50k is just hobby size at this point.  [Actually I spent double that on my hobby FPGA SHA-256 project in 2012.]  What are you trying to accomplish?  Do you have a location to operate gear?  How much power is available?  What does the power cost?  How close are your neighbors, and how are they going to feel about the noise?

We are deep into the third (maybe 4th depending on how you count) gold rush phase of crypto mining.  Late investors in gold rushes usually get scalped.  Be cautious.

I find it profoundly unlikely that you can achieve your goal of performing better on a $/hash basis with an FPGA.

When FPGAs became competitive for SHA-256 it was on Watts / hash, not $ / hash.  Cost of the hardware per hash was 4-5x GPU.  But power efficiency was 20x better than GPU, which made it a slam dunk investment (if you understood that ASICs weren't going to be delivered on the timelines promised by certain hucksters on this site).

The odds are good that there will be a custom ASIC or a SOC solution for ETH within the next year.  The cash flow from mining supports it, and ETH is likely to fork at least once more which expands the customer base.

To restate what I just said, FPGA competes on total cost of ownership, not initial costs.  To be profitable you need enough time to recover the hardware costs through lower power expenses.  I seriously doubt there is enough time to design, build and deploy a custom FPGA solution before custom silicon arrives and eats your lunch.

There are 2 types of risk to consider when managing your bitcoin (or any other crypto)

1. Having a 3rd party gain access to your keys.  Any such 3rd party can spend your coins and almost certainly will do so eventually.  So you need to be confident your keys are securely stored.

2. Losing access to your keys.  A lost key has the same impact as a stolen key.  You don't have access to the funds and it's impossible that you will be able to spend the coins unless you find the keys. In the vast majority of use cases this is the larger risk of the 2.  There are literally billions of dollars of dead coins in the bitcoin blockchain because the original owner lost the keys through mishap or carelessness.

Managing type 1 is a well understood security problem, and equivalent to the same problem people have addressed with money since the idea was created.  

Type 2 is a different beast, and managing it well can quickly lead you to storing your keys in a way that exposes you to additional risk of type 1. Before you commit to a hardware wallet, I suggest you research why flash memory isn't used as an archival storage medium.

{Brief aside, the Winklevoss twins boasted their coins were secure from hackers because they held them on multiple flash drives stored in vaults.  I still wonder if that claim is true, and if they are truly that dumb.}

Bitaddress.org is the solution you are looking for. Paper wallets are your friend, and once you manage the risks related to creating and printing the wallet, your problem looks identical to a man trying to protect his cash.

Note that bitcoin and litecoin are the only coins I know of that have convenient methods to generate paper wallets.  To me, this is a clear sign that the developers of other coins haven't done any clear thinking about value preservation for their users.

I am really sorry to hear you rode this into the ground.  I thought you were one of the people actually listening to my warnings.

It came up on another thread that the early generation bitcoin ASICs will likely become museum pieces over time.  Which I think is true.

I would be interested in buying a batch 1 Avalon if anyone has it available, and maybe an original ASICMINER blade.

On the flip side, for any would be collectors, I can offer:

Cairnsmore CM1 quad FPGA boards (very few of these left)
Avalon Batch 2 Generation one boxes*
KNC Jupiters (or is it saturns - the first generation ASIC from them)
Cointerra Terraminer IVs
Spoondoolies SP10 or SP30
Also one high performance batch 2 Avalon box - I can't even remember the story on that - I think it has 4 hash boards instead of the 3 boards in the original 68 Gh/s systems

* Technically these are Avalon Batch 3 as Yifu and gang stole Batch 2 and mined for themselves with them.

I kept a few of my FPGA boards for the same reason.

I cant really seeing the Saturns commanding that much.  They weren't first generation, and the physical execution was junk.  Now the unanodized batch 1 Avalons, those will be something...

Interesting.  Do you have any idea why their pool share has dropped off so dramatically?

Everything I can find suggest the their current chip is ~35% less power efficient than Bitmain's gear.  Unless their cost per Th/s is significantly lower that isn't even in the game at this stage.  It really sucks because it seems that we are back to a monopoly situation on hardware.  I wish Intel would sell the hardware they built a few years ago.  Or one of the other players would step in.  It seems there is a nearly $1B market out there now.  Somebody should be in the game.

