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I ran several profitability calculators, and even at $85 cost and free electricity, these units don't seem to make any sense.

Even if you consider selling your GPU's, not sure it's a wise strategy to invest cold BTC or Cash to buy Erupters.

By the time they breakeven, they'll be yielding so little profit to even justify the attention to keep them running...and that's assuming they'll survive 10+ months of non-stop mining.

It's more like giving Asicminer an interest-free loan, or betting BTC will be >$500 in next two months, or a combination of both.

Here's how I look at it:

Should you transition away from GPU - definitely yes
Should you hold that money as USD/BTC/ or reinvest in asic - that's a judgement call.  The USB erupters are the only asic's on the market that anyone can readily get their hands on in a timely fashion.  I bought three when they were first released just to see how consistent they were and how much 'attention' they need (none really).

Long term, either the price of BTC has to continue to climb or the difficulty has to slow down.  Right now though, buy-and-mine is probably the most risky bitcoin-related investing strategy.

I have never contribute with a single hash nor am I planing to do so, so I am an absolute outsider. But given their relatively cheap price, could it be that some people are buying because they feel like they just want to be a part of the whole thing? I mean, if you are a bitcoin enthusiast, it is a way to contribute to the network distributed profile. Don't know... I guess this could account for a tiny percentage of usb erupters.

On the other hand, why would they ever be for sale if they were profitable?

People sell massively profitable asic miners (blades, bfl, etc) on ebay because even if it looks like you'll break even in three months, a few shipments of large asics can dilute that pretty quickly.

I think you're right about the small miners though.  Few people are amassing 100's of these (unlike gpus several months back).

Every tool in a hardware store is for sale, even though if used it would be "profitable".

Well, if a friend wanted to gift me something in next couple months, I'll take an Eruptor over a tie....but I'm not looking to prepay 90% of what these units will ever yield only to end up with farm of flaming dongles in the garage running non-stop for years.

I guess there's a reason they're shipping quick.

I don't think "definitely" is right.  If you are set on moving on to ASIC's and continue mining, you might end up better position using whatever you recoup from your GPU's and playing roulette with a larger more efficient ASIC miner...or buying some cloud mining shares.

At least if you actually get the miner (way late for sure), you have something with a decent form factor to leave in a corner with 3x the hashrate...not a farm of USB hubs, wall transformers, dongles, external fans.

I think within 8 months, these sticks are going to be as useful and practical as 64Mb thumb drives.

My reason was less than rational. As the one-year anniversary of my prepaid BFL order came and went without a peep from them, I wanted to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, so I ordered some Erupters. They will keep my mind off other matters for a while.        :)

I'm waiting until those K1 units start becoming widely available, and then I'll pick up a few. Most just toys, but something little that later on I can give out for free to friends/families/colleagues that might be interested in BTC.

8 Months??
They're alreay going on eBay for under 100€, same day shipped
Thats only 15€ over actual buy-in price after all seller fees paid...

Did they change the pricing for the k1's?  I thought they were more expensive, slower, and still in preorders only ... but that might have been an old thread.

We have k1's shipping in three weeks that can be clocked up to 450mh/s. They are also cheaper. Group buy is here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=254358.0

Precisely 14 microseconds after the first one of these is actually delivered, the price of the Asicminer product will magically drop to match it in price/performance.

USB erupters are gadgets, they are not made to make any profit, so treat them as gadgets

Yes they probably will but the k1 can still be clocked higher than the block eruptor USB.

My couple usb erupters are already too hot to touch if there's not a fan blowing over them.  Not sure what temps would be like on an overclocked unit of similar size.

Asicminer USB Erupters...how do they even make sense? Magnets.  ;D

You were not the only one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121115900494?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Steep price, but magic words "May 28" and "in hand" helped to ease the pain, I imagine.

The avalon chip is cooler than the asicminer chip

The ASICMINER has a flat, Aluminium sheet for thermal conductivity. My guess is that the next Gen of USB miners (K1's) will have a proper heatsink attached so OC ing in air will be a real possibility. If they OC to 400Mh/s and sell at 0.75 BTC each then they would be priced in line with an AM 10Gh/s Blade selling for 18.9 BTC.

Since they are small and easy to use, they are a great way of increasing awareness of BTC to the General Public.
Guess they will find their way into quite a few Christmas Stockings this year   ;)

cheers,
kev

You are correct on all counts apart from the last one - if you are betting BTC will be $500+ in the next two months, there are many smarter ways to express that view. (such as, erm, buy BTC today?)

