1. Buy Bitcoins
2. Hold
3. ? ? ? ? ?
4. Profit (well, more than if you tried mining, likely)

With the difficulty ever increasing, all mining equipment have a limited life span, possibly measured in months.  Personally, I'd buy the coins outright and wait for them to increase in value instead.  They have to go up because they will become more scarce.  I've stopped GPU mining, for obvious reasons, and didn't enter the ASIC bandwagon...yet.  Their ROI isn't worth the risk and many have already been burned by it.  So, for me, they have become scarce.  I'm sure many others are in my boat.

Network hash rate increased ~ 600% in 4 months (from 25TH/s to 150TH/s) since ASICs started shipping...and the ramping up of ASIC production is just getting started...by many companies that haven't even begun shipping yet.  Expect a market flood.

I laugh at your 10% increase every month.  Do the math, and a little forecasting both optimistic and pessimistic, either way, the increase in ASIC hashing power will crush your returns faster than a Black Wednesday on the DOW.

Denial is a river in Egypt my friend.

I've been mining for 2 years now.  Made most of my BTC in the beginning when hashing power was within grasp of the common man.  I'd like to get into ASIC but I just can't justify the prices, especially if you have to pay in BTC.  I rather pay good old USD.

Just recently stop GPU mining.  I've reached my break even point on my GPU mining.  At current USD/BTC, it's just not worth it.  I'm willing to bet that a USB miner will no longer be worth mining in less than 6 months (1 BTC/device) from now and you will not recoup your 1 BTC you spent to get it.  I'll re-visit this post in 6 months and post an update.

If you're thinking about getting one of those USB ASIC miners that do about 330 MH/s for 1 BTC, then forget about it.

With all the ASICs coming online, and ASIC production scaling up, and new ASICs in the works, the network hash rate is about to SKYROCKET for the next seeable future.

Just look at the past 3 months of difficulty increases as an indicator on how much it's going to explode.  I expect with the next 6-12 months we are going see triple digit percent increases in difficulty over it's previous difficulty.

That means your little USB miner is going to earn SIGNIFICANTLY less every difficulty change.  So much so that these little devices will never return on investment (ROI.)

I ran a some numbers in Excel and these miners have a plateau on how much BTC they can earn/mine... and it's way less than they cost to obtained.

For example, at 1 BTC to obtain one, expected to get a max ROI of 0.8 BTC IF the average network hashrate increases by 15% per difficulty change (every two weeks or so) over the next 6-12 months.  That 15% is really conservative.  I'd expect your 1 BTC investment to recover less than half of that in mining.

And that's if you got the little miners within the week you paid for them.  Every week that goes by without a delivered miner reduces the max ROI, so obviously, pre-orders are a joke...

AT THE CURRENT PRICE OF ~ 1 BTC per device.

However, what I say goes out the window if you paid USD for it, but I would never pay BTC for them at this time.  There is no ROI on them, unless the prices significantly dropped to about 0.1 BTC, then maybe you could make a few times your initial investment before they become useless by earning too little.

Remember, this is not valid if you can pay USD for them because BTC is expected to increase in value, and BTC mined will be worth something down the road.  Can't say the same for USD.

Spending 1 BTC to get 0.8 BTC, maybe even less?  It's a no-brainer.  Don't do it, unless you want to look cool and hip to your friends, but don't expect a ROI if you're paying in BTC.

Update:

1. Govt buys all bitcoins
2. You sell
3. Profit
4. Start new blockchain
5. Repeat

That's why they wouldn't do it.
Geez, ppl, think a bit before posting crap!

Keep in mind that the fundamentals of Bitcoin hasn't changed since this downturn (I won't call it a crash or a bubble burst because of this reason.)

All that happened is some "investors" got spooked.  If you got burned by recent events, then I'm sorry for your loss but you' re a crappy investor.  Don't give up your day job (maybe one day you'll be paid in Bitcoins and have some.)  Bitcoin is not an investment vehicle, it's an exchange commodity.  Go back and read more about Bitcoin basics, it's not rocket science/brain surgery.

Bitcoin's value to other currencies is irrelevant.  Since Bitcoins are infinitely divisible, you'll always have some no matter where you get in (don't let the 8 decimal places fool you.  When we get there, we'll just adjust the protocol to add more decimal places, just for you Johnny-come-latelys.)

Bitcoin's amazing attributes over all others forms of currency is still there, unlike social fads, fraudulent/bad/unsustainable business models, third party controls, frauds, confiscations, regulations, etc.  Typical crashes and pops are usually indication of a significant underlying change of your investment.  A company forecasts slow growth and all hell breaks loose.  Bitcoin won't (and shouldn't) suffer from this because Bitcoin fundamentals and attributes haven't really changed.

Bitcoin is what it is ... always ... just as revolutionary today as it was 4 years ago and that's why this blip will be a distant memory very soon.

So, chillax people.  Bitcoin ain't goin' nowhere.

As for you greedy people out there, you're doing it wrong.

I'll throw my .02 bitcoins in...

How's about XCC for Crypto-Currency, eh?

Here is how MtGox works: They make a cut off every buy/sell transaction.  That's how every exchanges make money.

When you withdraw $, MtGox pays you from it's holding accounts.  That $ got there either by your deposits or the sale of your BTC.  MtGox doesn't pay anyone unless someone else ponies up the $ or the BTC.

When you withdraw BTC, they are yours so MtGox gives them back to you.  MtGox doesn't pay anything.

