Bitcoin Forum

Avalon announced that they will open Batch #3 in a near future : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155345.msg1647013#msg1647013 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155345.msg1647013#msg1647013)
They didn't send a newsletter but they will do it soon :
When they start to sell Batch #3, there will be lots of Bitcoins moving around. For Batch #2 the price of Bitcoins went down :
First opening (Feb 2) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=139704.msg1498170#msg1498170) : http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2013-02-01zeg2013-02-04ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2013-02-01zeg2013-02-04ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv)
Second opening (Feb 18) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144699.msg1535037#msg1535037) : http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2013-02-17zeg2013-02-19ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2013-02-17zeg2013-02-19ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv)


Do you think the price of Bitcoins will go down when Avalon opens Batch #3 ?

No.

1)It will not change the overall rate of production of bitcoins

2)The price of bitcoins is not directly related to mining in any case.

maybe it will, but like the last two times, the rebound will be quick.

On the contrary, people buying batch #3 will have to buy btc first (if they don't have 100btc lying around and are willing to invest them) - thus I'd rather exptect a slight rise.

As Richy said - the number of btc mined will not change! It's important not to forget the way difficulty works.

This man speaks the truth, for his name is Seldon :)

I have to say, the extremely high price for batch #3 is a bit sketchy. Maybe it's legit but I think mining is simply becoming a less attractive pursuit. I won't be buying one.

They are asking 88 BTC for the ASIC.

This may be the first major product to peg the BTC price to. Usually prices are pegged in dollars and bitcoins go up and down based upon the exchange rate.

You obviously missed the memo: bitcoin only goes up.

Arthur or Hari?

Yup... and more hash means more network stability.

More ASIC means more hashing power which probably means more value to Bitcoins.

No.

I heard that the Avalon machines are full of bugs. You have to keep rebooting them once each hour or so...

The price rise is at least scandalous. And in any way, how many machines are we talking about?

When ASICs start, remaining GPU miners will give up. Because of availability of GPUs and usefulness for other purposes, there are are a lot of them. Many 'casual' GPU miners, making use of their gaming equipment they already had, will pull out and not invest in an ASIC miner.

Therefore: will the difficulty really go up that much?
Perhaps the change will, certainly initially, be only moderate untill enough ASICs circulate to contribute significantly.

Interesting point - suppose the Difficulty will continue to jump up until a new Equilibrium is found under which GPU-mining does not make any sense if you have to pay for power:
Some/Many/most GPU miners will thus sell their cards/rigs (and get some ok-ish money for them). I for instance sold my mining rig a month ago for about 60% of the price I paid 2 Years ago.

Now these ex-Miners do still have an interest in BTC and they have some fiat in hand. Do you think they will just buy in with this money? Do you think that the amount will be recognizable in the exchange rate?

That is bullshit


There are a few machines that needed an updated firmware because the software was never tested at the higher difficulties and caused disconnects from certain pools
but any machine with a version 20130218-232ae13 or older is rock solid. Until a new bug is triggered of course ;-)


The machine is capable of earning back it's investment in two to three weeks (depending on rising difficulty), where is the problem?

I paid BTC 106 for each Avalon, that was back September 2012 when nobody was even sure the technology would be delivered.

If I would have kept those BTC and sold them now for USD I would have made a much bigger and easier profit, with less risk.

If in a year you look back at this period, you'll consider BTC 88 a good deal.

But then again, only time can tell.

I don't disagree with their right to sell these at any price they want. I think it's fantastic that they've actually delivered and especially the ethos behind the whole venture.

With that said, it's a bit of a gamble. The price is reasonable if no other ASICS come on line (though it's currently looking like that may be the case for the near to mid future) and presuming that BTC continues to keep a good price (again, looking like a reasonable assumption). So it's pick your own risk/reward scenario and I don't fault anyone for going either way on that. Only time will tell.

Then again, the price rise does give me pause for thought. The guy waffles on about trust but something doesn't quite sit right with me about that. Then there's the whole vacation thing with batch #2 and could be a while before batch #3 is shipped. Maybe not red flags but certainly towards the lower-frequency end of the spectrum.

In the end though, they have actually shipped product which puts them ahead of all the competition so far. I think probably it's a solid deal. Good luck to everyone whichever way they choose.

I feel like pricing the batch 3 Avalon in BTC is a nice bet that the value will stay high. 

If bitcoins crashed down to $10 or less (as unlikely as it is), first thing I would do is buy 264 of them and order 3 avalons.