3) Yes, it is still profitable. My estimate is a breakeven point of about 6 months if put on preorder today.
Hi,
Out of curiosity how are you estimating that. I realize that it is impossible to be spot on without knowing how many units have been ordered or the delivery times (or even what Butterfly labs competition are offering).
I have been trying to do my own estimate, I was just wondering if you had a better source of information that I could look at.
Butterfly Labs says that 20,000 chips are enough to fulfill all current preorders. That means they have less than 150TH/s of preorders (at the time of that statement). They are the largest sellers according to every piece of information I have seen thus far, so I estimate there is currently 200-300TH/s of preorders across all ASIC vendors. Even at 300TH/s, and including the 25BTC reward drop, ASIC devices would still pay for themselves within 6 months.
Of course, that's not including any additional orders placed and fulfilled within that 6 month time period, which would inevitably also affect ROI. Still, I believe it is a happy future for investing in ASICs at this moment.
I could be wrong.