bASIC - Not accept BTC for pre-orders?

[SgtSpike]

I've made a valid point: why should ASIC vendors sell ASIC's rather than mine with them? The only reply I got was a long-winded
waffle that strung several half-arguements together.

No, several people have explained this to you, in several different ways, and you still don't get it. Whether you physically can't understand, or you're just too damn stubborn remains to be seen.

Point 1) All manufacturers have stated that they will not, under any circumstances, mine with their hardware before the hardware gets shipped to customers.

Point 2) If BFL brings online 150TH, they would be >80% of the network. This is the exact opposite of the decentralization that makes the network secure. If one party owned 80% of the network, even for a brief period, faith in the network would crash. Sure, they could mine for a month straight at 80% of the network hashrate to mine the 75,000 coins it would take just to equal the $1million in preorders (at today's prices), but by the end of the month there would be no Bitcoin network outside of BFL, and those coins would be useless - literally worth pennies, if anything.

Point 3) Even if BFL only brings online 10TH/s to avoid total network domination, it still doesn't make much sense. Sure, they'd be mining ~1000 BTC/day, but that's only ~$13,000. Compare that to the $1million+ in preorders, and it still doesn't make sense to mine.

Point 4) The first manufacturer to start shipping ASICs, and proove that they can deliver a product within advertised specs, will get a lot more pre-orders from those who are caution or even doubters. They actually have a monetary interest in being the first manufacturer to ship.

Other people have made other points on top of these, but you refuse to listen. Just because you can't see past your goose-and-the-golden-egg analogy, doesn't mean it makes sense in the real world.

+1.

Another one to add to the ignore list, I guess.  Some people just can't look past their own nose to see the world around them.

[bonker]

I've made a valid point: why should ASIC vendors sell ASIC's rather than mine with them? The only reply I got was a long-winded
waffle that strung several half-arguements together.

No, several people have explained this to you, in several different ways, and you still don't get it. Whether you physically can't understand, or you're just too damn stubborn remains to be seen.

Point 1) All manufacturers have stated that they will not, under any circumstances, mine with their hardware before the hardware gets shipped to customers.

Point 2) If BFL brings online 150TH, they would be >80% of the network. This is the exact opposite of the decentralization that makes the network secure. If one party owned 80% of the network, even for a brief period, faith in the network would crash. Sure, they could mine for a month straight at 80% of the network hashrate to mine the 75,000 coins it would take just to equal the $1million in preorders (at today's prices), but by the end of the month there would be no Bitcoin network outside of BFL, and those coins would be useless - literally worth pennies, if anything.

Point 3) Even if BFL only brings online 10TH/s to avoid total network domination, it still doesn't make much sense. Sure, they'd be mining ~1000 BTC/day, but that's only ~$13,000. Compare that to the $1million+ in preorders, and it still doesn't make sense to mine.

Point 4) The first manufacturer to start shipping ASICs, and proove that they can deliver a product within advertised specs, will get a lot more pre-orders from those who are caution or even doubters. They actually have a monetary interest in being the first manufacturer to ship.

Other people have made other points on top of these, but you refuse to listen. Just because you can't see past your goose-and-the-golden-egg analogy, doesn't mean it makes sense in the real world.

Calm down, if you don't like my questions just follow all the other children, stamp your feet and click the ignore button.

Point 1: They could be lying, a common practice in business I've heard.
Point 2: They could be hiding their activity. Entirely possible
Point 3: Negated by Point 2 above
Point 4: Half true. They have a monetary interest in shipping, but also an interest in delaying this as long as possible.

[DarkHyudrA]

Point 2: They could be hiding their activity. Entirely possible

Hiding how? The difficulty would skyrocket if they bring some bASIC to active work.
Your lack of statement is the reason why some many of them click on the Ignore button.

[bonker]

Point 2: They could be hiding their activity. Entirely possible

Hiding how? The difficulty would skyrocket if they bring some bASIC to active work.
Your lack of statement is the reason why some many of them click on the Ignore button.

I'm just pointing out possibilities here. As I mentioned, since the reward rate halved and difficulty is still up,
there has been a doubling in hash rate in a very short time. This could even be seen as evidence of ASIC mining.

Just throwing ideas out there, I can cope with critical answers though, ignore buttons are inexcusable.

[DarkHyudrA]

Let's say that they stole lot of money, and just builded half of what they were capable of.
On their site it says "800+", lets keep 400.
400 * 27GH(their "worst" ASIC model) / 1024 = 10.54TH/s

I can't access the graphs here, but I believe that 10TH/s is a lot for the actual hashrate.

