US bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Butterfly Labs finally gets judged in the two year old consumer fraud case, where customers were promised the ASIC mining hardware for up-front payments. The dates kept getting pushed back, and back, and back until...well, you can figure out the rest. Many of the buyers who actually did receive their units got them so late [some as many as two years late] that the hashpower of the units no longer even remotely covered the cost of running them and actually making money on their investments. At the time, buyers were rushing to get their equipment before the halving of the BTC/block rate to 25, and now that it will be halved again to 12.5 sometime this year it seems highly unlikely that anyone would want the orders delivered anymore.

BFL claims to have shipped over 50,000 units during the four years it operated, but it's clear that there are currently millions of dollars in pre-orders still hanging fire, with little or no chance for refunds at this point.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...-mining-operation-butterfly-labs-agree-settle

Unfortunately for the buyers who paid up front, though, it is extremely unlikely they will see their money returned:

-from www.coindesk.com

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...s-settles-with-ftc-for-38-6m-but-it-cant-pay/

http://www.coindesk.com/ftc-settles-charges-against-bitcoin-mining-firm-butterfly-labs/