Would you be interested in SP30s?  I believe the power and hashrate are equivalent.  The only difference is you get power supplies and the boxes are rackable.

$500 each.

I have some T9s I am willing to sell at 1.1 BTC each.

Does Bitfury even have a power competitive solutions these days?

I notice their network share has dropped from ~10 at the start of the month to around 2% today.  That doesn't look healthy.

Why would anyone sell you s9's or t9's?  Are you going to pay more than cost plus what they would mine in the next 90 days it would take to replace them?

If so, I have quite a large number available.

Has anyone determined the size of each batch of orders Bitmain has been releasing?  Based on network difficulty it seems like they are shipping 20k+ S9s per week, but that's just a swag on my part.  Does anyone have actual data?

I think this may become particularly pertinent as their shipping backlog becomes longer and longer.  And more so if they follow suit with their decision to price their latest batch of L3+ units in LTC (at a huge price increase as well).  With 3 full batches shipping ahead of these it seems like the LTC network difficulty could be 10x larger when they ship and ROI chasers could be bankrupted as we saw happen in 2014.

I have a lot of SP30s available.  They haven't hashed since the reward drop, so no guarantees on performance.

Make an offer.

I have 54 units for sale in the United States.

Let me know if you are interested in purchasing some or all.

We sent a reorganization plan to the debtors yesterday.  Since the committee has no effective control of the company and can only object to their actions that require review of the judge, we will need to negotiate with the debtors to actually implement a plan.  For that reason, it's not constructive for us to publish it publicly.

If the debtors do not cooperate the judge has committed to hearing our motion to have new management put in place August 20th.  Hopefully the debtors will be rational and we can get positive action taken before that date.

Thank goodness Icebreaker is here to criticize the bankruptcy and the committee.  With that verification, I can be positive we are doing the right thing.

If you were really an insider, you would know that all of the assets would have been stripped from Hashfast if the bankruptcy proceedings hadn't prevented it. 

Before you decided to disappear for a month I invited you to say who you are.  Why don't you do so now?

U.S. Bankruptcy Court

Northern District of California
Notice of Electronic Filing

The following transaction was received from Montali, Dennis entered on 7/26/2014 at 3:34 PM PDT and filed on 7/26/2014
Case Name:    Hashfast Technologies LLC
Case Number:    14-30725
Document Number:    

Docket Text:
DOCKET TEXT ORDER (no separate order issued:) The court has read the sale and assumption motion (Dkt. No. 134) and the opposition by the Committee (Dkt. No. 159). Even before considering the opposition, the court identified numerous problems with the motions; the opposition confirms most of those problems and identifies some the court did not. The debtors filed an Asset Purchase Agreement FIVE minutes before the Committee filed its opposition, but even if the APA cures some of the defects presented by the motions and the term sheet, the Committee and other parties cannot be expected to review and respond to a document filed less than one business day before the hearing. Unless the Committee has a complete change of heart before July 28, 2104, at 2:00 and decides to withdraw its opposition and support the motions, the court intends to deny them. And even if there is a withdrawal, debtors should not assume the motions will be granted. Assuming no change of position by the Committee, its counsel and debtors counsel should meet and confer before the July 28 hearing and attempt to agree on a schedule for matters including the motion to consolidate, any renewed motion to sell and assume, and any other motions either party expects to file in the near future. (Montali, Dennis)

Firstly Ray, it's Dr. Edgeworth.  If you're going to feign some level of civility, at least address me by the proper honorific.

Secondly, I am not making any decisions.  The committee makes the decisions, and all of those decisions have been by a solid majority.

Thirdly, we have good reasons for not taking your advice. You have no experience in bankruptcy law, and it shows.  The committee selected excellent bankruptcy counsel who has been very successful both in court and behind the scenes.  The fact that you happen to hate her and have spent weeks on a vendetta against our selection is just another example of how your actions have been consistently against the best interests of creditors in the case.