If Butterfly Labs never delivers Bitcoin ASIC how this will afect Bitcoin price?

[SgtSpike]

Are you just making these posts as a precursor to an "I told you so" post, when the time comes?

I hope he makes one.
Those rare moments of joy are one of the few things left to strive for in the bitcoin forums.  

I hope he does too, if he's right.  He would deserve to brag about it.

EDIT:  Of course, there's always the possibility that he is affected by SIWOTI Syndrome too.

[trogdorjw73]

Are you just making these posts as a precursor to an "I told you so" post, when the time comes?

I hope he makes one.
Those rare moments of joy are one of the few things left to strive for in the bitcoin forums.  

I hope he does too, if he's right.  He would deserve to brag about it.

EDIT:  Of course, there's always the possibility that he is affected by SIWOTI Syndrome too.

I basically review computer hardware for a living, and everything being suggested with these ASICs flies in the face of what I see regularly with AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, etc. processors. Now, maybe building something to do SHA256 hashing is just super easy and you can focus on that and nothing else, but I just don't buy it. If people started working to make one of these ASICs last summer and they had a team of a dozen superb engineers, I'd still say 18 months to go from design to tapeout to shipping product would be an incredible feat. So basically, it's a warning to those that are throwing potentially thousands of dollars at these people that it sounds too good to be true, and thus it probably is.

I'm also curious to see if anyone has information that I'm just overlooking. I could be totally wrong on all of this and would love to know exactly why. Is ASIC design perhaps a lot easier than I'm thinking? Or maybe BFL actually has a really large team of engineers, so it's not that far out for them to do an 18 month product cycle? (Though really, with the tanking of BTC price up until January I can't imagine people kept pursuing ASICs during the Sept to Jan time frame.) So someone made a thread and I felt like joining in for discussions... and I basically only look in the Speculation subforum (don't ask me why....)

And thanks, ElectricMucus -- got a good chuckle out of that comment. :-)

[MysteryMiner]

The question is not will BFL deliver ASIC in time or at all. I'm almost certain that they are a scam. This is not about development times or fab processes or possible performance or performance per used energy. The whole website looks like a scam. Just take a look for reverse search of this picture http://www.tineye.com/search/2603634f3c1cc35b20fab5492f65b3f63449790a/

The original question is about what will happen to price.

[ElectricMucus]

I'd agree with you if it weren't that there are several people on this forums who reported mining with their FPGA Singles. So in order for it to be a scam they have to somehow be in on it.
That wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen, but still it gives them some credibility.
Do you think that these are genuine products or just empty boxes?

On the price: Almost certainly down, this would be a massive blow to the credibility of bitcoin businesses.

[SgtSpike]

I'd agree with you if it weren't that there are several people on this forums who reported mining with their FPGA Singles. So in order for it to be a scam they have to somehow be in on it.
That wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen, but still it gives them some credibility.
Do you think that these are genuine products or just empty boxes?

On the price: Almost certainly down, this would be a massive blow to the credibility of bitcoin businesses.

Lol, that'd be a LOT of people to be in on the scam, without a single person having reported not receiving their FPGA.  The FPGAs are real.  I bought 10 of them myself (which I have since resold mostly to yochdog, who has been happily mining with them since).

Also, if any of you scam-callers wants to put your money where your mouth is, I'd be happy to counter your bet on betsofbitco.in.  BFL will deliver.  The question (in my mind) is when.

[trogdorjw73]

I'd agree with you if it weren't that there are several people on this forums who reported mining with their FPGA Singles. So in order for it to be a scam they have to somehow be in on it.
That wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen, but still it gives them some credibility.
Do you think that these are genuine products or just empty boxes?

On the price: Almost certainly down, this would be a massive blow to the credibility of bitcoin businesses.

Lol, that'd be a LOT of people to be in on the scam, without a single person having reported not receiving their FPGA.  The FPGAs are real.  I bought 10 of them myself (which I have since resold mostly to yochdog, who has been happily mining with them since).

