Bitcoin Forum

USB block erupters are now useless. The price is too high.

Difficulty is now over 65,750,060
The correct price for USB block erupters should be around $5 to $7 USD each.




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Recommended thread:

List of factories that make FPGA Bitcoin mining machines
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=297206.new#new

Bitcoin Mining PCI-E Card 10Gh/s card for only $100
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287706.0

USB block erupters are now useless. $5 - $7 each.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=277330.0

There is no such thing as the "correct price".  The correct price is what the market is willing to pay.  I do think that demand is going to dry up in face on the reality of ever increasing difficulty. I wonder if AsicMiner can still move them in volume if they cut the price to 0.1 BTC ea and if so are they making a profit at that price.

As for the $5 being the "correct" price are you willing to sell me your BE for $5?  I get the feeling when people say things like "this ASIC should be $x" they only mean they would buy not sell at that price. Of course if that truly is the correct price they would be happy to sell theirs off at fair value. 

+1

I'll take a handful for $5 too.

Hell, I'd even pay $7 for them. Sign me up for fifty.

50 @ 7.5

rofl

cant wait till bitcoins will be 500k each,

i bet those block erupts even at 200$ each made some millionaires by then!

also a unique product can have its own price tag, asicminer is one of the only to timely deliver working asics especially such low scale usb miners, i think they have the market to themselves at the moment for that, so they can make the price what ever they want...

sry but how can you say what the correct price is? who are you to go around telling others what the price of there product is?

make your own product and price it how ever you want...

sorry dont mean to be harsh, but i just dont like that :(

Please build the factory and send us some miners! 1000 @ $7

mine to speculate is retarded, better to buy directly your coin..

Block erupters would be nice gifts if they sold for $5. Give them away to family and friends and get them interested in Bitcoin. With the Bitminter java client it's really easy to mine. And if you only mine when your computer is on (which for many people is nearly always) you hardly pay for power.

ROTFL
If bitcoin reach 500k as you say, then you are much much better buying them now instead of getting these "block erupters"

That's what I was thinking...

What, someone's selling discount block erupters?

20 @ $10 please!

Given I paid $150 to buy one from overseas and now starting to see them at circa $50, I get a feeling that the price can drop a bit further. Want to get a Raspberry Pi and a couple of decent-sized hubs before I go mad buying quite a few.

Failing that, might try and build one of the Klondike K16 boards myself.

Presuming they live someplace where they can easily buy them without handing over too much information or taking too much risk.

Personally, since I can't even find erupters cheap enough to be worth it for a year's worth of output, it's looking like I'll just have to grit my teeth and find someone reliable on the forum who takes MoneyPak.

I'll take 1 and a time machine, please.

They are not useless. They are profitable for the seller.
Mining is however not profitable with them. That was clear from the beginning.
But they can serve a didactical purpose to teach children's on mining.
Would you expect from a small model-truck to be profitable ? They can be still useful even if they are not profitable.

virtualmaster : there is no logic behind saying "they are a cool toy to show people about bitcoin mining and teach kids" because you could just use your computer to do that

Sure. You could use a book and some apples to show how it works a car or you could buy a toy car for your kid. Which one would he prefer ?
You don't need to answer just look how many people follow this logic.

No.   But I personally believe they are overpriced.  I see them down to $47 shipped on ebay and am tempted to own one just to play with it.  I would buy in quantity for immediate delivery if they were $20.  A profit case can be made even at numbers in the high $30 range though there is 'very little left on the table' for the buyer. 

I think you will see $20.  Excluding NRE I can't really see production cost being more than $10 in high volume.  Sell 100K unit @ 0.2 BTC ea, spend 0.1 BTC ea to build em collect an easy 10,000 BTC. :)  With a low price as long as they have the chance of breaking even in two years I could see people buying them if for nothing other than the novelty of it.

It is all about supply and demand.  The tough thing is you can be firm on $20 and if other people are willing to pay $40 and they sell out, well there is no reason for them to cut the price (and profit) when they are selling out regardless. :)  The best price for ASICMiner is the highest possible price that still sells out before the next batch is ready.  So far they have done a good job holding to that equation (BE are accessible but you don't see lots of inventory just sitting around). 

