ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[purplesquid]

Let's say for the sake of argument that ASICMINER hashrate remains constant... what would expected dividends be once "the first clause of ASICMINER's investor protection" is fulfilled?

As I understand; 200,000 IPO shares, 200,000 Private shares. Initial payback period is until each IPO share (1/200,000) obtains 0.1 BTC. So current payback is 1/200,000 * (Coins mined - Expenses). After payback will be 1/400,000 * (Coins mined - Expenses). So about half of what is being obtained now. Please correct me if I am wrong.

While we're at it, what would expected dividend be (assuming constant difficulty), upon arrivval of additional 50TH after "the first clause of ASICMINER's investor protection" is fulfilled?

Current repayment speed = 6 TH/s
Future additional  speed = 50(56?) Th/s
Difficulty change/time period = unknown
time periods until "fully" running = unkown

Future dividend repayments would be estimated by: (1/2) * (current dividend) * (50/6) * (dy/dx)

Or some such...

[SebastianJu]

The next batch will come at the end of this month? And what will be the timeframe to bring them online, now as you made contracts with workshops and so on? Any estimation?
I only wonder how it will be handled that asicminer lacks competition. I mean if really 62TH will be online soon than we will have 200% of the network hashingrate like it is now. Or 66.6% when its online. Competition should start to move then.

[wisard]

There are 2 pass throughs that have been setup where you can buy ASICMiner shares.

https://bitfunder.com/asset/G.ASICMINER-PT
https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

[Gabit]

There are 2 pass throughs that have been setup where you can buy ASICMiner shares.

https://bitfunder.com/asset/G.ASICMINER-PT
https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

Thats not what i search and i cant buy asicminer shares there, only shares that pass through asicminer. And that means i dont own the asicminer shares. When the issuer decides to run i cant do anything against and dont have anything. That would only mean another layer of insecureness between.
I want to buy real asicminer shares only.

Then I suggest reverse auction https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=73.0 or use the unified orderbook. There isn't anything else before official exchange.

[DeaDTerra]

There are 2 pass throughs that have been setup where you can buy ASICMiner shares.

https://bitfunder.com/asset/G.ASICMINER-PT
https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

Thats not what i search and i cant buy asicminer shares there, only shares that pass through asicminer. And that means i dont own the asicminer shares. When the issuer decides to run i cant do anything against and dont have anything. That would only mean another layer of insecureness between.
I want to buy real asicminer shares only.

I have been running a fund with at the top 15000 Bitcoins, if I would have like to run, I would have done so a long time ago
I am here to stay for the long time,
http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=DeaDTerra
I have been following bitcoins for two years and I wouldn't do anything to that could damage Bitcoins or it's community.
I am also sure that FriedCat would make sure that I would not get away with running away.
My ID is being held in escrow by kluge, my full name and ID is also known by  handfull of individuals of the community.
//DeaDTerra

[SebastianJu]

There are 2 pass throughs that have been setup where you can buy ASICMiner shares.

https://bitfunder.com/asset/G.ASICMINER-PT
https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

Thats not what i search and i cant buy asicminer shares there, only shares that pass through asicminer. And that means i dont own the asicminer shares. When the issuer decides to run i cant do anything against and dont have anything. That would only mean another layer of insecureness between.
I want to buy real asicminer shares only.

I have been running a fund with at the top 15000 Bitcoins, if I would have like to run, I would have done so a long time ago
I am here to stay for the long time,
http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=DeaDTerra
I have been following bitcoins for two years and I wouldn't do anything to that could damage Bitcoins or it's community.
I am also sure that FriedCat would make sure that I would not get away with running away.
My ID is being held in escrow by kluge, my full name and ID is also known by  handfull of individuals of the community.
//DeaDTerra

I didnt mean to insult you because i dont know who ran the PT. I only know glbse and the experiences with it so i will avoid any potential risk if possible.

Gabit... ill try the unified thread...

[DeaDTerra]

There are 2 pass throughs that have been setup where you can buy ASICMiner shares.

https://bitfunder.com/asset/G.ASICMINER-PT
https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

Thats not what i search and i cant buy asicminer shares there, only shares that pass through asicminer. And that means i dont own the asicminer shares. When the issuer decides to run i cant do anything against and dont have anything. That would only mean another layer of insecureness between.
I want to buy real asicminer shares only.

