[Announcement] Block Erupter USB

[Noitev]

Maybe you should consider CedarTec, although the debate on their legitimacy is not over.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=170739.0

Their legitimacy is so in question I would hesitate to even reference them imo.

Also If I see another person post it's decentralizing the network, it leads me to 1 of 2 conclusions...

1. You are solomining, which will probably never net a block.

2. you are using a pool (chances are, a big one) which doesn't really decentralize it.

either way the amount added to the network is so small I dare call it negligible

[mutex]

Also If I see another person post it's decentralizing the network, it leads me to 1 of 2 conclusions...

1. You are solomining, which will probably never net a block.

2. you are using a pool (chances are, a big one) which doesn't really decentralize it.

either way the amount added to the network is so small I dare call it negligible

Why using a pool doesn't decentralize network? There are many pools, and you can move your hashrate between them freely. You can also start your own pool.

Although I do agree, that cumulative hashrate of these toys is gonna be negligible and thus would hardly do anything for decentralization.

[Noitev]

Also If I see another person post it's decentralizing the network, it leads me to 1 of 2 conclusions...

1. You are solomining, which will probably never net a block.

2. you are using a pool (chances are, a big one) which doesn't really decentralize it.

either way the amount added to the network is so small I dare call it negligible

Why using a pool doesn't decentralize network? There are many pools, and you can move your hashrate between them freely. You can also start your own pool.

Although I do agree, that cumulative hashrate of these toys is gonna be negligible and thus would hardly do anything for decentralization.

just cause you are centralizing it to the pool. instead of a lot of small computers your adding hashrates to a big one. I love the idea, just way  way too expensive. was ready to buy a lot of these at a cheaper price and retail em, but many 2 btc is outrageous

[mjsbuddha]

ARE YOU PEOPLE NUTS?! $230 for a device that's 1/16th the speed of the $275 BFL machine? These should be $30. $40 tops.

[arklan]

ARE YOU PEOPLE NUTS?! $230 for a device that's 1/16th the speed of the $275 BFL machine? These should be $30. $40 tops.

delivery time, novelty value, loathing of bfl, etc... it's all been said.

[BitHub]

asicminer share price tanking

[reactor]

My only issue, while I've got three in the group order, is the price.  The price is gouging because it is neat and new.  But the price is absurd for the rate and prices it out of the range of buying these for casual users.  Personally I think the giant f-off block that the ASIC group is literally a slap in the face with this product since by their own admission BitFountain is going to put enough hardware online to make these irrelevant. 

This isn't altruism, it's greed.  Overpricing for hardware is Apple's business.  We knew this is where things were going, but 'ASICMiner' is going to be the single driving point we can all look at a year from now and say "Yup, *they* drove the GPU folks out of Bitcoin".  It's the natural order of things, but don't feed us bullshit about altruism and wanting to spread the network.  People on BTCGuild have had to move to other pools to stay profitable because the pool is now 67117's pool and we get some shares too, and they know damn well the price point they are offering is absurd for these little sticks.

[DPoS]

My only issue, while I've got three in the group order, is the price.  The price is gouging because it is neat and new.  But the price is absurd for the rate and prices it out of the range of buying these for casual users.  Personally I think the giant f-off block that the ASIC group is literally a slap in the face with this product since by their own admission BitFountain is going to put enough hardware online to make these irrelevant. 

This isn't altruism, it's greed.  Overpricing for hardware is Apple's business.  We knew this is where things were going, but 'ASICMiner' is going to be the single driving point we can all look at a year from now and say "Yup, *they* drove the GPU folks out of Bitcoin".  It's the natural order of things, but don't feed us bullshit about altruism and wanting to spread the network.  People on BTCGuild have had to move to other pools to stay profitable because the pool is now 67117's pool and we get some shares too, and they know damn well the price point they are offering is absurd for these little sticks.

like I said earlier, if they shipped directly to each buyer now at this price (shipping inclided) it would be fine

but it is annoying to have this price point and still have to include escrow, extra shipping, etc and hassle

that is where the bad blood really comes from.  I don't think they can sell 10,000 of these at this price.  And they probably don't care. 

[stenkross]

I've got three in the group order
...
Personally I think the giant f-off block that the ASIC group is literally a slap in the face with this product
...
This isn't altruism, it's greed.
...
they know damn well the price point they are offering is absurd for these little sticks.

And still you are going to support those face slapping, greedy bastards by giving them your BTC's?!

If you are first to produce something that many people want, you can charge A LOT of money, then, after a while competition will force down the prices.
This is the way capitalism works.

Don't like it?
Vote democrat, I'm sure they'll hand out free USB miners in a couple years, along with their free cell phone program.

[JimiQ84]

I've got three in the group order
...
Personally I think the giant f-off block that the ASIC group is literally a slap in the face with this product
...
This isn't altruism, it's greed.
...
they know damn well the price point they are offering is absurd for these little sticks.

And still you are going to support those face slapping, greedy bastards by giving them your BTC's?!

