First link is just a box, second link is a 5 GHash/s unit, not the 25 and 50 they promised. I.e the product does not yet exist.
I just tried to find a name by looking at the BFL Wiki page, there isn't one but look
here:
BFL can stand for:
Bayesian Filtering Library
Big Fat Liar, 2002 comedy film starring Frankie Muniz from TV's Malcolm in the Middle, Nickelodeon's Amanda Bynes, and Paul Giamatti
Bluefaced Leicester
Body for Life, a fitness program created by Bill Phillips
Bat for Lashes, the stage name of English musician Natasha Khan.
Butterfly labs, a huge Bitcoin ASICs scam.
ROFL!
Now onto the juicy bits:
| Type | First Name | Middle | Last Name | Title | Organization | Address |
| President / Director | CHRIS | | VLEISIDES | | | 2507 JEFFERSON KANSAS CITY, MO 64108 |
| President / Director | Nasser | | Ghoseiri | | | 2507 JEFFERSON KANSAS CITY, MO 64108 |
Source
See that name, Chris Vleisides? Well check this out:
Sonny Chris Vleisides, 39, previously of Kansas City, MO was arrested in 2007 and held two years in Italy before he was extradited to the United States. Vleisides was sentenced to 14 months in prison followed by three years supervised release after pleading to one count of mail fraud.
Source
What did he do? Have a look here:
A joint investigation involving the IRS-CID and the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), revealed that from at least 1990 through July 2006, SONNY VLEISIDES, James Ray Houston, Dennis Emmett, William Cloud, Henry Walther, Scott Henry Walther, and others committed a massive international lottery scam using the following company names: Shamrock Agency, German Swiss Group, World Expert Fund, Mutual Medical Insurance Co, Old Amsterdam Trust Co, Euro American Fax Co, European Union Commission, EU American Payment Co, Global Search Network, North American Foreign Payments Services, Wor'dwide Verification Service, and others. VLEISIDES ran the scheme along with Houston and Emmett. VLEISIDES, Houston and Emmett, who were all located in Costa Rica, worked with mailing houses which, at the direction of VLEISIDES, Houston, and Emmett, sent out tens of thousands of mailings to victims in the United States, many of whom were elderly. The mailings contained false statements, half truths, and omissions, and induced the victims to participate in various international lotteries, falsely stating that if the victims participated, they were guaranteed to win or had a very good chance to win. The mailings directed the victims to send their money to Ireland, at d the Netherlands, among other locations, where William Cloud had set up addresses with commercial mail receiving agencies and individuals to forward the money, eventually, back to the United States. After receipt at the commercial mail receiving agencies, the victims' money was sent to Henry Walther, who, along with his son Scott Henry Walther, deposited the money into various bank accounts and then distributed it as directed by VLEISIDES, Houston, and Emmett. Some of the money was spent on furthering the criminal activity. Some of the money was paid out to victims in small-dollar checks that the co-schemers misrepresented to be lottery winnings. The rest of the money was paid out to the co-schemers and others for their own use. VLEISIDES and the other defendants did not buy any lottery tickets, and the vast majority of the victims lost the money they sent. The total loss from the scheme is in excess of $19 million.
An analysis was done on approximately twenty of the bank accounts established in the United States at the direction of VLEISIDES and his co-schemers. The analysis revealed, in summary, that the victims' money was first deposited into accounts established by the co-schemers at numerous banks in accounts with names that sound like official lotteries: SHAMROCK AGENCY, WORLD EXPERT, OLD AMSTERDAM, GERMAN SWISS, and EUC. (Hereinafter, accounts at this first layer will be referred to as "Deposit Accounts.") The co-schemers obtained over $19 million from tens of thousands of victims and deposited them into these accounts. After the co-schemers deposited the victims' money into the Deposit Accounts, they transferred the money to the next layer of accounts, hereinafter referred to as "Payment Accounts." These accounts were in names that included NORTH AMERICAN PAYMENT and EU PAYMENT SERVICE. From the Payment Accounts, the co-schemers wrote checks represented as winnings and sent them back to the victims. The amount of the alleged "winnings" was far less than the amount the victims sent in - for the over $19 million going into the accounts from victims, only approximately 20% was sent back to victims in the form of "winning" checks. The co-schemers transferred some of the money from the Deposit Accounts and Payment Accounts to the next layer of accounts, which will hereinafter be referred to as "Syphon Accounts." The co-schemers wrote checks (or used wire transfers) from the Lottery Accounts and the Payment Accounts to the Syphon Accounts, which were in names that included WESTERN INTERNET, BUTTERFIELD, CARNEGIE and HENRY WALTHER ATTORNEY WIRE ACCOUNT. Money from the Syphon Accounts was used to continue the scheme by paying scheme expenses, as well as to provide benefits to the co-schemers. The co-schemers also took money at each layer in the form of checks to cash, checks to themselves, or checks to the payment of personal or scheme expenses.
