Are ASIC's worth the investment?

[rilesbriles]

I have done quite a bit of research on these ASIC's that Butterfly Labs is going to release here soon and my number one question is "Is it worth it?" Right now I am thinking yes. I believe that during the beginning phases of releasing these units will 1.) be beneficial to people who preorder and 2.) make the difficulty of mining sky rocket for those who do not own ASIC's. I am curious on what everyone else thoughts are on this.

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[CoinPay]

In my opinion, ASICs are worth the investment if your looking to make a profit long term, There are a few reasons for this but I will just list a couple

1. At the current rate of ASIC Manufactures actually getting a product into the consumers hand if you are only just placing an order be prepared to wait a long time to receive your unit.

2. Only those that receive ASIC's from the first batch's released will quickly recoup there investment because the difficulty will increase and the evolution from utilizing Graphics cards for mining switches to ASIC's as it did before from CPU to Graphics cards. So ASIC's will become the "Norm" for mining.



Now you may want to ask yourself this... based on the current increasing value of bitcoin, would you make more of a profit buying bitcoin now and selling once the price of bitcoin rises? or spending your money on purchasing an ASIC which you may not receive for sometime?

[rilesbriles]

Excellent I was thinking the same thing, however I've never thought of actually buying and selling bitcoin stock and I do not know if I'm ready to enter that whole mess. And as far as pre-orders go, I wonder how long it will take to receive a unit once they are shipped. They are supposedly suppose to release the units soon.

[vuli]

what, they still didnt relaese those Japaleno stuff?

[rpgman1]

We got other companies entering and making their own ASICs. I should've bought BTC last year when the rates were really low. ETA for BFL ASICs is suppose to be this week, but that might be delayed. I was thinking about buying a BFL Jalapeno.

[andytoshi]

If you order an ASIC today, it will be several months before it ships. In that time, the difficulty of the blockchain will have increased by several times (since there are ASICs shipping now and turning on now). I suspect that by the time you finally get it, you won't have much of a chance of getting your money back.

However, if you have electric heat, your ASIC will be able to take some of the load off of your heater, and therefore run for free. In that case, you only need to wait and you will eventually get your money back (maybe after several winters).

[alphaguru]

so given all the statements above, would it be better to join in on services like the "pryamining" and leverage their already exisiting hardware and piggback off their resources in hopes of getting a nice cut from their group mining

[tribble222]

I ordered an asic because I think it will be fun but I have no delusions of recouping my money. If you just want to make money I'd buy bit coins and hope the price goes up.

[Doctor Mushies]

I think they are worth the investment, in the same sense that everyone thought that GPU miners were making a good investment until they weren't anymore.  This currency rewards the early adopters heavily.   

[btcsql]

They will be if you can get your hands on them quickly enough. Otherwise, it's going to be a nice conversation piece for the kids when they are digging through the garage and find a gargantuan box with a bunch of fans, which looks eerily similar to a computer, but is simply not quite a computer. 1.75 jiggawatts

[Doctor Mushies]

Now I might buy one just so I can tell my kids about it...  now I just need to work on getting that girl friend... 

[bitcoins...BIIITCOINS]

I don't think so.  If you weren't one of the people who placed a preorder, but the time you place your order for an ASIC and receive yours, the ASIC bubble will have burst. 

[wiggi]

I don't think so.  If you weren't one of the people who placed a preorder, but the time you place your order for an ASIC and receive yours, the ASIC bubble will have burst. 

Next window of opportunity will be when they are available to ship within 24h.
Or perhaps not, depends on their price vs how many new ones are produced per month
to drive difficulty up.

[Parazyd]

I'm thinking of ordering a Jalapeno myself... Who knows

The thing is... GPU mining could still be profitable, it just depends on what hashrate are you getting. The people that have <4 GHash, will probably have to stop mining, but the stronger miners could still have some profit.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I bought a Jalapeno not out of any delusions of striking it Bitcoin "rich" but because someday it will be a "classic".  Like the commodore 64 of Bitcoin miners.   In the future when the first datacenter installed petahash scale rack mount mining clusters is available from Dell*, my Gen1 Jalapeno will look quaint sitting on my desk.


* Just kidding (kinda) but that probably is the end game.  A full datacenter rack of 3U or 4U mining chassis connected to a redundant pair of management servers. 