Also, if any of you scam-callers wants to put your money where your mouth is, I'd be happy to counter your bet on betsofbitco.in.  BFL will deliver.  The question (in my mind) is when.

FPGAs are a completely different category -- you basically sacrifice raw performance potential and use off the shelf programmable chip arrays in place of doing a custom ASIC. Note that while FPGAs are more efficient than GPUs, their performance and cost is such that it's not worlds better. 800 Mh/s at 40W compared to 650 Mh/s at 350W means they're about an order of magnitude faster. GPUs on the other hand are about 30X faster than CPUs for hashing, and ASICs have the potential to be 30-50X faster than GPUs (and possibly use less power at the same time). FPGAs are real and people are using them, but FPGA vs. ASIC is like comparing a Visual BASIC prototype (that's missing a bunch of features) to a final C++ program.

As far as pricing goes, if ASICs begin shipping, pricing will tank. People will want to recover the cost of their ASIC hardware, and while not all of them are going to be interested in selling every coin mined, plenty will. Difficulty will shoot up, and if you can actually get 60 Gh/s at 60W you would have a system capable of mining about .7% of all BTC ($300 USD/day at the current rates) while drawing only about $0.20 in power per day. You could sell BTC at $0.01 UDS each and break even, so anything above that is profit (after recovering the cost of the $1300 hardware, of course). Personally, the day people confirm they're running ASICs (and we see the associated spike in block generation with difficulty following), I sell all my coins and wait to buy back in until we stabilize -- probably in the low single digits.

[MysteryMiner]

FPGA are real but making code for FPGA is one thing, making ASIC is another. It is more like Visual Basic vs. ASM than Visual Basic vs C++.

The increase in difficulty will concentrate mined coins in fewer hands as GPU part of miners shut down so the question is what they will do with mined coins.

But my point is that BFL ASIC will be vaporware. They have nothing right now just a Solidworks rendering and a generic picture of silicon waffer.

[SgtSpike]

I'd agree with you if it weren't that there are several people on this forums who reported mining with their FPGA Singles. So in order for it to be a scam they have to somehow be in on it.
That wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen, but still it gives them some credibility.
Do you think that these are genuine products or just empty boxes?

On the price: Almost certainly down, this would be a massive blow to the credibility of bitcoin businesses.

Lol, that'd be a LOT of people to be in on the scam, without a single person having reported not receiving their FPGA.  The FPGAs are real.  I bought 10 of them myself (which I have since resold mostly to yochdog, who has been happily mining with them since).

Also, if any of you scam-callers wants to put your money where your mouth is, I'd be happy to counter your bet on betsofbitco.in.  BFL will deliver.  The question (in my mind) is when.

FPGAs are a completely different category -- you basically sacrifice raw performance potential and use off the shelf programmable chip arrays in place of doing a custom ASIC. Note that while FPGAs are more efficient than GPUs, their performance and cost is such that it's not worlds better. 800 Mh/s at 40W compared to 650 Mh/s at 350W means they're about an order of magnitude faster. GPUs on the other hand are about 30X faster than CPUs for hashing, and ASICs have the potential to be 30-50X faster than GPUs (and possibly use less power at the same time). FPGAs are real and people are using them, but FPGA vs. ASIC is like comparing a Visual BASIC prototype (that's missing a bunch of features) to a final C++ program.

As far as pricing goes, if ASICs begin shipping, pricing will tank. People will want to recover the cost of their ASIC hardware, and while not all of them are going to be interested in selling every coin mined, plenty will. Difficulty will shoot up, and if you can actually get 60 Gh/s at 60W you would have a system capable of mining about .7% of all BTC ($300 USD/day at the current rates) while drawing only about $0.20 in power per day. You could sell BTC at $0.01 UDS each and break even, so anything above that is profit (after recovering the cost of the $1300 hardware, of course). Personally, the day people confirm they're running ASICs (and we see the associated spike in block generation with difficulty following), I sell all my coins and wait to buy back in until we stabilize -- probably in the low single digits.

