Well even I am really worried whether it would be a sound investment buying one of their rigs. Why? Not because "it wont be worth mining" but exactly because of the diminishing returns and the very unstable markets (at this point).

If you look at BFLs range of products, they should all breakeven within 5-9 days of operation, at the current market price of the BTC. Even if you put aside the diminishing returns, the problem is what happens if the market crashes? Is this also calculated risk? What if inflation occurs? As I understand, the level of difficulty which is influenced by the hashing power should be enough to regulate the rate at which BTCs are issued. Is this a full proof system?

Even I am interested in getting a BFL device, but what worries me the most is the future of the BTC. If you look at the markets, they are currently down by more than 25% on the last 24hrs average price.

Say that something like this is going to occur, you would be left with a rather expensive piece of equipment (which at this scale is more like a capital investment, rather than equipment) which I doubt has much other use.

Good question actually, does anyone know any other use for the BFL ASICs?

I suspect they are. Once you open their calculator, it immediately gives you the specs of their 50 GH/s ASIC..

Also, if you go to the BFL website, you will notice an updated photo of the the same model. Yesterday it had the same photo as the 25 GH/s one. Quite peculiar no?


I just realized its INSANELY long.. hope it was worth the reading time  

^^ This!

Well hello everyone, I have a lot of things on my mind that I would like to share in this thread (related of course), but let me begin by introducing myself. Because of the anonymous nature of the Bitcoin community (exciting  ) it is only cool if we use pseudonyms. I am Erik.

This being my first post, I wont be talking too much I promise.

I got caught in by the Bitcoin frenzy a few days ago and by now I have done hours of extensive research on the subject. I must say I am quite excited by the whole idea, beginning with the potential of Bitcoin as a currency of the future and its anonymity, all the way to the possibility of actually capitalizing on its (currently) volatile and risky nature.

(now on the subject)

Butterfly Labs (aside from GPU mining tools) were the first dedicated bitcoin mining tools I encountered in my research. They gave me the impression of a well made product, about to make everything else useless (due to its impact on the global hashrate). I spent hours of calculating ROI if I were to buy their 50 GHS/s ASIC. I was seriously conflicted if it would be a good investment, given the fact that people have "already" started using them and they have already caused the huge increase in difficulty since around Jan 2013.

No doubt it would be profitable if I had one right now! However, I later realized that not only I can't have one until August (financial reasons),  but no one will because they havent even filled their pre-orders!! After a bit of research I was introduced more into the problem. This confused me a little and made me consider a few questions. Why haven't they shipped anything yet? Why have they been delaying it for soo long? What caused the almost exponential increase in difficulty since January? In fact, what really caused the mini-bubble the beginning of April?

I would just like to point out that I don't exactly have an opinion on BFL, and I am actually forming one as we speak. I liked the idea of having one of those and I would definitely choose BFL, but these new findings have made me skeptical.

A lot of people here have their own theories and one thing which really caught my eye is "BFL running their own ASICs". I am sure that this would hardly make sense if they were a reputed company which they supposedly are: selling their FPGA miners, promptly doing their refunds, etc. However, I find a strange coincidence here.

One could argue that the rapid increase in the hashing was caused by factors such as: increased interest due to more public attention, people investing more in newer mining hardware, etc. I believe that such a rapid increase was caused by something major. In addition to this, the BTC price significantly went up during this period, which is slightly contradictory. It is my understanding that increase in mining essentially acts like the Fed. Increasing the money supply should prevent hyperdeflation.

After reading that BFT accepted BTC for the pre-order of their ASICs, I realized that they might be behind the bubble. Just picture what a company with resources like them could do. They had the means to mine extensively, partially financed by this community (speaking of the payments done with CC, PayPal, wire-transfer). They already held extensive amounts of BTC (assuming that a large number of people also paid in BTC), in addition to probably investing themselves.

What if.. BFT (and Co) started buying BTC at such a huge rate, that they managed to move the markets significantly? This probably would have been enough to lure in less experienced investors who believed in making money off the volatility. What if they (BFT and Co) actually started a major sell off right at the time the price was about to plateau? This would have been more than enough to actually cause a panic sale, that would essentially crash the BTC (like it did).

I know it sounds a little bit crazy. I know it may even lack sense, mind you I am quite new to all of this.

However this would have left BFT and Co, assuming that they previously sat on a ton of BTCs, sitting on a HUGE pile of USD. A ponzi scheme would be like a silly joke compared to this.

What do you guys think?