs. Well that explains it all then. BFL has been selling FPGA devices this whole time to fund the 11 months of ASIC development.

Should I bother digging up BFL's explanation of why they discontinued their FPGA line? Or should I leave that as an exercise to the reader.

/pats Josh on the head

There's my little liar again, k9quaint.

What our dear friend k9 has neglected to mention in the above quote is that:

1) I was not working for BFL at the time.
2) I was referring to the FPGA equipment, which was in fact shipping.

But don't let context, facts and honesty deter your ranting K9.  Just keep piling up the BS.

I was going to bring up that not a single group buy of BFL's chips succeeded. The only group buy that has not given up is one that is asking for 100% escrow via John K (meaning zero money given to BFL until the chips are shipped). Perhaps BFL will agree given they haven't had any successful buys. That is not a market clamoring for BFL product. That is a market that is very wary of BFL and unwilling to extend them any more benefit of the doubt.


A neat way to dismiss the core of peoples worries about BFL. You don't have proof and you are unwilling to entertain circumstantial evidence. BFL said they have the money and that is good enough for you. BFL said they have the products and that is good enough for you.


For a lot of people, it was very easy to see in foresight. They brought up arguments like "not possible due to the laws of physics" and "people who make power and usage claims like that cannot possibly understand chip & PCB design". Those threads were not the ravings of trolls as the BFL folks claimed. They were simply people who knew that 5 watts would not heat a cup of coffee. They knew that getting 5GH/s out of 5 watts of power was so absurdly optimistic that no reasonable company would target it for a 65nm process. They knew that such a device could not be reliably powered by USB alone.

All these complaints rooted in elementary physics were dismissed as the ravings of haters and trolls by Inaba himself.

I am sure if BFL does crater, people will say "oh well, we couldn't have known" and that will be untrue.

While you may not believe it; BFL has delivered quite a few ASIC devices (albeit only Jalapenos at the moment). What makes me most sad is that those who are the loudest detractors of BFL actually hold / have BFL mining equipment. Talk about talking out of the side of your mouth.

Good lord K9.. might want to find someone else to argue with cause you are getting your ass handed to you in this thread.  At least Puerto has the sense to just make a couple of broad pop-shots at BFL.. but ThatDGuy is eating your lunch.  I'd find an irrational BFL "fanboi" to argue with in another thread.

As for the original topic, which I have already commented on.. I will summarize my projections for the future:

1.  There will be no mass cancellation of orders... ever.  Unless another company starts shipping as soon as orders come in, and they sell their product for anywhere CLOSE to the current hashing capability/$$$ ratio that BFL is, it isn't going to happen.   I've said it before and I'll say it again, people have been waiting for close to a year now.. do you think with all the reported progress from BFL that they are suddenly going to lose this patience?  It's not going to happen.  (disclaimer before someone like k9 cherry picks this point to argue.. I said "reported progress".  It could still be a lie/overstatement/fluff)

2.  BFL is not going bankrupt.  If this "mass exodus" would have happened about 6 months ago, I could have seen this as a possibility (even though 6 months ago, the idea of a mass exodus was even more impossible than now).  6 months ago, they did not have a working prototype.  Well now they do and are shipping out, not at their full 400 a day capacity.  Let's say for arguments sake that ONLY the jalapenos are being made and ever will be because they decided not to continue making or designing large hashing machines.  They still have the jalapenos designed and working, and if they cranked out about 2000 of these things in a short amount of time, they could mine 1 MILLION DOLLARS in a month.  That is only 2000 of these products.  If they did way more.. they could definitely make enough to issue refunds and keep the doors open.  Then additionally, you think if they have jalapenos ready for shipment, and no queue, that people wouldn't order?  Sorry, people would much rather pay $300 for a 5GH/s miner form a supposed "horrible company" than pay $4000 for 5GH/s worth of USB miners @ 300MH/s each from a supposed "good" company.

Seriously, I would bet my house on these two points.  This is all very similar to the whole Electronic Arts arguments EVERY time they screw over their customer base. " Sniff Sniff Cry Cry... Everyone.. let's BAND TOGETHER and choose to NEVER buy an EA product until they get their act together".  The next version of that game comes out and it does RECORD SALES.  People have said the same thing about Call of Duty OVER and OVER and OVER again.  Before it comes out, TONS of threads to BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT!!  Then when the game comes out, tons of threads on "I'll never buy Activision games, or I'll be passing up on the next Call of Duty cause Activision are liars and cheats and a horrible company"  and they even go as far as to start a stupid petition (like that EVER does anything) but then the next Call of Duty comes out.  RECORD SALES and the same people who were screaming to boycott are back on the forums again saying they bought the game and this time we need to boycott the next Call of Duty.. AGAIN.  Rinse and repeat while Activision laughs all the way to the bank.