If you are first to produce something that many people want, you can charge A LOT of money, then, after a while competition will force down the prices.
This is the way capitalism works.

Don't like it?
Vote democrat, I'm sure they'll hand out free USB miners in a couple years, along with their free cell phone program.

I believe it's called cream skimming. AM has something unique, that nobody else has. USB low-power low-maintenance hashing units. If you want them - you'll pay. If not, it's okay with AM.

[reactor]

The way Capitalism (big C, the religion the western world swears by) works is that the first person to market has two options - price fairly or gouge because they are the leader.  BitFountain obviously chose option #2 on this one, they are overpricing nearly worthless hardware (or rather, hardware that will effectively become worthless once they roll out their real products).  

And my three are per my investors, I run hardware and trade, they pay for it.  So they currently want three of these (there are three investors, do the math ) despite my reservations.  And obviously competition will make hashes cheaper over time, however anyone saying they're going to gouge you for the good of the network is selling bullshit.  Bullshit with an LED, mind you, but plain bullshit.

[markyminer]

Awesome product.
Unfortunately, your price point is, to be blunt, retarded.

Yeah. Don't get it. I can get a Jalapeño from BFL (eww) for just a little more, and I get 5 GH/s, as opposed to 300 MH/s.

Yes, that is a valid point but be prepared to wait awhile. Is there a premium on ASICMiner products (compared to Avalon/BFL)? Yes, because you get your product within a week. If folks are willing to wait for Avalon/BFL for lower prices, feel free to do so. Question you have to ask is do you want your hash power now or later?

There are folks trying to get their batches of Avalon chips, making USB miners of their own. If they can do it, that's great! Competition for AM and they'll have to react to the market. However, ASICMiner will have technical support and quality control for their USB miners. Can the DIY Avalon USB miners say the same?

Delivery within a week eh? Rubbish. Ok who do I send by 2BTC to today to get delivery and be mining with it by 14th May 2013?

Wont happen. will take over a week to agree "wholesale" group buy's. then funds have to be collected, many will not pay, other buyers will have to be found. Then AM have to ship to the wholesale group who then have to organised smaller shipping to group participants. If yopu are lucky they will have pre organised packaging and shipping company.

Then of the wholesale units not kept and sold, thye have to set a "retail" price. This is not Apple so AM have no chance of fixing a "retial" price. So what is that? 3BTC, 4BTC? Ebay auction for highest $/£/€ ?

Say most retail are sold on a seven day ebay auction. Thats at least 10 days to the "miner", if any will buy at retail at all as 2 BTC ius way to high wholesale as it is.

If many of these are actually mining by 1st week of June I will eat my hat!

Now lets look at difficulty.  @ 10m difficulty now. in under 6 days it will jump to 10.5m. Not even wholesaLers will have these to mine by then.

By 1st week of june i would guess we will be around 12m difficulty at least, which will be about the time the retail customers recive them. No chance to make money! They have been fleeced.

No lets look at best forecast for the 2BTC wholeslares next week (maybe!). Starting difficulty will be 10.5m. USB unit creates 300m/h @ 3 Watts.

I like to use the Bitclockers calculator as it has a monthly % increase function built in for forecasting.

it's here :  http://bitclockers.com/miningcalculator

So we plumb in the figures.

Hash Rate = 300m/h
Watts used = 3 watts
cost per KWH = 0.12 USD (default, adjust to suit, mine is 0.18)
cost of hardware $220 (2BTC currently approx)
timeframe = 90 days (3 months from delivery next week (yeah right!)
Value of BTC = 113 USD (leave it whatever it pulls as the current price)
Bitcoin difficulty, currently 10m but we have to use 10,540,697 due in 5-6 days.
Difficulty change = 30% (default is 2% but for sure from now on for a few years we are look at at least 30% increase a month as we have had since February in the ASIC arms race)
BTC Block = 25 (this is at least is fixed until 2016)

What results do we get?
24hr profit $1.62
1 month profit $48.64
3 month profit (90 days) $113.55
1 year profit $198.04.

So there we have it, even single use 2BTC wholesalers wont break even in 1 year per unit. and thats not including the cost of shipping and powered USB hubs too.

BTC will have to soar again to $200+ to make a profit, which no miner can control demand and hence price. No demand and price drops.

So lets look at 2 years out but changing timeframe from 90 days to 730 days.

You see the profit after 730days (2 years) is..................$203.18.  Thats a whole $5 profit for the second year of mining with it!

And after 3 years, 1095 days, you make a total of $200.37. you are losing money on a 3w power use machine!

Basicaly just after 2 years time with 12c energy costs you will lose money and after 3 years with free energy you will not make any profit woth bothering with unless BTC shhots up to $200, $500, $1000. It could just as likely drop to $50, $30, $20.

If you buy these you are just doing it for love, makes no commercial sense at all.

M

[muyuu]

If you buy these you are just doing it for love, makes no commercial sense at all.

