Block Erupter USB Sales [Temporarily Out of Stock]

[crumbs]

"His goal is more than just topping GM and Toyota financially. By 2018 Volkswagen will be “the world’s most profitable, fascinating and sustainable automobile manufacturer,” Winterkorn says, with annual sales of 10 million vehicles and a pretax profit margin of 8% or higher, compared with the modest 6% on sales of 6.2 million cars and trucks worldwide when he took over in 2007. "

Current Issue of Forbes Magazine.


Pricing affects perception which affects sales.  The pricing policy adopted by ASICMINER is attrocious and damaging to their brand image in the short term and the long term.  This is not a game.

Go back to bed.

[1715249168]

1715249168

[nubbins]

I agree there are many differences between inaba and friedcat.  But I believe he is damaging their brand badly with this poorly considered pricing policy.

It sounds like you have a bunch of BTC2 miners at your house. How many?

Brand damage is directly related to the public's memory; six months from now, nobody's going to care or even remember that a few people overpaid for the privilege of being a bleeding-edge early adopter. Note how we don't weep for those who paid $1200 for a PS3 on day one.

[twitami1]

Instead Friedcat has just become Inaba2.0

 While I completely understand your irritation with the recent pricing adjustment (I share your frustration), I don't believe this is a fair comparison to make, all things considered.

I was implying that the damage he is doing to their brand is as bad as Inaba has done for BFL.  I think you will see that if they don't adopt a new pricing policy that they will not become the player they wish to be.  BKKCoins knock off is coming faster than you might think and there are hundreds of qualified engineers all around the world trying to duplicate this device. 

Volkswagen is the largest car company in the world because they appeal to the common man with their rock solid low priced offerings.  Friedcat tried to be mercedes on day one and while that model worked well in the early 1900's it doesn't play in the modern world of 1%'ers.

Damaged the brand? WTF? How? He is the only one that seems to ship when he says he will. His products work. He doesn't do pre-order and I will send to you whenever crap. He doesn't badmouth and call his customers names. As he gets better at manufacturing, he adjusts his price so more people can buy. He is upgrading his products, while most have not even shipped anything yet. He is helpful in posts to customers and the community. And again, he ACTUALLY SHIPS PRODUCTS.

Buyer, actually, he is making a great name for his company. He is the only one in this community I would probably buy a product from in fact.

I bought the very first iphone--paid out the ass for it. I KNEW it would be cheaper, and probably not long after I bought it. But I wanted it NOW. It's the way things work bud...get over it.

[Fjordbit]

I'm going to buy them and exchange the BTC for Litecoins, which currently cost waaaay more power to generate in comparison.  So I really don't feel bad.  I will keep them running until they can no longer profit.

You would do better to buy some bitcoins and use those to exchange for litecoins.

Or, you know, buy some litecoins.

If you buy a block erupter at this price, you are guaranteed to get less bitcoin than if you just buy bitcoins. You will also get those less bitcoins over a longer period of time than just buying some bitcoins. So if you want bitcoins, buy some bitcoins, don't but a block erupter.

Same logic applies to litecoins.

[twitami1]

So, Buyer, how many did you buy at the "old" price? 

[pgbit]

They dropped the price and that's a start...

The 'Expert' option at http://www.coinish.com/calc/#
lets you play with the numbers and see rough estimates, and whether or not a system will break even given a certain initial outlay - based on certain statistical projections.

Probably worth taking the time to look at this, or a similar calculator that takes into account changes in difficulty, so you can carefully calculate the probability of any likely return.

[twitami1]

Oh, and explain this:

Pricing affects perception which affects sales.  The pricing policy adopted by ASICMINER is attrocious and damaging to their brand image in the short term and the long term.  This is not a game.

What company DOESN'T make their price more competitive as they lower production costs? What company DOESN'T lower their prices to be more competitive?

[crumbs]

So, Buyer, how many did you buy at the "old" price? 

I dunno, but there was a UPS truck unloading crates of USB hubs next to his house

[twitami1]

Lol, I bet. 

"Damn, didnt get them on ebay soon enough!!"

[nubbins]

Lol, I bet. 

"Damn, didnt get them on ebay soon enough!!"

This is why you pay for express shipping 

[buyer]

I was going to buy a bunch of them (a few thousand) but did not for this very reason.  The OP may know something about producing an ASIC but the OP and his advisors know nothing about marketing and selling product.   I suggested using distributors months ago and they've only now come to see the value fo that tried and true model.  

Their pricing makes them a non-competitive product and their price dropping makes them a horrible potential partner.

They should, like most manufacturers, set a single unit MSRP (price) and then offer serious discounts for volume purchases (on the order of 30%+).  The first company to adopt that distribution model will gain immediate market share.  

Hogs get fat but pigs get slaughtered.

Ten pages back.

[The Koolio]

Hi Friedcat I have sent you a PM concerning a group buy... please respond

[PeZ]

Stop buying them and watch the price drop even lower. It shouldn't be any higher than 0.5 BTC. At best you make $1 US per day with these - not worth the bother. Stop buying it.

[PrintMule]

I sold 10 @ Bitmit and they arrived to buyer's home yesterday. Of course now he is telling me the boxes were empty and he wants me to send to him another 10 for free or he's not going to open escrow... Of course he's liying, and I guess he's angry for price drop and he just wants to breakeven no matter what.

If everything is as you said, than I guess he's just a fucking douche, and would screw you over despite price dropped or not.

