[ANN] Bitfury ASIC sales in EU and Europe

[Dexter770221]

....Don't blacklist bitfury, he has nothing to do with this mess.

He has. Months ago when he doesn't have any chips yet, he talked that they may have contract on 2k wafers/month, thats 8 million chips per month. He said that he can flood market easily. But it turn out that is simpler to sell at 20 times production costs and make same amount of money than sell 2 times at production but with 2 times more work. So don't be surprised that customers are angry. Something else was promised...

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[KNK]

He said that he can flood market easily.

I am not happy from the situation (price and availability) either, but you do make difference between 'can' and 'will' do you?
Let's say there are 2k wafers/month - that's 13PH/s per month or 1.5 bilions difficulty increase per month ...

Do you still want that to happen? Be careful what you wish for, as it may happen.

[Dexter770221]

Ofcourse I see difference, talking without action is just talking... And that is what angry me most. Just nice talk to make an attention, take bucks into pocket and laugh... Not nice approach don't you think?

[tarmi]

nah, no point to flood the market when you have the best solution out there.  

better to sell it in small overpriced batches and keep most for yourself.

when competition release cheaper/better solutions, only then you dump it, but you keep the coins you mined, and cash from hardware sales.

[Dexter770221]

nah, no point to flood the market when you have the best solution out there.  

better to sell it in small overpriced batches and keep most for yourself.

when competition release cheaper/better solutions, only then you dump it, but you keep the coins you mined, and cash from hardware sales.

Exactly this. So no surprise that customers feels that they were screwed...
And I'm waiting for that moment of dump. I have prototype board that waits for populating but can do it. Oh well, bying chips 2$/chip in 3 months will make me some ROI as I would buy now at 50$

[forum2005]

Punin you do a great work.
I don't blame you or your team. ("don't shoot the messenger")

But we all know what happen to some hardware/chips seller when they become to greedy or not fair...
Asicminer, Avalon...? no ? anyone...?

And with all the new company all around (HashFast and cointerra are really real...)
What i see clearly know...is : We have funded the Tytus mine.

Now he doesn't need us anymore...and sell the hardware at overpriced price.

Punin, you can sell any other hardware, i follow you and buy from you because you do a really really great work..

But right now, i blaklist Bitfury.

Don't blacklist bitfury, he has nothing to do with this mess. I will try to negotiate something so that my customers will be happy. Perhaps old H-cards can be sold at a discounted price.

I would like to purchase old h-boards v1.2 to full my rig.

[KNK]

Just nice talk to make an attention, take bucks into pocket and laugh... Not nice approach don't you think?

Getting lots of cheep miners and ROI in a month without moving your finger is nice?

I admire the people who spend their time and money to bring a product like this to others and i would have been unhappy to, when i see that my striving is always met with criticism, no matter what i do.
Punin did (and i am sure still does even we don't see that recently) great job bringing this product to all. Bitfury made a great chip, that is on par even with the 28nm ones, but they are both accused every time there is a problem (or something that you or someone else) doesn't like and it's always 'their fault', just because one can't see what's behind that miner except 'MOAR MONEY AND I WANT THEM NOW' ... and for free if possible. Is this nice?

I did my own board and would like to get some chips for it - unfortunately the price is too high and they are not available, but i don't blame Punin or Bitfury for that, i don't blame China for the price increase which raised the hardware price either (neither for it's fall in the last days) - this is a market ... 'because of' is not 'the fault of'. If there are no chips or I can't afford them, my time will be wasted, but i don't blame Punin or Bitfury for that.

[Carlton Banks]

I came very very close to buying Bitfury October kit, after the discount. Didn't do it. I dismissed August price instantly, I knew it was too much of a gamble at 230 BTC for 400 GH/s.

Don't just pounce on the first opportunity because you think it's a sellers market. I've raised my eyebrow at plenty of miners for sale in the last 6 months, but only made very few very conservative orders. Like when the exchange rate went crazy last week 

If there's no good opportunities, don't just take "the best of the bad" and then pray to Satoshi it will work out, exercise your patience. A good chance will come along.

[allinvain]

As always, a celebrity knows best. Listen to Mr. Banks.

[Carlton Banks]

As always, a celebrity knows best. Listen to Mr. Banks.

Except when I get things wrong! It's been known to happen. I'm confident I'm giving out the best advice I can, though. If fewer people had bought into Bitfury at the expensive part of the offering, then those few would have been a little closer to profitability. And there wouldn't have been as much money available to fund the private mine.