I'll assume your reply regarding FPGA's is more directed at Electric than myself.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to price when ASICs ship.  A great deal of miners currently keep their minted coins (probably 90% or greater).  I'll probably be aiming to sell half and keep half, so right there, your argument is partially justified.  Then again, if the price drops significantly, I'll just hold all my mined coins until it rebounds.  My ASICs are already paid for by FPGA mining, so I am not worried about getting any USD out of it quickly.

[capn noe]

I'm not really sure if hits to the credibility of Bitcoin influence the price of BTC as much as you'd think. Seems to keep on plugging with good or bad news.

"Would ASIC's not showing up cause miners to sell their hoards" is almost a more direct question.

[trogdorjw73]

I'm not really sure if hits to the credibility of Bitcoin influence the price of BTC as much as you'd think. Seems to keep on plugging with good or bad news.

"Would ASIC's not showing up cause miners to sell their hoards" is almost a more direct question.

In answer to that question: no. ASICs not showing up would mean that you won't see a bunch of miners selling a lot of BTC to recover initial hardware cost.

Put another way: if ASICs really begin shipping and cost $1200-$1300 for a setup that can mine at 60Gh/s, I'll take out a loan and buy one, and in the first month I should be able to recover the cost of the hardware by selling coins (assuming 10,000 people don't do the same thing, naturally -- gotta keep an eye on difficulty). Actually, if ASICs come out, difficulty and network hash rate could get really crazy -- like, we could see difficulty increase by a factor of 50X over the course of a couple months or less.

Current total hash rate for BTC is around 21900Gh/s, so I guess my earlier estimate was off: with 60Gh/s you'd mine on average 0.3% of all BTC; first person to get an ASIC and start mining could in theory earn $4000 in a single month! But if 1000 people get these ASICs, then difficulty will quadruple and you'll only get 0.07% of all BTC. Taking the latter, you then acquire 2.52BTC/day, or 75.6BTC/month, with an electricity cost of under $10 most likely. Sell half of your BTC and as long as price is in the double digits you break even after less than two months.

[ElectricMucus]

FPGA are real but making code for FPGA is one thing, making ASIC is another. It is more like Visual Basic vs. ASM than Visual Basic vs C++.

The increase in difficulty will concentrate mined coins in fewer hands as GPU part of miners shut down so the question is what they will do with mined coins.

But my point is that BFL ASIC will be vaporware. They have nothing right now just a Solidworks rendering and a generic picture of silicon waffer.

So what you are saying is the FPGA product were brought out in order to get credibility for the scam?
Mind you when BFL first started they claimed their FPGA line contained "custom hardware" as well. Some amoung my self used the same reasoning that the thing is a scam.
What it actually turned out to be was something differnt, with vastly worse specs than the initial promised product.

So that is what I am betting on (not literary). The best explanation would be some FPGA conversion chips in those devices. Like Altera Hardcopy or something.
It fits the time margin and what they demonstrated to be capable of, and given the attiude of their customers they will get away with it if they lets say deliver half of the promised performance/second (30 GH/s instead of 60) and one tenth of the promised performance/watt (100MH/Jule instead of 1GH/Jule).

[SgtSpike]

FPGA are real but making code for FPGA is one thing, making ASIC is another. It is more like Visual Basic vs. ASM than Visual Basic vs C++.

The increase in difficulty will concentrate mined coins in fewer hands as GPU part of miners shut down so the question is what they will do with mined coins.

But my point is that BFL ASIC will be vaporware. They have nothing right now just a Solidworks rendering and a generic picture of silicon waffer.

So what you are saying is the FPGA product were brought out in order to get credibility for the scam?
Mind you when BFL first started they claimed their FPGA line contained "custom hardware" as well. Some amoung my self used the same reasoning that the thing is a scam.
What it actually turned out to be was something differnt, with vastly worse specs than the initial promised product.

