Buying ASICS

[mining4fun11]

What brand and how many gh/s are you buying?  I have heard good and bad things pretty much from all the asic companies.  Some more worse then others. 

[1714025189]

1714025189

[1714025189]

1714025189

[1714025189]

1714025189

[Barnacle_Ed]

I'm not going to bother, frankly. It's late to get into the ASIC game at this point and it's much more of a financial risk than buying GPUs; you can always repurpose/resell the GPUs fairly easily later if things don't work out.


Strongly considering just selling the old rig and strictly trading from now on.

[Haihai]

I have my money on a BFL preorder. It might be too late to preorder now thou, but later on if production pics up, you might be able to buy ASIC's allmoust of the shelf.

[SLok]

Ordered a 40Gh/s single sc early August (well, actually ordered 6 jalapeno's, and upgraded those to 1 single when BFL upgraded them from 40 to 60Gh/s). I understand now that there is no way anything will be ready to ship before the end november block halving, I even wonder if BFL will ship before btcfpga does, the last one claims shipping will start the week after thanksgiving. I do know the last one has less orders, and is likely to ship new orders made now sooner than BFL, wich is flooded with orders.
But this is all speculation, since no company has ever given actual dates of when, only estimates, wich in BFL's case, have changed from sept/october to october/early november to november/december.
Be prepared for disappointment, in relation to the (roughly) shipping expectations made by all companies.

[Ploo]

I'll be getting a 54GH bASIC from BTCFPGA.

[miner2049]

I would like to buy a BFL ASIC miner, but I'd like to run the numbers once they start shipping and can give a reasonable delivery date.  If the ROI starting in January is 260 days or so, I wouldn't mind getting a BFL single. The idea of getting a 100% ROI in less than a year sounds good.

[Haihai]

I would like to buy a BFL ASIC miner, but I'd like to run the numbers once they start shipping and can give a reasonable delivery date.  If the ROI starting in January is 260 days or so, I wouldn't mind getting a BFL single. The idea of getting a 100% ROI in less than a year sounds good.

How did you get such high ROI-%? My own calculations would give only around 30% ROI on first year.

[miner2049]

I would like to buy a BFL ASIC miner, but I'd like to run the numbers once they start shipping and can give a reasonable delivery date.  If the ROI starting in January is 260 days or so, I wouldn't mind getting a BFL single. The idea of getting a 100% ROI in less than a year sounds good.

How did you get such high ROI-%? My own calculations would give only around 30% ROI on first year.

If I use a BFL single with 60GH/s, costing $1330, 25 coins per block, 60w, .10 $/kWh with a difficulty of 90 million, it would take a year to make $1370.

http://ow.ly/eEb8O

So you would make back the money you spent on your rig. From that point forward it is profit less normal operational expenses.  You could also amortize the life of the rig and perhaps even get a 100% value return from BFL when the next generation comes out if they are still offering such a trade in for an upgrade.

 

[hardcore-fs]

That is of course taking into account that the price sticks at $11.6x

I think what we will see:

1. The producers of the ASIC versions delaying release and using the kits that have been pre-funded to mine at 50 coins.
Then starting to release the bulk of the kits after the block break at 25 coins.
(Why not make millions and a BIT on the side!!)

2. As more processing power comes on line for silly prices, the difficulty will start to rise rapidly.


The other issue with the ASIC versions are:

1. They cannot be re-purposed and would need to be scrapped off eventually, graphic cards/FPGA devices can be repurposed.
2. If there is a bug in the ASIC implementation, then basically everyone with a unit is F***ked. (errors in SHA calculation engines are actually fairly common in new implementations)

I've worked with ASICS and depending on the implementation of the BFL, an error in the ASIC could result in a complete re-mask and scrapping off.
But that would depend on if they have implemented a raw SHA256 engine, or microcoded the design.

HC

[vanillagorilla]

I refuse to buy anything from Butterfly Labs until I see proof of their claims.  The Bitforce Jalapeno is supposed to do 4.5GH/s.  Show me I ask.

[miner2049]

I refuse to buy anything from Butterfly Labs until I see proof of their claims.  The Bitforce Jalapeno is supposed to do 4.5GH/s.  Show me I ask.

Don't their original singles and mining rigs perform as advertised?  http://www.butterflylabs.com/product-details/

[awesomey]

I'm having trouble even believing that these are going to come out in 2012.

Creating these devices is not illegal in the slightest, yet BFL doesn't have an address (only PO Box), and isn't registered with the state of Missouri as a corporation (required by law), even though they call themselves "Butterfly Labs Inc." and they only accept hard to trace/contest payment methods for their supposed devices. It's very shifty, one that is making me wait to see what happens.