To my knowledge, there has not been a mass refund (yet). BFL has not suffered catastrophic reputational damage. We know there are people in the world who have more money than sense, you don't need to post an auction to prove it.

Do you see people still investing in Bitcoin Savings and Trust?
Do you see people still putting their money in Bitcoinica?
Do you see people still putting their money in Mybitcoin.com?
Do you see people still buying bASIC devices?
All those companies imploded. Why didn't customers pile in to save them?


As long as you cling to the idea that BFL has unlimited money, you will never see them at risk of imploding.
Clearly you believe they have segregated all of their customer orders in an escrow account and spawned by magic the operating funds for a 20 person company (plus consultants) over the last 11 months.
Here is Inaba/Josh saying back in July 27, 2012 that the BFL singles were being prepped to ship and mini-rigs were being assembled.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.994223
Clearly, their business plans at that time did not include an additional 10 months of operating costs. Where did that money come from?
No venture capital group or private equity group has claimed to have invested in BFL. No angels have claimed them either.

You say that you are not their accountant and therefore you are unconcerned by any financial details of BFL. That my friend, is what is called willful ignorance.

There is already good competition in the ASIC community. More is on the way.
Bitcoin would have been better served if BFL had never existed, that money would have been spent on Avalon and ASICMiner (and perhaps other ventures). Of course, BFL was great for people who already had mining equipment (and did not order from BFL). BFL kept millions of dollars from being invested in actual hash rate and increasing the profit margin of every existing miner.

Walk that talk for a while, then come back and try to sell it.

That may be true.
1) You have a fundamental lack of understanding of reputation risk
2) You are unwilling to question the veracity of statements BFL has made.

I suppose you are type of person to walk into a burning movie theater because you see all the other customers fleeing. You figure you will get good seats for the show since all the other customers left!   

xD The fuck? Just because we all haven't been brainwashed so much by our captives that you spent what, 2-3 hours, defending a company who is screwing you royally.

I've said it before I've said it again - I don't care. Eat the shit sandwich, don't eat the shit sandwich, its up to you.

+1

Its almost as if you are a shill

I put a disclaimer but as I said a few pages back, I literally couldn't care less what company it is - it just happens that I wasn't around at the time of the BFL bubble. IF ASICMiner said "fuck it, 51% time" then I'd equally be against them.

At K9, since you are having some trouble with ThatDGuy.

Here is a helpful link that should give you more of a boost in your argument. Just because BFL says they have shipped through a certain date, does not mean they have actually fulfilled all units up to that date. Proof?:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/3122-shipping-but-not-your-full-order.html

?Master of illusions?

The false appearance of having delivered everything (just jally of course) up to a certain date is...just that...an illusion. You have to give it to "them", they sure know how to do a good mind job on their customers. (In my opinion only)

If it weren't for K9 and his facts, you'd have almost have believed it were true...

As K9 mentioned earlier, Who needs FUD?

The truth is much more potent than any "FUD" could ever be.

Moving beyond that, the information that lead to me writting that warning post has no presence on this thread. You don't know what lead to those words or the warning. Don't you think I would have posted it and described the situation clearly so you'd understand "a FUD" scenario?

Why didn't I write more than three lines? Consider that. I want you to be utterly dismissive of it.

I posted a simple warning without any context. I imagine eventually that piece of information will become widely available. Though honestly, I don't see how it would actually reach the forum. I can only imagine that BFL would have to post it themselves as a notice to it's customers, then again I doubt they actually would as it might hurt confidence in deliveries.

Anyway, I didn't post more info because I want you to hang on. In this situation, I want you to be "stuck".

No "FUD" is necessary, you just don't know what I am going on about. Dogie by accident or intention hit upon it. Though I deleted any references so that people would not know what my statements were about. I posted it as subtle and without context as I could.

Because I know that when it actually hits you or impacts your order(s) it will be too late for you to actually do anything about it. You'll just have to wait, along with everyone else. Anyone who has gotten out "by now" has already done so for the right reasons. Different things motivated them to act on it. Everyone else still left in the order queue is left to gamble their order in whatever way the outcome becomes.