This is all part of the "gold rush" dynamic we have here. All who were burned this time round, but feel they want to get up to fight again for another round, will be better placed to make more informed decisions when the (even bigger) mob goes mad for mining. I expect we will experience a "pre-reward drop" craze in 2016, with possibly more crazes based around price rises and innovations in miner design (the ASIC is not the last chapter, as some have said, there will be more changes, possibly related to changes in the design of the Bitcoin network). The "pre-reward drop" will probably be the biggest craze though, especially if it coincides with some other great leap forward.

[allinvain]

As long as bitcoin uses the SHA-256 algorithm then existing ASIC miners will be fine for the foreseeable future. Nothing short of something nuts like quantum computers will jeopardize the reign of the ASIC chip, but I do agree that we will experience more gold rushes. We've just witnessed one recently when btc price was over $1000. I saw people bid ridiculous prices for any miners they can get their hands on.

But going back to your point about not buying into the early batch, yeah that's something I'm guilty of too. I foolishly paid 16K Euro for a Aug kit. At the time that was like 89 to 90 btc - I think. Either way probably my full kit will never ROI in btc terms. The lesson I've learned is that mining for profit and actually reaching a profit is not that easy. The small guy is better off just buying btc and that's it. Mining should be a hobby for most people, not a business because pure and simple it will be a _LOSING_ business for the majority of people. The ones that will make money twice over are the ASIC companies who had their chip development costs subsidized by YOU ALL. To add insult to injury they then turn that hardware you paid for and use it to drive up the difficulty. So you essentially pay for the hardware twice - it's like a hidden tax.

In the end it may have been more fair if they just borrowed the capital to design and develop the chip, then mined privately.

[Carlton Banks]

As long as bitcoin uses the SHA-256 algorithm then existing ASIC miners will be fine for the foreseeable future. Nothing short of something nuts like quantum computers will jeopardize the reign of the ASIC chip, but I do agree that we will experience more gold rushes. We've just witnessed one recently when btc price was over $1000. I saw people bid ridiculous prices for any miners they can get their hands on.

I understand why you say that, but there may be reasons why the design of the interface with the boards and their mining controller could need a drastic alteration (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=359582.0). And that's not accounting for the unknown changes that do get implemented.

But going back to your point about not buying into the early batch, yeah that's something I'm guilty of too. I foolishly paid 16K Euro for a Aug kit. At the time that was like 89 to 90 btc - I think. Either way probably my full kit will never ROI in btc terms. The lesson I've learned is that mining for profit and actually reaching a profit is not that easy. The small guy is better off just buying btc and that's it. Mining should be a hobby for most people, not a business because pure and simple it will be a _LOSING_ business for the majority of people. The ones that will make money twice over are the ASIC companies who had their chip development costs subsidized by YOU ALL. To add insult to injury they then turn that hardware you paid for and use it to drive up the difficulty. So you essentially pay for the hardware twice - it's like a hidden tax.

In the end it may have been more fair if they just borrowed the capital to design and develop the chip, then mined privately.

I hope eventually that we will be able to manufacture mining rigs ourselves; chips, boards, cooling, power and enclosures. When you look at the big + wide picture, the trends suggest this will all eventually be possible (and perhaps sooner than the shortest of near-term estimates). Then it will just be a case of the price of copper, plastic and silicon! (and/or whatever futuristic raw materials we end up using to substrate our component set  ).

Whatever happens both now and in the future, these mining devices are unprecedented as a class of goods. Technology to produce currency has always existed, but it's never required such a level of expertise and development/manufactuing tools before. Once we've changed the electronics manufacturing paradigm a little more, maybe we'll be get closer to something like the equality of opportunity that was needed to pan for gold.

[allinvain]

wow, that paper you linked to is some heavy reading; it will take me some time to look into it, but on the face of it improving the bitcoin protocol is welcome in my eyes. As always getting the majority of users and especially miners to go along with the proposed changes is a different thing.

[Carlton Banks]

You can get the gist of it from the more summarised version in the OP. And it's interesting to read everyone else talking the implications and possible hybridised versions through.

Keep your eyes on all things affecting mining! The actual implementation of something like this block propagation improvement could change the design of future ASIC miners, without changing in the hashing algorithm.

It's far from a settled debate though, and even if it were to win approval, it would have to be carefully planned out over many months, and these core development guys have alot of other branches of work to do to this system before. And who knows what alternative proposals may be suggested.

