My friend keeps INSISTING that Asic is coming soon...

[Kennji]

All I hear is the opposite.

Does anyone have any word on when BFL will be shipping?

The, second question.

If I was to order today ... how long would it take ME to get my unit?

Thanks.

[Kluge]

There've been ASICs in the wild for a while now, including some BFL SC units. Avalon and ASICMiner have also shipped (ASICMiner only just started sending a few units out to plebs -- they've had ASICs running since February).

If you ordered a BFL unit today - going by the current time-frame, you'd probably receive it early-mid next year. Unless BFL hoarded all the BTC they received, though, or got a ton of new VC funding, I don't really see how they could last much longer after such severe delays and a disastrous "launch." They managed to piss off their biggest supporters when they recently decided to push back orders of anything than the little Jalepeno units. But Bitcoin, so who knows.

[Tribus]

Avalon ASIC's are surfacing and Butterfly Labs Jalapeno's are now slowly shipping to customers.  Expected time frame for new BFL orders is shipping in July...

[Kennji]

Interesting.

[Tribus]

I gave in and ordered awhile back I have an old order for a BFL Jalapeno the 5 GH/s Unit and a second later order for 2 50's...

I believe in it...

[medUSA]

I was thinking of ordering one before, but they are shipping too slow, so decided to wait. Who knows what will happen in 12 months? May be there will be other faster and cheaper ASICs in the market...

[Tribus]

True...

2nd gen may be worth waiting for at thus point if you haven't ordered yet.

[eadieni]

If you haven't already ordered one and have it on the way you're kinda SOL, the price has gone from around $1200 to $15k-30k.

But it's ok because the ASICs are going to kill each other and raise the difficulty so high that mining is done.

[Tribus]

The BFL 5 GH/s units are $270.00 and the 25 GH/s is $1499.00 and the 50 GH/s is $2499.00...

[scotjam]

I pre-ordered a BFL 25 ghash, but I'm now getting a bit worried that they might be pretty worthless by the time they ship. I guess it all depends on how quickly the difficulty goes up due to the avalons that are already shipping... and everyone I've heard talking about this just seems to be speculating (haven't heard any solid arguments)

[Tribus]

Yeah, there are too many unknowns and speculators out there to believe anything you read or hear.  Do the research and do your own math, if you decide it adds up or not depends on that and that alone.

[aahzmundus]

Mining is done?  Doubt it... mining wont ever be done.  Will some people get out of it?  Yes... the market will find a balance.

[Thoro]

Based on all the infos it seems that those new 50 / 60 Ghash will behave like 2 ghash right now, so if the price keeps rising it's a good investment even if you receive it in 2 or 3 months

But keep in mind that they will certainly reduce the size (µm -> nm) of their chips which should bring massive plus on the speed and power consumption.

[Kennji]

Mining is done?  Doubt it... mining wont ever be done.  Will some people get out of it?  Yes... the market will find a balance.

I agree.  I think mining is here to stay in one form or another.  I think there will ALWAYS be digital coins to mine, from here on out.

It is far too popular and fun to just go away.

[HjerterEss]

They will be here soon. Not 1, not 10, not 100 but thousands. From Avalon, from BFL, from people who made ASIC themselves by using the Avalon chips they purchased.

It won`t be pretty for those who haven`t joined earlier. 

[Kennji]

They will be here soon. Not 1, not 10, not 100 but thousands. From Avalon, from BFL, from people who made ASIC themselves by using the Avalon chips they purchased.

It won`t be pretty for those who haven`t joined earlier. 

Thank goodness for Litecoin!!!

[lemonys]

Based on all the infos it seems that those new 50 / 60 Ghash will behave like 2 ghash right now, so if the price keeps rising it's a good investment even if you receive it in 2 or 3 months

Agreed.  The market will find a balance.  The ASICs of the world will eventually balance each other out and their ROI will fall greatly.  Only those who get theirs early will find a nice profit before the BTC difficulty gets too high..

When ASIC are widespread GPUs will be like CPUs are today (not worth mining).. But the price for ASICs will drop dramatically as their ROI shrinks and we will be buying them like people buy GPUs today. (It will not make sense to pay 20K for a 50GH/s miner)

BTC value may speed or slow things up (as it affect ROI), but the ever-improving technology side of mining is inevitable.

The only question that remains is the timetable for all for this to unfold.  Avalons are not shipping in great numbers. BFL has still not shipped and many think they never will. BTC value is slowly growing since the last bubble burst.  So, IMHO, GPU mining (and FPGA) will still be profitable for a little while longer at least.

[BTC_USER_014]

Maybe it is not your friend 

[Kennji]

Maybe it is not your friend 

LMAO!!!  I know right!!!!!!!

[PantsParty]

If you think about it though adding to your mining portfolio just gets easier with asic once its fully adopted. For instance if you wanted to get into mining right now you could do about 2gh/s with about $1600 of brand new hardware and a lot of power being used but even at current prices for asic (from the BFL Jalapenos that are being shipped) its about $50 per gh/s with a huge power draw improvement.

Like was said before the market will find a balance, but nothing will really change as the barrier to entry would be the sameish in my opinion. If the goal is to get into mining asap though you can't really go wrong with making a gpu rig and switching to litecoin. You'd probably make your money back within 6 months unless the wheels fall off.

But I'm new what do I know.