Been window shopping for ASICs lately and have been coming across a bunch of Avalon 55nm miners, especially on eBay.  They all look the same and ship from Hong Kong... where are they coming from?  (Are they coming from different places?)  Have they been out long, and are they reliable?  If I wanted my hands on one straight from the source, where would I go?

I know that there are better miners out there... just curious, though.  Were there any mentions of these miners in the forums in the past, apart from those of retailers saying that they have 'em in stock?  thanks in advance.

if anyone has any insight as to the key elements of dogecoin's success, i would be rather grateful.  its' catchiness as a meme?  perhaps the vocal support of particular people (i.e., the creators themselves, or key bitcointalk members?)  

or maybe the rate at which coins are created, exploiting the effect of deflating currency on exchange rates?  or a mixture of all of them, plus some secret sauce?

would be cool to invest in a similar coin before it blows up.  thanks!    

anyone interested in altcoin arbitrage?  last night i learned that it may make more sense to mine bitcoin & trade for PPC rather than to mine for PPC directly.  but in the next year or so, perhaps it would make more sense to stockpile LTC?

interesting stuff.  thank you for your feedback, please keep it coming!

feel free to share your theories of certain tendencies you've noticed when looking at (or trading) cryptocurrencies.  Like, do you find that the value of certain altcoins skyrocket upon hearing good news about bitcoin, only to fall to zero a week later?

do coins with nothing truly unique about them follow a certain pattern, perhaps taking a similar amount of time to play out? (or does it accelerate over time?)

do you have any strategies for trading altcoins that you would like to share?  myself, i've never really done it before... but I would like to buy different altcoins based on the unique qualities that make them truly stand out, such as peercoin's proof of stake or litecoin's usage of scrypt (arguably making mining more democratic at the moment), holding over the course of about two years or so.  I figure that a return of 500% over such a period of time should be... conservative...

investing in newly emerging cryptocurrencies does sound quite appealing, though.  if you have any theories about how the exchange rate goes over the lifespan of a given currency (specific examples would be appreciated!), please share.  like quarkcoin, which i've been hearing so much about...

thanks!