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

[SgtSpike]

Before you go and label me as one of "those" people. I actually started mining about 2 months ago. started with a small gpu rig about 700 Mhash/s (friend's PC). Now im roughly pumping 2 ghash/s and adding each day. I so far spent absolutely NO money on mining.. I mine with my university's electricity and hardware. I'm sorry you cant be in my position, nor do I care about your current situation. My question was generally out of concern.. Didn't need a smart ass pointing out my sig and depict me as an outsider.

What university do you mine at, and who approved the use of university computing hardware for mining?

[nameface]

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.   

HAHAHA that took balls man, good show. Would YOU finance the very thing that could destroy you?
But really I'm sure bitcoin and banks can co-exist fruitfully. But banks must hate it at this point.

[nobbynobbynoob]

HAHAHA that took balls man, good show. Would YOU finance the very thing that could destroy you?
But really I'm sure bitcoin and banks can co-exist fruitfully. But banks must hate it at this point.

Banks could make plenty from Bitcoin, but they must hate that they'll have to follow the same rules as the rest of us!

[FrogBBQ]

Banks do not need to mine bitcoin, if they need some they will simply buy them, like probably most people if bitcoin becomes more wide spread. In the end, mining is only an infinitesimal side of the bitcoin economy, as it should.

The next 6 months are going to be interesting with the tsunami of ASIC rigs that will go online. In effect GPU mining is on death row. The switch from 50 to 25 BTC reward was already bad enough but ASIC is the last nail in the GPU coffin. With at least a first wave of ~100 to 150TH/s of total network hashing rate (up from ~20TH/s today) from early ASIC adopters, this will have some significant consequences on bitcoin difficulty.

Anyway, we will see how this will shape up. However, second wave adopters will still be able to get reasonnable returns I would think.

[SgtSpike]

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.   

HAHAHA that took balls man, good show. Would YOU finance the very thing that could destroy you?
But really I'm sure bitcoin and banks can co-exist fruitfully. But banks must hate it at this point.

More than likely, they had no idea what I was talking about, thought it sounded like a risky investment I was making, and didn't think I could pay it back if the investment didn't pan out.

I should have just told them I wanted to buy a car. 

[Frequency]

Banks do not need to mine bitcoin, if they need some they will simply buy them, like probably most people if bitcoin becomes more wide spread. In the end, mining is only an infinitesimal side of the bitcoin economy, as it should.

The next 6 months are going to be interesting with the tsunami of ASIC rigs that will go online. In effect GPU mining is on death row. The switch from 50 to 25 BTC reward was already bad enough but ASIC is the last nail in the GPU coffin. With at least a first wave of ~100 to 150TH/s of total network hashing rate (up from ~20TH/s today) from early ASIC adopters, this will have some significant consequences on bitcoin difficulty.

Anyway, we will see how this will shape up. However, second wave adopters will still be able to get reasonnable returns I would think.

well..people were mining when btc against $ was $6,- if blockreward halves @ $12+ not much have changed isn,t it..asic will arrive but not as soon as marketing tells us ...i guess gpu isn, t dead for at least 6month or so...

[crazyates]

Banks do not need to mine bitcoin, if they need some they will simply buy them, like probably most people if bitcoin becomes more wide spread. In the end, mining is only an infinitesimal side of the bitcoin economy, as it should.

The next 6 months are going to be interesting with the tsunami of ASIC rigs that will go online. In effect GPU mining is on death row. The switch from 50 to 25 BTC reward was already bad enough but ASIC is the last nail in the GPU coffin. With at least a first wave of ~100 to 150TH/s of total network hashing rate (up from ~20TH/s today) from early ASIC adopters, this will have some significant consequences on bitcoin difficulty.

Anyway, we will see how this will shape up. However, second wave adopters will still be able to get reasonnable returns I would think.

well..people were mining when btc against $ was $6,- if blockreward halves @ $12+ not much have changed isn,t it..asic will arrive but not as soon as marketing tells us ...i guess gpu isn, t dead for at least 6month or so...

I was mining when the price was $2.50, cuz by the time I spent them, they were up to $6. And then I kept mining when the price was $6, cuz by the time I spent them again, the price was $11. I shoulda bought when the price was $2.50, but I was too poor.

[FrogBBQ]

You could have made the same and probably higher profit without mining and simply by purchasing some bitcoin and selling them at a later point.

Even if the price of bitcoin increases (as it should overall over the next years), GPU mining will still be less profitable (if at all, and I doubt this very much) than ASIC. The main question is how long would you mine at a loss.

Personally, as soon as GPU mining is non-profitable I would immediately switch off my equipment.

[Desolator]

Personally, as soon as GPU mining is non-profitable I would immediately switch off my equipment.

I made 2-3x the money by not doing that when the GH/s fell like crazy, I was still at it "mining at a loss" as they said but then I held the BTC from $3.50-ish to $5.22 and sold em should have held em until $12 but after the majority of a year at about $4, I figured $5.22 was the best I could hope for.  That did prove to be true for a couple months at least

[FrogBBQ]

Sure, but there was no technological jump ahead as with the ASIC. Back then difficulty actually dropped for a while.

This next transition will be a totally different ball game and is reminiscent of the CPU to GPU switch. Who mines with CPU these days?