I have been running a fund with at the top 15000 Bitcoins, if I would have like to run, I would have done so a long time ago
I am here to stay for the long time,
http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=DeaDTerra
I have been following bitcoins for two years and I wouldn't do anything to that could damage Bitcoins or it's community.
I am also sure that FriedCat would make sure that I would not get away with running away.
My ID is being held in escrow by kluge, my full name and ID is also known by  handfull of individuals of the community.
//DeaDTerra

I didnt mean to insult you because i dont know who ran the PT. I only know glbse and the experiences with it so i will avoid any potential risk if possible.

Gabit... ill try the unified thread...

I didn't take it as a insult
Simply wanted to show that even if it's a extra risk, it's a pretty small risk
Even if BF shuts down, I can return the shares to the shareholders of the PT
//DeaDTErra

[burnside]

There are 2 pass throughs that have been setup where you can buy ASICMiner shares.

https://bitfunder.com/asset/G.ASICMINER-PT
https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

Thats not what i search and i cant buy asicminer shares there, only shares that pass through asicminer. And that means i dont own the asicminer shares. When the issuer decides to run i cant do anything against and dont have anything. That would only mean another layer of insecureness between.
I want to buy real asicminer shares only.

Hi there.  I'm managing the btct.co PT at https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT

Similar to DeaDTerra, my real name is my handle, and is all over the interwebs.  I had a 15 year history as president/ceo of a successful hosting company with a great track record before recently shifting gears and handing off the reigns.  I'm a little-league t-ball coach, cub scout leader, small town kind of guy.  

I recognize and respect the need to be careful in bitcoinland.  If anything bad happens to shares or funds in my care, it's not going to be anything intentional on my part.

[lophie]

Deadterra, why you didn't tell the guy he can lockdown 250+ shares out of bitfunder. Or did I get my info wrong ?

[DeaDTerra]

Deadterra, why you didn't tell the guy he can lockdown 250+ shares out of bitfunder. Or did I get my info wrong ?

Ah yes ofc, shares can be moved from and to BF, as they are 1:1 backed by real shares
if you have over 250 shares you can simply withdraw them for AM shares.
//DeaDTerra

[iCEBREAKER]

They earn BTC, but they are also priced in BTC to start with. Therefore if BTC doubles in value, then both their earning and price already implicitly double in USD value, hence preserving the value proposition of the shares. There are no economic reasons for their numerical BTC value to further increase on top of that change.

ASICMINER's (the company) expenses and debts are denominated in fiat, not btc.

As btc appreciates vs fiat, ASICMINER Inc.'s relative operating costs go down, their profit margin goes up, and dividends increase accordingly.

This is the exact same reason why in a bull market gold mining companies eventually outperform gold.

[Mausini]

Yes I do take it into account: my point is that investing 0.6 BTC in Bitcoin may be more profitable than investing 0.6 BTC in ASICMINER. Because if BTC appreciates to $1000, then at the end of the day 0.6 BTC will be worth $600, whereas your ASICMINER share will be worth $250 (assuming my hypothetical example where the share is worth close to nothing after having returned only 0.25 BTC in dividends).

So, in your investment decisions, you need to compare them against holding BTC. If an investment does worse than merely holding BTC, then it is not an optimal investment.

That's just plain wrong for ASICMINER shares. Appreciation of BTC only has a positive effect on ASICMINER share value, because they earn you BTC.

No. They earn BTC, but they are also priced in BTC to start with. Therefore if BTC doubles in value, then both their earning and price already implicitly double in USD value, hence preserving the value proposition of the shares. There are no economic reasons for their numerical BTC value to further increase on top of that change.

