Bitcoin Forum

What do you think of the possibility that Bitcoin miners could become expensive antiques one day? There is a thread on Reddit which explores this very possibility:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/21ifrg/one_dev_asks_what_to_do_with_first_bitcoin_asic/

This is more of a question for those who have 1st generation BFL Jalapenos, Block Erupters, Batch 1 Avalons, and (possibly) Antminer S1s. Instead of selling your obsolete miners, could it be a smarter move to hold onto them in the hopes of their value increasing as Bitcoin awareness expands?

If Bitcoin becomes truly mainstream then those early miners will increasingly be seen as an important part of our history. For similar examples, take a look at the earliest vintage computers such as the Apple I and MITS Altair 8800 as well as vintage automobiles which can often go for thousands of dollars on eBay despite being obsolete.

I'd say it's not a possibility - it is an inevitability.

Moore's Law - processor speed doubles every year.  As a computer enthusiast, I have hundreds of old obsolete components that were once state of the art.   As a general rule, they are not worth anything unless they operate stand alone (such as computers or automobiles).  For example, a state of the art serial port (at the time) would be worthless today.  What's a serial port??

One thing also is if you sold the gear and held the coins made from selling, depending on VERY far btc price selling might have been better.

I think some of the first, and very memorable asics might have a market one day.  I don't think everything will.  For example they pumped out A LOT of A1 1T Dragons, I don't see that being a antique someday.

True. I have a PC from the mid 1980's that's easily worth over $100 now which I managed to buy for about $10 about 5 years ago. It came with a serial adapter which I didn't have any use for but I couldn't even sell the thing on eBay for $1.


Actually that's a good point.


Where I'm from, the Antminer S series seems to be the most popular model. Come to think of it, Model Ts don't really go for that much since they made so much of them unless you have one that was built in 1908 and is in flawless original condition.

Does anyone know what the rarest or historically significant miners of 2013 were? The example in the Reddit link I provided was a 1st batch Avalon. I guess that probably counts since it was the first ASIC ever delivered to customers and there was huge initial demand for them with very limited supply.

There are already people buying "old tech" simply for nostalgia value. {Eg. The physical BTC coins that was banned}

I am still searching for a ZX Spectrum 48k {In a good condition} at the right price. {Even if it's not working... just for display purpose} Why.... because it was my first.  ;D ;D ;D

The sentimental value and the rarity of the item over time increase.  :(

Definitely. In fact, the recent-ish rise in prices of Game Boy consoles seems to confirm this. It used to be the case that original Game Boys could be easily bought for $10 or less. Nowadays, they tend to go for a good 3-5 times this amount. You can see the pattern happening with other obsolete tech too if you look closely enough. At first, the prices fall as newer tech comes out and people sell their older gear. Then, after a while, it reaches a long, extended trough, before climbing back up again as interest in the older technology rises.

On the other hand, the pattern doesn't always take hold, especially if the older tech was manufactured in enormous numbers. However, I would think that if Bitcoin does ever truly become mainstream, then the production figures for even the most common obsolete miners such as the Antminer S series would still pale in comparison to the demand from collectors, museums, etc.

There will definitely be collectors, just like there are collectors of old Apple prototypes:-)

I absolutely believe they will become collectors. I still have a few block erupters on hand with original casing that I expect to have some decent value in 10+ years.

They're not vintage Apples, Spectrums or even calculators though. You can't do anything with them other than look at them. They might have some historical and curiosity value but it would essentially be a lump of inert machinery.

I could get excited about an old computer or console. There are lots of memories tied up with it and you can still interact with it. I wouldn't get a boner about an Atari's power adapter.

The Atari power adapter didn't change or signify the start of a new era. Old ASICs gave casual miners a chance to get some decent shares without having to build a huge GPU rig. It was the start of a new era in mining, and they are pretty aesthetically pleasing IMO. Some people turned their old block erupters into key chains for this reason, you don't see anyone turning old power adapters into keychains. Useless pieces of nostalgia can definitely become collectors. Time will tell :)

http://www.gnswireless.com/images/Euro_18V_PowerSupply_bg.jpg

http://i.snag.gy/IYjwz.jpg

Indeed.

I'm far from convinced, but stranger things have happened. Perhaps there'll be nostalgiacoin so they can keep running in the same way there's historic car racing series.

interesting... I guess they could possibly become technology antiques/collectors items one day. I have never thought of this before, interesting though... Maybe i should buy some old asics just in case

I'm surprised some of the old game consoles do so well.  But if you think of it Atari and C64, etc were pretty expensive and one per house mainly that bought them.  So makes it a lot more limited supply.

If you think of some of the miners they are limited ish.  But others fro example we had ALOT of.  For example the Asic Miner usb stick miner was pretty life changing in mining world.  But alot of us ran alot of them.  For example I ran 50, and sold some others on ebay.  There is just alot of those out there.

I can agree to your statement, but maybe add 10 more years.

