Asicminer has single handedly destroyed bitcoin mining.
Care to elaborate on this rather random statement?
OK, that's odd.
Someone says they are making a "Comprehensive Manufacturer Trustworthiness Guide" and yet they also imply they are ignorant of the happenings in the bitcoin mining world for the last 12 months.
Well, that's rather unexpected.
OK I'll start with some history to help you remember what is pretty much well known by all but ignoramuses, of what has been cast in stone in BTC history this past year.
Firstly to simplify the actual issue itself:
It has well and long been pointed out since last year, that Hardware manufactures (HMs) would do better to use their hardware than to sell it for less than the profit they can make using it.
That is the basic argument of why BTC is full of morons ready to lose BTC and line HM's wallets buying ASIC hardware.
What it actually means is that some HMs consider it ideal to make their profit up front multiple times using this argument.
Firstly there is the MASSIVE mark up, by some, on the actual hardware over the cost of producing it,
Secondly there is the attempt to get the mining profit of the hardware, up front, and
Thirdly avoiding all the costs of locating, powering and managing that hardware.
Now what has this lead to?
Either you buy ASIC hardware and lose BTC, or the HMs make large mining setups and together the various large mining setups mine a large % of all BTC ... economies of scale ... death of the BTC mining community (except for those willing to take it up the asic and say harder ...)
Now how did this happen?
Well clearly you don't know, so I'll mention a few of the early steps in the ASIC history of BTC
BFL had their pre-orders that they failed to deliver on time due to incompetence somewhere in the process ... or you could say it was planned ... don't really care which - the simple fact is that once they did deliver their hardware, it was better than any other company had available at the time and was until BFU (bitfury) released their chips - but they were slower, but more GH per W. Clearly this wont be the case with BFL's next pile of late hardware.
So anyway, 2 other companies got in there in the meantime with ASIC hardware: Avalon then Asicminer.
Want a pretty graph? Yeah I did one a while back ...
http://198.245.60.111/Pix/BTCNet1.pngSo Avalon pushed up their prices (to around 80BTC!) after going borderline profit on their first batch and ...
Asicminer started selling hardware to miners.
Their blade price was set based on an auction of morons willing to pay an enormous amount of BTC to be first to say they had one ...
Their USB price - initially ~2BTC - has always been more than those devices have ever managed to mine (I know, I have one of the first ones due to being a developer in the quickest postage range from them when they first sent them out)
So although one could say it was Avalon who did it first, they had a limited supply of hardware.
Asicminer, on the other hand, has continued to do this non stop since they started and still do today.
Very few if anyone (except maybe some of the early Blade buyers) who bought any hardware from Asicminer will ever mine back the amount of BTC they cost to buy at the time.
Although many companies have followed in step doing this, the main cause of this destruction of the BTC mining community has been Asicminer who has continued to do this non-stop, and still does today, with the "We deliver hardware we have in stock" slogan that ignores the "and we fuck you over coz you'll lose BTC buying it"
That completes today's history lesson. Meh, too much text for a single lesson.