What's so brilliant about those block erupters is the price point is just low enough that even people like me, who know damn well buying one is a waste of money, feel that wasting $50 for a cool desk ornament is justifiable.

Yeah.  It is a cool little item, for sure.  I think that is why it sells so damn well.  It's just a small amount of money and people can justify wasting that on a novelty.  It's not so much an investment as it is a impulse buy.

The difference between mining and buying is the anonymity.  If you mine coins, you have a truly anonymous source and can build up a truly secure online presence.  There's no way to buy the coins on an exchange and keep your identity private.  Buying off-exchange has other risks. 

This is why people might be willing to mine at a loss.

what you said does not apply. there is no logic behind purchasing this for education when a computer can demonstrate bitcoin mining without it... mining bitcoins with this shit plugged into your computer or not will not make your kid understand it any better or make it any more authentic or "real"

nobody followed your logic, they bought it as a cool shiny gift for mom and dad, or based on greed/false hopes/misleading advertising whatever

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the point of mixing services?  They bundle your transaction with a bunch of other ones, and it's impossible to tell whose BTC went where. 

Yes mixing services can do that, but your name is still on a short list of people using Bitcoin.  How much and when you sent to mixing service will be tracked.

Ideally coin shops would sell bitcoins locally for cash, like you can do with gold coins; localbitcoins is another option but they'll be compromised sooner or later.

yea i had a feeling about this

well following your logic, its like teaching modern day gold miners the only equipment they need is a pan and some water. in todays technology requirements for bitcoin, it is completely logical to assume to get any kind of reasonable income you require a piece of equipment that is not a standard computer part used for gaming (CPU/GPU).

so for teaching purposes using a USB erupter is actually great as the new sandbox testing and learning part of getting into mining before spending thousands on big rigs.

i would never go to any gold mining seminar to learn how to gold mine, if the only demonstration was pan washing. id want to see sloosh machines, excavators, dynamite being used.

that said i think that bitcoin mining has gone far passed the hbby price of every day users. and any education of people on small incomes should be based around the benefits of starting their own retail busines using bitcoins, without all the government red tape and without card processing fee's.

we (in comparison to gold mining) are no longer in the wild west days of pan washing for gold where any man and is son can do it. it requires significant investment to mine, thus leaving the rest of the world to find other methods of getting an income from the new currency. so lets make the educational push into retail start ups, working for bitcoins, buying every day products for bitcoins.

we need to move slowly away from the brain fart opinion that the only way to make money in bitcoins is to mine it.

again, the analogy does not fit, i have already explained it to you, believe what you wish.

I get power for $0.08, so as long as bitcoins stay at $100, block erupters pay for their power usage until the difficulty hits 750 million.

You may not get fast profits, but you'll be able to use them for so long.

This is based on the assumptions that the usb block erupters can run 24 hours a day 7 days a week for at least 2-3 years before breaking down.

lol 750M difficulty is like... what?  a few months away?

Current Difficulty is 50M, assume 20% increase each change... that's 15 changes away.  5-15 days between. 

 50,000,000.00    0
 60,000,000.00    1
 72,000,000.00    2
 86,400,000.00    3
 103,680,000.00    4
 124,416,000.00    5
 149,299,200.00    6
 179,159,040.00    7
 214,990,848.00    8
 257,989,017.60    9
 309,586,821.12    10
 371,504,185.34    11
 445,805,022.41    12
 534,966,026.90    13
 641,959,232.27    14
 770,351,078.73    15
 924,421,294.48    16
 1,109,305,553.37    17
 1,331,166,664.04    18
 1,597,399,996.85    19
 1,916,879,996.22    20

I hate planned obsolescence  :P

Well to say that they will pay for themselves "for so long" is just laughable.

If difficulty keeps up then they will be running for naught before early next year if not before.

Nothing to stop people pointing their USB miners at PPC and other SHA256 coins. Just saying.

true, i think PPC definitely has some chances to become big in the future!

The good news is the USB hubs and fans used for these should keep their value pretty well.  They could serve whatever USB miner comes next.  Or make it so the user will never be hot or looking for USB ports again  ;D

Truth, but if that was more profitable now then wouldn't people be doing that?

