New miner trying to cut through the crap

[ProspectusJah]

Hey all,

I've been mining LTC for a bit now, just for shits and to learn about cryptocurrency and mining, and now I seriously want to make an investment into BitCoin mining, add to my new portfolio.

Problem is, EVERYONE seems to confirm that EVERY company with ASIC or mining contracts out there is a scam. Is there anyone out there that is legit? I see plenty of talk about BFL, KNC, ASICMINER - and of course they are all some kind of internet Scamurai Ninjas. I'm just coming up from the GPU world and all the ASIC tomfoolery makes no sense. Anyone care to shed some light?

[pjviitas]

Even thought these things will soon be obsolete, they are a decent entry point:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=425113.0

[southerngentuk]

Am waiting till the Chinese new year celebrations are over. expect new prices and stock in a couple of weeks.. 

[IamCANADIAN013]

Hey all,

I've been mining LTC for a bit now, just for shits and to learn about cryptocurrency and mining, and now I seriously want to make an investment into BitCoin mining, add to my new portfolio.

Problem is, EVERYONE seems to confirm that EVERY company with ASIC or mining contracts out there is a scam. Is there anyone out there that is legit? I see plenty of talk about BFL, KNC, ASICMINER - and of course they are all some kind of internet Scamurai Ninjas. I'm just coming up from the GPU world and all the ASIC tomfoolery makes no sense. Anyone care to shed some light?

All mining hardware is grossly overpriced for what you will get in return. Even the used stuff is priced the same way.  People are obviously buying it though.  So I think the best thing is to hopefully find a great deal, act on it, mine with it for a while, then hope you can sell it down the road for a profit to someone willing to pay a stupid price for it.

[railzand]

Thanks Augusto. Is there anywhere that lists real ASIC manufacturers vs SCAM sites? Would be a great resource because the ratio isn't very healthy.

in short, no, not that I know of.

in practice, there were two useful threads until a few weeks ago, the scam list: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=366659.0 , but this has not been updated;

and the newbie guide to asic vendors https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=403459.0 which has a slightly different intent.

a great web resource is http://bitcoinscammers.com/ which shows some of the latest scams

and nothing really takes account of the new wave of avalon clones and bitmine chip machine makers, some of which are real, and some scams

so there is something for someone to do (hint)