why sell avalon box when they could mine themselves...?

[Raize]

If they mined all the new coin themselves, as soon as they hit 51% we would know and would abandon the coin, making it worthless. There is actually a LOT more money in selling hardware. Especially if they get these products to you and your neighbors, relatives, and friends see you are making money, then they will also buy more products. Anyone in the first and second batch is likely going to see very quick ROI, especially if the price increases as the demand remains the same but the supply decreases. Third batch and BFL customers may also see some ROI. Where it's going to get crazy stupid to buy a miner is when people who don't even know what Bitcoin is right now are here and on the forums 3 months from now trying to figure out who to give thousands of dollars to "make them rich".

IMHO, people that don't understand why companies like BFL and BitSyncom are selling the hardware right now seem to believe everyone is rational just like them. People are irrational. You are taking a risk buying miners. For some, this is an easier choice than others. After all, what is 75 BTC when you own thousands?

If you had any question about whether or not old miners were buying Avalons:
http://blockchain.info/charts/bitcoin-days-destroyed-min-month?showDataPoints=false&timespan=all&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&scale=0&address=

[1714027943]

1714027943

[yohan]

The logical approach for a manufacturer is a split between mining operations and selling units. That pretty much the best way for everyone as well. That covers capital and startup costs and reduces financial risk.  I wouldn't believe any manufacturer that said they were not going to mine or have a sister company/associate mine. Normal business sense would determine that as the path but maybe logic business sense doesn't apply here.

[BitSyncom]

Because it wasn't about the money?

[Zeek_W]

Hi,

60gh per box @ 300 boxes = way more money via bitcoins then selling them at $1299......

just a little common sense says something is not right here...why sell when you could make WAY more by mining them yourself.

60ghashes per box @ $1299 cost = 60000 million hashes = $6100 per month at current bitcoin exchange rate. $6100 per month per box * 300 boxes = $1.8 million.

LOL.

Because Avalon were worried about one of the other ASIC developers creating a monopoly, so they developed their own and low and behold, they are the monopoly! Much to their disappointment.

/thread

[bonker]

The logical approach for a manufacturer is a split between mining operations and selling units. That pretty much the best way for everyone as well. That covers capital and startup costs and reduces financial risk.  I wouldn't believe any manufacturer that said they were not going to mine or have a sister company/associate mine. Normal business sense would determine that as the path but maybe logic business sense doesn't apply here.

                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Just read all the arguements and this is the best one.

Keep as many ASICs as possible to mine with and sell just enough to keep the masses onboard and Bitcoin afloat.

[johnyj]

This is actually a test for the manufacturer's value. I think one year ago they would never expect the price of BTC has risen to a level that it even becomes attractive for them to mine the coin by themselves. Then the manufacturer who do not mine by themselves and distribute the machine evenly will gain the most orders

It's a bit pitty that bASIC quit the game, otherwise the playing field will be more even to ensure the competition, but I heard that ASICminer is going to deploy 800 unit this month, so the difficulty will rise quickly anyway no matter those manufacturer mine or not, their future order purely depend on the quality of their current delivery

[tacotime]

maybe because cash today versus maybe cash in two weeks?

[axus]

Because it wasn't about the money?

>Bitcoin

>Not about money

[CoinHoarder]

Miners risk many things... the network hash rate could explode with 4 vendors releasing ASICs at the same time, the price of bitcoin can crash, theft of hardware, broken hardware, fire/flood, etc.

Since they can still make a sizeable profit with absolutely no risks, why not do it?

PS: If you're ordering a lot of ASICs, make sure to get insurance. It will help you sleep better at night!  

[twobitcoins]

"Why would anyone develop and release a GPU miner for free?  Anyone capable of writing GPU mining code could make a ton of money by mining themselves while everyone else is stuck using CPUs.  A little common sense says that these GPU miners can't be real.  Anyone downloading one is just asking to end up with a wallet stealing trojan."

The world is full of people with all kinds of motivations.

[hi]

"Why would anyone develop and release a GPU miner for free?  Anyone capable of writing GPU mining code could make a ton of money by mining themselves while everyone else is stuck using CPUs.  A little common sense says that these GPU miners can't be real.  Anyone downloading one is just asking to end up with a wallet stealing trojan."

The world is full of people with all kinds of motivations.

lol..terrible analogy....

Writing code for existing mass market hardware is trivial compared to designing/fabbing hardware that is specialized in doing one task.  

Consider that 300 of these would make a nice profit if mined by one entity.  

The greedy algorithm usually covers most human behaviour..especially in the bitcoin world....only the naive or stupid believe otherwise.    

[jjiimm_64]

It appears that after all the reasons listed in this thread most still fall under "The hardware store that sells the shovels makes more money then most of the miners"

[wknight]

I put this link in another thread but i think it belongs here.

http://www.btcmu.info/articles/128-miner-speculation-avalon-s-look-to-the-future.html

[johnyj]

Currently I believe that they have to mine for themselves to earn the money to finish the production of the first batch 

They will first make 5 units and then use these 5 units to mine and buy components to build another 10, and then use these 15 units to mine to buy components for another 30, etc...