Is it even worth it to buy/order an ASIC single now?

[Ailure]

The time for building a GPU rig has passed. You won't have enough time to recoup a fraction of your costs, and the market for used 5970s and 7970s is going to be flooded in about 2 months.

There is a huge market of gamers who would love to buy those cards used. They're still quite decent for gaming. The price might go down though sure.

[Desolator]

I usually use the calculator on the right side of this page: https://deepbit.net/stats
Also it's the pool I mine at

832 MH/s is the exact stated speed of an fpga single from BFL.  Their calc says 0.26BTC per 24 hours.  You can multiply that by 30 days and get 7.8.  To be super precise, instead multiple the MH/s by 30 so 7.89.  See, 0.09 extra due to an otherwise unknown rounding error

[Cluster2k]

The biggest unknown here is how quickly the ASICs ship.  If the majority of preorders (up until the end of October) can be filled within a few weeks then you have a fighting chance of recouping your investment.  Otherwise it's anyone's guess (and the odds aren't great).

Butterfly Labs says in its FAQ they're in the hardware business therefore don't keep the ASICs and mine for themselves.  Complete nonsense.  They're just following the age old example of gold rushes where the only people guaranteed to make a lot of money were the ones selling shovels, and other mining related hardware.  Most prospectors went away empty handed.

We're the miners and BFL is selling the shovels.

[sLide.]

I agree with pretty much what everyone is saying...you have a couple of choices.

1) Buy some GPU cards and use them to mind with the intention to keep them for gaming or sell them to gamers later
2) Buy into ASIC now so you are not 6 months behind everyone else
3) Quit BitCoin and send me all your coins...

Choices...

[nedbert9]

Regarding whether we are a scam or not, the several thousand shipped units can speak for itself. We've used the experience gained in mass production
of our singles in our SC production cycle (we've got a MyData Pick-And-Place and an Oven for high-speed and high-volume inhouse assembly). Someone
mentioned the backlog is already 5,000. On a production speed of 500 units a day for instance, 5,000 will only take 10 days. We've already prepared the
infratructue for very high volume production, since the great portion of the orders will come in after the SC is released to the public. 5,000 units is not much
compared to orders we expect to receive after SC release, so we're very ready for it.

What we should be worried about is a post initial delivery flood of ASICs.  Consider this.  Approx. 3 small time operations, 2-3 individuals each, outside of BFL contributed to FPGA options for Bitcoin mining.  Only two of the small FPGA operations will move to providing ASIC products.  These small operations will rely on electronics assembly companies to produce units in rather small batch quantities.

With BFL having confirmed 22 employees, purchasing PCB SMT assembly equipment typically found in high volume assembly, we must consider BFL's capital and operating expenses, their need to make a profit and what impact that will have on Bitcoin.

Once BFL's capital investments are recouped, e.g. assembly equipment and ASIC NRE, BFL will be free to produce ASIC's at an estimated cost of 10-20 USD, including the PCB and housing.  Then we should add on operating expenses such as labor, executive compensation, facilities, etc.

With all of this in mind the smart miner should keep in mind that Bitcoin is BFL's only market.  That said, with BFL's sole profit center being Bitcoin there is a large incentive for BFL to sell as many ASIC's as possible at whatever cost the market will bare.  The Bitcoin mining community may be faced with a harsh reality that BFL would be the only party that would make a profit with certainty.


BFL has advertised their high volume assembly as a boon to miners, so that they can get their hardware fast - now.  Looking forward, it is another indication to how BFL is poised to saturate the mining market at whatever price point.

edit:
If I did not already have BFL equipment on order I would not invest.  This seems to me to be a very questionable time in Bitcoin mining.

[crazyates]

I look at it this way: can you afford not to?

[Aahzman]

I've seen no good news about a guy that just wants to run a single rig at his house to have some fun, make a little BTC to pay off the rig...but it seems that poor guy won't even get a return good enough to even pay off the rig (only $1300) itself.
---snip---
Since I'm middle class here I can't afford to spend $1300 on something that may not do anything. I wish there were guarantees here....

