USB 300MH/S ASICMiner Value Question

[bb999]

I am curious what are people's opinions on the value of one of these USB miners, I know they currently sell on eBay with starting bids of $400.  My opinion is that is due to the scarcity effect.  Once there are more supplies available what does the community think they are worth?

[ct1aic]

I am curious what are people's opinions on the value of one of these USB miners, I know they currently sell on eBay with starting bids of $400.  My opinion is that is due to the scarcity effect.  Once there are more supplies available what does the community think they are worth?

There are several group-buys at this forum selling for less than 2.6 BTC...

See for instance https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195037.new#new or https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=218300.0... Also, you could use search "USB ASIC"...

[DBG]

That price isn't surprising, esp. considering some groupbuy units were almost this high in BTC.  Before a price was even announced I said 30$ - 50$ USD (which based on the assessment for both the public and the company I felt was fair).  Hmm okay either I thought that or said it somewhere else, because I looked through my past posts and this is the only time I mentioned money before the unit was priced...

I think we can all agree that a farm of these units wouldn't be the best idea (although it'd be great to be able to have a few to hash away on work/library/friend's computer, esp. if a no-fuss setup could be created) and personally I think these units could be sold for ~$20 USD (non-wholesale) and be profitable for everyone involved (this is a very rough estimate, but given the current difficulty rate, cost of bitcoin, average cost of electricity - which is the major advantage here - assuming the unit is sold at 20$ + 5$ s/h, you could make your money back within a couple a weeks but even heavily padding that, lets say a month).  Of course the focus is more likely on getting the second unit online than pumping out these little guys, but it seems likely that we'll see an option for user-end/consumer products being offered before the year is out... which is great because the ASIC market really needs more serious players.

I'm still hoping that ASICMiner will release more devices, and it would be even better if at least some were in the sub-1000$ USD range (although I'm sure they will sell out anything they produce).  But yeah, it's a little easier (in my mind at least) to say "oh okay, I'm going to pay just 3BTC" compared to "holy crap, there goes $400 from my bank account!", esp. considering a lot of BTC was gained before the price spike (I know 1BTC = ~$270 at one point, however I believe that was a bubble that needed to pop and am more comfortable with the level it's at now... sorry to anyone who got burned though).

[DBG]

I am curious what are people's opinions on the value of one of these USB miners, I know they currently sell on eBay with starting bids of $400.  My opinion is that is due to the scarcity effect.  Once there are more supplies available what does the community think they are worth?

There are several group-buys at this forum selling for less than 2.6 BTC...

See for instance https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195037.new#new or https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=218300.0... Also, you could use search "USB ASIC"...

I believe the OP was looking for community insight as to it's value, not looking for the best/cheapest price out there.  If I'm wrong I retract my last post and this one.

[dwdoc]

Most recent one on eBay sold for $485 (3.7 btc) but obviously demand will drop as more are offered.

[systic]

i just dont think they are worth it.

[mgio]

They are probably worth 1 to 1.5 coins. Overpriced in my opinion but plenty of people are buying them so they are worth what they are selling for. I personally don't think they will make back their investment though. Although they might if Avalon and BFL continue to falter.

[wasted]

so when is someone going to post the howto make these miners..

http://www.em.avnet.com/en-us/design/drc/Pages/Xilinx-Spartan-6-FPGA-LX9-MicroBoard.aspx

looks to be the same..

[turtle83]

so when is someone going to post the howto make these miners..

http://www.em.avnet.com/en-us/design/drc/Pages/Xilinx-Spartan-6-FPGA-LX9-MicroBoard.aspx

looks to be the same..

Probably 2 weeks from the moment someone gets the bright idea to spend next couple of weeks writing code for a device to mine (probably) less than 5 MH/s @ $89

IMHO the 5 MH/s and 2 weeks is me being optimistic.

Edit: Corrected typo. the usb thing is $89 not $8

[ewitte]

IMO worth about BTC0.2 as you can buy the chips for BTC0.08-0.09 each for assembly on a K16 board

[Trongersoll]

I really don't think more than US$1.00 / Mh/s makes any sense. Basically, you're deciding whether the power savings significantly reduces your cost vs a GPU. Also you are weighing how long it may take you to break even.

This being said, i'm bidding well above this on ebay(and losing) just because i want one in hand. yeah, i'm stoopid.

[bitcoiner49er]

I really don't think more than US$1.00 / Mh/s makes any sense. Basically, you're deciding whether the power savings significantly reduces your cost vs a GPU. Also you are weighing how long it may take you to break even.

This being said, i'm bidding well above this on ebay(and losing) just because i want one in hand. yeah, i'm stoopid.

Why are you not in a group buy for this, then?

[Trongersoll]

Because I don't have any Bitcoins yet. :p I'm not in a position to buy Bitcoins at the moment. I've only got about 0.01 BTC.

[Preschoolv2]

They arent worth it...Might as well get a real asic.

[razorfishsl]

so when is someone going to post the howto make these miners..

http://www.em.avnet.com/en-us/design/drc/Pages/Xilinx-Spartan-6-FPGA-LX9-MicroBoard.aspx

looks to be the same..

I'm working on blog post, for something about the same cost @200MH/s, but my shipment of boards is stuck..........

[Kinetic915]

so when is someone going to post the howto make these miners..

http://www.em.avnet.com/en-us/design/drc/Pages/Xilinx-Spartan-6-FPGA-LX9-MicroBoard.aspx

looks to be the same..

can these be used?

[Kinetic915]

meh they don't look worth it for the price.  might as well wait for a BFL order then buy two of these....

[bb999]

meh they don't look worth it for the price.  might as well wait for a BFL order then buy two of these....

BFL is still vaporware for now, these may not be worth the price but at least they exist

[byter]

To me, it is clearly way too expensive!

If you look at the price of 2 avalon chips, it will cost you around 0.18 BTC for the chips...

Even if they don't have a good PCB assembly, they win at least 1.2-1.5 BTC per Unit.

But in the end, everybody would do the same: the demand is skyrocket high and they are the only ones shipping.

What the ASIC is going to do is enrich people that had already a lot of bitcoins and were the first to order and receive ASIC. Manufacturers and resellers will also get rich.

All the other ones will pay very expensive rigs and will barely have an ROI.

To me the best thing to do is buy bitcoins through a trading platform and keep them for two months or so.

End of Aug, people will start to realize that unlessnthey spend a lot of money buying expensive ASIC material, they won't profit anymore and start selling their bitcoins. And then... I'm quite sure the BTC exhange rates will drastically go down.

[oaxaca]

Most recent one on eBay sold for $485 (3.7 btc) but obviously demand will drop as more are offered.

Don't forget that there are EBay fees, Paypal fees, shipping costs, fees to turn that fiat back into BTC.  I've had zero feedback bidders not pay, resulting in more listings, and the fees just keep starting over.   Overall it's a really inefficient way to move these units.