[Announcement] Block Erupter USB

[erk]

Well, around 70,000 GH came online during the last 4-5 weeks. I guess some ASIC manufacturer turned up his machines. ASICMINER sold 10,000 (?) USB miners, which sum up only 3 TH, so eigther they keep a lot for themself or we have a hidden player.

What's batch 1 and 2 Avalons add up to? 66Gh/s x 900

[1714226445]

1714226445

[alibert]

Possible, but we can never know

[Serjah]

could someone tell me where to get these USB

[elasticband]

could someone tell me where to get these USB

you can buy them from me.... see my signature

[FiatKiller]

Got an interesting tidbit... the plastic cases they come in are great for one ounce bullion bars...  ;-)

[alibert]

I guess its Avalon, not BFL pushing the Hashrate, see: http://imgur.com/a/fqpME

[atariguy]

could someone tell me where to get these USB

you can buy them from me.... see my signature

So when will they come down to a reasonable price? It's ridiculous how over-priced they are. They will probably never pay for themselves.

If I were to buy one, I'd want it to pay for itself within 2 months. That means my ideal price is currently $50. Let me know when it drops down to that.

[AnonBitcoinBuyer]

So when will they come down to a reasonable price? It's ridiculous how over-priced they are. They will probably never pay for themselves.

If I were to buy one, I'd want it to pay for itself within 2 months. That means my ideal price is currently $50. Let me know when it drops down to that.

I think the days of instant ROI are over.  Even folks getting BFL devices have to factor in the year-long wait before they started to make their money back.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Block Erupters are overpriced at 1.99BTC as well, but I bought one just for kicks.  Anything else I get will have to be cheaper.

[SilentSonicBoom]

could someone tell me where to get these USB

I have an auction for 3 USB Miners at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=240029.0

[atariguy]

So when will they come down to a reasonable price? It's ridiculous how over-priced they are. They will probably never pay for themselves.

If I were to buy one, I'd want it to pay for itself within 2 months. That means my ideal price is currently $50. Let me know when it drops down to that.

I think the days of instant ROI are over.  Even folks getting BFL devices have to factor in the year-long wait before they started to make their money back.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Block Erupters are overpriced at 1.99BTC as well, but I bought one just for kicks.  Anything else I get will have to be cheaper.

If it's not going to pay for itself in a few months, it will probably never pay for itself.

[AnonBitcoinBuyer]

So when will they come down to a reasonable price? It's ridiculous how over-priced they are. They will probably never pay for themselves.

If I were to buy one, I'd want it to pay for itself within 2 months. That means my ideal price is currently $50. Let me know when it drops down to that.

I think the days of instant ROI are over.  Even folks getting BFL devices have to factor in the year-long wait before they started to make their money back.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Block Erupters are overpriced at 1.99BTC as well, but I bought one just for kicks.  Anything else I get will have to be cheaper.

If it's not going to pay for itself in a few months, it will probably never pay for itself.

Assuming immediate delivery, you're probably right.  Block Erupters are still selling as fast as friedcat can make them, which is really our own fault for buying them.

There are a ton of devices promising almost-instant ROI out there, they're just not readily available yet.  If they were, the secondary market would price them way higher, pushing the break-even point way out.  See: auctions for Avalon/Jalapeno/etc.

[Anenome5]

BFL - 65 nm. KNC, 28 nm. Conclusion--exactly the opposite of yours here.

I still highly doubt they can have access to the 28 nm factories. It's still cutting-edge technology used mostly by big players with a lot of hard issues to solve.

It's been in use since 2011. And you doubt that Orsoc has access to them? An ASIC/FPGA design-house with over a decade of experience and 10+ employees, most of whom are chip designers?

Yes but BFL was initially slated to use 5 x less power than they do now they are shipping. They advertised and took large pre orders based on 1w a G/H.  They are shipping at 5w G/H or slightly less for the bigger rigs.

I was not aware of that. It's very interesting if you consider the very long-term usage of ASICs: even them could become unprofitable to run given power costs!