You know, it almost sounds like you are worried about something.

Don't worry, just be happy!

Edit: Everything will be alright in "2 weeks"®, I promise.

Well unfortunately you've once again left me with very little context as to what you're referencing.

As for "pretending I wasn't insulting" I re-read my post to try and see what could have come off insulting and the best I could come up with was this:


If suggesting there was a language barrier was insulting, I am sorry.  My reasoning for it was from reading your post:


This sentence was made difficult to understand, either you were trying to say *I* was the disconnect using the incorrect "your" instead of "you're" or you didn't want the if.



This section in particular wasn't clear.  Why do I think it's wrong to try and fight -what-??

This was a question I specifically asked you in my response before attempting to answer based on my best guess at what you were asking:


So, getting back to your current question of


What "situation" are you talking about?

Wow ThatDGuy, I love how you pretended that you weren't insulting me in your response.

So I'll ask again what would be the appropriate way to handle this situation?

See, this is why it's becoming less and less worth my time to try and explain anything.  Despite countless attempts to enlighten otherwise, I don't have a side.  At least, not in this particular space.  My side is ASICs being more readily available.  It is also consumers being able to attain them in a relatively fair way without any one company monopolizing.  You know, the basic principles behind Bitcoin: decentralization.

Below is just one of many examples of market forces in action, specific to the the how they would behave in OP's ludicrous suggestion.

If BFL suddenly has a shorter pre-order list, my estimation is that they would get more orders coming in because people could receive them in a timeframe that is easier to judge.  You estimate differently.  Nothing will change that.

No, I am comparing two situations that are absurd. One is that 2+2 can equal 5. The other is that BFL already possesses "hundreds of TH/s of equipment". You have already confused GH/s and MH/s. Let me write that number in MH/s so I can be sure you understand. BFL is claiming to have at least 200,000,000 MH/s. The entire Bitcoin network hash rate is 100,000,000 MH/s. It would take sixty thousand Jalapenos to generate that much hash power.

You make the assertion that "market forces" would appear and rescue a failing company drowning in bad press. That is magical thinking.


You think that getting hit with a wave of refunds will help BFL. That is the absurd part of this thread. You say you don't care about BFLs finances and won't bother to examine them because you are not their accountant. That is the root of your fallacy. You think BFL could survive a wave of refunds because magical "market forces" will appear with bags of money to save them. Unless you dispel that notion, every criticism of BFL will seem absurd to you since with infinite market support they are bound to produce your product eventually. You should take a good look at the top level of the Custom Hardware forum and note that it is filled with threads about buying ASICs from companies other than BFL. BFL has competition. Their product is not the top performer like they claimed it would be. The market forces are unlikely to benefit them.

You noted that ASICMiner products are selling, but so are KNCMiner products. KNCMiner are pricing 175GH/s at $3800. BFL is pricing 50GH/s at $2500. Neither company has shipped that product yet, or demonstrated a working prototype of that product. Your market forces are indeed present, but I don't think they are on your side.

Please do as he says so I can get my units faster.  Thx.

Ah. Finally, we get to the root of the problem. You do not understand a hypothetical construct in logic.

You could say that hypothetically speaking given 2+2=5, that BFL is right and I am wrong.

I will rightfully point out that 2+2 does not in fact equal 5 and there is no circumstance under which it would. Then I would ask why are you bringing up some random nonsensical hypothetical to derail the thread.

Inaba said that hypothetically speaking, given that BFL has hundreds of TH/s of equipment, if everyone canceled their order BFL would be happy.

It was rightfully pointed out that it was an absurd hypothetical
you dont have the (hundreds of TH of mining equipment ) because if you have it why you are delaying it and not shipping for the buyer?
and then you jumped to his defense.

Explain why that hypothetical situation was in any way relevant to the OP's plan.

Fine. The list is bullshit. You never claimed BFL is shipping in volume. My apologies.

Please provide evidence BFL has shipped more than a couple of dozen Jalapeno's or let us assume that they have not since there is no evidence to suggest it.
If you cannot provide that evidence, then please explain the following:
Why 66 days after their first unit shipped they are still unable to ship units in volume.
Explain why $5 million in pre-order cancellations would improve this situation.
Explain where their operating capital for the last 11 months and the next few weeks came from.