Price of mining the cheapest bitcoin

[piramida]

If you are an ASIC manufacturer, you have two options:

  1.  Eat NRE, pay someone to grind up your stock of chips and haul it away. <==Not smart.
  2.  Sell chips at a loss, partially recoup your investment. <==Pick this if you're smart.
  
If you are a miner, and ordered shit from an ASIC manufacturer months ago, you have two options:

  1.  Sign for the package, walk to the nearest trash can, throw it away. <==Not smart.
  2.  Fire up your miner, and keep mining until it costs more in electricity to mine one coin than the coin's worth.  You won't "ROI," but you'll lose less than with (1). <==Pick this if you're smart.

Re. "keeping mined bitcoin off the market":  Mined bitcoin is no different from any other bitcoin because fungibility.  It makes no more sense to keep mined bitcoin off the market than keeping hoarded bitcoin off the market.

Any of this help?

Edit:

Simple overshoot...these devices coming online right now were designed 6 months ago, produced last month....and as soon as they hit the mine they are non-profit. The operators have no choice but to keep going forward...they sunk their costs 6 months ago in the past when the current hashrate was unthinkable.
...

This.

Yeah makes sense pretty much, thanks. So it's all moving basically by inertia, and new production is not being scheduled, and the curve should straighten out somewhere by the end of this year? Good, good.

[NotLambchop]

^Lolno.  Of course ASIC manufacturers aren't shuttering--not with all that VC cheddar up for grabs!  And they're gamblers, just like you.  They, and the VC money behind them, are betting on BTC price going up.  
...the only difference being they have a bit more control than you do.  Price spikes?  In-stock gear vanishes, pre-order shipments get delayed, factory-farms ramp up, difficulty spikes until your gear is unprofitable again and then ...and then you get your gear.
*Was a bit creepy, but also sorta' edifying to watch small-time miners (like you?) funding aspiring ASIC manufacturers--and making themselves obsolete in the process.
Because tragedy of the commons.
Because greed.



A fraction of KNC's farms.

[minerpumpkin]

^Lolno.  Of course ASIC manufacturers aren't shuttering--not with all that VC cheddar up for grabs!  And they're gamblers, just like you.  They, and the VC money behind them, are betting on BTC price going up. 
...the only difference being they have a bit more control than you do.  Price spikes?  In-stock gear vanishes, pre-order shipments get delayed, factory-farms ramp up, difficulty spikes until your gear is unprofitable again and then ...and then you get your gear.
*Was a bit creepy, but also sorta' edifying to watch small-time miners (like you?) funding aspiring ASIC manufacturers--and making themselves obsolete in the process.
Because tragedy of the commons.
Because greed.



A fraction of KNC's farms.

Are those inside the new actic-air-cooled farm or are they located in the old ones? It's mezmerizing to see that amount of mining gear sitting on the shelves and hashing their time away. I wonder what happens to the old miners, it's gotta be a lot of waste...

[piramida]

*Was a bit creepy, but also sorta' edifying to watch small-time miners (like you?) funding aspiring ASIC manufacturers--and making themselves obsolete in the process.
Because tragedy of the commons.
Because greed.



A fraction of KNC's farms.

I thankfully avoided mining (if you don't count CPU mining in 2009) alltogether, but I was very close to ordering some of those vaporware butterflies. Thing that I move around the planet alot saved me from disappointment. But I am waiting for the hash-curve to straighten out because I still want some consumer hashing device that would not make much money but will support the network and make me control a tiny bit of total hashing power. But for such machines to appear and be of apple-quality, meaning polished shelf product, the race has to stop first.

And wow, that picture is impressive.

[NotLambchop]

^Everything keeps going over my head lately--I thought you were being sarcastic  Sorry about the digs.
*If the corporate press releases are to be trusted, there's plenty of stuff in the pipeline, and plenty of VC money...