If not, then when it becomes more profitable than Bitcoin, will it still be worth the electricity? I mean free money is free money, but if you are making 20 cents a day off of a dozen block erupters then I think even for free electricity I would just make them into keychains and try to sell them for a few bucks :P

Unless they legitimately don't want to sell because they are interested in keeping the product.  I might agree that a fair price for my widget is $N, but I still might not want to sell it because then I'd have to go buy another widget.

Still, I think your point is well made.

They only use 2.5 watts. A Raspberry PI uses 3.5 watts. Power usage is negligible.

They seemed like a fun thing to resell, but Canary cornered the market on that.

Mining Bitcoin is a rich man's game now.  Good luck to all those who want to play!

ohohoh, there definitely is such a thing as price discovery.

See, available hardware will limit that.  Math can't get the the way of common sense.  Currently, the network it at ~500 terahashes/s, with a difficulty of ~50 million.  For rough estimates, we can say that the network is 10x the difficulty.  So, if we have to hit 750 million difficulty, that is a 15x increase in difficulty, which would require a 15x increase in hashing power, raising the network to 7.5 PETAhashes/s.  There's no way any ASIC companies can deliver that much hardware that quickly.  

The estimates that make sense to me are about a 3 petahash network by the end of the year, which would give a difficulty rise of 6x, which sits us at 300 million, well below our 750 million cutoff.  

Difficulty cannot keep rising at this speed, it has to level off at some point.  And my guess (however little it may be based on) is that that level-off will be around 500 million difficulty.

Amen. Why is that such a hard concept for people to understand? The only time one can say a price is to high is when there are no buyers.

They were useless when they were $150 each too..  Never could figure out why people were buying these things like it was cotton candy..

They look pretty and wifey/gf don't get upset when they run 24/7 :D

I'd buy a handful if they were $20 or less.  I love the one I have, it's very cute.  It'd be quite the novelty to buy a few hubs and a raspberry pi and actually have a legitimate honest to god mining operation, instead of "that one that I sometimes run when I'm using my desktop anyway".

This.  I have 11 of them now.  They're mining at double the rate my GPUs were, and they're not sucking 1200W of power and raising the temp of the house by 5C.

As long as it is hobby, it is ok. Hobby has to cost something afterall

I'll go in on your group buy!

or depends on which side of the table you are on

These will sell at $5 - $7 each at the end of this year. Just wait for it

+1

But then you will hear the correct price is $1 each

AsicMiner shares are dropping fast and no word of any new products. SELL!
https://www.havelockinvestments.com/reports.php

Bam!  I'll second this request.  Let me hitch a ride with you. 

I purchase 100 of them for 35 each. Which I personally thing that I overpaid for them. I should of have pay $20 .

The first one I got I pay 75, I was so stupid to pay that amount never, never will make my ROI back.

What's the best alt coin to point these guys at when btc difficulty is too high?

use coinchoose.com, there you can check all the alt coins

Someone mentioned it must be SHA256 right?

be is sha256 only, coinchoose has sha256 and scrypt comparison, so far btc is the best coin for sha256

BTC Guild has merged mining if you are on PPLNS, i set my NMC payout address to my btc-e account and trade them for BTC

I would pay $20ish for a block erupter, Anymore than 25 and you've lost me as a buyer.

with today's 30% difficulty jump, I don't see anyone would make back ROI on erupters, $10 would be okay, $20 is too much for 300MH/s of erupters

Ah, But would the company even sell them that cheap is the question

Here, let me modify your post to take into account that opinions are like arseholes and that your opinion is thankfully not the centre of the universe of human understanding:


From someone who has retired 60+gpus over the last few months, they are a godsend. Everything is relative.

Of course if you are just buying them to try to get your 90 day ROI, that boat sailed a looooooong time ago.

The CORRECT forum for that FUD would be over at 9gag.

Speculation != Fact.

Not that that seems to matter of course. :-)

Coinchoose is a neat gimmick, but there are a lot of profitable coins that don't show up there.  Not sure if this is the admins preference, bullsh*t politics, lack of updates, etc.

