Bitcoin Forum

if I have access to ASIC, why wouldn't I just mine all the bitcoins myself than sell the hardware?

in the gold rush of the old west...  the hardware stores that sold the shovels and pans are who made the most money!

Risk. Mining may or may not turn out to be profitable. Selling the hardware the risk is minimal, especially when you can get customers to pre-order for months in advance while you sit on the money and have nothing to ship them.

Yeah, what everyone else said.  Anyone that is willing to sell ASIC's is making profit immediately on sale of the ASIC and doesn't need to wait to mine to make any return, nor do they need to worry about the fluctuating market of BTC. 

If you're a miner, you put out money hoping that you'll make enough back (and hopefully more) to cover your cost outlay.  That could take months or even a year.

If you're a ASIC vendor, once someone pays you for that ASIC you've already made your profit.

Good to think about.

Well timed speculation on the price of BTC will result in hefty returns and your BTC are much more liquid. Hardware? not as liquid.
If you invest in BTC now you'll be making(losing) money now, not waiting for ASICs.
Speculating is much more action packed, but you don't get cool computer stuff to show off.
Pick based on your risk appetite find what interests you. OR do both. Diversification is always good.

It is interesting no private entity went the ASIC route themselves.

This is by far the best analogy I have seen for the situation.

How can you tell?

if mining power concentrates to a handful of people, BTC is doomed!
it is like you play a game and keep loosing, then you drop the game after a while ;)

if I have 2Million Dollars
should I put it all on red or black or will the house win.

it's all down to how much cash you have to begin with really...

the other way would be to just buy up all teh coins on MTGox

because if an asic company went through all the time and expense to develop and asic and then use it to mine it would be very short sighted. Most companies are in it for the long game. They could spend the large chunks of money for development and deploy their on product and then spend a long time breaking even or they could sell them and make a profit immediately while at the same time increasing their customer base which leads to larger investments and profits over and over again. Using their equipment just to mine ould be tantamount to getting a golden goose and then killing it to see here the eggs come from instead of just letting the goose do its thing

+1
And unfortunately if they do suceed to the expese of the rest of the community (as was said above) bitcoin dies. But perhaps if they are doomed by their own success once they bail due to a lack of interest the individuals may be able to jump back in.
However if they want to suceed they should be bringing in new business and community members with thier hoards of cash not just using it to dominate the current market.

if you keep all goodies to yourself the gang will change the algorithm and screw you.

also there is competition and difficulty rises quickly. so what you do is that you mine for a while until difficulty is at an optimum level (10 times now or so) and then sell the hardware.

Step 1: Claim you can make ASIC's
Step 2: Take everyone's moneys  ;D
Step 3: ? ? ? ? ? ?
Step 4: Profit!

Yep, the guys who made and sold the supplies (Samuel Brannan, Levi Strauss) and the guys who stored/exchanged/transported the gold (Wells Fargo) made out the best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family

I dunno, these guys did pretty good trading bullion by exploiting local price differences in markets...

They don't have asics readily available to mine with.  With all this pre-ordering going on it is obvious the funds that are being sent in are being used to manufacture these things.  Without pre-orders we would have no asic.

1. Get money from preorders.

2. Build Asics with preordered money

3. Delay release month after month

4. Mine with preordered asics while delaying

5. Eventually give the asics to their customers.

6. Double/Triple/Quadruple (or more) your profit rather than just selling the asics right away

You stil don,t HAVE ASICs, they DO have ur money...

Re-read my post I never said they have them.

But lately BFL has been flaunting pics of their pcbs so they may have them but not operational.. yet.

EDIT: And they don't have my money.  I only purchase things I know exist.  ;D

Very good ..u are right better see them first doing 60gh@60watts 24/7 then they are cool devices seeing 60000mhase@ ur screen whauuw we will see...GL  ;)

I think I gave a pretty good answer here. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119460.msg1311965#msg1311965