Another way to look at it is that the same share priced "X" BTC will return the same "Y" BTC of dividends regardless of the USD/BTC exchange rate. Variation of the exchange rate alone is insufficient to rationally cause "X" to increase while Y" remains constant. In fact, irrational investors who would buy more and more shares for no reason (pushing X up) would cause the dividend yield (Y/X) to decrease therefore making investing in ASICMINER less and less attractive compared to just holding BTC.

that's an effect of share valuation and has nothing to do with btc appreciation. Just have a look at SDICE. Imagine BTC suddenly appreciated from say 100 usd to 100 000 usd. do you think betting volume in usd would also increase by a factor of 1000 ? no? ok, i would also assume it stays the same in usd. that would mean dividends in btc would decrease by a factor of 1000. and that means, assuming same valuation of dividends, share value in btc would also decrease by a factor of 1000. bad times. THAT can never happen to AM shares, because profit is not bound to USD, but directly to BTC.

AM shares can only profit from higher USD/BTC exchange rates, because of lower maintenance, power, development etc. costs in btc.

[SebastianJu]

Friedcat... why did the deployment in the last week remain so slow? It looks like it goes forward slower than before, nearly not. Whats the reason for that?

[mrb]

AM shares can only profit from higher USD/BTC exchange rates, because of lower maintenance, power, development etc. costs in btc.

See my response to iCEBREAKER below.

They earn BTC, but they are also priced in BTC to start with. Therefore if BTC doubles in value, then both their earning and price already implicitly double in USD value, hence preserving the value proposition of the shares. There are no economic reasons for their numerical BTC value to further increase on top of that change.

ASICMINER's (the company) expenses and debts are denominated in fiat, not btc.
As btc appreciates vs fiat, ASICMINER Inc.'s relative operating costs go down, their profit margin goes up, and dividends increase accordingly.
[...]

Except there is no room for relative costs to go down. Assuming 0.10/kWh (worldwide average), ASICMINER's electrical costs currently represent only 0.28% of their BTC revenues (friedcat disclosed an efficiency of 167 Mhash/Joule). Assuming their other operating costs are 10x higher (salaries, data center space, etc), they represent only 2.8% of their BTC revenues.

So if BTC were to appreciate a lot today, making operating costs completely negligible, their profit margin and dividends would at most be increased by ~3%...

Your argument works for gold mining companies, because their relative operating costs are a lot higher than ~3%.

[poly]

mrb, like you've bet with Micon, you are thinking that BFL and co will actually ship in the next few months. You're about to lose your bet with Micon, and while I have no doubts about BFL shipping a few units, they're not going to ship all their orders in a few days.

[Mausini]

AM shares can only profit from higher USD/BTC exchange rates, because of lower maintenance, power, development etc. costs in btc.

See my response to iCEBREAKER below.

They earn BTC, but they are also priced in BTC to start with. Therefore if BTC doubles in value, then both their earning and price already implicitly double in USD value, hence preserving the value proposition of the shares. There are no economic reasons for their numerical BTC value to further increase on top of that change.

ASICMINER's (the company) expenses and debts are denominated in fiat, not btc.
As btc appreciates vs fiat, ASICMINER Inc.'s relative operating costs go down, their profit margin goes up, and dividends increase accordingly.
[...]

Except there is no room for relative costs to go down. Assuming 0.10/kWh (worldwide average), ASICMINER's electrical costs currently represent only 0.28% of their BTC revenues (friedcat disclosed an efficiency of 167 Mhash/Joule). Assuming their other operating costs are 10x higher (salaries, data center space, etc), they represent only 2.8% of their BTC revenues.

So if BTC were to appreciate a lot today, making operating costs completely negligible, their profit margin and dividends would at most be increased by ~3%...

Your argument works for gold mining companies, because their relative operating costs are a lot higher than ~3%.

wrong again.. sorry man. operating cost may be negligible now. in the future (i hope not so near future) they will DEFINE what is profitable or not.

[mrb]

poly: I will win because I did not bet they will ship all units, but merely 10 or more

Except there is no room for relative costs to go down. Assuming 0.10/kWh (worldwide average), ASICMINER's electrical costs currently represent only 0.28% of their BTC revenues (friedcat disclosed an efficiency of 167 Mhash/Joule). Assuming their other operating costs are 10x higher (salaries, data center space, etc), they represent only 2.8% of their BTC revenues.

So if BTC were to appreciate a lot today, making operating costs completely negligible, their profit margin and dividends would at most be increased by ~3%...

wrong again.. sorry man. operating cost may be negligible now. in the future (i hope not so near future) they will DEFINE what is profitable or not.