[hardcore-fs]

Well.......
I've seen ASIC cores available for SHA256, available from a number of vendors (telicom/etc), so it is certainly a viable solution.

But having looked at their production facilities & equipment(shown in various photos), and having over 25 years of manufacturing under my belt... I can say from what I have seen that it certainly does not appear to be a professional manufacturing operation.

Also the name "butterfly labs" may indicate a Chinese background.

Certainly I think these guys could be a little more forthcoming WITHOUT actually exposing any business secrets (show us the business registration/tax filing etc), but again that may just be down to a lack of business training and experience.

I have also done a bit of reading up of all posts by these guys since my last post, and I have a fairly shrewd Idea of how they may have implemented the algorithm.
Lets just say they appear to have gone for speed over the opportunity to re-purpose the ASIC, but that would tend to leave them open to any mistakes in the algorithm.

The other 'issue' I have is that there seems to be a sudden flood of manufacturers offering ASIC options, all about the same delivery time & about the same thrughput.... which tends to make me a bit suspicious as to the source of the ASICS

I just wish I'd paid more attention to bitcoins when they came out, because with my contacts and manufacturing exp. ,I could have been ahead of the game.......

What might be interesting........., is that every one who has places an order via "bank funds ", lets us see if its all the same bank account or if it is multiple banks.

[SLok]

Well.......
I've seen ASIC cores available for SHA256, available from a number of vendors (telicom/etc), so it is certainly a viable solution.

But having looked at their production facilities & equipment(shown in various photos), and having over 25 years of manufacturing under my belt... I can say from what I have seen that it certainly does not appear to be a professional manufacturing operation.

Also the name "butterfly labs" may indicate a Chinese background.

Certainly I think these guys could be a little more forthcoming WITHOUT actually exposing any business secrets (show us the business registration/tax filing etc), but again that may just be down to a lack of business training and experience.

I have also done a bit of reading up of all posts by these guys since my last post, and I have a fairly shrewd Idea of how they may have implemented the algorithm.
Lets just say they appear to have gone for speed over the opportunity to re-purpose the ASIC, but that would tend to leave them open to any mistakes in the algorithm.

The other 'issue' I have is that there seems to be a sudden flood of manufacturers offering ASIC options, all about the same delivery time & about the same thrughput.... which tends to make me a bit suspicious as to the source of the ASICS

I just wish I'd paid more attention to bitcoins when they came out, because with my contacts and manufacturing exp. ,I could have been ahead of the game.......

What might be interesting........., is that every one who has places an order via "bank funds ", lets us see if its all the same bank account or if it is multiple banks.

BFL outsourced their production sofar, and will do so for their asics line for the first and maybe second batch too. So read up a little on the current status of the asic producers, instead of asking the questions that have been asked here hundreds of times? Spreading fud based on assumptions isn't really showing any knowledge on or interest in matters either.

[KfrogCT]

I think ASICS will change the game, but anything to do with Bitcoin is an investment. I am betting on BFL coming through in Dec.

[sgravina]

... even though they call themselves "Butterfly Labs Inc." and they only accept hard to trace/contest payment methods for their supposed devices. It's very shifty, one that is making me wait to see what happens.

Is this true?  That they don't accept checks or credit cards?  They're a business, I'm a business why wouldn't they accept my check?  That's how any other vendor does business.  The check has plenty of time to clear.  Maybe their bank charges them extra for checks drawn on US currency.

[serp]

...isn't registered with the state of Missouri as a corporation (required by law), even though they call themselves "Butterfly Labs Inc." and they only accept hard to trace/contest payment methods for their supposed devices. It's very shifty, one that is making me wait to see what happens.

I'm not going to pick a side here but they are registered in Wyoming as BF Labs Inc.
 
https://wyobiz.wy.gov/Business/FilingDetails.aspx?eFNum=149144214231010201167112190255028042109060235081

[Fcx35x10]

 

[KfrogCT]

... even though they call themselves "Butterfly Labs Inc." and they only accept hard to trace/contest payment methods for their supposed devices. It's very shifty, one that is making me wait to see what happens.

Is this true?  That they don't accept checks or credit cards?  They're a business, I'm a business why wouldn't they accept my check?  That's how any other vendor does business.  The check has plenty of time to clear.  Maybe their bank charges them extra for checks drawn on US currency.

That can't be true, I paid in Sept using Paypal, and it worked just fine. However I have never seen checks as an option.

[BFL_Lab_Rat]

I'll be getting a 54GH bASIC from BTCFPGA.

Do they have a confirmed delivery date?