To reserve an ASIC today you have to be a true believer in bitcoin continuous price rise and pay in FIAT (or at least buy BTC with FIAT and pay the ASIC)
I think it's better to buy coins today and speculate on the price rise.
I don't think hobbyist miners with CPUs/GPUs is the perfect solution to sustain bitcoin tho
I've got my GPUs mining other coins and I'm exchanging half for BTC. I'm not mining for BTC despite wanting to build a BTC rig years ago and never bothering (dur!) and considering the entry level cost now, I'm not too bothered. I truly believe that another coin or currency thats still to come will overtake BTCs marketcap. The concept has proven to work but it has many flaws, so its just a case of an innovative team to put together a real contender. If crypto is here to stay, then something serious is to come. Theres a lot money to be made.
I'm all for our home made rigs, and thought maybe an investment into the ASIC rigs would hit ROI and make some money since it seems that is the next wave of mining to be done. But by the time we can actually get them, they will never hit ROI and cost us money.
I don't know what to do.
I've got the money for one of these new scrypt machines and I'm in the same boat. Do I sign up without seeing real pictures and figures, and without knowing what the difficulty is going to be in 6 months? Or do I build another couple of GPU rigs now and mine all the new alts coming out atm, and still be left with some resalable equipment in-case it all goes to sht?
I'm going with the GPUs, the outlay and the increase in electricity costs can be offset later by mining all the new alts with low difficulty and selling some when it hits the exchanges. Theres a lot of opportunity right now. It might not be there in 6 months. Who knows whats going to happen with all these currencies? Some regulations could see a lot of them disappear, and laying out 10k for a couple of fancy machines seems a risk without knowing whats around the corner.