Thanks for the tip CeeCee. I think I need to go and read a bit more about variance.

In fairness to vesperwillow, my November Jupiter, hashing at 660GHs had been averaging 0.5 BTC a day since it arrived last week. The last 24 hours have been a bit slower as there have been some longer running blocks, but it's still been about 0.38 on Slush's pool.


#           Block found at           Duration   Total shares    Your shares Your BTC reward
21050   2013-12-04 20:56:58   5:54:12   2136256505   3216780   0.03562181
21049   2013-12-04 15:02:46   1:52:39   660059896   1050300   0.03475407
21048   2013-12-04 13:10:07   1:29:54   536861068   812160   0.03830325
21047   2013-12-04 11:40:13   2:15:47   802450507   1287360   0.03828439
21046   2013-12-04 09:24:26   1:40:52   594906424   912600   0.04082403
21045   2013-12-04 07:43:34   2:11:11   773472128   1223640   0.04210782
21044   2013-12-04 05:32:23   4:27:56   1581873847   2415420   0.03565230
21043   2013-12-04 01:04:27   1:28:09   519766669   804600   0.03768075
21042   2013-12-03 23:36:18   3:10:12   1121630102   1794960   0.04282651
21041   2013-12-03 20:26:06   1:26:57   506502935   803520   0.04032198

I think that's a little harsh as none of us know who will produce vapourware next. I trust KNC after they delivered more than I'd ordered in an acceptable timeframe, but I'm not prepared to gamble over $12,500 that they can ship a Neptune to me by the beginning of March. If the Genesis block is correct, if it arrived at the start of April then it would be too late - I would be better just holding my coins. If the Genesis block is wildly over then my Jupiter will still be profitable. I guess I've bought my last mining rig!

This also means that it's a race for the ASIC mining rig manufacturers. If they don't take your money now then then they know you will buy from the company that has product on the market the week before them. Hence the pre-order process which provides lock-in for the vendor. Of course that can mean that you've given your hard earned cash to a bedroom dreamer or a total flake. Some of us will get lucky and back the right horse, but most of us probably won't and will end up staring at expensive piece of kit that will never earn it's purchase price.

I know it's an unpopular view, but the mining community (including me) drive the ASIC manufacturers behaviour as we want absolute certainty, and won't accept any delay to a forecast date. The KNC thread is a great example. Despite everything, they delivered products that largely outperform their estimates and yet there are hundreds of posts complaining about being days (not months) late.

I don't believe that there is some massive conspiracy here. Apart from the real scammers, I think that most companies have probably underestimated the effort involved in designing an ASIC, and then producing a viable mining rig based around it. This probably leads to some questionable behaviour in some cases.

The pre-order piece makes sense (to the ASIC manufacturers) as the competition have proven that there is a queue of miners prepared to take the risk, and the money funds them (hopefully) through the development stage. If they are delayed, then the flow of pre-order money keeps the lights on until they ship, but some of them just won't make it. If they realise this then they might just keep taking money in the hope that they will recover and become quasi-ponzi schemes, or might have to mine using customer kit to get themselves out the hole.

We blame the ASIC producers, but it is demand from the mining community that fuels this arms race that we are all in.