Why I am concerned...

[somecdnguy4]

Please note that all of this is speculation on my part, and until BFL customers receive their units and we have concrete data to crunch, this post is to be taken with a grain of salt.

That said, I pre-ordered a Jalapeno box a few days ago. This got me thinking: how much will I have to mine and how low must the difficulty be when I start to be able to break even or turn a profit?

Well, it will either be really pretty, really ugly, or something in between. It has been rumoured that approximately 50%+ of units purchased were Jalapeno boxes. As for the other units, I can only guess. My hope is that the difficulty stays somewhere south of 65 million by the time I have my unit hooked up and roaring, but the calculations seem a little different:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/difficultynumbers.jpg/

Link to image: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/difficultynumbers.jpg/

The Avalon batches were crunched using the wiki page: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#ASIC
I had to guess for batch 3, but I assumed the hashing power for the units were the same as batch 2.

The percentages were total guesses, but messing with them doesn't alter the total hashing score tremendously (please feel free to prove me wrong). 33,000 BFL units pre-ordered was a complete guess. For all I know, it could be 10,000 more or less (more like the former than the latter).

Things to consider:

• Some Avalon ASICs will already be online and hashing. This was not included in the number crunching (therefore, it could be a bit less)
• When ASICs become mainstream, many people currently mining on GPUs will give up on their endeavours, as it will prove unprofitable ($/watts used > BTC mined). This will lower the global hashing. I am not sure by how much, but for all we know, it could be 90% of people currently mining (doubtful).
• Other ASIC companies may become prevalent and create units to compete with Avalon and BFL (thereby increasing the global hashing and difficulty)
  Open to other constructive ideas...

Well, my *guess* for what the difficulty will be by the time my Jalapeno arrives on my doorstep (I ordered a few days ago, so probably not until at least August... maybe) is somewhere between 45-175 million.

I welcome all responses, and if anyone has any ideas, concepts, or variables to factor into the global hashing calculations, please do present them!

[baracuda]

Your entire foundation rests on one faulty assumption: that BFL will deliver.

You may consider reviewing the betting website to figure out the odds that BFL will deliver, then multiply that percentage by the values you've obtained in order to come out with a plausible estimation of return.

Good luck with that.

Disclaimer: I know nothing.

[BitcoinPimp]

Im curious;

You ordered a unit a few days ago, did they tell you how long waiting-line it is? Will you receive it soon, or is it still like 6-8 months waiting-line?

[Mastergerund]

I have given a great deal of consideration to the same decision you made. Should I order a box from BFL? The greatest difficulty I have is there are too many assumptions. Will they or will they not actually deliver? How much will their boxes impact the overall difficulty of the network. Will their boxes be useful for alt-coins that are also based on SHA256, or just for bitcoins?
IMHO, there are far too many assumptions to be made, and ordering a box is too big a risk for my current budget. Your circumstances and risk tolerance may be higher than mine, but bear in mind that the risks are non-minimal.

[SimonQ]

by the time my Jalapeno arrives on my doorstep (I ordered a few days ago, so probably not until at least August... maybe)

   I appreciate your optimism!  I'm thinking more like between 2014 and never.  But nothing would make me happier than to be wrong.

[ctlegacy]

SO many haters.. here's a guy trying to estimate difficulty FOR YOU GUYS. and you just bash his figures.

I'd start with taking out all the 1500Gh/s BFL units, as those don't even have a working prototype or even a design that works with that much power. Then recalculate.

Given the global hashrate minus the BFL Minirigs you'd come up with somewhere around 104 Million. Of course not EVERY single machine will be running 24/7 and all on at the same time, so let's take a conservative 80% of ALL ASIC machines running 24/7 and we'd end up with about 83 million difficulty.

These are MY estimates. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about different companies. It just seems this community is very spiteful towards innovative companies who are trying to deliver a revolutionary product. The funny thing is... They are the SAME people who will be buying said products they don't believe in, as soon as product becomes more available on the market.

Any disputes to my estimates you can post below.

[RustyShackleford1950]

Personally, I'm assuming that difficulty will increase anywhere between 50x to 100x. In general most peopls ASICs will pay for themselves, but over a 1 year period.

[Malawi]

Personally, I'm assuming that difficulty will increase anywhere between 50x to 100x. In general most peopls ASICs will pay for themselves, but over a 1 year period.

IOW - some may want to order in the hope of having it early enough and getting the hardware paid back + hopefully an increase in BTC value.
Others may want to put the same amount into BTC's in the hope of getting about the same output.

[RustyShackleford1950]

Personally, I'm assuming that difficulty will increase anywhere between 50x to 100x. In general most peopls ASICs will pay for themselves, but over a 1 year period.

IOW - some may want to order in the hope of having it early enough and getting the hardware paid back + hopefully an increase in BTC value.
Others may want to put the same amount into BTC's in the hope of getting about the same output.

Well, I have a jalepeno on order. I'm confident it will pay for itself, but not for a long time.

[bam91]

Assuming bfl delivers by september, id put the difficulty around 120-180 mill.

[johnfox]

I really hope BFL will deliver, but given the time it is taking them .....

Btw ... any idea what will come after ASIC?

[Malawi]

I really hope BFL will deliver, but given the time it is taking them .....

Btw ... any idea what will come after ASIC?

It will either be FPGA revisited for more flexibillity in what you mine, or more asic.

There is really no better method than ASIC. But the negative part is that your ASIC device can probably never be used for anything else than Hashing BTC.