That said, you can mine Zetacoins (SHA256) with USB erupters and turn out 3 to 5 more times profit in trade.  ;-)

Inb4: "scam coinz", "oddree sells erupterz", "coinchoose is tehbestest"

You can ask for coins to be added to Coinchoose. The guy (sal002) has his hands pretty full, so you should give him links to block explorere, icon, exchange, etc. for your favourite coin.

If there is a good coin to mine that's profitable keep It a damn secret and keep it off coinchoose. Once its on there so many people will mine it that the profitabil ity will go to crap.

Too late.  :P
Besides, this is a dilemma. If you want a coins to succeed, you need to give it exposure, so that it gets widest possible adoption, but then it's profitability will start to converge on that of BTC. If you don't give it exposure, then you are just dooming a coin from the start: pump and dump.

It is more like there are 10 coins created every minute and hard to keep up (let along find a nice block explorer plus exchange for the coin).  Plus many coins don't get on an API with an exchange so I can't list them (CoinEx and PhenixEx don't have API's yet to get order data). I try to have every coin on Cryptsy, BTC-e and BTER.com with the exception of the CPU only coins (because they don't lend themselves to a good comparison between GPU mining coins).  

What coins specifically am I missing?

I was speaking to Zetacoin when I made those comments, and you have since added it to your list.  :-)  So allow me to 'eat my words' on that comment.

But I understand new coins popping up *constantly* - and I hadn't thought of needing an API to put it into a sensible list. 

Off topic: My other favorite that would be nice to see on Coinchoose is Primecoin.  But that is probably a can of worms.

Yep - I had it up for like 5 minutes and compared it to Quark - but got deluged with emails about how you can't compare the two.  Too much hassle unless someone clears the air on how to compare all the non-GPU coins :)

I just recently bought a block erupter for $48, and have it mining Zetacoins, which is barely profitable at the current exchange rate.

But, it is profitable, and will pay for itself in 45 days at current rate. Obviously there are variables that affect that, and I have to pay attention to it.

Very soon it looks like I will need to switch to mining bitcoins directly, and at the current difficulty it would take 90+ days to break even. Even this is not bad for break even time. Of course the difficulty will hit 65 mill to 75 mill around that time, maybe even higher at the rate Avalon and BFL are now shipping their asic miners.

I'm just glad I didn't spend the $3000 to $4500 to buy one of those only to see that I've missed the window of opportunity. I actually saw an auction for one of the BFL Jally's go for $2500 a few weeks ago.

My goal is to mine enough to buy a few bitcoins, maybe buy better mining hardware etc.. and just keep going with it. But, as long as it generates a profit its worth doing.

I missed out on the days of a 9 day ROI on these, and those days will never occur again.

If they do in fact drop in price, which is likely because I've seen them go from $120 each on Ebay to $48 in just a couple of months. Once they get to $30 or less I'll buy a few more because those will just hash away and eventually generate some coins.

I believe that bitcoins will rise in value, and reach $250 to $300 again. At that price then I will be able to recoup my costs, and then some. But, its a calculated risk, and with any risk, there is a chance that the price of bitcoins won't reach that value. We'll see.

I respectfully disagree that block erupter USBs are useless.

Looking at everything through the lens of ROI, is in my view a very limited, myopic view of the Bitcoin universe.

It's a fun hobby where you actually get to make at least part of your money back, while supporting the network so that evildoers do not take it over.

I am ScaryHash !!!

Defender of Bitcoin !

Yes, because 330MH is such a great defense against people with many 2TH rigs...  ::)

With the increase in value for BTC, and the expected rise going forward USB Block Erupters will continue to be useful. Even when the difficulty reaches 75 mill.

I believe that the difficulty is going to start leveling off as I read in a previous post, possibly at the 85 to 90 mill level.

And if the value of BTC continues to rise, these Block erupters will continue to generate a small amount. For someone like me getting in just recently, and not having thousands to invest in mining gear this is an entry level for mining.

The USB Block Erupters are selling on Ebay for $33 to $35, which is much better than the $120 they were selling for just a month ago. And if they come down even more then I will be buying more of them since they will pay for themselves within 90 days even with the difficulty level increasing.

Once they pay for themselves, why not just keep on mining with them. They take so little power its not even funny. And if BTC reaches even close to the levels discussed on other threads they will be quite profitable.

