No. It has guaranteed break even. ROI or "return on investment" actually means that the investors get some profit or benefit from the investment.

I see that 99% of the folks in here use the term incorrectly, as it was a synonym for break-even, which is incorrect. FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_on_investment

Man, you really hate me. Anyhow, I can guarantee you that I'm not sad at all.

1) I don't think lower prices "hurt the coin". That's BS. This is a speculative market, bubbles inflate and burst. In 2011 the bottom was 1/16th of the op (bottom=$2; high=$32), and in now way "the coin was hurt". Investors are just waiting a more profitable entry point, they do not get scared by bears.

2) As I wrote many times I see cheaper coins on the way, thus I've sold most of mine between $128 and $109. Still, I have a healthy amount on a paper wallet that I won't touch no matter what, because I love so much this coin I cannot be 100% out of it. And still, I holded till $128 while I predicted a bear market since mid April because "I wanted to believe", but taking into account that I'm in this game to try to get as many coins as I can, it would be kind of retarded for me to hold when I'm convinced that I will be able to buy back cheaper in the future

3) I'm a long term bull, and I personally believe that the sooner this bubble fully deflates, the sooner Bitcoin will resume the sustainable growth trend that will precede the next hype cycle. In other words: I'd prefer a fast crash to the bottom than a multi-month bear market as we are actually having.

Bitfury offers 120GH/s units for $2100? Avalon offered +68GH/s unit for $1200 when the difficulty was 6 times lower, so it was cheaper.

There's no evidence of Bitfury mining with customers units? Give me a break, they haven't got any ASIC unit yet, you could say exactly the same thing about Avalon a few months ago - until they had the first units there was no evidence of them mining with customers units... And still, I don't see that overwhelming evidence anywhere.

Only difference between Avalon in late 2012 (when they took the first preorders) and Bitfury now is that Bitfury has some sample chips, while Avalon had nothing... But, this is an argument that works in two ways, for ex.: why is Bitfury asking for upfront money if they already had enough to develop the chips, which is by far the most expensive part of the development?

I have the impression you were not around when Avalon batch #1 were on sale, the potential profit in taking that gamble was HUGE (you could potentially lose $1 against winning $30), the risk on Bitfury is similar (ok, maybe slightly lower, but not much) but the fact is the potential profits are much smaller. And, FYI, Avalon was a big WIN for everyone that had the balls to take that gamble. Kudos to them for that.

Again: I don't know if you were around, but Avalon increased the price of their Batch #3 because their batch #1 costed $1,200 and were sold on ebay for +$30,000.... I don't know if you run a business, but there is no way a company sells a product for a price that allows resellers to make a x30 instant profit on their work. NO WAY. Following that "ebay situation", Batch #3 was priced in terms of expected ROI... Avalon screwed up the timings and thus with ROI projections, and now they acknowledge this mistake and offer a full refund to anyone asking for it. Seriously, what else do you want? Batch #3 price was fair if they were delivered when difficulty was 10 to 15 million, that was the plan, now the difficulty is above that point because they screwed up and they offer you a full refund... OK, take that refund and move on, you accepted "no refund policy" and they backtracked that policy, fair deal in my book.

I'm an Avalon customer with batch #3 on the way and I would have loved for them to deliver in early May, or to offer a partial refund to customers while still delivering the units... But that's wishful thinking, they are in now way obliged to do that, take your refund and invest on Bitfury if they are so much superior to Avalon in your opinion.

EDIT: and BTW, I *may* consider doing what I said in my last sentence, not because I believe Bitfury is more "honest" than Avalon, just because a batch #3 refund will allow me to buy more GH/s for my BTC. As simple as that, no need to whine.

Pretty much this.

Sorry, is Bitfury offering ready-made units or are they gathering pre-orders and asking for upfront payment for units delivered in the future? How is Bitfury's business model so superior's to Avalon? They already collected money and AFAIK they didn't deliver a single unit so far. Bitfury has a past history of successful FPGA development, as Avalon's ngzhang has. Pretty similar situation in my book, but please illustrate me how it's so different.

And BTW, 20k may seem a very big investment for you, but I remind you that only one BFL mini-rig was more expensive than that... And that many users in these forums are gambling more $ on KnC, for a much smaller $/potential profit ratio.

Or maybe they would just mine themselves to then sell the units at a price that doesn't allow ROI. ASIC have nothing to do with GPUs or FPGAs, it's a tricky game, nobody is going to sell you money-printing machines at a price that allow you to easily achieve ROI. Why should any company do that? If they invest their own money to develop the hardware they will maximize their profit, and in this case maximizing profit means a) you mine yourself or b) you sell the units for more BTC they will likely generate in all their life span. The only way you need to offer a good ROI to your customers in the ASIC game is if you need their money for the development beforehand.

BTW, I don't know if you were an Avalon batch #1 customer, I seriously doubt it, because if you were you would know that the ROI those batch #1 Avalon returned is insane. The guy that took the gamble to buy 10 or more of them, is now FILTHY rich.

That wouldn't have been possible without pre-orders, crowd-funding, or call it as you wish.

Well, if they offered a PARTIAL refund that would be super nice. It would be great news for all of us that bought batch #3 units, and it would trigger a lot of cheering and praising to Avalon. But, I don't see how they are obliged to do that. A full refund is pretty fair and easier for them: you either wait for your unit or you get all your money back. At least they priced their unit in BTC and they will give a full BTC refund - we cannot say the same of that other company called BFL.

weeeeeeeeee

double digits knock knock knocking at Gox's door

OK, then you took your decision, time to move on.

Pretty much this.

Batch #3 is indeed VERY delayed. And let's remember its pricing was based on a certain difficulty level we doubled a while ago. I guess the best option now is asking for a refund.

At least it seems there won't be delays for the chips.

I bet that chips will be hashing in the wild before batch #3 is completed.

Sad, we paid the highest price for batch 3 and now the only option we have is to ask for a refund. I guess they will see many refund requests in the following weeks... And I guess they will just keep the units.

He just said that chip orders are placed every week.

So no, they are not getting the chips "in one giant order". If you ordered on April, 16th, you get the chips at the beginning of July. If you order now, probably end of August, beginning of September.

@Vycid: I would never answer you about what I do with MY money. Funny thing about Bitcoin, anybody can scrutinize your financials. You could ask as many questions you want, but I would never tell you how many of my BTC I convert to fiat, when or how.

No, MUCH cheaper - around $25

But with a big production capacity and adequate distribution they would make tons of money, and do a greater good to Bitcoin.

But big production capacity is expensive and difficult to quickly set up.

TL;DR - so much fail in California

We are really approaching "NO ROI", that's math. Each week "NO ROI" is closer. But ATM ROI is still possible. People is just hoping there won't be any further delays.

FYI: those tickers exist since ages ago. And MtGox has an api for other scam coins apart from LTC. It's a pretty pointless fact, as they already had that ticker 6 months ago.

This.

The guy knows what he's talking about, he have run a big mining op.

Well, that scenario it's been likely from the very beginning. That's why Satoshi is a pseudonym and he/them used Tor, right?

Sooner or later, Bitcoin may face that kind of hostility. But it was designed to be resilient to that type of attack. The sheeps will say "oh, it's the coin of the pedophiles, stay away from it, just use the USD, the land of the freedom bill that it's used only by honest people and that cannot be used by pedo-bears".

But IMO Bitcoin will survive to that and raise stronger. There are a lot of sheeps, especially in the US, but there is also a lot of people who are not sheep and want to use REAL money like Bitcoin.

In my opinion Bitcoin needs to be stress-tested. This experiment need to resist a ban to be really successful.