M

This is why you don't see any big orders.

If it made commercial sense I'd buy many more.

It's a novelty item mostly.

[Rampion]

If you buy these you are just doing it for love, makes no commercial sense at all.

M

This is why you don't see any big orders.

If it made commercial sense I'd buy many more.

It's a novelty item mostly.

This. If this was made with commercial sense, they could distribute them in traditional channels and sell MILLIONS, while making a HUGE service to Bitcoin.

But, they may have limited production capacity and no easy access to traditional distribution channels - thus, financially this min-max strategy may have a sense for them.

Personally, I would love to see a more ambitious approach for these USB miners.

[jspielberg]

They have no interest in producing a low cost miner.  I would interfere with their real money making operations --- mining.

If they see enough competition that their mining operations aren't profitable (unlikely for a while), you may see them start to sell their pans to the prospectors.

[Rampion]

They have no interest in producing a low cost miner.  I would interfere with their real money making operations --- mining.

If they see enough competition that their mining operations aren't profitable (unlikely for a while), you may see them start to sell their pans to the prospectors.

Man, you can also think in the big picture. Mining is profitable if the exchange rate is high enough. Exchange rate grows with higher adoption. And now think about how good would be for Bitcoin adoption to spread MILLIONS of USB miners worldwide.

That would be the BEST marketing campaign possible for Bitcoin.

[reactor]

The sad fact is this, and sorry to put it this way, but right now BitFountain has BTC by the nuts if they have the quantity and availability of hardware they are talking about.  They are the disruptive force in mining right now.  And not to be mean, but I'm more than willing to assume you'll lose a lot of US BTC users and adopters if they think BTC is more or less owned by a Chinese company.  Sad truth, Americans are very dumb and will make decisions based on that rather than any actual market data.  And you're effed if the media picks that story up, they'll spin it to BTC is some chinese money-making scheme, blah blah, bull bull, etc.  Because dumb Americans thrive on fake news, especially if it hurts their nationalism, and you lose a huge market.

That aside, right now is an important tipping point.  Anyone who wants to stick with GPU needs to move to an alt-coin (in the next ~6 months maybe), anyone who wants to go ASIC has to buy from one of the players (Avalon = overpriced and late, BFL has some hardware but who knows, BitFountain has overpriced blades and novelty sticks).  If you price units out of the range of normal folks, BTC will be artificially limited by the fact that only a small few hold a stanglehold of mining.  Personally, the currency is worthless if I have to pay absurd prices to get USD in (Electrum > Liberty > Gox costs $175 for a first timer to get $100 into Gox), so most folks won't go that route.  

It's gotta be expensive enough that Grandma isn't getting into it but reasonable enough that you can convince a tech-geek friend to buy in.  2BTC => novelty stick is greed, not a buy-in path for the masses.  

[reactor]

They have no interest in producing a low cost miner.  I would interfere with their real money making operations --- mining.

If they see enough competition that their mining operations aren't profitable (unlikely for a while), you may see them start to sell their pans to the prospectors.

Man, you can also think in the big picture. Mining is profitable if the exchange rate is high enough. Exchange rate grows with higher adoption. And now think about how good would be for Bitcoin adoption to spread MILLIONS of USB miners worldwide.

That would be the BEST marketing campaign possible for Bitcoin.

If you made them $45.   If BFL can reliably deliver on their hardware, the Jalapeno will be the new 7970 and what your tech geek friend buys to start mining.

[markyminer]

, but I'm more than willing to assume you'll lose a lot of US BTC users and adopters if they think BTC is more or less owned by a Chinese company.   

Hang on a minute. AM is a Chinese company? I thought it was a USA based company in mainland USA, but with chinese fabs?

If they ship from china then sctrach all my predicitions because if these USB miners are not sitting in a warehouse in the USA or Europe then they will take a month just to reach the wholesalers even if they ship them today!

I'm now positive not more than a handful of these will be live mining 1st week of June.

BTW, where is AM listed? A USA stock eschange? Small Caps? I just curious if they are paying dividends right now? Because if they are not I would not touch the stock with a bargepole. If BTC/USD price tanks their shares will be toast!

M

[John (John K.)]

, but I'm more than willing to assume you'll lose a lot of US BTC users and adopters if they think BTC is more or less owned by a Chinese company.   

Hang on a minute. AM is a Chinese company? I thought it was a USA based company in mainland USA, but with chinese fabs?

If they ship from china then sctrach all my predicitions because if these USB miners are not sitting in a warehouse in the USA or Europe then they will take a month just to reach the wholesalers even if they ship them today!

I'm now positive not more than a handful of these will be live mining 1st week of June.

BTW, where is AM listed? A USA stock eschange? Small Caps? I just curious if they are paying dividends right now? Because if they are not I would not touch the stock with a bargepole. If BTC/USD price tanks their shares will be toast!

M

Nah, according to recent blade auctions, packages from friedcat reach all over the world under a week from shipping.