Why this self defeating "only the rich get richer" attitude?

Should there be any guarantees?  Is the whole point of mining bitcoin to get rich?  Does it take a high end rig to get some bitcoins?

No, no and no.

I have a fairly low end rig and if the ASIC's do come to fruition I will again have the low end version of those too.  I too don't have allot of spare cash to invest in the highest end mining gear.  But I am mining consistently, earning bitcoins for an investment over time.  When bitcoin starts becoming a mainstream currency and increases in value then it will have been a useful endeavor.  I'm not going to get rich, most likely, but that's not my goal in life.

Loosen up, quit being envious of those who have more than us, rich people have their own set of problems, usually worse than the problems we have.
Hope I wasn't too preachy ,
Sam

well said Sam

Plus there is a whole Bitcoin economy out there waiting to be developed, plenty of money to be made in non-mining ways.

Cheers
Graet

Yeah, just imagine the boost when webcam strippers/sex performers get wind of bitcoin!  BOOM!

[senseless]

Since I'm middle class here I can't afford to spend $1300 on something that may not do anything.

Then you aren't middle class.

If you're looking to make a profit off a bitcoins why would you even bother with nvidia? It's only worthwhile if you've got 1000 of them and only if you dont need to pay for electric.

[senseless]

Does it take a high end rig to get some bitcoins?

I had an nvidia miner @ 20mhash/s get lucky the other day and score a block.

[mufa23]

No, don't buy one. When you use one, the difficulty goes up for me. I am selfish.

[senseless]

The biggest unknown here is how quickly the ASICs ship.  If the majority of preorders (up until the end of October) can be filled within a few weeks then you have a fighting chance of recouping your investment.  Otherwise it's anyone's guess (and the odds aren't great).

With a 10x increase in difficulty and a 50% pay cut. You'd still make a profit in a reasonable time frame with asic

You're going from 350mhash/s for 150$ to 3.5ghash/s for 150$.

Just multiply everything by 10 and you'll get a good idea of what the network will look like. Total hash rate would be somewhere around 200 teraflops.

350mhash/s now pays out about .1 bitcoins per day (give or take). That would be reduced to 0.01 bitcoins and divide that in half for the block decrease to make it 0.005 bitcoins per day.

3500mhash/s now would pay out about 1 bitcoin per day (give or take). That would be reduced to 0.1 bitcoins and divide that in half for the block decrease which makes it 0.05 bitcoins per day. That's 18.25 bitcoins per year x 4 years to give 73 bitcoins (during the 25 coins per block period). Assuming value stays the same you would have gone from 150$ input to 875$ a profit of nearly 600% in 4 years (at 12$/coin). So, I'm not sure why you're saying that you only have a "fighting chance". Or are you expecting to get a return on investment of 1 day?

It's also logical with the reduction in circulation that the exchange rate of coins will increase. I would not be surprised to see the exchange rate at 25$/coin (steady).

So uh, if you get some asics going now. You're good for the next 8 years or so while it's 25coins/block and you can continue mining at 12.50 a block and earn some additional profit on an investment that was already paid off long ago.

As long as nothing happens to sha256 itself (vulnerabilities) you can also switch over to another block chain. I would not be surprised to see an inflationary coin network pop up. The deflationary nature of bitcoin doesn't really make much sense from an economics perspective. Unless of course you wanted a deflationary system so you could get the original coins and cash them out when it's 100$/coin. I would favor a chain with a steady 2% per year inflation on the chain. (10% increase in bitcoins per block every 5 years or so.) To me, I find it more logical to have a block chain that increases its supply with age so that as the population of users grows, so do the amount of coins available. A steady increase in the coin supply would also help the "lost accounts". I myself accidentally lost a wallet containing 5 btc never to be heard from again. (Accidentally deleted my old windows install before copying my wallet files over ) Not to mention the other inherent flaws (such as the large transaction database).