Wrong? This does not contradict what I said. In fact, thanks for bringing this point: because relative operating costs are guaranteed to increase in the future (mining will never stay this much profitable), they should cause the company's worth (hence the fair value per share) to decrease over time. More precisely, if the BTC price/difficulty ratio stays constant, the company's worth will stay constant. But if difficulty increases faster than the BTC price (which is inevitable as miners transition to more and more efficient ASICs), the company's worth will naturally decline.

Which goes back to my original point that the current high share price (IMHO) can only be justified if ASICMINER develops more efficient chips to maintain profitability, and high dividends.

[Gabit]

poly: this is why I defined the bet as "at least 10 units shipped" for me to win it

Except there is no room for relative costs to go down. Assuming 0.10/kWh (worldwide average), ASICMINER's electrical costs currently represent only 0.28% of their BTC revenues (friedcat disclosed an efficiency of 167 Mhash/Joule). Assuming their other operating costs are 10x higher (salaries, data center space, etc), they represent only 2.8% of their BTC revenues.

So if BTC were to appreciate a lot today, making operating costs completely negligible, their profit margin and dividends would at most be increased by ~3%...

wrong again.. sorry man. operating cost may be negligible now. in the future (i hope not so near future) they will DEFINE what is profitable or not.

Wrong? This does not contradict what I said. In fact, thanks for bringing this point: because relative operating costs are guaranteed to increase in the future (mining will never stay this much profitable), they should cause the company's worth (hence the fair value per share) to decrease over time. More precisely, if the BTC price/difficulty ratio stays constant, the company's worth will stay constant. But if difficulty increases faster than the BTC price (which is inevitable as miners transition to more and more efficient ASICs), the company's worth will naturally decline.

Which goes back to my original point that the current high share price (IMHO) can only be justified if ASICMINER develops more efficient chips to maintain profitability, and high dividends.

Centralized mining is always more profitable (time/energy/money) than decentralized. That's how the world works. Big factory makes more stuff, cheaper. But, please make "ASICminer shares are too high" thread or something, we cannot do anything about the price.  It is determined by free market at this point, no matter what is our opinion. This trivial debate only clutters this thread. 

[Mausini]

poly: this is why I defined the bet as "at least 10 units shipped" for me to win it

Except there is no room for relative costs to go down. Assuming 0.10/kWh (worldwide average), ASICMINER's electrical costs currently represent only 0.28% of their BTC revenues (friedcat disclosed an efficiency of 167 Mhash/Joule). Assuming their other operating costs are 10x higher (salaries, data center space, etc), they represent only 2.8% of their BTC revenues.

So if BTC were to appreciate a lot today, making operating costs completely negligible, their profit margin and dividends would at most be increased by ~3%...

wrong again.. sorry man. operating cost may be negligible now. in the future (i hope not so near future) they will DEFINE what is profitable or not.

Wrong? This does not contradict what I said. In fact, thanks for bringing this point: because relative operating costs are guaranteed to increase in the future (mining will never stay this much profitable), they should cause the company's worth (hence the fair value per share) to decrease over time. More precisely, if the BTC price/difficulty ratio stays constant, the company's worth will stay constant. But if difficulty increases faster than the BTC price (which is inevitable as miners transition to more and more efficient ASICs), the company's worth will naturally decline.

Which goes back to my original point that the current high share price (IMHO) can only be justified if ASICMINER develops more efficient chips to maintain profitability, and high dividends.

ok my last post on this: current AM share value represents future profits. if usd/btc inreases, value of AM shares increases aswell because of lower operating / development cost.
btc up -> AM up
btc up -> SD down

[mrb]

[...] because of lower operating / development cost.

I already told you that if BTC went up, relative operating costs can at best go from ~3% to ~0%. This is insignificant.

If BTC doubles from $50 to $100, a share at 0.6 BTC already implicitly gains value ($30 -> $60 = doubling). You seem to think there is an economic reason which would further increase its fair value, say to 1.2 BTC ($30 -> $120 = quadrupling). That makes no sense. I do not know how to explain it more simply to you.