Now if MtGox operating expenses outpaces their revenue, then they might have to dip into the holding accounts, but that would be a very bad way of doing business.  I'm sure they make enough profit on every transaction to pay everything and then some.  If they didn't, they'd just increase their cut to make more $.

Current price is $1478 and change

I got 54 Mh/s on my Dual Xeon E7350 system (16 threads).  I'd expect you'd get slightly less that 2x that see as you're running 2.4GHz instead of 2.93GHz.

I'd highly recommend a pool as the difficulty increases will make it extremely hard for the big payout.  Better to settle for smaller timely payouts.

For maximum bitcoins/hases, I'd suggest a free 0% pool like BTC Guild.

Thanks to the new bitcoin system, you can't create money out of thin air like the banks do today.  Nor can bitcoins earn interest (unless someone is willing to part with their coins to pay for it.)

Think of it...the banks create money out of thin air, with absolutely no risk to themselves and get paid interest on it.  And when I mean no risk, the contract you sign explicitly says you will pay...or someone else will  They purchase insurance, which YOU PAY so that THEY GET PAID if you can't.  LOL, absolutely no risk whatsoever.

I love bitcoins because they are decentralized.  After securing my bitcoins, I have absolutely no need for a bank.  May they wither and die a horrible painful death, those c*cksucking leeches.

If you have to borrow to get what you want, then you're living beyond your means.  Don't sell your soul to the devil for a short gain.  That burden of debt is gonna weight heavily on your back for a long time.

I think all of your executed trades will be rolled back.  Trading is not officially open and it's obvious they are beta testing their new code.  Damn shame they are doing it on their production servers.

I just wish they'd POST A FIGGIN' UPDATE as to when things WILL OFFICIALLY OPEN so I don't miss the boat and I'm not here all friggen day pressing F-f*cking-5!!!!

Even 2 hours past the deadline with no news as to why, I can see the Trade Data page ticket slowly update its volume.  First time I saw it, volume showed #vol, 2 minutes later, 2, then 2 minutes later 4...

Just wow.  I think the delays are due to re-written code for enhanced security that isn't ready yet.  And testing the new code on a production server has set off my WTF alarms.

I can only imagine the amount of havoc the bugs in the new code will create since I'm positive it's not getting proper testing due to the urgency getting the site back up and running.

Now the ticker show a volume of 5 as I write this.

Oh man, if you don't pull out now, may God have mercy on your bitcoins!

Yep.  Got mine back. $0 USD balance.  0.00 BTCbalance.  No in/out accounts though.  Basically an empty account.  Never used yet.  Kinda pissed my email was stolen.  But thank goodness that's all that was taken.

I don't have anything against bitcoins per se.  They can be, and probably will be, a form of money.  That doesn't mean that banks won't lend you money or that interest will go away or fractional reserves won't work.  These games will be our undoing and are separate problems we'll have to deal with.  Personally, I chose to remain debt free at all times, can't stand interest, or bankers for that matter, and I don't want to get caught in that evil downward spiral.  I don't owe anyone jack sh*t and love it that way.

It's the way the game is played I don't like.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUkwntLNTOU#t=12m38s  Watch the whole video, it's quite interesting.

Never said profit doesn't exist.  Profit is just an increase in value.  You can create profit by adding value to something either by effort, time, resources or demand.

Lending money for money creates nothing of value.  Money is simply a medium of exchange.  Adding interest to money is a sure way for someone to get it all in the end, much like we'll have soon in the reality of this world.  Explain to me how can every country be in debt?  The only way for someone to get out of debt is to put someone else in even more debt.  The game is rigged and we are all losers when interest comes in play.  Interest is an insatiable monster that will eventually swallow everything, including the lender.

Lending money is also a great way to create slaves...Usury, was once punishable by death.  That's when they use to understand what it caused.  Now, most don't give a f*ck as long as they make something for nothing, much like the speculators.  Good luck with that.

Is it evil to rent a sum of money?  In my opinion, absolutely!  Because interest to be paid on your loan, in simplistic terms, doesn't exist.  You must pay back the original principal + interest.  The interest portion doesn't exist and cannot be created out of thin air.

We, and the world, is in so much debt due to interest we can never pay back.  We should learn from history and not repeat the same mistakes.  Unfortunately, history always repeats itself and we'll also screw ourselves with bitcoins too.  Sigh.

Get in on bitcoin and get in on the competition...win/win...again, with only with as much as you can afford to lose. win/win/win

Remember the Million Dollar Home Page, http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/...

There can be only one.  Lots of copycats but none ever succeeded.  Not to mention, bitcoin already has a two year head start.  Personally, I don't think there will be a fork unless a really good feature comes along and WE want to change.  But when we do, I'm sure we'll be able to "exchange" existing bitcoins for the new bitcoins.

Failure is a possibility in anything.  The upside of bitcoin is so great, that a risk is worth taking.  But just so you can sleep at night, only invest as much as your can afford to lose.  I'm in it for a few bitcoins and happy to just be part of it.  Sure it's just 0.00000001% of all bitcoins, but 0.00000001% of the world economy when this hits will be worth something, don'tcha think?

This bitcoin may no longer exist in the future, but the idea of bitcoin will live on forever (decentralize and p2p.)

Very unprofessional Mt.Gox.  Seriously undermines your credibility.  

You could always get the source code and compile yourself... 
But then you'd need to verify the source code, not an easy task.