[crazyates]

Point 2: They could be hiding their activity. Entirely possible

Hiding how? The difficulty would skyrocket if they bring some bASIC to active work.
Your lack of statement is the reason why some many of them click on the Ignore button.

I'm just pointing out possibilities here. As I mentioned, since the reward rate halved and difficulty is still up,
there has been a doubling in hash rate in a very short time. This could even be seen as evidence of ASIC mining.

I'm sorry, but I just had to LOL at this. You don't even know what you're talking about, and you're spewing "facts" with no basis. No, it's not a possibility. You can't just "hide" a massive percentage of the network. If ASICs are mining in any significant amount, it would be blatantly visible.

I think you are very confused about how Bitcoin works. I'll try to keep it simple for you. The reward half is/was an independent phenomenon that does not affect the difficulty. The hashrate affects the difficulty. The higher the hashrate, the more blocks are found. The more blocks are found, the higher the diff gets recalculated at the end of a 2016 block period. The difficulty is recalculated so that the network should find a block at an average of 10 minutes / block. The reward half means that each block now grants 25 BTC, not 50BTC. Again, reward half and difficulty have nothing to do with each other. If the network hashrate had doubled at the same time as the reward half, then the difficulty would have doubled within 7 days of the reward half. This has not happened, and the network is roughly the same as it was before the reward half, even a little bit lower.

Point 1: They could be lying, a common practice in business I've heard.
Point 2: They could be hiding their activity. Entirely possible
Point 3: Negated by Point 2 above
Point 4: Half true. They have a monetary interest in shipping, but also an interest in delaying this as long as possible.

Point 1) They could be lying, but they would be quickly discovered.
Point 2) It is not at all possible.
Point 3) See point 2 and point 1. It's not possible to hide their activity, and they would be quickly discovered.
Point 4) They do not have an interest to delay as long as possible. Did you even read my point?

[Carlton Banks]

*sigh*

Posting blatant factual inaccuracies is hardly the most subtle trolling technique, you're all wasting your time trying to "educate" someone who is using your predictable irritation with their apparent ignorance, purely to amuse themselves/fearmonger. The clue is often in the username and their avatar picture: who in their right mind would pick such a name/avatar combination to actually represent themselves and what they really think? Do yourselves a favour and don't even hit ignore, actually ignore it instead

[gmaxwell]

I'm sorry, but I just had to LOL at this. You don't even know what you're talking about, and you're spewing "facts" with no basis. No, it's not a possibility. You can't just "hide" a massive percentage of the network. If ASICs are mining in any significant amount, it would be blatantly visible.

I think you are very confused about how Bitcoin works. I'll try to keep it simple for you. The reward half is/was an independent phenomenon that does not affect the difficulty. The hashrate affects the difficulty. The higher the hashrate, the more blocks are found. The more blocks are found, the higher the diff gets recalculated at the end of a 2016 block period. The difficulty is recalculated so that the network should find a block at an average of 10 minutes / block. The reward half means that each block now grants 25 BTC, not 50BTC. Again, reward half and difficulty have nothing to do with each other. If the network hashrate had doubled at the same time as the reward half, then the difficulty would have doubled within 7 days of the reward half. This has not happened, and the network is roughly the same as it was before the reward half, even a little bit lower.

You're over thinking this, it's not that crazy.  A lot of people expected— for good reasons! the hash-rate to drop like a rock around the time of the subsidy halving, after all— the return just halved and anyone paying higher electrical prices went from making a small amount to losing money. But it didn't drop, it _went_ up a bit.

Someone running an asic farm could be happily monitoring the network hashrate minus themselves and slowly increasing their rate over time so that the network rate just increases gradually, with most of their power coming online as GPUs go offline due to declining profitability.

I'm not saying it's proven... but it's possible. And for all the people who were insisting the hashrate would tank it's a viable competing theory.

[crazyates]

I'm sorry, but I just had to LOL at this. You don't even know what you're talking about, and you're spewing "facts" with no basis. No, it's not a possibility. You can't just "hide" a massive percentage of the network. If ASICs are mining in any significant amount, it would be blatantly visible.

I think you are very confused about how Bitcoin works. I'll try to keep it simple for you. The reward half is/was an independent phenomenon that does not affect the difficulty. The hashrate affects the difficulty. The higher the hashrate, the more blocks are found. The more blocks are found, the higher the diff gets recalculated at the end of a 2016 block period. The difficulty is recalculated so that the network should find a block at an average of 10 minutes / block. The reward half means that each block now grants 25 BTC, not 50BTC. Again, reward half and difficulty have nothing to do with each other. If the network hashrate had doubled at the same time as the reward half, then the difficulty would have doubled within 7 days of the reward half. This has not happened, and the network is roughly the same as it was before the reward half, even a little bit lower.