And sticking to the topic: I would've just gone with my own price to friedcat via PM if I were interested. If he makes them as cheap as he does, he probably would sell. Also it's about maximizing profits, he can sit and mine with them 24/7, but selling gets you your money faster.

[fsb4000]

Hi Friedcat I have sent you a PM concerning a group buy... please respond

[dashingriddler]

According to me, Friedcat is doing his best to keep the profit of ASICminer as high as possible. If ASICminer is earning profit, it means also its shareholders are earning dividends. So some parts of profits are still being shared with bitcoin community

From http://www.asicminer.co/about.html
Dividend payment.
The income, including mining income, sales via Bitcoins, and fiat income transferred to Bitcoins, are paid to ASICMINER and Bitfountain shareholders proportionally after the ASICMINER shares are paid by 0.1BTC each from the day when dividends began to be paid, when maintenance costs, labor costs, and R&D costs are taken.

The prices were high as there were customers who were buying it for such price as much as the company can supply. The price drop is obvious if either supply increases (and profits can be earned through volume sales) OR if there are not enough customers to buy as much as there is supply but there is very good profit margin. More over in this case - bitcoin difficulty has kind of doubled since 60 days.

How ever i would see people who think Friedcat did wrong in reducing the price will be the ones who bought these at 2BTC and the ones who think it is good are the ones who were thinking of buying but did not buy at 2BTC and people who think it was not good before as well as not good even now are the ones who do the calculation of ROI and stay away from. In other words whether you bought this at 2BTC or at 1BTC, you will not break even. You are just spending money just to have this fun instrument and have the fun of being a part of mining. People who needed the fun sooner paid twice than people who could wait for its price to drop. I know i sound harsh but it is what Math is saying to me.

On the other hand if u think - because there are cheaper usbs now, the network will have more hashing power and hence your 2BTC usb would mine less than what it could if there no price drop - come out of that as the change of even 1% in global hash rate needs 5000 usbs powered on. No sudden big change will happen to hash rate because of these usbs.

[Rampion]

According to me, Friedcat is doing his best to keep the profit of ASICminer as high as possible. If ASICminer is earning profit, it means also its shareholders are earning dividends. So some parts of profits are still being shared with bitcoin community

From http://www.asicminer.co/about.html
Dividend payment.
The income, including mining income, sales via Bitcoins, and fiat income transferred to Bitcoins, are paid to ASICMINER and Bitfountain shareholders proportionally after the ASICMINER shares are paid by 0.1BTC each from the day when dividends began to be paid, when maintenance costs, labor costs, and R&D costs are taken.

The prices were high as there were customers who were buying it for such price as much as the company can supply. The price drop is obvious if either supply increases (and profits can be earned through volume sales) OR if there are not enough customers to buy as much as there is supply but there is very good profit margin. More over in this case - bitcoin difficulty has kind of doubled since 60 days.

How ever i would see people who think Friedcat did wrong in reducing the price will be the ones who bought these at 2BTC and the ones who think it is good are the ones who were thinking of buying but did not buy at 2BTC and people who think it was not good before as well as not good even now are the ones who do the calculation of ROI and stay away from. In other words whether you bought this at 2BTC or at 1BTC, you will not break even. You are just spending money just to have this fun instrument and have the fun of being a part of mining. People who needed the fun sooner paid twice than people who could wait for its price to drop. I know i sound harsh but it is what Math is saying to me.

On the other hand if u think - because there are cheaper usbs now, the network will have more hashing power and hence your 2BTC usb would mine less than what it could if there no price drop - come out of that as the change of even 1% in global hash rate needs 5000 usbs powered on. No sudden big change will happen to hash rate because of these usbs.

Man, don't try too hard, I've been trying to explain all your points many times (bolded ones especially), but still there is people that seem that do not want to understand.

[tomatitotarifa]

--------Sorry if this is the wrong place------

According to some posts in this discussion, mining with the USB sticks is no longer profitable. However, when inputting the data in Litecoin mining calculators, it shows a profitability of:

30 days   12.93686804 LTC   0.35149470 BTC   34.18 USD

Am I missing something? (using 330 kH/s)

That would mean they pay themselves off in 3-4 months assuming current difficulty. I understand it should go up, but how can this be such a bad investment? Even if they pay off in 6-8 months?

I'm quite new to this, so I appreciate any replies.

--------Sorry again if this is the wrong place!------

[Rampion]

--------Sorry if this is the wrong place------

According to some posts in this discussion, mining with the USB sticks is no longer profitable is never been profitable, not when they came out, not now. However, when inputting the data in Litecoin mining calculators, it shows a profitability of:

30 days   12.93686804 LTC   0.35149470 BTC   34.18 USD

Am I missing something? (using 330 kH/s)

That would mean they pay themselves off in 3-4 months assuming current difficulty. I understand it should go up, but how can this be such a bad investment? Even if they pay off in 6-8 months?

I'm quite new to this, so I appreciate any replies.

--------Sorry again if this is the wrong place!------

First, let me correct it for you (see above).

Secondly, these are ASIC which only purpose is to mine Bitcoin or another SHA256 based coin. Litecoin is Scrypt based, so you you can't use them to mine Litecoin.

[nubbins]

That would mean they pay themselves off in 3-4 months assuming current difficulty

Emphasis mine. Assume huge jumps in difficulty, like we've seen recently, and you get different numbers.