Extraction of affidavit for extradition warrant, available
here.
How do we know they're one and the same? Here we go:
Sonny Vleisides is associated with BFL and it's the same Sonny listed in the case documents. He was involved in off shore gaming in the capacity of selling and providing software engineering to companies that did the actual offshore gaming (there is even a US patent application for the process). The industry came under attack (as we all remember) around that time, and Mr. Vleisides was caught up in the process as well as a good portion of the industry based in Costa Rica.
Although this may be cause for concern to some, the fact is that we're a robust company with 22 employees. One of them has a colorful background in offshore libertarianism. If I thought there was even the possibility of something unsavory going on within BFL, you can rest assured I would a) not be part of it and b) would let everyone know it.
The reality is, we are legitimate, we have released revolutionary products and we are going to release more revolutionary products. I was made aware of this back story prior to my employment and I evaluated it and concluded that it was immaterial to the business at hand and thus joined BFL. There was nothing hidden from me and Sonny has always answered questions and been completely open about his past, but I think we can all agree that it's not something you just announce to the world.
This post was by an employee, Chief Operating Officer Josh from the above video, of Butterfly Labs. While he has kind words about his employer he has also confirmed that his employer is the convicted mail fraudster. I guess that reflects rather poorly on him, too - although he's the one who confessed to taking ORDERS (not pre-orders) for a product which still did not exist almost a year later.
Source.
Sonny/Chris Vleisides was also given probation. Take special note of his probation terms, specifically point 3:
The defendant is hereby placed on supervised release, effective immediately, for a term of three years under the following terms and conditions:
...
3. The defendant shall not engage, as whole or partial owner, employee or otherwise, in any business involving loan programs, gambling or gaming activities, telemarketing activities, investment programs or any other business involving the solicitation of funds or cold-calls to customers without the express approval of the Probation Officer prior to engagement in such employment. Further, the defendant shall provide the Probation Officer with access to any and all business records, client lists and other records pertaining to the operation of any business owned, in whole or in part, by the defendant, as directed by the Probation Officer; and
A copy of his entire probation documentation can be found
here. His probation orders are dated 15 September 2010, meaning it ends 15 September 2013. By fund-raising (i.e. charging for a product which is not yet ready for sale) he is in violation of his probation orders.
So there we go, worst case scenario is we have a company running scheme (not quite pyramid or ponzi) headed by a convicted felon in violation of his probation without a functional product. If he has been granted permission for solicitation of funds by his probation officer, we have a best case scenario of a company running a scheme (not quite pyramid or ponzi) headed by a convicted felon without a functional product.
My opinion of what's happening is as follows:
Develop FPGA mining hardware
Advertise madly, possibly going into debt to get the word out there
Sell as many units as possible, deliver on promises to build reputation (failed a bit here, deliveries were beyond slow)
Start pimping upcoming ASICs
Use pre-order money to pay for advertising (it's hard finding a BTC forum which doesn't have BFL advertising) to reach greater audience
Continue delaying and promising that even BETTER hardware is coming later, take pre-orders for "upcoming" hardware
Wait a few months until you have tens of thousands of orders paid up front valued at tens of millions of dollars - possibly more
Run
So far, all of the above steps have been ticked up to and including the penultimate step in what could be one of the bigger scams of the decade.
Even IF they do deliver, would you be willing to risk your money based on the histories of those involved as well as of the company itself?