You're over thinking this, it's not that crazy.  A lot of people expected— for good reasons! the hash-rate to drop like a rock around the time of the subsidy halving, after all— the return just halved and anyone paying higher electrical prices went from making a small amount to losing money. But it didn't drop, it _went_ up a bit.

Someone running an asic farm could be happily monitoring the network hashrate minus themselves and slowly increasing their rate over time so that the network rate just increases gradually, with most of their power coming online as GPUs go offline due to declining profitability.

I'm not saying it's proven... but it's possible. And for all the people who were insisting the hashrate would tank it's a viable competing theory.

I'm well aware that this is a possibility. I just want to ask whether all the pre-order cancellations and loss of potential sales would be worth it?

Yes, everyone thought the hashrate would dip lower than it did. But judging from the general consensus from people here on the forums, not a lot of people actually shut off. Most people thought everyone else would shut off, but kept mining themselves until it's no longer profitable.

[repentance]

Latest update on bASIC website.

Our relationship with our PCB Fab and Packagers has gauranteed us completed ASIC wafers with complete pckages - ready to be assmebled on PCB and shipped out in March 2013 at the very latest .

ALL ORDERS WILL SHIP IN MARCH 2013 GAURANTEED

Looks like someone needed a couple of drinks before posting that.

https://www.bitcoinasic.net/

[ChipGeek]

Point 1) All manufacturers have stated that they will not, under any circumstances, mine with their hardware before the hardware gets shipped to customers.

Ummm... Except ASCIMINER right?  I think they are ONLY mining in-house with their ASICs until investors are paid off then they are shipping hardware.  I think - if I have the story right.

[crazyates]

Point 1) All manufacturers have stated that they will not, under any circumstances, mine with their hardware before the hardware gets shipped to customers.

Ummm... Except ASCIMINER right?  I think they are ONLY mining in-house with their ASICs until investors are paid off then they are shipping hardware.  I think - if I have the story right.

People haven't really included them in the "Big 3" because they won't be selling hardware to start, yes. IIRC, their plan was to sell shares to fund the production of ~50TH/s worth of ASICs, and pay back investors with the earnings from those ASICs.

[bonker]

I'm sorry, but I just had to LOL at this. You don't even know what you're talking about, and you're spewing "facts" with no basis. No, it's not a possibility. You can't just "hide" a massive percentage of the network. If ASICs are mining in any significant amount, it would be blatantly visible.

I think you are very confused about how Bitcoin works. I'll try to keep it simple for you. The reward half is/was an independent phenomenon that does not affect the difficulty. The hashrate affects the difficulty. The higher the hashrate, the more blocks are found. The more blocks are found, the higher the diff gets recalculated at the end of a 2016 block period. The difficulty is recalculated so that the network should find a block at an average of 10 minutes / block. The reward half means that each block now grants 25 BTC, not 50BTC. Again, reward half and difficulty have nothing to do with each other. If the network hashrate had doubled at the same time as the reward half, then the difficulty would have doubled within 7 days of the reward half. This has not happened, and the network is roughly the same as it was before the reward half, even a little bit lower.

You're over thinking this, it's not that crazy.  A lot of people expected— for good reasons! the hash-rate to drop like a rock around the time of the subsidy halving, after all— the return just halved and anyone paying higher electrical prices went from making a small amount to losing money. But it didn't drop, it _went_ up a bit.

Someone running an asic farm could be happily monitoring the network hashrate minus themselves and slowly increasing their rate over time so that the network rate just increases gradually, with most of their power coming online as GPUs go offline due to declining profitability.

I'm not saying it's proven... but it's possible. And for all the people who were insisting the hashrate would tank it's a viable competing theory.

I'm well aware that this is a possibility. I just want to ask whether all the pre-order cancellations and loss of potential sales would be worth it?

This is such an utterly vacuous reply.

Any self-mining ASIC company would indeed slowly increase hash rate and could easily disguise their activity.
There would be no mass pre-order cancellation, due to the mass denial and self-delusion
characteristic of many posters on this forum.

[greyhawk]

Again: What would an ASIC vendor want with the boatloads of BTC they would be getting? They can't sell them without crashing the economy and you can't feed your family on rig exhaust dried strawberries and honey glazed nuts alone.

Well, actually, that's not quite right. A berry and nut based diet is physiologically perfectly viable as long as you supplement cobalamin and creatine, but it would be awfully boring and incredibly expensive.

[modrobert]

I think it's safe to assume there will be rigorous prototype/beta testing before finalizing the ASIC based products for release.