The goal here is to do what I can, regardless of what others are doing. I don't let the actions of others discourage me from what I can do.

BitFury is shipping.  You're delusional.

So quoting from a previous post.

Math can't get the the way of common sense.  Currently, the network it at ~500 terahashes/s, with a difficulty of ~50 million.  For rough estimates, we can say that the network is 10x the difficulty.  So, if we have to hit 750 million difficulty, that is a 15x increase in difficulty, which would require a 15x increase in hashing power, raising the network to 7.5 PETAhashes/s.  There's no way any ASIC companies can deliver that much hardware that quickly. 

Obviously this was before the most recent difficulty increase.

So yes the difficulty will continue to increase, but it will begin to level off. I'm not sure where that will begin, and maybe I'm being hopefull that it will start at 85 to 90 mill. But it will level off as hardware manufacturers finally catch up with their preorders and the massive flow of new hardware slows down.

I agree it will begin leveling off at some point.  Thinking that this point is the 80-90M difficulty is where I thought you were bonkers.

There are a LOT of ASICs preordered that more or less will show up and begin hashing.  The 200TH (formerly 100TH) project is coming online fully, a number of other mines are coming on, and I fully expect the difficulty will shoot past 1B, which is where the early Avalon miners stop being profitable.  People will continue ordering hardware well past the point it's worth running, IMO.

The other factor which affects profitability is the price of BTC, which at $140 today is 12 times the price it was in January. I personally started looking into all of this in May and saw BTC drop to $68 and then rebound. And its increasing steadily.

I've been reading other threads that are predicting the value of BTC will continue to increase at the 10x to 12x per year. I have a hard time believing that will continue much longer, but even a 5x to 6x increase next year will put the price of BTC at $700 to $800 each. If that occurs it will keep me mining even if I can only get a BTC every 3 months at my fastest mining rate.

But, that being said, I want to get as many BTC now as I can, and 10 to 20 block erupters will generate 1 to 2 BTC every month for the short term.

Just buy BTC directly for your plan to have a higher level of predictability.

The increase in efficiency with ASICs is somewhere between 100-1000 fold.  I'd expect the difficulty to end up plateauing between 100 M and 5 B, since we were plateauing at 1 M - 5 M before with just GPUs.

At the current price and 5 B as the difficulty, my block erupters are only slightly unprofitable, while my BitFury device is still profitable.

Difficulty is now over 86+ millions

I'm not worried... (nervously checks the knc site for any news of shipment)

what I dont get it is: for 3.0 BTC I can get 12, reaching ~ 4.0GB/s, It isn't cheap comparing with the blade (5.5, I can get 13 GB/s), but if I look on ebay, a 5GB/s BFL is being sold for 5-8 BTC.. so there is an advantage on the block erupter that people just ignore: It's here and you can buy 1,5,30,50! I have one blade and one BFL, 14 lancelots and 20 erupter.. the erupter are the one that give me less headache. They mine, they are not loud, they work fine with rapi, I dont need ventilator.. they just work! I do 31260 GH/s all of them still profitable (I'm doing 5.3 BTC/m)...

Every year for the past few years I hear radio ads that say the "experts" say gold is going to rise 30-50% and more and COULD go higher... then it doesn't.  Gold has gone down steadily, even though the "EXPERTS" give the same speech every year about how "Don't worry, this time for sure it'll go up!  Really!".

The idea of BTC rising above $300 is utter nonsense, it will not happen.  The only people even making such ridiculous claims are the ones who need it to go that high to make any sort of profit at all because they foolishly bought ASICS without stopping to think and research properly.  

You really have to listen to these radio ads and anyone speculating anything.  They are full of important buzz words like "could, might, can, history has shown, etc".

And it is also utter foolishness that the ASIC manufacturers are SELLING their ASICS, because if they thought they could make a better profit by mining with them, they'd be doing it!  Every time you send an ASIC manufacturer or reseller money for an ASIC, they laugh at you and collect money!  You may eventually get an ASIC, but it is too late now.

Then what, pray, is mining @ 20GH/s at my place?

Picture or it never happened.

Your time frame is WAY too short.

