Buying ASIC Units in bulk - 1 million USD budget

[yantis]

UPDATE 6/9/2013:

Thanks again to everyone who reached out to me. I ended up picking up 17 Avalon units in total - 71 GH/s each  (1.2 TH/s of total mining power) and still have well over half to invest in other stuff.  We physically picked these up most of these to avoid any risks.

I am still interested in your units if the price is really good though more interested in ASIC companies that can deliver. My partner and I are looking to deploy about $250,000 USD per week over the next several months so please reach out if you can deliver and when and what it would take to get first batch delivery.


I am looking to buy hardware in hand (not pre-order) a good example would be today I am paying $XX USD for three module Avalon ASIC unit (68 to 72 GH/s). I feel these are a bit overpriced and with the difficulty going up so fast I won't buy to many at this price but am buying some now.

I am hoping  for a Chinese company that makes ASIC units wants a quick million USD for hardware they have in hand that they are most likely mining with now and don't want to risk the difficulty raises or upcoming ASIC onslaught but will also buy small single unit orders.

I prefer to buy in the USA for small orders but if its a big order (over 250k) I will fly to your country. I have done a lot of business in China and even lived there a while so I have no problem going to the PRC either. So if you are a Chinese supplier and can deliver now even better.

Payment: Will be done via USD wire transfer not BTC. There are several reasons for this:
- Its harder than you think for a US citizen to convert a million dollars into BTC
- Due to current laws I don't have a lot of legal recourse if I pay with Bitcoin vs a national currency.
- For tax purposes its a lot easier to write off a million dollar hardware charge than a million dollar Bitcoin charge.

History: I have done a few buys on the forums: 100 Lancelot units from Black Arrow, 80 USB Block Erupters, and one Avalon batch 3 pre-order paid in full for 14k. The block erupters scale decently well using Raspberry PIs see my post here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137934.msg2345214#msg2345214 though are to expensive and I am looking for more scale.

I also wanted to point out I did this trade here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=209471.msg2242450#msg2242450

Apart from this I used to sell virtual currency as far back as 1997 with games like Ultima Online, Everquest and World of Warcraft. At one point were were doing over 10 million USD in sales a month before I got out of the space so am no stranger to virtual currencies. More info on Google since its not really related to this post.

You can PM me, email me at yantis@yantis.net or skype me at jonyantis or via wechat : yantis

[lewicki]

Which zone in Everquest provided the most plat per hour?

[jspielberg]

Which zone in Everquest provided the most plat per hour?

That would be the stein of moggok quest assuming you were a high enough level enchanter.

[jayeeyee]

Wait.. Yantis.. did you work for Brock @ IGE?  I worked for TeamVIP and ran MMOFactory before it went capoot.

[yantis]

yes.. same yantis I used to own a large portion of IGE then I sold it.. then I bought back all of IGE and sold the whole thing off a second time =)

[dogie]

If you need some advice on a portfolio then hit me up in a PM.

[jayeeyee]

yes.. same yantis I used to own a large portion of IGE then I sold it.. then I bought back all of IGE and sold the whole thing off a second time =)

I knew it!  Sure brings back memories of the good 'ol in-game virtual currency days.

[yantis]

So far a lot of PMs on people selling preorders. What I really am looking for is someone selling hardware they have in hand. If you have something in hand and wanting to sell please PM me. I am particularly interested in buying Avalon units.

[goxed]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221806.0

[yantis]

Thanks =) Yes. I saw that post and bid on that about 30 minutes before you posted here. I notice you are bidding on it as well.

Though to be completely honest I already contacted him a day or two ago and offered him $30,000 USD for the unit via wire no escrow but he didn't respond (mostly because he probably wants Bitcoin as I find to be the case with most sellers - which I don't 100% get because if you want Bitcoin only then most likely think Bitcoin is going to appreciate in value which means it makes more sense to just keep mining your hardware than to sell it for Bitcoin until your able to physically replace that hardware with better hardware  but that is just my personal opinion).

[PeZ]

People sell their used hardware for bitcoins then use the bitcoin to upgrade to better hardware. Difficulty is going up and up so you must always have bleeding edge hardware.