[LordTheron]

Punin you do a great work.
I don't blame you or your team. ("don't shoot the messenger")

But we all know what happen to some hardware/chips seller when they become to greedy or not fair...
Asicminer, Avalon...? no ? anyone...?

And with all the new company all around (HashFast and cointerra are really real...)
What i see clearly know...is : We have funded the Tytus mine.

Now he doesn't need us anymore...and sell the hardware at overpriced price.

Punin, you can sell any other hardware, i follow you and buy from you because you do a really really great work..

But right now, i blaklist Bitfury.

Why would he sell chips to us any more? He is making massive profit from mining operation so why would he sell chips and  get diff even higher. Clever  way to protect own mining operation;)

[allinvain]

If any of you guys are located in North America and want to buy bitfury hardware at usurious rates go to Dave's site now, hurry up and give him all your coins!

[BenTuras]

I hope eventually that we will be able to manufacture mining rigs ourselves; chips, boards, cooling, power and enclosures.

Join the Wasp collective!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325181.0

[prawda]

If you understand this and realize that hardware will ROI only, when btc price rises, then you must accept that this hardware is just stupid to buy. This is why punin's statement, that everyone got ROI is not accurate.

Those who bought our september-october units for ~6500€ are still making over 200€ per day in BTC. Please explain your math.

Ok here is my math:

Someone decides to invest in bitcoin. He either buys hardware or bare bitcoins. He buys hardware for 50 btc or USD/EUR equivalent. The hardware mines back 25 bitcoins until energy price parity is reached.

If the price rises by 500%, he has 250% ROI, if he decided to mine, and 500% ROI if he decided to keep bitcoins.

If the price drops to 10%, he has lost 95% of his investment, if he decided to keep bitcoins he lost only 90%.

If the price remains at initial value, he has lost 50% with mining and nothing, if he kept bitcoins.

In addition there is electricity cost, administration of hardware, risk of failure and less liquidity (look up opportunity costs, good hint). Well you might compare mining to keeping USD/EUR, but this is not an investment...

And don't get me wrong, I would do the same as you. If enough people keep buying hardware that does not ROI, sell it overpriced. It is ok to me. But on the other hand, allow us to evaluate the hardware investment.

[yohan]

With ASICs it has always been on the cards that suppliers with their own ASIC would retreat into just supplying their own mine. This might be for the reason of protecting their own rig earnings but at a more basic level if you are making a low profit on hardware why have the hassle and costs of customer support, logistics and the chance they will not pay you if the market goes the wrong way. Hopefully Bitfury ASICs will become available again at a reasonable price but given my statement above they might not.

We are now in a period where the market will start to become more stable. It won't stop growing but the growth will become more controlled. X200+ growth in hashing power in the last year has been somewhat explosive. With ASICs appearing already at 28nm it is unlikely that newer ASIC technologies will offer much over these in cost reduction for Bitcoin in the short term so there is unlikely to be big advantages in people doing technology jumps like we have seen in the last 12 months. So it will be down to more of a grind, low margins, and how much your electric costs. That might mean a handful of super-rigs in the world, based in low electric cost sites, and basically controlled by ASIC producers with 90% of the network.

[loshia]

With ASICs it has always been on the cards that suppliers with their own ASIC would retreat into just supplying their own mine. This might be for the reason of protecting their own rig earnings but at a more basic level if you are making a low profit on hardware why have the hassle and costs of customer support, logistics and the chance they will not pay you if the market goes the wrong way. Hopefully Bitfury ASICs will become available again at a reasonable price but given my statement above they might not.

We are now in a period where the market will start to become more stable. It won't stop growing but the growth will become more controlled. X200+ growth in hashing power in the last year has been somewhat explosive. With ASICs appearing already at 28nm it is unlikely that newer ASIC technologies will offer much over these in cost reduction for Bitcoin in the short term so there is unlikely to be big advantages in people doing technology jumps like we have seen in the last 12 months. So it will be down to more of a grind, low margins, and how much your electric costs. That might mean a handful of super-rigs in the world, based in low electric cost sites, and basically controlled by ASIC producers with 90% of the network.

And that will be the end of bitcoin because people are going to loose interest. When community dies bitcoin will follow. I wish them luck selling their 'hard earned' coins to themselves. Before this happens They will make a good money for sure
RIP
That process has been started already and it is a matter of timing for it to end