o.O

You'd still have to use internet quota in order to use the spare internet quota.  It wouldn't work.

EDIT:  Redacted.

And condensation-killed Singles.

I just realized though... in order to make it work, one would have to "pre-send" a whole bunch of 0.01 BTC amounts to different addresses.  That way, the coinage not sent remains old.  If I were to just send 0.01 out of 1 BTC, then suddenly, the other 0.99 BTC is brand new again, and cannot be sent fee-less for a while afterward.

Thanks for the input Blazr - I was looking for more of a technical response about when a fee is required/not required, but it's good to know that even though the fee is "required", it still eventually gets pushed through.

Mainly, I was curious if a site that gives away free small amounts of BTC could potentially send those amounts as soon as they are requested instead of waiting to send them all in one big batch.

No.

5% of the network could accept it and continue on.  They'd just be on a different blockchain than everyone else.

Why would you want to change the algo just because ASICs came into play though?  Doing so would be admitting that Bitcoin logic is faulty, that it can never grow large enough to warrant support from investment into ASIC mining, and would ultimately destroy confidence in Bitcoin itself.

Is it possible to send someone a bitcent without a fee?  How old would the coins have to be in order to do so?

Ahhh, yes indeed.  Beyond the limit for most Singles.

Huh?  It was beyond the limit for 3 of mine already.

Then I just got burned because I didn't do due diligence research on finding out how many others of these ASICs were produced.

However, I understand your point.  The concern is that ASIC mining will increase difficulty so vastly and so quickly, that miners will not be able to accurately formulate a proper ROI estimate, even if being conservative, and overestimate what they will actually be able to produce.

Certainly, you've exaggerated the scale with 100 GH/s @ 1w, but the electric usage will still be nearly negligible compared to the initial outlay for the units.

I think more accurate calculations and assumptions can be made when BFL makes their announcement.  Some people will be willing to take the risk, and others will not.  If they release 1 GH/s units, it would be much more difficult to increase the difficulty quickly compared to 100 GH/s units.  They'd have to ship 100x as many units that way.  So the GH/s per unit is an important factor, as well as the (guesstimated) price per unit, guesstimated production capacity, etc.

Ahhh, much different from actually running a chip that fast!  Especially given the results of real-world testing of the 896 firmware, I doubt that we'll see anything much faster - 896 seems to be beyond the limit for most chips already.

Entropy - I get charged on my credit card all the time before a shipment is made.  The company I work for does the same.  I have never heard of it violating any sort of consumer protection laws.

Ok, I'll bite.

At 100 GH/s with negligible electricity usage, I would stand to make nearly $10,000/month at current price/difficulty ratios.

Most reasonable people would expect a ROI of equal to or greater than the stock market (in this case, greater, since Bitcoin investments are still generally very risky).  I personally would like to see payback within 6 months, but would probably accept a payback of up to 1 year.

So, if the price is $60k, payback in 6 months, I would order.  If it is $70k=$120k, payback in 7 months, I might not.  If it is $120k+, I definitely would not.

Now, say I have the knowledge (or an educated guess) that you might drop the price from $60k to $10.  Ok, fine.  My payback period just got increased from 6 months to 3,000 years.  Whoops, should have seen that one coming.  It'll pay back, but not in my lifetime!

Ok, so the most I am willing to risk is a 6 month payback at current rates, but with the expectation that the price could drop to as low as $10, and a maximum of 3 years payback if it does.  If the price drops to $10 for 100 GH/s, I could expect 1.3 million of these boxes to be purchased, eventually, at the current price point of ~$5/BTC.  With 1.3 million, we'd have 131M GH/s, or 131.4 PH/s of network power.  The payback on these boxes would be 6 months at that price/difficulty ratio, so they'd be generating around $1.60/month worth of BTC.

Still, those 1.31 million boxes wouldn't be produced and sold in a day.  It would take months, perhaps years to get that many produced, packaged, sold, and shipped out.  I would be expecting this, and would maybe expect difficulty to double every 2 weeks at the most.  So, the first 2 weeks, I would make $5,000, the second two weeks, $2,500, third two weeks, $1,250, etc.  Basically, my revenue would virtually max out at just below $10,000 by the time my goal ROI of 6 months is up.  I'd still be making the $1.60/month extra, but that amount would be negligible compared to my initial investment.

