What’s happened since our last installment in this series?

There, absolute proof that BFL bought us out. Not that it was ever ambiguous, but the defense counsel confirms it, so it’s officially been legally established: We were shills. Sorry about that.

Here is “Attachment O”, in which the FTC uses this article as evidence against BFL.

They took screenshots of the entire article for their records, which was really unnecessary. If they had asked, we would have happily sent them as many copies as they wanted, in whatever format they wished, for just one BFL foam pitchfork.

But now that the most important part of the update is done, lets see what other shit got dredged up recently:

A look at the FTC’s complaints database between September 22nd-November 18th found 33 new complaints. The complaints had the same “They haven’t shipped” and “I want my money back” stuff you’d expect from a case against a fraudster. Here are just a few choice examples:

It appears people who are spending thousands of dollars in mining hardware cannot be bothered to learn who is doing what in relation to the case. The FTC does not have the power to get the funds back, at least not now. Remember, BFL is in trial, which includes the possibility that they win out and resume operations. If that happens, you can kiss your funbux goodbye. (Although that probably won’t happen.)

So apparently there are people still buying from Butterfly Labs, despite the warnings everywhere that this company is horrible. The box on the left is the date the complaint was logged, and the box on the right says when the customer made the initial purchase. However, in this instance, there is no date. Maybe they were embarrassed about recently purchasing product from this group?

I don’t mean to kick a guy when he’s down, but even the original, official Bitcoin site says that investing in Bitcoin is risky, that you shouldn’t do it unless you really know what you’re doing (which would seem to preclude investment at all, but whatever). That includes using your tax refund to invest in, essentially, a get-rich-quick scheme. Don’t invest in Bitcoin. Don’t fucking do it! Just stop!

No, they don’t, at least not right now. We’ll get to this later.

In the evidence above was a transcript of episode 34 of the “Lets Talk Bitcoin!” podcast, where Josh Zerlan, AKA the guy who said that BFL was using mining rigs before shipping them to customers, mentions this:

It’s not anything official from the FTC (apart from the transcript), but I just think it’s odd how he remained vague on ship dates, which was a part of the original FTC complaint against BFL. Was it mandated at BFL HQ that all ship dates be made vague, or is this just some random happenstance where Zerlan really didn’t know? And how exactly did they plan on staying competitive when they barely had any product out there? Was that their main motivation for buying sites out, or was it some kind of unexplainable paranoia? Again, not official, just questions I had reading this.

What is official, however, is Mr. Zerlan identifying himself as Chief Operating Officer of BFL and detailing the company’s “TestNet”. Why this is in the documents is unclear, but I’m gonna speculate and say “TestNet” is where BFL used the miners before shipping these outdated machines to angry hordes, if they even got shipped.

I’m betting 0.0000001 Satoshi that he just described the size of the pre-mining operation, as well as accidentally disclosing that there was a pre-mining operation.

Refunds! Ish. Temporary Receiver (TR) Eric L. Johnson, submitted his plan for earning cash back for customer refunds on October 29th. Around November 4, the plan was ordered and approved.

Butterfly Labs got a lot of its orders in Bitcoin and used BitPay to process them. The TR’s plan is to use the funds BFL got, send them to a court-held Bitcoin wallet, and eventually convert them to dirty fiat. To do this, the TR may hire outside help to do this, since these transactions have a history of getting stolen.

There’s also the fact that all sides MUST cooperate, probably in reference to BFL’s prior behavior that nearly landed them in a separate case because they were harassing everyone.

We did it guys! We got the US Government to take Bitcoins! Victory is ours at last!

Well, anyway, assuming things go the way we all expect them to, the court will find BFL guilty, and then the FTC will start getting refunds back to people. If BFL is not found guilty, they will attempt to resume operations. That will not go well because, at this point, they’ve antagonized and driven off everyone who would want to buy from them. Either way, BFL is fucked.

(And no court date has been set yet, probably because the trial already happened. They’re in post-trial briefings. Anyone who tells you of an impending trial date is a fucking idiot.)

CORRECTION: I’m a fucking idiot. According to commenter Curt Shaffer, the date linked to above was for their preliminary injunction, not post-trial briefings. Sorry about that. We’ll have more updates on the case later, promise.