So that is what I am betting on (not literary). The best explanation would be some FPGA conversion chips in those devices. Like Altera Hardcopy or something.
It fits the time margin and what they demonstrated to be capable of, and given the attiude of their customers they will get away with it if they lets say deliver half of the promised performance/second (30 GH/s instead of 60) and one tenth of the promised performance/watt (100MH/Jule instead of 1GH/Jule).

I'd be more than happy to take you up on a bet about that too.

[capn noe]

Ya'all can't even speculate about this, can you?

Amazing.

"In answer to that question: no. ASICs not showing up would mean that you won't see a bunch of miners selling a lot of BTC to recover initial hardware cost."

That's the closest so far to actually being on-topic, then degenerated into speculation about how quickly ASIC's will pay for themselves. That's not the topic.

I also think no, but I'm assuming that miners WILL try to recover hardware cost but will be patient enough to not tank the value.

[ElectricMucus]

I'd be more than happy to take you up on a bet about that too.

Again, like in the other thread, I'm broke and don't wanna give BFL additional publicity. Additional even BFL supporters tend to give them an additional margin for error, which I don't consider fair. It should be something like 10% (In our case 909.09 MH/Jule to 1100MH/Jule)

[FLHippy]

I'm morally torn between being nice because I want the friends who I have met while mining to not get ripped off.. and wanting to be right about seeing too many red flags and not participating with ASIC pre-orders.

When I upgraded my 1 GPU dedicated miner 2 a 3 GPU miner 7 months ago, I didn't (pre)order FPGA for the same reasons.

When GPU mining ends, I may have to step away from the bit coin hobby.. And thats OK. I'll leave well fed as sales of Bitcoin has paid for my lunch for a year and some handful of months now. I will be able to sell my GPUs online even if there is a glut of GPUs online. It's estimated that bit coin mining is 1% of AMDs business and I have 3 very high end AMD cards. so I've got nothing to lose really, those cards come with a 3 year warranty and if ASIC does hit the scene, there will be more than 2 years left on that warranty... plus the boxes, and all accompanying hardware software.

[trogdorjw73]

Ya'all can't even speculate about this, can you?

Amazing.

"In answer to that question: no. ASICs not showing up would mean that you won't see a bunch of miners selling a lot of BTC to recover initial hardware cost."

That's the closest so far to actually being on-topic, then degenerated into speculation about how quickly ASIC's will pay for themselves. That's not the topic.

I also think no, but I'm assuming that miners WILL try to recover hardware cost but will be patient enough to not tank the value.

Speculating without reasoning behind the speculation isn't particularly useful, so that's why I provided more than just a simple "up" or "down" answer. If you want a different phrasing without getting into technical discussions of the hardware and such:

Possibility 1) No ASICs -> no change in status quo -> [speculation] -> price continues on current path (low double digits)
Possibility 2) ASICs -> change in status quo -> [speculation] -> increase in difficulty of mining -> GPU miners mostly stop -> race to bottom to drive out smaller operations -> price goes down.

But obviously there are a lot of other factors that can have a much bigger impact on the pricing of BTC than ASICs.

[MysteryMiner]

So then the most reasonable prediction is that price will remain the same. Because I'm almost certain that the ASIC will not come out, at least in near future and from them.

And how about miners who lost money on prepaid orders? Can they cause some action?

I remind that this is no thread about will the BFL deliver what is promised. This tread is speculation what will happen when the ASIC preorders are not fulfilled.

[IMakeComps]

The price wont be affected by ASIC. The price is only determined by what someone is willing to pay for it.

[MysteryMiner]

The price wont be affected by ASIC. The price is only determined by what someone is willing to pay for it.

And also it is determined how many coins for what price are put to sale. If many people sell coins for cheap, the price falls. If the expectation is not fulfilled and people lose money to BFL scam, this will affect the price and quantity of coins put to sale.