Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

I'm very interested in buying a new bitforce single sc from butterfly labs but still have some questions.
Has anybody already received it or is everybody still waiting?
And how long would I have to wait if I order now? (I live in Europe)

I'm also a bit concerned about the effects on the difficulty..
If I enter the 40 Ghash on a profiit calculator i would generate now about 13btc a day.
If a lot of people start using these new products, the difficulty will rise and the return will fall steeply, right?
Can anybody make an estimate or any advice/opinions..

I want to make sure I have a much information as possible.

There are plenty of speculation threads about difficulty. Some say 10x, some say 50x. I am thinking somewhere around 40x to start with, and keep increasing as the months go on. As for  shipping, no one has received one yet as they are scheduled to be shipped early November. Josh state a while ago that they want to have all pre-orders out by December (not sure if this is still true since they have more pre-orders) and eventually want customers to be able to order and the items be shipped out within the next day. I would guess if you pre-ordered now you would receive it sometime around January. Just a guess though.

You need to look around the forum more.  There's a hundred threads on BFL that answer a lot of your question.  First off, the SC is up to 60 GH now, and if you put an order in today you'll likely not get it till early next year.  I believe they're up around 10,000+ pre-orders.

As for BTC profit.  Things are going to get messy once all this hits.  Noone knows for sure, but we definitely know that the reward for blocks is going to get cut in half in the next few months, and that would knock your 13 BTC down to 6.5 BTC right away.  Then once difficulty ramps up, it'll just get worse from there.  

I'm not saying it might not still be feasible to do it, but spend some time, do some research and make an informed decision.

If difficulty will increase 40x as someone said, you will do 13/40 btc per day (40 times less).

In November start sending
For an order made ​​today, I would not expect anything until January.
Current hashrate of the single sc is 60Gh/s
With the entry of ASIC, we can expect an increase at least of x20 the first few months.
At calculation also have to add the reduction.


http://bitclockers.com/calc/mining_difficulty/61092560/difficulty_change/2/btc_per_block/25/value_per_btc/12.78/mhash_rate/60000/cost_per_kwh/0.15/watts_consumption/60/total_days/90/hardware_cost/1300


0.49392023btc/day

Thanks for the replies.


Good to know nobody has received one yet, so there is no effect yet on the difficulty.
I will keep a spreadsheet of the difficulty every day. Once the products are being delivered i can see the effect.
It's not that long anymore until first shipments are sent out.
Hopefully I will be able to estimate the difficulty (and my potential profit) then when product would arrive.
I guess deliveries will be more consistent then too.



I'm trying to read up on the forum a lot..
If the current exchange rate holds anything above 2btc (preferably 5) a day would be acceptable. Do you think that will hold long?

with 40 x current difficulty you would need to invest at least 10 000 USD to mining hardware (based on current ASIC hardware pricing and current exchange rate) to mine 2 BTC/per day :)

Just multiply 131,384 times whatever TH you expect the network to be at.

120TH x 131,384=15,766,080,now put this diff in your calc with what you expect to be mining with (30gh=30,000 mh) & you have a rough idea on profit  ;D

Thats what I expect the network will be at by mid/late december.Just my guess..................

BTW,by feb or march next year,when the network hits 250TH,30 gig will be like having 3 gig now,about a coin a day being earned.

Damn, that makes it a bit out of my reach. The highest investment I was considering was a little single. That would be about $700 with shipping. Considering what I would earn at current difficulty (13btc) that would make daily earnings about 0.325btc(@ 40x difficulty). That about 4$/day so it would take 175 days to recoup the investment. This isn't going to make me rich  ::)

I'm planning a btc project too so I'll keep to that for now. Don't think i'm going to invest in mining. I'll check up on the matter, still interested but think I missed the mining boat..

Do what I'm planning to do.

Buy one now,reinvest that BTC & some cash into another & so on,until you have met a goal.My goal is to get as close to $500 a week in BTC as possible  8)

If things go belly up for whatever reason,you can always sell your equipment (to other miners) to recoup at least 25-75% of your investment.Depending on the "belly up" reason of course.

As long as you don't put in MORE than you can lose,you should be able to break even at least,IMO............

