Bitcoin Forum

if I ran a single for say..... 1 year. And it arrived whenever they will arrive .. how many bitcoins in total do you think it will generate? if you had to guess. Let's say the shipping date is the first week of march.

You should consult these graphs which were recently released by organofcorti.

http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2013/02/99-asic-choices-avalon-update-2-by.html

It's a highly variable prospect, but while you will make something, it will probably be closer to the AVALON Batch #2 Late arrivals.

A guess is all that it would be because we don't know the future difficulty levels.  Future difficulty levels are dependent on cost and availability of ASIC hardware, as well as the future exchange rates.

The interesting thing is there are some individuals who will be buying multiple singles[highest seen thus far is 9].I'm pretty much expecting individuals not to be able to make back their BTC too soon due to an extreme rise in difficulty if both Butterflylabs and Avalon ship on time.It might actually be a better idea to simply hold onto your BTC and let the value accumulate due to the difficulty rise.

Well if you knew what the network hasrate was going to be over the same time period you could figure it out.  The the missing variable that has everyone else asking the same question.

http://bitcoinsbs.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/how-much-mhash-does-it-take-to-mine-1-btc/

Plugging 60,000 into the bitcoin mining calculator (http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator) spits out:

BTC280.05/month * 12 months/year = BTC3360.6 /year

at current difficulty.  So expect to make way less than BTC3360.6 /year.

fixed it  ;D

This comes from the Butterflylabs website:

FAQ:Get Rich Quick! Not so fast...

Will these ASICs make me rich?
 
If you have done some calculations and have come up with numbers indicating you will be making over 9000% profit your first month, there's a good chance you may be missing something or don't understand how Bitcoins work. After reading this quick FAQ, you should do some more research on Bitcoins, how they started, how they are created and what ASIC's will mean for Bitcoin miners.
 
Bitcoins are "minted" at a predetermined rate which is roughly one block every 10 minutes. Just because you might now have a 4500MH/s Jalapeno does not mean you'll be making $1500+ per day/week/month. You may now be mining at 60GH/s or higher, but the network hashrate (the amount of mining across the entire Bitcoin network) may now be up in the hundreds of terahashes per second (until now, you've probably been mining in megahashes). In order to moderate the network hashrate to maintain the predetermined minting rate of one block every 10 minutes, there is a variable called difficulty. When the network hashrate goes up, the difficulty adjusts to keep the mining speed at that predetermined rate (similarly, if a whole lot of miners suddenly stopped mining resulting in the network hashrate dropping, the difficulty would drop accordingly). Difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks.
 
What does this mean for you?
 
Using current figures, a Single SC at the current network hashrate (20.192TH/s as at 13 Jan 13) with 25 Bitcoins (BTC) mined per block, you could expect approximately USD$3670/month. BUT ... the network hashrate will be much higher once ASICs hit the mining scene so taking that into consideration, we should factor in a jump of difficulty to cater for the increased hashrate of 1000% (10x) in the short term. Current price (MTGox) for BTC is USD$14.14 (rounded). So, using that information, and for estimation purposes a conservative flat rate of USD13 per BTC, a safe assumption to make when working out your mining returns is USD6 per month per GH/s (@ 13 Jan 13)
 
Maximum income per month for the BFL ASICs (using the above) with no overclocking and ZERO power costs in USD is would therefore be around the following:
 Jalapeno - $27/mth

"Little" Single - $180/mth

Single - $360/mth

Minirig - $9000/mth
 

Bear in mind these are laboratory examples (i.e. in a perfect and controlled world) and your returns may not necessarily be this high. These values will definitely fluctuate daily as the market value of BTC fluctuates and hashrates/difficulty changes. If you want to run your own calculations check out many of the BTC calculators online ranging from simple to complex. Here's an example to start you off: http://bitcoinx.com/profit/
 
What if you got the difficulty wrong above?
 
It's true there's no real way to predict what difficulty will be a week, month or year after ASIC's hit the network. This table should therefore give you an indication of what you could possibly expect in a perfect world if you were mining at difficulty rates of current, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 & 40 times the current rate (3249550) per 24hr. You certainly shouldn't expect the current (x1) rates to be acheived unless you're lucky enough to get hold of your ASIC in first 24/48hrs of being available (so make the most of it if you do).
 
This table does not include power consumption or payback of any investment made to purchase your device(s). You should also be able to figure out the BTC/USD exchange rate for yourselves. The formula used for these figures is:

 (H x B / D) x (60 x 60 x 24 x 65535 x 10^6 / 2^48)where H = your hash rate in Mhash/s, B = block reward in BTC & D is the current (or expected) difficulty. These figures have been rounded DOWN to 8 decimal places.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r254/MaGNeT76/asiccalculations_zpsb5c45c14.jpg

But if you are keeping the BTC, like I do, it doesn't matter what the ROI is.
I can afford the miner, I can afford the 70Watts power consumption, it mines.

GPU's are out of the mining business, no choice if you are a miner.
But it could take more than a year to recover your investment, if you ever do.

It's like a goldrush... It makes people crazy without thinking...