[wdmw]

I'm waiting until I the shipping time lowers.  I don't expect to get rich from a Jalapeno, but I do expect to be able to generate some bitcoins, help secure the network, and contribute to larger scale adoption of BTCs.

There are quite a few threads in this forum about the profitability.  One variable that I didn't see mentioned much was the exchange rate.  Many of the calculations were done a month ago, when the BTC -> USD was in the area of ~$13-$14.  It's currently ~$21.

The new network power is only going to increase the difficulty, and not the creation rate.  Therefore, if the increasing adoption (demand) of BTC continues, the value will continue to increase, which affects profitability.

Otherwise, it's just cool, and the cost is about equivalent to ~3 dinners out.

[blockgenesis]

One thing to consider with ASIC is that you cannot resell them for any other purpose. All the opposite of graphic cards.

However, if there is a better time to buy ASIC, it is clearly now. Because ASIC are about 50x more productive. This gap is not likely to reproduce in the future.

I never found any estimation of how many BFL ASICS are about to be shipped. It's then pretty hard to calculate the impact on the final hash rate (and to evaluate the real potential incomes). Also not to forget that Bitcoin value changes it all. If it rise of drop, your incomes will follow.

My bet is that it will clearly be worth. However, I could be wrong.

[b!z]

ASICs are a joke, none of the companies will deliver.

[Parazyd]

ASICs are a joke, none of the companies will deliver.

Avalon delivered 300x60GHash.

[Bitsaurus]

If you consider the sheer number of ASICs reportedly in queue the difficulty rise will be large enough to diminish returns to the point of never achieving return on investment.  Say you currently mine 25GH which is about 1/1000th of the total.  That probably costs about 20K in GPUs and boards.

Now to have 1/1000th of the hash after ASIC stabilizes you would probably need to spend well over $20k.

Unless you got in very early on the ASIC batches you're probably screwed as people will keep tossing money at it in hopes of getting rich.

I think the only ones who will see guaranteed profits from ASIC are the manufacturers (like a gun dealer arming both sides).

[wdmw]

I believe the last estimate was ~18000 BFL ASIC's ordered.  To put it into perspective, that's 0.00026% of the population.

[Kullar]

If you consider the sheer number of ASICs reportedly in queue the difficulty rise will be large enough to diminish returns to the point of never achieving return on investment.  Say you currently mine 25GH which is about 1/1000th of the total.  That probably costs about 20K in GPUs and boards.

Now to have 1/1000th of the hash after ASIC stabilizes you would probably need to spend well over $20k.

Unless you got in very early on the ASIC batches you're probably screwed as people will keep tossing money at it in hopes of getting rich.

I think the only ones who will see guaranteed profits from ASIC are the manufacturers (like a gun dealer arming both sides).

This is the sort of thing I'm worried about. But don't miners make a profit mining with their GPU rigs now? Why wouldn't ASIC rigs make money once all of this levels out? When the difficulty goes up, wont the value of BTC change to reflect that?

[Rarrikins]

One of the nice things about the ASICs is how little power they draw. I think the Jalapeno uses something like 4.5 watts. That means it takes about 9+1/4 days to use a kilowatt-hour, and a kilowatt-hour is pretty cheap. They're definitely going to help with the power costs.

[blockgenesis]

This is the sort of thing I'm worried about. But don't miners make a profit mining with their GPU rigs now? Why wouldn't ASIC rigs make money once all of this levels out? When the difficulty goes up, wont the value of BTC change to reflect that?

GPU are quite dead now. They cost more in electricity than the profits they can generate.. And with ASIC coming, it's really going to be the end for GPU soon.

Difficulty and value does not affect each other. In one line : The difficulty is the competition between miners, while the value is the competition between buyers.

A very high hash rate does not mean more people will want to buy and use Bitcoin.

[bitkame]

I didn't want to make a new thread just for this question but, does anyone know what kind of methods of payment Avalon accepts for their ASIC's?
Specifically for Batch #3, they are using bitpay.com. Do they only accept bitcoin for payment, or are there any payment alternatives to buy an ASIC from them?

Greatly appreciated if anyone has information on this, for some reason I couldn't find any at all. =[

[rpgman1]

Avalon only accepts BTC as payment. BFL accepts BTC, bank wire transfer, or PayPal as payment options.

[Oktoberfest]

What would be the wait time before a BFL Jalapeno ships? Anyone know?