[Frequency]

Regarding whether we are a scam or not, the several thousand shipped units can speak for itself. We've used the experience gained in mass production
of our singles in our SC production cycle (we've got a MyData Pick-And-Place and an Oven for high-speed and high-volume inhouse assembly). Someone
mentioned the backlog is already 5,000. On a production speed of 500 units a day for instance, 5,000 will only take 10 days. We've already prepared the
infratructue for very high volume production, since the great portion of the orders will come in after the SC is released to the public. 5,000 units is not much
compared to orders we expect to receive after SC release, so we're very ready for it.

edit:
If I did not already have BFL equipment on order I would not invest.  This seems to me to be a very questionable time in Bitcoin mining.

1) Wel maybe ONE picture of some kind off production line would say more to me then all these words..

2) This is so true 2 me... 

[SuperHakka]

Do the ASICs only work for the main branch of the block chain. If it there is a major fork down the road, will that cause everyone to pile into the branch that the ASICs don't work on and thereby fragment the whole bitcoin system?

[Syke]

So uh, if you get some asics going now. You're good for the next 8 years

Don't believe that for a second. The current round of ASICs are good for maybe 1 year. 2 years tops. By then newer, faster, cheaper, more efficient ASICs will be available, making these 1st gen ASICs just as obsolete as the latest FPGAs will soon be.

[Bjork]

I would only mine if I had free electricity

[RoboCoder]

You got two months to put together gpu rigs for about 1500 and you can get some btc fast. Then sell the hardware to recoup some costs. If elect costs are low you will come out ahead.

The time for building a GPU rig has passed. You won't have enough time to recoup a fraction of your costs, and the market for used 5970s and 7970s is going to be flooded in about 2 months.

Thats assuming ASIC's are delivered on time and history shows us they probably won't be...

[RoboCoder]

Surely, profitability is a function both of the network difficulty level and also the exchange rate if you're cashing out into fiat immediately. Obviously, early adopters are rewarded for having taken the risk of the early plunge.

If I could dig up the $30k I'd be seriously tempted by the ASIC minirig. Somehow, though, I can't see any bank lending me that.

I tried - they asked what the loan would be for, I explained mining, and they promptly sent back a professionally courteous email saying my laon request had been denied.   

You told them the TRUTH?? I told them mine was for my poor mother who needed a hernia operation ... 

[xunknownx]

i have free electricity.  planning to get 1 bASIC and a SC Single and run them at my company. 

[SgtSpike]

So uh, if you get some asics going now. You're good for the next 8 years

Don't believe that for a second. The current round of ASICs are good for maybe 1 year. 2 years tops. By then newer, faster, cheaper, more efficient ASICs will be available, making these 1st gen ASICs just as obsolete as the latest FPGAs will soon be.

A couple things you are missing in your quick analysis:
1) New ASICs will come out, and they will be more efficient.  But they will NOT make current ASICs "just as obsolete" as the latest FPGAs will soon be.  The jump in efficiency between FPGAs and ASICs is projected to be along the lines of going from 100MH/watt to 1,000MH/watt - about a 10x increase in efficiency.  The jump in efficiency between current-gen ASICs and future-gen ASICs will be wholly due to decreased process size, and would likely see no more than a 45% increase in efficiency over the course of a year, if Moore's law is to be believed.
2) Your statement also assumes that mining income will stabilize to the point where revenues = no more than 200% of the variable costs, if they would be obsolete by a 100% increase in efficiency over the course of two years.  The volatility of the price of Bitcoin (and thus, the profits from mining) makes such an assumption completely unreliable.

[meebs]

The biggest unknown here is how quickly the ASICs ship.  If the majority of preorders (up until the end of October) can be filled within a few weeks then you have a fighting chance of recouping your investment.  Otherwise it's anyone's guess (and the odds aren't great).

Butterfly Labs says in its FAQ they're in the hardware business therefore don't keep the ASICs and mine for themselves.  Complete nonsense.  They're just following the age old example of gold rushes where the only people guaranteed to make a lot of money were the ones selling shovels, and other mining related hardware.  Most prospectors went away empty handed.

We're the miners and BFL is selling the shovels.

and the best part is.. in modern day the "shovels" were bought and paid for months ago