Would you explain please why you differentiate between individuals and (I guess) larger scale ASIC buyers?  There is very little difference on bang per buck for those purchasing a single 'Single SC' and those buying multiple 'Mini SCs' or a large scale purchase from any ASIC manufacturer.  Other than for those with cheaper electricity or who have some other competitive advantage related to scale that I can't see all ASIC buyers (who receive their equipment at the same time) are in the same boat.

There appears to be a lot of this kind of talk implying it's pointless an individual or small-time miner buying ASIC.  If the increase in difficulty means it's pointless an individual buying, it's just as pointless for a Bitcoin mining 'farmer'.  But if there is profit to be made it will not be far off the same ROI whatever the scale (other than the very smallest scale such as the Jalapeno where you're getting a fair bit fewer hashes per $ as otherwise).

* my emphasis

oooo! Actual math! I thought the ASIC's seemed overhyped to begin with :) nice post MaGNeT.

In the article I posted just above your post, explains why you will make way,ay,way,way,way,way less.


http://bitcoinsbs.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/how-much-mhash-does-it-take-to-mine-1-btc/


figure like a fator of 100 less.  so maybe 33 / yr.  Even that is a high estimate.

We should all agree to only mine with GPUs. Bitcoin would be more popular and usable if everybody could mine, as it was intended to be FOR everybody. All this difficulty increase does is turn people off to it. At least, there's the jalapeno, which most anybody can afford if they want to get their feet wet. I dunno, it's a conundrum.

Bitcoin is far too valuable for every Tom Dick and Harry to get free or almost free. There are plenty of almost-free coins to choose from, if you still want to make coins with a GPU you could merged-mine various other coins right alongside bitcoin, or you could point them at scrypt based coins such as litecoin or bbqcoin. There is still plenty of freedom, no need to hold back the big boy coin to supply the kids with pocket-money / play-money.

-MarkM-

This is a great idea. Lets all NOT use our ASICs. I have a few SC Singles, and I PROMISE not to mine with them when I get them. Can you promise the same?
Heh heh, sucker.

I promise too!

Would have the companies that have taken millions from the buyers have to return the money, if everyone agreed to not use the devices?

Keep in mind that these are still in reach of the average user.  Considering the GPU rigs required to get the equivalent share cost far more in initial equity not to mention the electricity they consume.

Building a more powerful network also makes it more difficult for an attacker to gain 51% of the network.  So I say let's mine with ASIC until the next big jump in mining equipment.

And then a company buys 20 minirigs and does a 51% attack...

Here's an attempt to ballpark some numbers without using difficulty. If the total hash power increases from 27 GH to maybe 250 GH and we expect approximately 3600 BTC to be minted per day, then I was thinking:

(60/250000)*3600 = 0.864 BTC/day

So for other total hash power estimates, maybe:

(60/500000)*3600 = 0.864 BTC/day     -> expect to average 29 days of work for each block
(60/750000)*3600 = 0.432 BTC/day     -> expect to average 58 days of work for each block
(60/1000000)*3600 = 0.216 BTC/day    -> expect to average 115 days of work for each block
(60/2000000)*3600 = 0.108 BTC/day    -> expect to average 231 days of work for each block

Does this type of math seem realistic? There is the basic assumption that difficulty will adjust to maintain approximately 3600 newly minted coins per day.

That one looks correct but the following are off by a factor of 2.  (You have 250Th the same BTC/day as 500TH)

Ooops sorry, you are correct. The corrected values should be:

(60/250000)*3600 = 0.864 BTC/day
(60/500000)*3600 = 0.432 BTC/day     -> expect to average 29 days of work for each block
(60/750000)*3600 = 0.288 BTC/day     -> expect to average 58 days of work for each block
(60/1000000)*3600 = 0.216 BTC/day    -> expect to average 115 days of work for each block
(60/2000000)*3600 = 0.108 BTC/day    -> expect to average 231 days of work for each block

Looks like something at 60G in May will only make about $15 or less per day. And that's probably an aggressive guess. Something that cost $1500+ whatever crazy shipping cost will take a very long time to pay the device off. 4 months to pay it off, but within those 4 months you will be getting back less...so maybe 6 months to get your money back just to pay for the unit. Maybe at that time you could make a couple dollars a day. That's about it.

yep. only way it would make sense for me is if the price of bitcoin keeps rising

Yeah the price will have to go up a lot for mining to still be worth it, and if you think the price of BTC will go up, just buy BTC now, and instead of breaking even in 6-12 months, you will be up a lot.

And if the price of BTC goes down to $20/BTC? A lot of unhappy miners, I suspect many would quit.

I think the same,

And honestly im starting to think that just buying Bitcoins is better, because the window of opportunity will be so little, especially for those who are not early on the lists.

For sure if Bitcoin continues to grow like this there will be major players entering into mining with some China solar-powered warehouse stuff and just price everyone else out. Who knows, that can be happening rite now.

Not to mention the time invested and who knows how stable the products are, imagine if the miner malfunctions or there comes a new product that just owns everything else.

And even if everything "goes according to plan" you might be only even after a year, while the coins you buy could have doubled in value..

im no expert here tho, just guesstimating.