With over 10 Th/s coming online daily, 60 Th/s will be run over in no time. We need to see Ph/s and soon.

By the way, BFL has been shipping 10's of Th/s every single day. I know they have been the hated stepchild for over a year, but those units are arriving en mass daily, and the effect BFL is having on global hash cannot be ignored. The swelling of hash in the major mining pools may soon be problematic to AM shareholders if not addressed.

I know.. "BFL blah, blah, scammers, blah, blah, a year behind schedule, blah blah...". Say what you want, their hash is coming online across the world in a rather big way, and it is showing up in the global hash.

I have been thinking a bit about bitcoin investments, and about AM in particular. I think there is a common misconception that fails to take into account the Observer Effect.

Suppose I decide to purchase a 50Gh/s miner from BFL today. Most people would base this decision in large part by when they expected to receive it. Once ordered, they are in a great hurry for it to arrive, trying to get it up and running before the difficulty gets insane. The problem is, from a certain perspective, it matters less when they get it than they think. The reason is, there are already thousands of people ahead of them in the queue. The very fact that their miner arrives means that all of these others have been delivered, guaranteeing the very difficulty increases they are racing against. They were doomed before they ever made the purchase. Of course, there are other factors, such as the possibility of other companies delivering additional hash. Getting your hash on line before theirs is certainly advantageous. But If I were to bring online a hashing power equivalent to the current global hash tomorrow, I would effectively double the difficulty, devaluing the very hashes I want to profit from.

For companies in the business of hashing (or at least the prospect of hashing someday) the Observer Effect if ignored can dash any potential they may have of surviving. As I noted in a previous post if one would add up the projected hash totals of all of the mining outfits on BTC-TC, it would equal more than 200% of the global hash. Most of these outfits will fail miserably to obtain their projected percentages of global hash, and they most certainly will drive the difficulty through the roof, making it even harder for themselves to attain the percentages they desire. They are all in effect eating their tails.

It has been almost axiomatic that early adopters pay the development costs. The first guy who bought a cell phone paid thousands and thousands, today they can be had for free. A successful venture in the bitcoin mining space must certainly avoid this. It was easy initially, when there was no real competition, and AM was able to claim a large chunk of hash for himself and his shareholders. The profits available just from being the hash bully were easily able to recoup development costs. Once other players arrived, FC shifted strategies, and sold large hash in small packages to the public in general, and as usual the early adopters shouldered the weight of development costs. Just look at those who paid 1.99 btc per USB a scant few months ago. If FC was a fool, that added global hash distributed across the world would have beaten down his share of global mining hash. But it did not. It did not because he held more in reserve in anticipation of the Observer Effect. I think it is safe to believe that FC accounts for this, and accounts for it quite well.

When I see other groups projecting target percentages of 20% or 30% of the global hash, I have to wonder if these projections are even remotely based upon the inclusion of their own hash's contribution to the difficulty. Perhaps they just see an infinite number of chips pouring off assembly lines into their farms, never realizing that every chip they produce devalues the one before it. They are constantly in the process of making their own equipment worthless. I am looking forward to seeing how FC perseveres in this new environment where the "first mover" power factors less.  

Good news for around 100 people. I wish them godspeed and good hashing.

The new pastime for mining start-ups seems to be advertising "projected" percentage of global hashrate. FC has always said he was targeting 10%-15% I believe. He so far has been the only entity capable of consistently hitting that target. Several others have included numbers in their offerings claiming numbers all the way to 35% as future targets.

A quick back of the envelope calculation from issuers projections from the securities listed on BTC-TC gives you (when taken together) over 180% of the global hash.

I would tend to think that some of these projections might be overly optimistic, but that is only if you use that math stuff. Realistically, I tend to think that most it not all of these projections will under-perform significantly. I also do not believe that any other endeavor has a remote chance of cutting into AM 10%-15%. So they will all have to beat each other to death (along with all of the pool-miners) for the remaining 85%.

If you buy these shares with the expectation that they will achieve a certain percentage of global hash, you will stand to lose considerable assets.

Others promise. pre-roasted cat  baked cat Fried Cat delivers.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/blogs/

yes, i know there were less Little Singles ordered than pretty much anything else. The first month may only represent a hundred or so miners, but that is just the current consensus guess. If this rate could be maintained (an unlikely stretch) then a unit ordered today would be delivered by the end of the month.

Not trying to be a shill here, but any time someone actually delivers substantial hashing power it is certainly news worthy. That is somewhere around 2.5 Th/s plug and play ready about to come online in the next few days.

Glad to see this concern is being addressed.

Prices of all shares of everything tanking. The IPO hurricane is sucking everything in.

Buy bids for 50 cents each that raise the bid by 1 cent.

https://www.quibids.com/en/landing/?mb=ogg

"Buy the rumor and sell the news" has been an axiom for decades.

The homes of the common man shake when giants walk by.

It follows as day follows night.

Two points:

One, now we know who was pouring literally millions into btc pushing the price up to $100. They bought Satoshidice.

Second, all of those shareholders who got bought out are now looking for a place to invest... and there really is nowhere else to go but ASICminer. Look for the big spike.

I guess every time a price rises there will be people that call it a bubble. And every time it declines, it is a bubble bursting. I guess some see millions of bubbles being blown and burst every week where most of us just see price fluctuations.

I tend to think it is just a way of trying to increase the importance of natural market fluctuations, and to make themselves feel clever because they have a particular insight that allows them to see these trends before anyone else does. Perhaps not. But If they are to be believed, AsicMiner and BTC must have more bubbles than the head of a poorly-poured draft beer.

I tend to appreciate people who keep their cakeholes closed unless they have something useful to say.

It makes what they do have to say somehow seem more valuable. I am sure FC will give an announcement when he has something substantial to say. No news really does mean no news most of the time.

I consider it more of a short-term P/E that makes it simple to see where we are.

215 shares gives enough dividends to buy one more share this week. (For those interested in reinvestment strategies)

This is the number I watch to determine whether share prices are reasonable from a historic standpoint. I prefer the number to be under 150 for me to purchase.

When one is thirsty, their thirst will not be quenched by promises of a team to build a well.

On this day, if you want to buy a mining rig, AM is where you go... period. Certainly it can be useful to make projections about the future state of ASIC sales and where AM will fit into it. You can make whatever development and delivery predictions you like, and then draw conclusions from them... but they are all conjecture at this point.

Do you think that FC does not look at ebay and see 5GH butterfly units selling for 25BTC? I would suggest he probably knows the market better than most, surely better than I, and adjusts his prices accordingly. Personally I think he should sell his rigs for as much as he possibly can, and keep dynamically pricing them as the market changes. Just makes good business sense.

You can speculate forever about which pre-order might give you the most bang for the buck when factoring in delivery times and increased global hash over time. But to hash today, it is AM or FAIL.

He might want to consider using a price of at least $1900.00 for a Jalapeno because that is what it costs currently to get your hands on one through the secondary market.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Butterfly-labs-IN-HAND-NOT-PREORDER-5-GHash-Jalapeno-Bitcoin-Miner-/251300341157?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a82aae5a5

As with every marketplace, the information is already baked in as far as best guesses are concerned.

I hope people are looking at the global hash as well. It is increasing at ludicrous speed. AM provides one of the few real havens from explosive global hash increases as they can easily ramp up hash to keep their position. Something a home mining setup and many other mining companies cannot.