So here's a question looking from the outside in. Given that it appears the BFL CEO is a convicted felon, and given that no one has seen a working BFL ASIC product, is it really worth the risk of giving BFL pre-order dollars? Are those with pre-orders banking on getting such a large leg-up on the mining competition that they figure it's worth the risk of losing your money?

Let me put it another way. If BFL does have the technology to create ASIC chips dedicated to bitcoin mining, then they should be in a great spot financially. As soon as the first product is shipped and tested by a member of the public, then the products should easily pay for themselves, and tons of people will order the chips.

On the other hand, if BFL is depending on pre-orders to a) finance the development and manufacturing, or b) take the money and run, then I would consider a pre-order to be very risky. Almost any electronics product that people would normally pre-order is from a hugely reputable multi-national company and is for a product that has already been reviewed by dozens or hundreds of different people.

Maybe getting a 3-month lead time over the mining competition is work the risk, but I think this is an interesting thing to watch. Over the last month I have been amazed to read about the number of scams that the bitcoin community attracts, due to the amount of money floating around and the gullibility of people looking to turn a quick buck.

Being a pretty risk averse person myself, I think people should cancel their pre-orders until the ASICs have been bought and tested by other members of the public, unless your investment in mining represents an amount of money you don't mind losing as with a penny stock.

Good luck to everyone in the meantime, but remember that *every* form of investment has its risks, and bitcoin is not immune to that.