[JusticeForYou]

They said: Go Solar and have the power companies pay you. That's what they said.

Ironically as it turns out, use more electricity to get free electricity plus some cash.  They said go solar, Pfft... LOL

[eBit]

I have done quite a bit of research on these ASIC's that Butterfly Labs is going to release here soon and my number one question is "Is it worth it?" Right now I am thinking yes. I believe that during the beginning phases of releasing these units will 1.) be beneficial to people who preorder and 2.) make the difficulty of mining sky rocket for those who do not own ASIC's. I am curious on what everyone else thoughts are on this.

If your concern is not losing money on your investment in mining equipment, which is a possibility, then it might be more useful to start out with the question, "What's an acceptable time frame to achieve a break even ROI?"

For me it took about 6 months with GPUs. Are you willing to wait 6 months? 9 months? 12 months? 18 months just to break even? If the break even is two years, are you sure you still want to purchase these? The further out into the future you go, the more uncertainty you'll encounter. If you're at more than 6 months break even, you're probably taking on more risk than previous miners took.

Once you determine that, that's where the number crunching comes in. No matter how much you may want to buy an ASIC device right now, if your own estimations and math show you can't meet your predetermined break-even ROI in months, you should listen to the math. Let the math decide for you, not your emotions. If the math says yes, then it's yes.

There's probably enough information on these message boards to make some estimation of what the network might look like through early summer, but that's about it. Just my thoughts... 

[Bitsaurus]

If you consider the sheer number of ASICs reportedly in queue the difficulty rise will be large enough to diminish returns to the point of never achieving return on investment.  Say you currently mine 25GH which is about 1/1000th of the total.  That probably costs about 20K in GPUs and boards.

Now to have 1/1000th of the hash after ASIC stabilizes you would probably need to spend well over $20k.

Unless you got in very early on the ASIC batches you're probably screwed as people will keep tossing money at it in hopes of getting rich.

I think the only ones who will see guaranteed profits from ASIC are the manufacturers (like a gun dealer arming both sides).

This is the sort of thing I'm worried about. But don't miners make a profit mining with their GPU rigs now? Why wouldn't ASIC rigs make money once all of this levels out? When the difficulty goes up, wont the value of BTC change to reflect that?

Difficulty is related to price, but both are reactionary to each other.  If the difficulty goes up and the price doesn't, a lot of miners who instantly sell what they mine usually turn off their rigs.  Then the difficulty goes down and then they power them back on again.

With ASIC however, once somebody buys that dedicated hasher it's on the network permanently.  People are unlikely to retask the ASIC units for any other purpose, so difficulty will only go up from here on, never down.

GPUs also had the advantage of easy resale.  Most of the GPUminers have already paid off their cards.  There was minimal risk buying 20 7970s if you got a decent price.  Even if you lost $50 on each that's only 1k.  Good luck selling your ASICs if Bitcoin fails.

At this point if you don't have an early ASIC order I would say hold off and just buy BTC.  If you bought when this thread was made and sold today you would have made 15% in that short time!

[Beyondo]

So if I place an order with the BFL company today I would be unlucky? No hope of seeing a good return?

[Rarrikins]

With ASIC however, once somebody buys that dedicated hasher it's on the network permanently.  People are unlikely to retask the ASIC units for any other purpose, so difficulty will only go up from here on, never down.

I think some will be taken down due to power and maintenance eventually costing more than income, especially for the larger units.

[bitResearch]

If were lucky enough to get an initial ASIC from Avalon or order one from their second batch it is a good investment, but after that it is going to become an increasingly bad investment.

[bitcoinget]

If were lucky enough to get an initial ASIC from Avalon or order one from their second batch it is a good investment, but after that it is going to become an increasingly bad investment.

One of the first to get his hands on an Avalon tweeted that has it has already paid for itself (in 9 days i believe).

https://twitter.com/jgarzik/status/300138033590718464

[kworrom]

I am thinking about buying a BFL Jalapeno, but just for fun. In my eyes the lower ASIC models like the Jalapeno don't seem to be worth the investment, but the higher powered models seem like they will at least break even over time. I mean, if you have the disposable income, why not?

[rilesbriles]

Thanks for the awesome replies guys! I thought you would all find this interesting for those of you who are curious about shipping.