I've been in gold only a little over a decade, and let me tell you, the jumps have been PHENOMENAL. Sure, the last few years have actually seen a dip, but long term, it IS only going to go up. Trying to treat it like a get-rich-quick pump-and-dump stock will only burn you. Yes, there are companies selling gold. But what I see *everywhere* I drive, and in the newspaper, to the masses, is new businesses whose sole business it is to BUY gold from you. That's what the masses are doing... selling their gold, their "extra jewelry." Governments openly admit to manipulating the price, do you really think they try to manipulate it up? (If you do, you might want to revisit what happened when Germany recently demanded their gold from the U.S. Fed.)

Same thing with Bitcoin. It is a revolutionary new technology, unlike anything mankind has ever had. It's unique properties, and the fact that people will eventually want what Bitcoin offers, are what will have the bitcoin price crashing through $300/btc in due time. $100 is a steal, yes, even after the meteoric rise from <$1. And this is despite the fact that, while awareness is growing, it's STILL only a fraction of a fraction of people that actually own bitcoins. When bitcoins come to be owned by just the next wave of early adopters, the price will be high enough that we'll look back and include $100 as part of the "glory days" of cheap bitcoins.

EDIT: Spelling

As you wish:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=253749.msg2991365#msg2991365

I'm still willing to pay $20 each to grief people who are still waiting for BFL preorders by jacking up the difficulty slightly.

If I were in government I'd definitely mandate "a USB block erupter in every home". [/troll]

Actually, such policy would be the best for network decentralisation.

So, if I have a BFL order that has not shipped yet, and I keep buying block erupters, does that mean I'm griefing myself?

 ;D ;D ;D

westkybitcoins -- I know what is happening with gold.  The US Government (and possibly in other countries too) is melting the bars down, creating cores made of tungsten, and casting a thin layer of gold back on them.

Surely you have google searched the tungsten filled gold bars, haven't you?

For those who don't know, tungsten weighs almost exactly the same as gold, and is being used to create gold bars that don't have a lot of gold in them.

Gold coins are probably ok, as are small gold bars, but the big ones.... I'd be very suspicious.

ROFLMAO!!!!! You're dripping drops into a nearly full bucket and patting yourself on the back cause you're 'greifing' the preorder people.  We're almost at 1 PETAHASH of network speed and you think the paltry 1TH or so is causing grief?  Man, I really needed that laugh, thanks.

Yup. Tungsten-filled gold is the new big thing.

But it's been worse than that.

http://www.emirates247.com/markets/gold/tons-of-gold-imports-turn-to-dust-on-arrival-2010-08-15-1.279082

I agree with you, I wouldn't touch anything alleged to be gold that's bigger than a one-ounce piece at this point (and I would test those pretty carefully.)

I wonder what happened to all the real gold that the late lawful ruler of Libya was hoarding and that mysteriously vanished after the NATO invasion?

EU countries demanded to see their gold, stored in US. US had to get it form somewhere :)

Hard to take Tom Truong, the starter of this thread seriously, when he posts trash like this on his website:



Fact: Evil Jews Regime used fake news to program Americans to become stupid.
The illuminati (also known as the Bilderberg Group) commanded a branch of Satan's army known as the Al-Qaeda to launch attack on America. Read more


http://civilwarinusa.blogspot.cz/

Nah, they always show them the same 2 bars. :)

just noticed lots of ppl listed their usb miners on ebay at ~$25 per stick, there are now over 200 listings.

Yep, they are hoping to find enough suckers to make at least part of their money back on those erupters.  I'd be doing the same thing if I were stupid enough to buy USB erupters or any ASIC for that matter.

Right now USB Block Erupters are currently at 0.10 BTC each.

And they still aren't worth their purchase price!

Yeah I won't get any more of them unless they are around $5 - then shipping goes and destroy ROI

ROI never existed with these things bro. :D

I would certainly take a few off the hands of anyone who would be willing to sell them at $5  ::)

Alternatively, if you would like the chance to win one for the low low price of FREE, you can participate in this promo: http://redd.it/1nhs45

If you can buy miners (any miner) for 24$/gigahash, and get it in hands right now, you can make ROI by April.

So USBs *should* be 8$ apiece to make ROI.

USB isn't energy efficiency , I wont buy it even if its 6$ a piece.