Those little things looked cool last year and still do.

I have the block erupter blades with backplane and the power source. Hopefully they become worth something because I definitely did not turn a profit mining.  ;D

you could start to look at today old asic, are those considered expensive antique, and thus collectible? i don't think so, no one care about them anymore, they are like old MB, that are not necessarily anymore

instead of wasting time with those ancient miner,s they should re-use their part to build new one with better efficiency

I don't see why not, can imagine seeing all sorts of mining hardware in a museum one day. Going to be a few years til they're considered antiques though, I've got a small collection of unused usb miners that might be worth a bit in a few decades (collectors always pay a premium for mint goods).

But firstly collectors for items like miners would have to exist.
Just like you don't have collectors that pay 1000s of dollars flor floppy disk, this will be probably the same.
Thrown away to trash..

Indeed, it is inevitable, the interesting part is, they may become collectables, even show in museums, just like there are museums of ancient computers now.
"And this kids are the very early Bitcoin miners". I can see it in 2140 when BTC is the leading payment method.

If it wasn't for the fact that I received my BFL 60G/hs miner right before the November 2013 ATH, and that I paid for it in cash, I would have lost money on it. As it turned out I actually doubled my money by cashing out the few btc i could actually squeeze out of it right away. It became obsolete after about 2 months, even though I ran it for about 5. It sits in its box unused right now and I am going to forget about it until I start hearing about these antique hardware auctions making people rich. Probably 10 or twenty years from now. maybe sooner if btc dies or conversely, becomes universally used and accepted.

on a side note, I made a cool 1000$ for my old 160 GB iPod classic last december. I didn't expect that to happen. Apparently DJs covet them for their large storage capacity. makes sense to me, but it wont be long before apple exploits this market and re-releases them. the price has already dropped back to ~300 bucks

There are people who collect CPUs for their historical value as well as those who collect wafers, computer stickers, and all sorts of other stuff. Historically significant coins and stamps don't really do anything other than looking pretty either.

Example:



Source for both: http://www.chipsetc.com/computer-memorabilia-collectors.html

And you could still operate and interact with a Bitcoin miner. Instead of playing a game or running a word program, you would be connecting it to a network, setting up the mining program, and joining a pool. You wouldn't get any coins but you would still get the experience of mining.


Even today, many smaller SHA-256 altcoins try to advertise the fact that you can mine them using old Bitcoin mining equipment. This is true, but only because there isn't enough interest yet for those with greater hashpower to switch to it. If Nostalgiacoin were to become popular, there would need to be some way to limit the hashpower of miners to prevent the latest ASIC miners from forcing obsolete mining equipment out of the competition.


True, however the segment of society that is involved in video gaming is probably much larger than the segment involved in Bitcoin mining. If Bitcoin replaces fiat, then the demand for such museum pieces would be greater than the demand for retro video game consoles today since they would be perceived as being more historically significant.


Bitcoin ASICs are barely two years old. It's probably still way too early to make an extrapolation like that. I'm talking decades, not a couple of years. Although notlist3d raises a good point that you might get more money by selling the miners today and investing it in BTC.


Has this ever been done? I suppose it would be possible to build the components in a modular fashion and have the chips plugged into sockets. When newer chips are developed, users could simply swap out the old chips for new ones.


3.5" floppy disks were far too cheap and common to be considered antiques. Just like the way blank CDs will never be antiques unless we're talking literally centuries into the future. As I already mentioned, some of the earliest microprocessors are quite collectible and computers like the Altair 8800 can fetch $2,500 on eBay despite not being very useful today.


I've heard that Apple is working on a 128 GB iPod. They already have a 128 GB iPhone which can do everything the iPod can do. I'd be surprised if Apple decides to re-release an iPod with a hard drive since solid state storage capacities are catching up and the technology is inherently more suitable for these types of applications.

It was not just video games though.  That was a entire PC at home movement.  The C64 could do most anything needed with correct programs.   I just think some miners were so mass produced like block erupter usb's it will take a very very long to become collectable.   Most that ran them did a entire hub if not hubs worth.  It just adds up.

I think odd miners with less production have a better chance.  For example some of the stick miners that are more rare, that did not get massive production run.  They chances are will hit being worth something much much sooner.

Sure would be nice.  I have a few Model-T BFL Jalapeno's just sitting on a shelf gathering dust.  Maybe I should start taking better care of those puppies just in case.

Probably. And yeah, those Block Erupters were very common. Sometimes things that were originally manufactured in large numbers become rare and valuable if a lot of them don't survive but I doubt this would be the case for miners. Personally, I would think that the 1st batch Avalons would fetch high prices since they were the first ASICs to ship, were extremely profitable, and were produced in low numbers. There are a lot of stick miners out there but most of them aren't that distinguishable from others in terms of either looks or features.

There are some rare ones.  A good guide is over here - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=464496.0

It does a good job of showing stickminers.  I wish I would have bought more of them for the fun of it.