That is not a suspicious random occurrence.

Unkown is 27% of network. Chances of unknown receiving 7 consecutive blocks is 27%^7, or 1 in ~9560. A block is found every 10 minutes. So, in roughly every 9560*10 minutes (about 66 days) you should see this pattern with a probability of 1.

Considering you have been sitting on most of the bitcoins raised, that bitcoin value has gone up mostly since fund raising, and that your plan has apparently been to place a very large order next week for October delivery (hopefully). Then it makes sense that you would not want to spend bitcoins on in-hand asic hardware.

Assuming you can get institutional pricing, raised funds could go even further pound for pound than if a bunch of 28nm pre-orders were placed a month ago. And I suspect leveraging is likely because of the reason I have come to change my mind on buying any asic hardware personally - the numbers just aren't looking that good unless you can get institutional pricing. Retail level mining might double your investment in 6 to 10 months, but only if you can get a product cheap enough and soon enough. An institutional purchase seems like it would have at least half of that covered with quantity purchasing power. And going with a product that is delivering now makes up for the other half of the equation.

I admit to being optimistic. My prior calculations came up with a potential estimate of 0.0050337BTC/week in dividends by December. So, if you bought bonds now around 0.20, you'd be seeing a weekly return of (0.0050337/0.2)*100% = 2.5%/week which is 130% annualized (without compounding)  ... I could have missed a factor that makes it all a loss. But it would be pretty nice if it all works.

Even if that level is reached, the problem then will be sustaining that performance against the network.

Those companies can make and ship a million units a day, but as the difficulty get's higher, there could be zero return on investment in all time frames. The only way to counter the observed increase rate in difficulty is progressively cheaper & more efficient equipment and/or much higher bitcoin price. Avalon and Asicminer are among the least efficient asic equipment out there (BFL and BitFury both ship and have better efficiency). With a more conservative monthly difficulty increase of 60% (it's averaging 70% now) and bitcoin valued at $250 (double the current price) you would STILL be making a losing investment in both Avalon and Asicminer for at least the next year with no hope for ROI. If you plan to break even in one year due to bitcoin increasing, then you should just buy bitcoin instead of turning your wheels to catch up with your ass.

If you can't get some serious leveraged deals, then the best thing is to hold bitcoin for now, imo.

As for respect of bitcoin enthusiasts, that has zero bearing on the wisdom of an investment.

You got a deal that is no longer available to the person that started this thread. All HashFast pre-order spots are filled. Your deal includes a ROI guarantee that could provide you with 400% more hashing power. I don't think this guarantee will come with subsequent orders.

Can you justify recommending to order either avalon or asicminer hardware at this time? What would be the time to ROI for either hardware even if received today?

Test your idea here:
http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/

If you're speaking of Butterfly labs mini-rig, then absolutely no. The only mining hardware worth looking at right now is BitFury 55nm hardware and 28nm hardware (my choice would be Cointerra). That said, what you can do is this: Order Bitfury or Cointerra hardware now. When you receive it, then sell it immediately. You will most likely be able to mark it up 50% and find a buyer pretty fast. You could also mine with it, but reselling for a profit isn't a losing path.

Other than that, then just buy bitcoin. It should go up eventually as bitcoin is more adopted widely (i.e. more demand for bitcoin builds).

A third option to evaluate is to put some funds to work in a mining operations (like Lab Rat Mining) [disclosure: I have an interest in Lab Rat Mining] and receive dividends on company "shares" or "bonds" from the company doing the mining for you. And if the company does well, you can resell those "shares" or "bonds" at a higher price, but of course it carries risk like any other investment. I've been following Lab Rat Mining pretty closely, and it looks to have decent potential in it's start-up phase, so far.

Updated speculation: "Bond" price ~December 1, 2013: Low ~0.604BTC, High ~0.956BTC

Method (open for constructive critical evaluation):
.....................
Assumptions:
Price per "bond" will depend on dividends paid out weekly. (safe assumption)
Price per "bond" varies in a range of ~120x to ~190x weekly dividend per bond. (fair assumption based on observation)
Difficulty increases 30% every two weeks. (fair assumption)
Hash rate per "bond" should be roughly 600MH. (practical assumption: http://www.labratmining.com/currentHashrate.html)
--The hash rate may change quickly depending on new bonds sales and BTC value at time of hardware purchase.
All funded hashing power will be online before December. (hopeful assumption)

December 1st is the date in question. That is 6 increases in difficulty from the beginning of September). 1.3^6 = 4.82 times current difficulty. (Future difficulty: 419,609,073).