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but if things really do go belly up, the ASIC units are not like video cards and likely going to have basically 0 resale value.  I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the ASIC is going to be built specifically for BTC mining and won't be able to do anything else.  Can someone verify that?

That's correct.

The estimation on orders placed now is January based on what BFL have been telling people.
So applying the "BFL factor" that means you'd get your order in March  ;)

Alternatively, Cablepair and Avalon ASICs are worth a look.

Ah, that's what I thought.  So then, if it just gets to the point that BTC is unprofitable for you, but still good for others, you might still be able to sell to other miners, but if BTC totally tanks, then these units are basically going to be a $1300 boat anchor. :)

Yep,thats if Bitcoin dies out COMPLETELY.I'm betting that SR at least will still be here & one or two of the mining companies too possibly.So there should be somebody that'll want the equipment  8)

Even if I get only half my money back,then include what I mined with them,I should break even or close to it.....................that's what I'm thinking anyhow.............

I think I'm gonna wait it out a bit..
I'm going to check some time after deliveries started if one little single from butterfly labs can still produce enough btc to recoup the investment in max 2 months.
I want at the very least 1 btc a day.

Once deliveries start, maybe somebody will be able to post what he is earning with his little single at that time.
This would give me a real valuable indication whether or not to buy.

I also think that once deliveries have started, butterfly labs will be more able to provide a correct delivery date.
I'm not that afraid that the equipment will become unsellable (unless bitcoin dies of course)
But it would be rather stupid of me to buy something and almost immediately sell it with a loss (given that I can estimate my profits)

Play a bit with the bitcoin mining calculator now or by that time, with the other manufacturers having real production by then, who knows what's gonna give.
http://bitcoinx.com/profit/ (http://bitcoinx.com/profit/)

If I can make back my money in 6 months (hopefully less) I'll be quite happy.I'm in this for the long term  ;)

this guy, too :)  I hope to pass the chore of monitoring bitcoin mining rigs on to my kids... :D

lol, don't have any kids yet or rigs for that matter ;)

I really believe in bitcoins from a philosophical standpoint but reality is, i'm mostly looking for (development) projects which would earn me money (in the long term). The reason I believe most in bitcoin is because from a technological point of view it's imho the most correct solution. I have nothing against PayPal for example but reading how they act and freeze accounts. That's simple something that's not possible with bitcoins.. (as far as i known..)

As far as investing in hardware, I'm willing to do that as long as the ROI is quick. I don't have enough money to invest in something that only makes a profit in a year. (I know that from an investment point of view a year is nothing but not for me it is right now)

I hoped that with ASIC being the cool new thing, it would take a while before everybody would adopt but reading the forums more and more I have some doubts. Everybody with some investment in the bitcoin scene is following this and this won't be the easy money I had secretly hoped for. But that's ok, I'll find myself the right project someday..

I'm a good developer and a have a nice bitcoin related project that is halfway hehe ;) Hope to release it soon.

thanks all you guys for your replies..

If you look at it as an investment (or as growing an income stream). Then mining makes sense.

For example spending 1300 on an sc single which at 40x difficulty will bring ~0.5 btc per day. Say the support for price of btc is above 10 USD. so a ballpark estimate is ~200 USD a month. That puts ROI at 6 months. that's ~200% per year. That's a crazy good investment when compared to something stocks/bonds.

The important thing is to jump in with enough of a purchase to get close to your income stream goal. For about 5000 you could have 1000/month.

The other thing not to forget is that as more hashing power comes online the income will decline, to stay ahead of the game, you'll need to re-invest some percentage of your income from mining into buying new hardware.

I've only just really gotten to the point where reinvestment was sustainable for me. My plan post asic is: 20% reinvest, 20% savings as btc, 20% savings in other more traditional investments/diversifaction (think kids college fund), 20% for operating costs and other upgrades (solar panels, better cooling, computer parts etc) and 20% as income (lets be honest, my wife's going to spend it and call it a 'lifestyle upgrade').

The thing about mining is a profession is - it's constantly reducing what it makes - at some point when the block rewards becoming uselessly small there should (at least we all hope) be enough transactions to keep mining viable... once we hit that point in the process the profitability will finally reduce to match cost of mining... but by then i'm planning to be mining for near zero cost - what with my existing solar/hydro setups and the additional ones I'll be buying along the way.