Regarding the question of why anyone would sell a profitable asic - there are some good reasons actually:

Even if you can build thouands of asics, that's not the same as operating thousands of asics 24/7. The logistics of space, power consumption, cooling, security etc scale very fast once you start looking at hundreds or thousands of units.

Selling an asic is instant ROI - operating an asic is ROI over time, which always carries more uncertainty. Asic manufacturers have bills to pay, some cash in hand is always needed.

And finally the 51% issue - even if someone has a highly efficient asic, getting close to 51% of network hashing power would be detrimental to their long position in bitcoin. Selling units would be a way to further increase profits without increasing their share of hash rate.

But realistically, at the moment at least, the biggest reason to sell is because demand > supply, which is reflected in the ridiculous prices you have noticed.

There's a difference though.  Let's say I own a company that makes construction equipment like bulldozers or cranes.  If I wanted to use that equipment to make a profit, I would have to find more workers capable of using the equipment, who would have different skills than the ones I currently employ.  I would also need additional equipment (which presumably I don't make) to build a building.  In other words, there's a very high barrier to go from making tools to using them profitably.

With ASICs though, that barrier is very low.  All you need is a PC, and you just plug it in and let it run.  No extra labor needed, and no extra equipment.

I just wanted to say that you brought up excellent points and I thank you for your post.

you are not thinking like a bitcoin miner as such you should not be on the forum(which specializes in all manners of scammer)

I will give you a Quick example.

1.Setup a group buy.... Get the  Block erupts shipped to you, mine like a bitch for 2 days....under the guise of 'testing' (you mine at >100GH/s)
Finally ship out the devices to all the suckers that fell for the group buy... (they get to be the bitch that maintains the difficulty you set...)

2. Post on Ebay with a price 5* what you paid, just say you saw Jesus or better yet Mary appear on the cover.... and watch the cash roll in.

3. Produce ASICS, sell at 6000% what they cost, use that to fund your next scam.


It is all a matter of how big you think.... fortune favours the bold ...

Mining with 1000 USB Erupters for 2 days would only net you around $1000.  You'd have to spend more than that on the USB hubs alone.

A better option is to sell 1000 at 1 BTC each.  Then after you pass the 1k mark, you get a 10% discount from friedcat, including a refund on all the previous units you bought.  That's a nice 100 BTC in your pocket.

Wait a second, I paid about 75 USD for each of my ASIC USB Miners.  Why will the K1 be a better deal?  It's purported to also has around 300-400 MH/s right?

I don't think they (the K1's) will be a better deal.  They may come out a little faster if you overclock them, but I suspect the price of usb erupters to drop right afterwards.

They already dropped their prices in the Group Buys for BEs to match our opening prices for smaller number orders. They are not matching our larger lot size prices.

This is going to be a fun month or two playing stratego with them of course K1s bundled up with other things might make it worth the effort to come our way to the K1s. Anyhow keep checking our page... things will certainly be interesting especially depending on the volume of units available. bigpicturemining.com (http://bigpicturemining.com)

Regardless, I think a bit of competition is good even if there are only subtle differences between the two.  Competition drives innovation (and lower prices!)

here here

They do not make a lot of sense, but it is a nice way for entry level miners to get involved without a huge risk

Theoretically, how often does difficulty increase? I know every 2016 blocks, but how often is that? 2 weeks? 1 month? 1 week?

And how much has difficulty been jumping up as of late? Looks like we are in for a 15% jump in difficulty in a day or so.

Would an experienced miner put in his or her 0.0002 BTC? I am considering buying about 50 of these things but I am trying to weigh the pros and cons.

Based on the difficulty increases this year, I think the "half life" of any product's output is around 52 days.  Expect changes in difficult every 12 days or so.  You'll have to do the math to see what you speculate your ROI to be.

Thanks for the input. I have been using several different calculators for about the past 2 hours to speculate what my ROI may be. Nothing is completely accurate but it is looking like there is a little profit to be made if things continue to move in the same direction. Looks as if BTC is going up at a steady rate for the past week or so.

Honestly I am still on the fence at the moment. What miner currently on the market gives you the longest opportunity to make some steady profit?

Prices are hitting rock bottom now, 0.175 shipped.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195052.0

And you think that, that^, price is going to stick to just previous owners for how long?

Not long, but I'd be surprised if it would drop to 0.17 for everyone, maybe .3-4.

I like that there is now some more competition coming in the handhold usb market of miners, and I honour you for that - but looking at the notes for overclocking the K1 it looks well beyond my capabilities or interest as a potential buyer of a plug-and-play miner. So at a lower clock speed it'd have to be considerably lower price than asicminer block erupters which are already about 3x overpriced for any ROI. just saying