600MH (0.6GH) at that difficulty will yield daily: 0.0007191BTC/"bond"; weekly: 0.0050337BTC/"bond"
Source: http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/

Therefore, the speculative bond price range:
Lo: 120 x 0.0050337 = 0.604044BTC/bond
Hi: 190 x 0.0050337 = 0.956403BTC/bond

Just by BTC value, these number can vary easily by +/-15%.
.....................

I hope making the method clear defuses any fears that this speculation is mere hype.

Is that because...

1... the suppliers weren't shipping crystal fast enough to the company that makes crystal balls?
2... they hauled the crystal balls out the back door for their own or friends use?
3... they forgot to order the enough crystal before the magic eight ball company came onto the scene?
4... they should have had a fully automated assembly line filled with crystal ball making robots?
5... other?

 

I believe he is referring to the entire supply chain, not merely BFL.

In some sense, it isn't actually crazy. You have to consider the dividend periods closely. First, consider any stock that isn't a growth stock, but pays dividends. For example, this company....

NYSE Ticker:
NAT (Nordic American Tankers Limited )

It pays an annualized dividend close to about 10%. And it's not really a growth stock. Just higher than average dividends than many stocks. So, people buying into NAT may not be after share price gains...but moreso a consistent and somewhat modest return. Better than letting money sit and allow inflation make it worth less.

Now, consider these cloud miners (or other entities paying dividends) where you can buy bonds or shares or whatever you call them...  And take a "worse case" and assume the 190 price:dividend ratio. The dividends factored here are weekly! So, 1/190 * 52 weeks = 52/190th's return on share price per year... or roughly 27% annualized. Sure, a pure miner could see a lot greater gains. But 27% isn't bad in the grand scheme of things, and not having to worry about monitoring hardware 24/7... Granted, there's also more risk than mining and the lasting power of any one of these operations is questionable, but this kind of return & effort profile might be what people with this kind of investing interest might be seeing and quite comfortable with.

News flash? I realize owning hardware has more economical leverage. But unlike you, I'm accounting for the fact that people interested in investing in these mining operations are not seeing it with your rationale, and they have different interests than running hardware. They also know they can sell their bonds or shares and recoup some or more of their principal depending on performance of the company. Perhaps, for some it's just a place to "store" their otherwise static bitcoins for a year. So, my speculation isn't based on what you would do, or optimal investment values. Regardless, let's look quickly at actual relevant numbers.

Someone pointed out an interesting observation in another forum that might be helpful for you. Simply the commenter noted that he/she saw that people were buying shares in other mining operations for roughly 190 times the [weekly] dividend. I didn't do a wide survey and find that as a rough value, but I did find high numbers.
Some fairly random examples:

TAT.ASICMINE (see on bitfunder.com)
Share price: ~.0225
Dividends: ~.0002
Price:Dividend ratio = ~112

G.ASICMINER-P
Share price: ~ 2.3
Dividends: ~ .02
Price:Dividend ratio:  ~115

BTCINVEST
Share price: ~.22
Dividends: ~.003
Price:Dividend ratio:  ~73

You can go through the list of them if you like: https://bitfunder.com/market

Argue till your red in the face all you care to, but the numbers don't lie. And knowing or observing that these ratio's are [or appear] common or "normal", how could someone intending to speculate not account for that? .... Why would Lab Rat Mining be any different? Afterall, it's paying dividends... Well actually, it isn't that different, the price is already 250 times weekly dividends. Granted, it's new and anticipation is higher as it grows into it's pants, but the others aren't. I'd expect LRM to drop to a ratio closer to the others over time as dividend size increases.

Lab Rat Mining bond price. Based on various info, deductions and price to dividend ratios...

Current week's average ~0.22btc

Speculation: ~December 1, 2013. Range, Low ~1.1btc, High ~1.76btc

Disclaimer: Even though I feel the numbers were fairly treated... this could, obviously, be very wrong.

Who else here has noticed that Butterfly Labs has been falsely advertising their planned 28nm product as decisively better than what actual competition offers?
Listed on BFL's website's 28nm product page (http://www.butterflylabs.com/monarch/) :

BFL Monarch $7.80/GH @ 0.6W/GH  ----  "The Competition": at least $17.50/GH @ 2.5W/GH

This seems based on old KNC numbers, but those have changed. Regardless, since a while now, others have already listed as competitive and even better deals.
Cointerra's product plan is advertised as $6.99/GH at 0.55W/GH (http://cointerra.com/product/terraminer-iv-2ths/)
HashFast is $14/GH @ 0.9W/GH with a guarantee 90 day to help ROI for pre-orders (https://hashfast.com/shop/babyjet/)
KNC is now $12.5/GH @ 1.6W/GH. (https://www.kncminer.com/categories/miners/)

On top of all this, BFL is expected to be one of the later shippers of 28nm. It's nice not to be in the BFL pre-order que for 28nm.
How long before they change that bit of misleading information on their website? It's been that way since the Monarch hype started.