[creativex]

...people with very little money, people that don't know bettah, people that are just getting their nose wet with mining, people that don't pay for electricity, people that live in cold climates...

[Epicblood]

The reality is nobody is going to make money since they'll all screw each other over from driving the difficulty up Butterfly labs will make money though, lol.

This.

[coincollectingenterprises]

(1) SOMEONE is going to get the idea to invest a hundreds of thousands of dollars and will drive up difficulty if someone has not already sunk that money in.

(2) Reward assumes price will hold steady or go up when reward is cut in half. Logic would dictate as supply dwindles and demand increases, price goes up. However, that's just nonsense as there are many outside effects that can occur to a money system and affects on users of a money system. Since users do not rely on logic but a mixture of logic and feeling, basic economic principles of value do not apply without lots of leeway.

(3) What are the market manipulators attempting to do?

Figure out number three and then you'll know what action to take.

(4) Opportunity cost is the way to determine worth. What is your goal in buying the ASIC single? To mine bitcoin, to make money on bitcoin, or to be "cool" or what? That's how you determine whether something is worth it.

[nobbynobbynoob]

I've thought about this and was initially obsessed with the notion of obtaining the shortest possible break-even period in strictly fiat terms, since the interest on my debts is about 1,5%/month on the ASIC miners. But in the longer-term, grander scheme of things it doesn't really matter that much: what matters is the investment in Bitcoin because I believe in it. If it develops positively - and with portals like Bitpay expanding, among others, things are looking positive - the exchange rate, rather, purchasing power of a BTC should rise so much that mining BTC will obviously be profitable (even while paying 1,5%/month on debts incurred to invest in ASIC mining!).

Like a few have already said, a major future regret could well be having sold out too many BTC into bankster paper far too cheaply. I'll try my best to follow Charles Vollum's advice of not being obsessed with fiat as a reference point, and take it from there. I really like RodeoX's attitude of never even dreaming of selling out to the banksters below $100/BTC.

ETA: essentially, it's clear Bitcoin is not just a "get rich quick scheme". But this is the point: it's not meant to be. It's just sound money. If any of us are, or become rich from it, well, that's a fringe benefit I guess. After all, it's only money.

YMMV.

[Sitarow]

I've thought about this and was initially obsessed with the notion of obtaining the shortest possible break-even period in strictly fiat terms, since the interest on my debts is about 1,5%/month on the ASIC miners. But in the longer-term, grander scheme of things it doesn't really matter that much: what matters is the investment in Bitcoin because I believe in it. If it develops positively - and with portals like Bitpay expanding, among others, things are looking positive - the exchange rate, rather, purchasing power of a BTC should rise so much that mining BTC will obviously be profitable (even while paying 1,5%/month on debts incurred to invest in ASIC mining!).

Like a few have already said, a major future regret could well be having sold out too many BTC into bankster paper far too cheaply. I'll try my best to follow Charles Vollum's advice of not being obsessed with fiat as a reference point, and take it from there. I really like RodeoX's attitude of never even dreaming of selling out to the banksters below $100/BTC.

ETA: essentially, it's clear Bitcoin is not just a "get rich quick scheme". But this is the point: it's not meant to be. It's just sound money. If any of us are, or become rich from it, well, that's a fringe benefit I guess. After all, it's only money.

YMMV.

covering your costs/obligations is to be expected.

[nobbynobbynoob]

ETA: essentially, it's clear Bitcoin is not just a "get rich quick scheme". But this is the point: it's not meant to be. It's just sound money. If any of us are, or become rich from it, well, that's a fringe benefit I guess. After all, it's only money.

YMMV.

covering your costs/obligations is to be expected.

Yes, but the timescale is not as critical as I used to think.

[elvizzzzzzz]

I'm thinking of buying an ASIC single. I'd probably do so today if I could find a use for the unit outside of mining for bitcoin, however, BFL's website seems to suggest that these things will never run opencl.

Just BTW, I'm more interested in getting a function like parcellfun to run faster than in cracking passwords.

So, if you know of any asic's that are developing for opencl, I'm all ears.

Otherwise, it just seems like too much risk at the moment.

[Desolator]

OpenCL is purely graphics.  No other processing device of any kind can touch a GPU's performance on it.  They specifically designed their FPGAs and ASICs to not be able to crack passwords.  They'd need to design a brand new ASIC specifically for password cracking and they're not going to do that.

P.S. ASIC = Application-specific integrated circuit (it's designed to have 1 specific application and password cracking isn't it)

[Frequency]

I'm thinking of buying an ASIC single. I'd probably do so today if I could find a use for the unit outside of mining for bitcoin, however, BFL's website seems to suggest that these things will never run opencl.

Just BTW, I'm more interested in getting a function like parcellfun to run faster than in cracking passwords.

So, if you know of any asic's that are developing for opencl, I'm all ears.

Otherwise, it just seems like too much risk at the moment.

you are late.. you know that.. so i say just wait untill they are out there in the wild and not just in an nice marketing concept or you WILL lose money u cannot afford..

[evanrodge]

I'm a newswriter for a popular technology website, and we're running a report on exactly this topic. If you're a long-time miner who's either getting into FPGAs and ASICs, or one who's thinking about dropping out of mining because of them please contact me, as we're looking for interviews.

Thanks!

PS. We take anonymity very seriously.