Clueless. BFL takes BTC payments through Bitpay which means whatever coins are immediately converted to USD and sent to them. BFL does not have a storage wallet they keep BTC in, they only have the USD. If you had bought in May when BTC was $100-120 and refunded in Aug when BTC hit $70 you'd have done well.
This has already been debunked thoroughly. Bitpay will only convert the bitcoins if the merchant instructs them to. BFL could have kept all of their payments in Bitcoin without converting any of them, which they should have in case they needed to refund them.
Ah yes, here's the old hindsight is 20/20 routine. Obviously they kept all the BTC they were ever paid without ever converting it into USD cause they KNEW the price was going to spike.
I supposed they also kept all the rubles and francs and pounds and marks and yen they were paid without converting them either, IN CASE THEY HAD TO REFUND THEM AS WELL.
Businesses cannot afford to hold onto a commodity (Yep, I said commodity and not currency) like Bitcoin due to it's volatile nature. stuff about hedging risks
Businesses should not hold on to Bitcoin yes. But scams would. Why else would BFL ask for a 100% deposit yet claim they would not spend the pre-order money?If they were not going to spend it, but instead hold it, then yes they should assume the asset risk. Instead, they pushed that off on their customers because most of them don't have the faintest clue what proper business behavior looks like
April 5th BFL raises prices while BTC value is climbing. April 10th BTC tops $250 before plummeting to $80, climbs back above $150, drops below 100, climbs again to 130. Yea, let's ride the freaking roller coaster with 10's of millions of dollars FROM ONLY 2% OF SALES!
If BFL didn't need the money like they claimed, they could have taken a 10% deposit and lessen their commodity risk. It isn't the customers fault that BFL was faced with 12 months of currency risk. They shouldn't have to pay that toll as well.See, this is where it makes absolutely no sense to me... After receiving a potential 12,000 orders in March while BTC prices climbed from $20 to $60 and beyond, tripling the value BFLs BTC holdings in a single month, they double the price on all units.
We just became multimillionaires from holding onto a small percentage of all sales as BTC and we're so freaking greedy we stick it to the customers.
Dude, believe in your fantasies. I just don't see it.
I am not saying BFL did keep all the BTC, I am saying that BFL should have and could have (since they claimed they were escrowing pre-order funds)We just became multimillionaires from holding onto a small percentage of all sales as BTC and we're so freaking greedy we stick it to the customers.
Dude, believe in your fantasies. I just don't see it.
If they set the precedent that someone could get all their BTC back, every single person who pre-ordered with BTC in 2012 would ask for a refund. BFL would go out of business if they actually offered to make their customers whole. However, that is the risk they took by taking 100% deposits and being late by 10 months.
Or BFL could have just been upfront and said "all refunds to be paid in USD because we are converting BTC to USD and spending it on development". Strangely, BFL has begun refunding people who paid in BTC with BTC. I guess that federal judge declaring that BTC was money put the fear of legal reprisal into them. Up till now, they just told you to fuck off if you paid with BTC.
2) According to what I read, the PREORDER money you are referring to was not spent ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, WHICH IS UNDERSTANDABLE, but to assume as you are that none would be used to purchase the products needed to create the parts in question is laughable. How on earth could any startup company take 100's of millions of dollars of orders and not spend a cent of it on the materials to make the parts? Did Avalon only take 10% on it's preorders? Are all the other ASIC companies taking only 10% on their preorders? What world do you live in? Try placing a special order sometime... most places require payment up front and have a 15% restocking fee if you cancel the order after it comes in. Whether you think so or not, that is basically what these pre-orders are, special orders. The materials to build them has been ordered and paid for and now people want their money back.
3) Wow, just wow... Let's stop and think... WHY did BFL refuse refunds in BTC? Maybe because people were being unreasonable. "I paid 500 BTC and I want 500 BTC back (mainly because that $3000 is not worth $50000!!!!!)" THIS is the main reason behind 99% of the BTC refund requests you cite... GREED... and when refused what happened? "SCAM!!!!!!!". Yes BFL is now refunding BTC, by converting the USD for the items paid into BTC and sending it.
You can't have it both ways, but that's how you keep presenting it. If as you say BFL should have held all those BTC and refunded as BTC now that prices have skyrocketed then as well, if prices had plummeted BFL should only be responsible to refund the BTC paid.
Before you refute everything above answer this:
If you paid 10,000 BTC (worth $60,000USD in June 2012) and BFL kept it as BTC and the price today was $3 per BTC, WOULD YOU ACCEPT YOUR 10,000BTC BACK or would you call them a scam and demand 20,000 BTC cause you spend $60,000?
You can't have it both ways.