[buyer]

I'm in, what are we buying and how soon can it be in Denver?

[spiral_mind]

Right now you're going to pay such a premium for people's ASICS in hand that it wouldn't even be worth it. Its a box that prints money. They will make you pay more than it likely will ever make considering difficulty increases when all these other ASICS that are being made start hitting the market.

If you had a box that literally printed money how much would you charge someone for it ?

You'd be better off buying Bitcoins directly with that kind of budget.

[yantis]

Spiral_mind = you are right on the Bitcoins. It most likely is a lot smarter to just buy the bitcoins flat out. I personally am betting on a $300+ bitcoin on the low side and $10,000 on the high side and would rather have hardware mining than bitcoins sitting in a wallet. Even it it takes me a year or two to recover my investment. This is a long term 10 year investment for me. Either bitcoin is going to make a lot of money or its going to be worth nothing. There really isn't a middle ground with it.

I am trying to diversify by also doing Litecoin and other scrypt currencies (though not holding my breath on the current batch of alt/scam coins).

Then you have the whole tax thing. Its a lot easier to write off hardware and explain to the IRS what you are doing when you have hardware to show for it than to explain to the IRS a million dollars in Bitcoins. I am not a tax expert and use tax attorneys for all my advice so I might be wrong on this and if so would love to hear so. The advice I am given though is its lower taxes to buy the equipment than to buy bitcoins which could be considered speculative and a much higher tax rate.

[DrG]

Buying hardware would be good if you want to write-off the hardware over a 7 year schedule rather than a single one-time write-off. Guess it depends on how your income flow will be structured.

[bitterdog]

With that kind of money you want to throw around why not just buy Avalon chips and pay a engineer to whip you something up from the designs already out there?

[spiral_mind]

Spiral_mind = you are right on the Bitcoins. It most likely is a lot smarter to just buy the bitcoins flat out. I personally am betting on a $300+ bitcoin on the low side and $10,000 on the high side and would rather have hardware mining than bitcoins sitting in a wallet. Even it it takes me a year or two to recover my investment. This is a long term 10 year investment for me. Either bitcoin is going to make a lot of money or its going to be worth nothing. There really isn't a middle ground with it.

I am trying to diversify by also doing Litecoin and other scrypt currencies (though not holding my breath on the current batch of alt/scam coins).

Then you have the whole tax thing. Its a lot easier to write off hardware and explain to the IRS what you are doing when you have hardware to show for it than to explain to the IRS a million dollars in Bitcoins. I am not a tax expert and use tax attorneys for all my advice so I might be wrong on this and if so would love to hear so. The advice I am given though is its lower taxes to buy the equipment than to buy bitcoins which could be considered speculative and a much higher tax rate.

Well from what I understand if you hold onto the coins for a year before selling then you only pay capital gains tax (15%). If you sell them within a year of getting them then you pay normal income tax.

If you buy them soon, you will potentially be able to turn a large profit in the next bubble and only pay capital gains. With buying mining equipment you will have to wait to get the coins over a long time(potentially never break even at current ASIC prices), and then wait to sell them as well. I would also agree that holding coins for a very long time could be risky. You'll actually have to hold onto the coins for longer though (if you care about taxes and selling at a high point) with a miner than with just buying the coins and selling when they next bubble (probably next year).

I'm not familiar with any way to write off mining equipment on taxes, care to fill me in on that?

That really leaves you with pretty limited market options for your coins. You'd have a lot more flexibility in your profit strategy if you buy them instead of mine them IMO.

[yantis]

Spiral_mind I am sure someone with more tax code knowledge than me can answer that question. I do know for a fact you can write it off.

This is a good firm to contact world wide for any kind of tax advice and planning: http://www.pwc.com/us/en/tax-services/index.jhtml

[dlasher]

yes.. same yantis I used to own a large portion of IGE then I sold it.. then I bought back all of IGE and sold the whole thing off a second time =)

Thought the name looked familar...

[Domrada]

I just finalized a sale to Mr. Yantis, and he was a pleasure to work with. This guy is for real. He has my full endorsement.