ASICMiner doesn't sell direct shares anymore. The original shares were available through GLBSE which shut down, and now only passthrough shares (i.e. an operator holds the actual shares and has an ownership stake, but we trust him to pay us the dividends and pass on ownership rights) exist.
A return on investment of 2 years (i.e. 50% a year) is INSANE in comparison to something in the real world. A ROI of 7 years is expected in the real world, and as you can imagine, there is also a lot of risk involved with investing in ASICMiner and Bitcoin as a whole.
There are several major ASIC manufacturers, and ASICMiner is the only one which actually mines on the side. They auction off their old blades, their USB miners, and invest in new hardware to bolster their hashrates, and something around 60% of all profit is divided equally amongst shareholders.
I see ASICMiner as a prime candidate as an investment opportunity as compared to usual perpetual mining bonds (PMBs), they are not bonds, they actually create the future of bitcoin mining (ASIC design and creation) and they have incentive to constantly increase their own hashrate, as the owners have an ownership stake in the company as well. Most PMBs such as TAT.VIRTUALMINE, YABMC etc offer a higher payout % per mh/s i.e. 95% or 100%, yet they do not offer or promise increased hashrates in the future (when difficulty rises) so it is essentially diminishing returns until the bond is worthless, as it is simply a loan.
There is risk, but ASICMiner would be a company with the lowest risk at the moment, IMO.
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Thanks for clearing that up.
The missing piece on all this is that they sell off hardware as well as ASICs and reinvest into bolstering their hashrates. (which I did not know)
Anything that 'returns' 50% clearly has risk attached to it.
The risk appears three-fold share price fluctuation, dividend payout stability and Bitcoin fluctuation. much akin to buying foreign stocks
interesting times.
11Blade