This is irrelevant. The price of the product (to buyers, and on the material end) is USD. If Tom or BTCFPGA decided to take the risk of keeping the income in Bitcoin, that risk - and any potential gains/losses - is his.
No Luke you're wrong. It is his choice and his risk as long as he is able to deliver what we - the customers - paid. If he never delivers ASICs it's a speculation on the back of his 'customers'. If the BTC price is rising Tom wins, if the BTC price is falling we are loosing. And now it seems that all customer who paid BTC are screwed independant of the BTC price. Tom should have exchanged those funds to USD and maybe spent them to create this damn bASIC chip and not speculate on rising BTC prices!
With this new information the only acceptable choice would be a full BTC refund, a bASIC device or to let him burn like hell! The last point seems to be the most realistic one.
This whole argument is kind of moot since people aren't getting refunds at all.
Should have received a refund last week. Requested a refund on Jan 6.