BLF outsourced their chip design to who knows who and ran into problems. Because you simply can't simulate a working ASIC design on an FPGA and copy it directly into a chip. You have to know the little tricks of the trade of turning an FPGA design simulation into a functioning ASIC. If anyone should know how to do this, it would be a long-standing design-house like Orsoc.

It's not really surprising that BFL ran into problems, problems that it seems Avalon narrowly avoided and fore-saw, but it would be surprising if Orsoc runs into this problem, considering that they've been producing ASICs for years and claim that a hashing chip isn't even close to the most complex design they've completed successfully.

I think too many of people's expectations have been colored by the difficulties of BFL and the like. These guys are pros.

Anyway I'll stop here as this is off-topic.

[erk]

BLF outsourced their chip design to who knows who and ran into problems. Because you simply can't simulate a working ASIC design on an FPGA and copy it directly into a chip. You have to know the little tricks of the trade of turning an FPGA design simulation into a functioning ASIC. If anyone should know how to do this, it would be a long-standing design-house like Orsoc.

It's not really surprising that BFL ran into problems, problems that it seems Avalon narrowly avoided and fore-saw, but it would be surprising if Orsoc runs into this problem, considering that they've been producing ASICs for years and claim that a hashing chip isn't even close to the most complex design they've completed successfully.

I think too many of people's expectations have been colored by the difficulties of BFL and the like. These guys are pros.

Anyway I'll stop here as this is off-topic.

Where did you get your magical insight into BFL's problems? As far as I can tell they have only mentioned that the power consumption was far greater than anticipated, and they have not given out a reason for that yet.

[aurel57]

I would be willing to sell some of my USB miners ... black only .. BTC payment.. USA buyers... PM me if interested

[Rampion]

Cute.

The correct price is what people will pay.

I'm not buying at this price because I expect the price will drop a lot.

It also depends on how many they can produce. They claim to be able to churn out thousands quick.

I'd buy 2 at 2BTC, maybe 50 at 1BTC and the 300 batch at 0.5BTC.

So, depending on how much are their production costs, they might be maximising profits at cheaper prices rather than at more expensive prices. Of course, it also depends on the demand from everybody else.

It's not just me. At 2BTC it's hardly profitable if at all, people would get a few just for the novelty and to be able to say they're mining. But at a competitive price they'd sell many thousands in no time.

So, can they really produce tens of thousands per month? if so, then 2BTC is not a good pricing as they will only sell a fraction of that. Just wait and see. Maybe they really cannot produce so many.

It's pretty obvious to me they have a limited production capacity, if they could spit out quickly hundreds of thousands of those they would have to price them "more reasonably" to sell them out.

[LazyOtto]

It's pretty obvious to me they have a limited production capacity, if they could spit out quickly hundreds of thousands of those they would have to price them "more reasonably" to sell them out.

Oh? Perhaps at the 1btc each price which is current as of today versus the introduction price of 2btc?

[CanaryInTheMine]

let's go folks!!!! NEW price, NEW group buy here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=241414.0
~1.01 btc each when ordering 10 

[Rampion]

It's pretty obvious to me they have a limited production capacity, if they could spit out quickly hundreds of thousands of those they would have to price them "more reasonably" to sell them out.

Oh? Perhaps at the 1btc each price which is current as of today versus the introduction price of 2btc?

No, MUCH cheaper - around $25

But with a big production capacity and adequate distribution they would make tons of money, and do a greater good to Bitcoin.

But big production capacity is expensive and difficult to quickly set up.

[LazyOtto]

... and do a greater good to Bitcoin.

Not their job / responsibility.

Never set your price point such that you sell out faster than you can produce / procure.

[Boelens]

I have a question, if I buy this Block Erupter in the Netherlands, with power rates of 0.32$, when will it break even? Also, I have a Raspberry Pi, however I assume since the Block Erupter has to be plugged in, I also have to keep a laptop/PC on?