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

[beekeeper]

OpenCL is purely graphics.

OpenCL on Altera FPGAs is in beta.

[niko]

OP, I think you're right. you can wait for the sharp price declining of the ASIC mining rigs.

Yep. It seems to me that mining business is currently overcrowded - lots of folks jumped in driven by simple excitement about ASICs, without due dilligence. There will only be 25 coins every 10 minutes to compete for. Soon, the weak will realize what they've got themselves into, and start selling off their ASIC rigs to minimize the losses. Interesting thing about ASICs is that, for the first time, we've got a mining technology that is absolutely exclusive to mining, and cannot be resold or repurposed for other applications. Therefore, difficulty will never decrease like it used to in the past when GPUs were sold off to gamers, and now that FPGAs can be repurposed (at least in theory). ASICs will simply change hands and keep hashing.

[Gomeler]

At this point I am waiting on the sidelines. BFL turned me off with their lack of information and bASIC failed to release any information when they stated they would. I've sold off most of the GPUs and am just running enough GPUs and FPGAs to heat the apartment for this winter.

I'll wait to see the fallout of the ASIC releases and perhaps pick up some miners from whichever company has the best offer. In the meantime I'll keep checking my btc balance and crossing my fingers that the price increases a bit in the next few months. Daddy wants another car.

[FrogBBQ]

I disagree with these earlier statements. I think that ASIC adopters will, in the end, be the only one hashing away by the end of 2013 if they play their card right by reinvesting judiciously their earnings. Sure, late comer will join the group but this will come at a cost. It is not like ASIC miners are going to drop in price! There is no economic reason this would occur, if only it will go up. GPU mining will be dead as it will simply be impossible to keep up with ASIC rigs for their huge Hash/$/kW. Even if somebody with a large GPU farm would be able to increase its Hash rate 10 fold for free, the electricity consumption would make no sense.

As of today, there will be approximately between 100 to 200 Th of power added to the bitcoin network in the next 3-5 months (this is 5 to 10 times the current network strength with a 3 million difficulty). With the difficulty increasing to at least 10-25 million and the reward halving, the only viable option will be ASIC. Anything below 50-200 Gh/s rig will be irrelevant.

Anyway, while all this is predictable, the BTC exchange rate is not. And this is where the whole story will be decided. In the end, the number of people joining, after the early adopters, will be directly correlated to BTC value to other currencies. If it increases, then you are going to have some very profitable operations and more people purchasing ASIC rigs. If it drops, ASIC early adopters will be the only one mining away until BTC price increase again.

As always, time will tell.

[Frequency]

I disagree with these earlier statements. I think that ASIC adopters will, in the end, be the only one hashing away by the end of 2013 if they play their card right by reinvesting judiciously their earnings. Sure, late comer will join the group but this will come at a cost. It is not like ASIC miners are going to drop in price! There is no economic reason this would occur, if only it will go up. GPU mining will be dead as it will simply be impossible to keep up with ASIC rigs for their huge Hash/$/kW. Even if somebody with a large GPU farm would be able to increase its Hash rate 10 fold for free, the electricity consumption would make no sense.

As of today, there will be approximately between 100 to 200 Th of power added to the bitcoin network in the next 3-5 months (this is 5 to 10 times the current network strength with a 3 million difficulty). With the difficulty increasing to at least 10-25 million and the reward halving, the only viable option will be ASIC. Anything below 50-200 Gh/s rig will be irrelevant.

Anyway, while all this is predictable, the BTC exchange rate is not. And this is where the whole story will be decided. In the end, the number of people joining, after the early adopters, will be directly correlated to BTC value to other currencies. If it increases, then you are going to have some very profitable operations and more people purchasing ASIC rigs. If it drops, ASIC early adopters will be the only one mining away until BTC price increase again.

As always, time will tell.

Al lot of writing and u are completly right.. only IF ASIC,s are for real..and deliverd in 3 or 5 months ..there is still zero proof out there and it is already November....

ASIC fabs promise to make 900 devices a day.. . so if u jump in after u be good to... without the risk of getting ripped of..

The ones with the most money to invest will keep doing the most BTC.. not the early adopter...getting some titbits..

The ones with the big GPU farms have the means to change to big ASIC farms when needed.
They have the space and place to get even more devices hanged on the net, with less electr. costs
They are formiliar with hardware and software issues big time
They will try the keep getting the most shares
They will be on top after the big ASIC rush, fever or what ever ..

IN 3 OR 5 MONTHS AS U SAY IT WILL BE SAME HAVING A GPU@800MH NOW VS ASIC@60GH then.

So not that much is changing besides the network security...right??   

[FrogBBQ]

No matter how you twist it though, ASIC will happen.

I agree that the timing may/will be off by a few months but it will happen.

As for an ASIC flooding market, this will exclusively depend of the value of BTC as said in my previous post. On a mid term perspective it should at least double to ~$20/BTC but this would be logical and as many of us realized by now, the market is often irrational.

[Epicblood]

@OP
I don't think its worth it to buy now...

[opentoe]

I'm the original poster, and went back to see old threads. This post started in September 2012 and here we are, end of January 2013 and those good ol' ASIC's aren't even tangible yet. It does still amaze me how long people will wait while someone has their money. Seriously, everyone think the ASIC's will even come out before March 2013? And if you are solely responding to the information you get from BFL, well then, that doesn't say much right now.

[os2sam]

I'm the original poster, and went back to see old threads. This post started in September 2012 and here we are, end of January 2013 and those good ol' ASIC's aren't even tangible yet. It does still amaze me how long people will wait while someone has their money. Seriously, everyone think the ASIC's will even come out before March 2013? And if you are solely responding to the information you get from BFL, well then, that doesn't say much right now.

I think they will come out.  When? I have no idea.  I didn't have the money to pre order one of the medium/higher rate ASIC's and now I don't want to invest in any till we see how well/reliably they work.

My hope is to have a medium rate device that can operate unattended for years at a time without having to worry about it.  GPU's certainly did not live up that that kind of standard but my hope is that one generation of ASIC will.

Does anyone have an idea/theory how long and reliably one of the FPGA devices would have worked?
Sam

[Beta-coiner1]

I think individuals are giving Beta silicon too much credit.It "MIGHT" happen but it will definitely take time and several willing "beta-testers" before anything is taken seriously.I think if one is wise into holding onto BTC one should not also be in a rush to adopt another way of mining for it as well.

[greyhawk]

I think individuals are giving Beta silicon too much credit.It "MIGHT" happen but it will definitely take time and several willing "beta-testers" before anything is taken seriously.I think if one is wise into holding onto BTC one should not also be in a rush to adopt another way of mining for it as well.

Yeah, well they are giving Beta software too much credit too, which is how this whole thing with trying to build an economy out of an experimental proof of concept happened in the first place.

[VeeMiner]

I think it is worth it