Your ignore button is shining dude XD

When we're old and grey these thing are going to be like 1st ed Spider-Man comic books IMHO.

Darn it I knew these would be worth more if I left them in the case.

I'm mining alt coins with my sticks.  I'm hoping they'll go up in value.

I kept the cases of all my 141 units. Just in case... (pun intended)  ;D

What alt coins do you like?

I've made more on CGB than anything, it's got a non-linear block reward decrease, meaning that it should increase in rarity, such that even if it doesn't grow in popularity it will still grow in value. If it does both, it will be through the roof.

Used to mine $1/day with bitcoin on the one video card.. now nothing. Diversified across the board on cryptsy and not regretting it. I'm up 35% since just yesterday without lifting a finger. Good times.

Good to know, I just ordered 3 more BE's. Will keep the cases.

Some cases of old '80s home computers and video game systems are worth more than the systems themselves.

At difficult of 189,281,249
If USB Block Erupters are price at $5 each then it's worth it.

You should earn about $3.63 a month.

Before power usage and ignoring price increase?

Hey if you want to sell me one at $5 I'll take it

9$ incluiding shipping would be the ub3r limit for a BE to make ROI, they get 3.5$ a month, so in about 5 months you'll get ROI, if there hasn't been 100PH/s added to the network...

Has anyone come up with something else to do with them once they truly are useless?  Something like SETI or Folding?  That goes for the FPGAs and BFL Jallys in a month or so.

Mine SHA-256 altcoins.  That's all they're good for.  I guess you could look at them and admire the tech, but besides hashing SHA-256, they're useless.

Don't they have aluminum heat-sinks on them? Surely that's enough weight to hold down a piece of paper.

You could make techno jewelery out of them. Or keychain holders.

Funny you should mention it:
http://stanislavs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/keyring.jpg
(That was a BE that burnt out on me)

Very cool! That is sort of what I was thinking about. :D

done it a while ago with a none functional unit i had, they look better without the CE marking

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=293587.msg3144466#msg3144466

Yes that looks nicer. Good to see another Dutch bitcoin user (judging from the Albert Heijn bonuskaart). :)

I am not dutch but I do live in Amsterdam, there are MANY dutch bitcoin users though, sold a good few erupters via marktplaats. woukd love to see some bars or cafe's in NL accepting btc.

There is at least one I know of: Stadscafé De Waag at Markt 11, Delft (behind the old town hall). About an hour by train from Amsterdam.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/De_Waag_Bitcoin.jpg

http://www.de-waag.nl/Stadscafe/Home

Thats what I mean, only one.... there are several around berlin and London, Amsterdam is certainly cooler than the two cities in my eyes, more btc acceptance please  ;D two confrences is good though ;D

There is a Satoshi Square every first Wednesday of the month at the Leidseplein (next time on 6 November). I've never been there but maybe the cafe they go to also accepts Bitcoin.

See this thread: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236367.0 (use google translate so you can get an idea what is said).

I just sold off all my USB block erupters. It's really more worth while to buy from cex.io (https://cex.io/r/0/cowandtea/0/) (referral link) instead. I get higher GH/s and the electricity, management and etc is all free.

So 550 GH/s (equivalent of a KnC Jupiter) costs 550 * BTC 0.14 = BTC 77 or US$ 11,704 (at the current Bitstamp price of US$ 152). The Jupiter costs US$ 4,995. That is a huge premium (234% of the price of the Jupiter)!

Bear in mind that not everyone that would like to be mining has that kind of time or capital. It also beats waffling around with so many bit-funded mining startups. I like that you can redeem for the hardware if you want to, or cash in GHS for BF1's or so on.

Looks like their price is going back up. I bought all mine for $7 including shipping, the places and everywhere else has them at $22. Guess that was that.

What?! I was waiting for when i could buy one for $7 shipped!, All the damn prices i can find are like $12+shipping (of like $10-$20)

That is because btc prices sky rocketed  ;)

anybody sellign those cheap USBs in europe so he can send to other countries withotu crazy postal fees?

i had, and people were happy about the only 5€ worldwide insured postage here

but they are not produced anymore and sold out everyhwere... that's why they deflate now