Of course, I want to have some extra money for my time and effort after it's all said and done.  So, if I am expecting $10,000 in revenue, the maximum I would be willing to pay might be around $7,500.

Your turn.

I won't know.  No one will.  That's why one must make an educated guess.  Your educated guess is different from my educated guess, and that is fine.  Overall though, the market will know when to stop buying ASICs because the ROI is too high for the risk involved.  Individually, some people will step over that line anyway, and take absolutely forever to pay off their miners.

The customer is one and the same.  If the projected ROI is not sufficient or quick enough to mitigate the risk of a price drop (and increased difficulty because of it), then the first miner shouldn't have bought in the first place.  If the projected ROI of the second miner (assuming price of ASIC miners has reached rock-bottom and isn't expected to move downward any further) isn't high enough as opposed to other investments they could be putting their money towards, then they won't invest anyway.

So, what's your point?  Are you just warning us to make smart decisions because future price drops will probably be coming?  If so, then I agree with you - that sort of thinking is smart and should be part of any miner's decision to purchase or not purchase miners.  If not, then what point are you trying to get across?

I received the same email Inspector.  Evidently, they misled us (probably not on purpose) when they said more info was available if an NDA was signed.  More than likely, whoever made the post on the forum didn't realize that the information was only intended for commercial partners.

Again, miners should do what makes the most financial sense to them.  They should be sure to calculate any expected price drops into their equation, and decide when the best point to purchase (if any) is.

What you are describing is ASIC miners being priced high to start with, then as time goes on and competition is introduced, the prices will drop to the equilibrium of supply and demand.  That is typical of any product.  Any miner who does not take this price curve into account has only themselves to blame.

BFL wants to maximize the revenue of the miners, because the miners are their customers.  If they can increase the total revenue of miners, they increase their customer base and potential revenue.  That's why I keep saying they won't do anything that will harm the Bitcoin price, because that reduces their potential sales, as sales will be capped by the difficulty.

For some reason, you seem to assume that all miners are idiots, and won't take difficulty increases and price drops into account.  As the ROI is stretched to longer periods, you WILL see a decrease in the number of purchases, as no one wants to hold on to a risky, volatile asset for a length period of time in the hopes that it will pay off.  But BEFORE it reaches the point of being unable to return on the investment at all, people will stop buying them.

I hold to the position that, as long as BTC price doesn't drop significantly, ALL ASICs that are purchased will eventually pay back.  It might take a while, depending on the price point at which they are purchased and such, but the market can judge at what point the risk outweighs the potential revenue, and at what point the ROI is not worth the investment.

You'll still have Mem around for calling them scammers even after they give 100 of us legitimate ASIC units.

Fortunately for us, ensuring the continued success of Bitcoin is exactly what WILL maximize BFL's bottom line, and they know that.  They wouldn't do anything that would harm confidence in Bitcoin or cause it to die.  BFL will only continue selling miners so long as mining is profitable, which means they should and will do everything in their power to maximize miners' revenue.

+1 for that.  It worked on 1/4, though I only ran it for a short while.

BFL seemed to indicate that they ran chips up to 1.05 GH/s.

Haha, bummer!  Glad to hear you had no issues using them though. 

Cablepair - BFL already stated that $5000 was far too high a price point for one, and potentially two of their SC products.  They also stated that they wanted to make the ASIC miners available to "the average person".

Again, BFL doing ANYTHING to reduce confidence in Bitcoin would be essentially biting the hand that feeds them.  It would make no financial sense.  Yes, they are in it for the money, but the money comes in as long as Bitcoin remains a project that people are confident about.  I do not see how it would be advantageous for BFL to abuse the network for their own gain with the potential to undermine the Bitcoin project.  They would be far better served (and have even confirmed as much) to simply produce the products that people want, and sell them to those people.

From what BFL is saying, they WANT to see Bitcoin succeed, they WANT to put these ASICs in the hands of the everyday person, and they do NOT want to mine with them.  You can put on your tinfoil hat and say that they are lying and it's all one big coverup to bring down Bitcoin to the ashes, but I believe that BFL is a company with good intentions and smart leadership, and will not work to destroy Bitcoin, only to make it stronger. 

The best way for BFL to make a large profit is to increase confidence (and therefore price) of Bitcoin.  All these conspiracy theories about wealthy people banding together to maliciously attack the network just make absolutely no sense, and are not founded in any sort of reality I can imagine.