(UPDATE)
Butterfly Labs:
"Because of the potential for massive disruption that our ASIC units may cause to the mining ecosystem, we are instituting a 1/3 shipping method for our first shipment of products to individuals.  So that no single person or handful of people are able to gain a material advantage over any other, we will ship all our available units at the same time to as many customers as we can.  This means we will likely delay shipping on our first units until we have accumulated enough stock to satisfy a significant portion of our initial orders.  This ensures that as many people as possible who are early adopters are equally and fairly treated when receiving our product. To that end we will be shipping our first orders as such: 1/3 of each product line (Jalapeno, Single SC and Minirig SC) will be shipping to new orders, 1/3 to upgrade orders and the final 1/3 will be shipped to a random selection of orders from the first two categories (both upgrade and new customers)  received in the first month of orders (From 23 June 2012 to 22 July 2012)."

[Luno]

There is another way of looking at this:

We all benefit from others buying ASIC's, it's like another halving coming soon. Yes I do know that the coins mined/day are just the same, but ASIC miners also know that they for a time have some monopoly status in the Bitcoin production business!!

The rest of us are scared of departing from our last mined unsold coins!

[Gestas]

BFL is vaporware, you really think a common con man is going to deliver you a real product?

[dleonardi]

I am willing to trade 1OZ of 99.9999 gold for a BFL preorder dating at max to oct 2012 .
If interested contact me by PM!

[bigmint]

ASICs are worth the investment if you believe that the current fiat monetary system is doomed to collapse (or atleast instability that you can profit from).  Consider that bitcoin is only scratching the surface of its potential for use.  In 5 to 10 years, I believe the BTC will have a value in the hundreds if not thousands of USD.

This potential for growth is huge.  Get in now while you can - before the rest of the world catches up.

JM2C

bigmint

[skeeterskeeter]

I think the real question is when is someone going to find a polynomial time algorithm for hashing? I know I'm pretty close, I got out a piece of paper and pencil and started writing "down with exponentiation! down with ASIC's!"

[MajorMiner1]

My friend pre-ordered a 1.5ths rig from bfl in june 2012 for 4300 btc at 7$.... lol

his 4300btc today is now worth 113950$... He's got alot of mining to do, to make that back...

[sounds]

Exactly.

Every purchase is a tradeoff of lost opportunities. (Known as "opportunity cost")

Buying an ASIC might seem simple, but currently there aren't that many ASICs available. This complicates things.

Even speculating on the exchange rate of BTC to fiat currency is "not simple." Everything has a tradeoff.

[milly6]

I have done quite a bit of research on these ASIC's that Butterfly Labs is going to release here soon and my number one question is "Is it worth it?" Right now I am thinking yes. I believe that during the beginning phases of releasing these units will 1.) be beneficial to people who preorder and 2.) make the difficulty of mining sky rocket for those who do not own ASIC's. I am curious on what everyone else thoughts are on this.

As long as they come out they seem very much worth it at least for a while

[dpanter]

I say No.

[Skrivitor]

I say yes and no.  Which is a terrible answer.

Yes ASIC is worth it if you are interested in promoting Bitcoin and working in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

No, ASIC is not worth the investment if you plan to make a living from it.

Viva Bitcoin.

[veteranBtc]

My friend pre-ordered a 1.5ths rig from bfl in june 2012 for 4300 btc at 7$.... lol

his 4300btc today is now worth 113950$... He's got alot of mining to do, to make that back...

That's crazy!

[Fuzzy]

No

Yes

Maybe

[Aahzman]

My friend pre-ordered a 1.5ths rig from bfl in june 2012 for 4300 btc at 7$.... lol

his 4300btc today is now worth 113950$... He's got alot of mining to do, to make that back...

yeah, if he cancels his pre-order, he only gets $30k worth of BTC back (or about 1000).

No

Yes

Maybe

+1

[Fuzzy]

My friend pre-ordered a 1.5ths rig from bfl in june 2012 for 4300 btc at 7$.... lol

his 4300btc today is now worth 113950$... He's got alot of mining to do, to make that back...

yeah, if he cancels his pre-order, he only gets $30k worth of BTC back (or about 1000).

If he want's to cancel, he would be better off re-selling his place in line.

If you order a Mini Rig today, you'll be at LEAST 3 months behind anyone who ordered in June. He'll probably make it all back in that time period.