The overpay day dividends was suppose to be ฿0.00083112. That same amount was overpaid.

The following week dividends dividends came out to ฿0.00066604 after some deduction to recoup the overpay. But he said the new hashing added no value for bad luck and not enough time hashing in the pool. So, what seems to have been taken out is  ฿0.00083112 - ฿0.00066604 = BTC0.00016508. That is almost exactly 1/5 the overpay amount. So, it looks like he is maybe planning to deduct 1/5th of the overpay each week for five weeks. Though, I thought it was going to be two weeks. Not sure.

Coming up, LRM will have had a full week at double that prior hash rate this week. So, that next week should come out to about roughly twice that dividend.
That is ฿0.00083112 x 2 = BTC0.00166224. Not accounting for one bump in difficulty perhaps.*

Deduct another 1/5th of the overpay amount, and you get an anticipated dividend next weekend of BTC0.00166224 - BTC0.00016508 = BTC.00149716.

I didn't look up what the difficulty was in the week the overpay value happened. If it made a 30% jump after that week, then maybe anticipate something closer to BTC0.00115166 (and this would mean deductions are not being made over five weeks, but maybe something sooner - which is what I thought it was going to be).

* Speculative bond price using a price-to-dividend ratio of x120 and x190 give a bond price in the range of: .199 to .315; if difficulty is a factor: .153 to .242
However, this should change sharply up once hardware starts flowing in. Some calculations done w/ reasonable assumed hardware delivery times gives a price that is multiples higher.
But you never know.

I think they are competitive in a narrow sense... usually pricing (except in these last days of their 65nm product) & maybe in the area of keeping customers on the hook (not that that is a good thing - but it is a kind of fighting spirit). This might be a different kind of competitiveness than you are thinking... there might be a better word for it. Anyway, historically, they have had the best (most efficient) products. Here are a few examples of their competitiveness:

1. BFL's FPGA Singles were the best price for GH of all sources.
2. When Avalon came out with their better pricing than BFL. Shortly thereafter, BFL matched the GH/$. It was a significant change to their price:performance.
3. Of the several companies promising 28nm products, BFL is second in price + performance.

But despite that, I don't think they will be able to keep up with Cointerra. BFL will probably end up in their shadow.

HashFast(HF) also has my attention, their pricing is about double BFL, but HF may be one of the first to deliver.

BFL is competitive, but they are too tainted. Cointerra has a more efficient product (price + performance), faster expected time to delivery, shows more professionalism and so far describes plans for higher customer satisfaction. They are also fairly transparent. How many video's has the CEO of Butterfly Labs made to discuss the company and products?

I think they will actually pull it off, delivering in December. And if they deliver in January, that is not bad either. They guaranteed that they'd give customers an extra 20% hashing rate over their purchase if delivery was later than 30 days (probably not enough to compensate for a month of difficulty increase, but it's something).

The circuitry seems so much more simple than BFL's stuff. Which is a good thing, imo. Maybe, I'm missing something.

Are there any components on the non-chip side of the BitFury boards? Any photos available?

Difficulty changes about every 14 days. Assume an ~20% increase each time, then see what numbers you come up with...

Example:

400GH/s BitFury... 28 days?

Assume difficulty changes biweekly, one after the first week, and one after the third..etc..:
After...
First week 25% is paid for (assuming your ROI of 28 days with constant difficulty correctly equals 100%).
Second week difficulty goes up 20%. So, you pay off 25% * 80% = 20% more (total 45% paid)
Third week: same difficulty.... +20% more = 61% paid
Fourth week difficulty goes up 20%. So, you pay off 20% * 80% = 16% more (total 77% paid)
Fifth week: same difficulty.... 16% + 77% = 93%
Sixth week difficulty goes up 20%. So, you pay 16% * 80% = 12.8% more (total 105.8%).
>>You actually broken even 7/12.8ths into the sixth week or 3.82 days into the sixth week.

5 * 7 + 3.82 = 38.82 days to ROI. A (10.82/28 * 100)%, or 38.6% increase in ROI time.

Quite different when you factor in difficulty.

Caveats: Assumptions made were that difficulty increases by 20% each time. However, this can change even to the negative.
But seeing how BFL is shipping still, this is not likely to go negative. And the assumption of minimal system down time.

Edit: If power costs were not factored in the original, this would take even longer... perhaps another four days to a week.

...