Bitcoin Forum

hi everyone

i want to get my hands on any hardware - bulk - group buys whatever... it just seems so complicated. trying to chase up the resellers, they're in business one second out the next.

Who is in the UK and sells mining equipment in bulk?

I've had about 30 tabs open trying to find out the last few hours...

check out cxboy's group buy

That's because it is complicated. The ASIC chips are over priced and have to be made or aquired in bulk that means you need a lot of cash upfront hence the group buys.

A whole bunch of ASIC vendors have sprung up essentially with no money for R&D so they get crowd funded with pre-orders that have to wait for months. Most other industries don't work like this. I don't think it's a good thing, because normally to get venture capital you need to present a strong management team and business plan. The pre-order caper bypasses this quality assurance, as we have already seen, you end up with many dodgy ASIC vendors.

The chips simply cost what they cost to produce. ASIC development is very, very expensive from design to production, they must reclaim their costs to make them. The fabs don't really care if the chip price is good for your bottom line or not, it is what it is. Not to say the demand for them isn't adding to the price a bit somewhere.  Though at current market valuations, the chip price isn't so bad anymore generally. As these see more consistent mass production the cost decreases along with market competition which is now heavy.

Much of this gear is batch run by small groups of designers, in that finding consistent sources of mining gear is difficult at the moment, and demand for them ensures these small batches are sold out quickly. Only ASICMiner seems to have a full production with gear generally available consistently. Some say their stuff is overpriced, but at the moment you are paying more for availability in being able to order gear and get it in a few days, opposed to waiting for a fresh batch of something else for weeks or months.

Otherwise I agree, for the kinds of volume some on this board are capable of I don't understand why almost none of them seem able or willing to set up a basic online storefront with something like Bitpay to accept transactions. I know myself this only takes a day or two to set up something basic because that is how long it took me to develop BlockBurner's online store (currently not live). There seem to be more shops online than there were though. This is a cottage industry still, more time will see more maturity as we have seen so far.

Nothing worth doing is actually ever simple.

It's the complications that make it more fun.

 ;D

Canary has been been selling for a while...  also SilentSonicBoom.... also CrazyGuy.......   

 ???

As someone who is moving up from BE's to something bigger, I am finding it semi-frustrating in getting equipment that I can still at least afford.

 I would LOVE to get one, maybe two, of the Prospero X1, (which just noticed price went up), but I would have to buy 10 minimum and come to find out, they do not allow group buys. :/

So how is someone supposed to get in with out a large sum of money....

I've even though of doing a indiegogo. :p

Don't forget that when BE's just came out, they were like $150 or whatever their original price was.

Right now you get a 2GH/s USB miner for that money (yes, this is not exactly accurate) which makes them unavailable for bulk buying if you don't have high funds to spend.
However, give it some time and they'll also drop in price.

ps.
X1's can be bought per piece from the USA reseller (just look around at their website for a link)

have you guys seen those 5ghs asic usb miners that work on usb3 ports.... usb2 gets you 4ghs

i'm thinking of flying over to poland to pick some up. would anyone be interested?

What is the price breakdown?

BiFury you mean?

They're much like the 3rd in line of the simple USB miners.

Block erupter was the first simple USB miner, 330mh/s speed
Then came the various USB miners based on a single chip (bluefury, redfury, nanofury), around 2.1GH/s speed
And now they've combined 2 of these chips on a single miner

Basically all of them are the same. Bad $ per GH/s rate but they're simple, small, easy to set up, no external power supplies needed, etc.

So sort of interesting for a starting miner, pretty bad for the more advanced miner.

I know how you feel.  When I look for the in-stock miners, it's so hard to find one, unless it's a used BFL or the USB oens.

Currently Bitmain is doing the 24-hour auction for the in-stock 180GH miner (120 of them) Current minimum bid is 4.25 BTC but i thought worth mentioning to you, since you are trying to get a hand on the miners.

here is the auction.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355755.0

Hi,

I may have a solution. I'm one of the premier win/win deal makers on the entire forum.  ;D

They don't do Group Buys, but since we've proven that we're not GB Coordinators that will run off with the collected funds (see Rounds 13 & 14) and that we can insulate Black Arrow from having to deal with customers (a big resource drain for a lean mfg.), we have an exclusive agreement with their US reseller, bobsag3, to perform Exclusive GBs for their Prospero x-3 rigs.

Pricing for these late February Bitcoin miners with Black Arrow as a GB in R17x is very competitive, IMO. Just click the link in my sig if you're interested in finding out more.

Cheers,
DZ
 

I don't get this whole "shares" thing.  How long do you mine for that kind of money?  Surely not forever.

Why not do a GB on the hardware itself?

You are doing a HW GB.. You are buying a %.

The organizer/host will say its worth 100 shares for example, he sells 75 at a rate that covers the machine, and divides out X amount to share holder and keeps a % for themselves, for the work/time. hosting fee's are covered etc.

It's a fairly reliable working method. especially if you don't know how to repair etc. it saves time money hassle.

Finding a reliable source though...


Dislexi, I sent a pm to the organizer of your x-3 about buying out an entire unit. hope to hear back :)

O lol this made me check my PM's =)

Buy knc

Except they are now in the pre-order business as well.

KNC has always delivered in the past.  ALthough I gotta say, I think Bitmain is the new kid on the block.  But the KNC is going to have a lot longer shelf life due to the power usage, regardless if it doesn't ROI as fast.  So that is a good point.