ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[runam0k]

Keep in mind that ASICMINER's shares produce ~1M USD in income monthly for the company. I'm hopeful that they are doing a *lot* to fend off competition.

^ This. Not sure why people think ASICMINER will settle for throwing away all it's good work so far / massive headstart.

[kokojie]

Keep in mind that ASICMINER's shares produce ~1M USD in income monthly for the company. I'm hopeful that they are doing a *lot* to fend off competition.

^ This. Not sure why people think ASICMINER will settle for throwing away all it's good work so far / massive headstart.

Have you heard the phrase: Success breeds complacency?

Just look at how SDice went down the toilet after hugely successful head start.

[ianp]

You realize that several companies are coming out with 28nm hardware in 3 months or so, while AM is THINKING about developing 56nm hardware. Once the 28nm asic hardware hit, they will blow the 120nm current AM hardware right out of water (basically 10 times more power efficient than AM hardware while producing much less heat and occupy much less space).

Is it accurate to say that we know that AM is only considering 56nm chips?

I'd venture that it's more fair to say we have no idea what AM has in the works.

I believe BFL's 65nm hardware is already making a huge dent in AM's hardware sales, AM's drastic price reduction is evident. AM's 120nm ancient hardware will soon be a low margin business, or maybe even no buyers will consider it anymore. AM either have to come out with 56nm hardware in 3 month, or watch competition dominate the hardware market, and soon the mining share.

Going for ancient chip design has won AM an early lead (because 120nm was very easy/cheap/fast to produce). But will ancient hardware win every time? or will cutting edge 28nm hardware win in the long run? we will see

That still lends no evidence to the original statement that they are only thinking about using 56nm architecture.

Regardless, people do not realize that unless AM is grossly inept, they have a gigantic head start against the competition. It will take someone with a *lot* of stroke (and money) to oust them from the throne. AM owned shares produce ~$1M USD in revenue (more than that, actually. Closer to $1.5M) per month. They have a nice bankroll to work with, and they have the ability to withhold dividends (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that) if they feel the need to further secure their position in the market.

To your last point, saying that their current 120nm architecture has lead to the recent cut in prices is incorrect. That's clearly a straw man -- as we do not know what AM's position is on the subject. It's more fair to say (and likely more accurate and correct) that it's likely they've reduced costs to compete in the market given the current difficulty.

[ianp]

Keep in mind that ASICMINER's shares produce ~1M USD in income monthly for the company. I'm hopeful that they are doing a *lot* to fend off competition.

^ This. Not sure why people think ASICMINER will settle for throwing away all it's good work so far / massive headstart.

Have you heard the phrase: Success breeds complacency?

Just look at how SDice went down the toilet after hugely successful head start.

You're completely avoiding the facts -- what makes you think that AM is being complacent? You're just arguing to argue.

Any competent business person knows that (metaphorically) when you're winning a race, you don't take your foot off the gas.

Until there's any evidence contrary, then I think the fair thing to do is to not assume anything. Friedcat said we would know more about the next gen eruptors this month or early next, and can expect next gen asics in October (or there abouts.)

[Exocyst]

Keep in mind that ASICMINER's shares produce ~1M USD in income monthly for the company. I'm hopeful that they are doing a *lot* to fend off competition.

It's all a bit mysterious, though. There is a lack of transparency on what the future plans are at ASICMINER. The China connection is big, but that could work against AM in a second if the Communist Party decided to shutdown BTC-related businesses. Best to diversify your BTC holdings:

• CoinLenders' CD's
• Mining Equipment purchase/operation/resale
• Mining Company investments
• Gambling sites
• Exchange sites

Of course, I am super poor, so nothing to see here, move along...

[canth]

I believe BFL's 65nm hardware is already making a huge dent in AM's hardware sales, AM's drastic price reduction is evident. AM's 120nm ancient hardware will soon be a low margin business, or maybe even no buyers will consider it anymore. AM either have to come out with 56nm hardware in 3 month, or watch competition dominate the hardware market, and soon the mining share.

Going for ancient chip design has won AM an early lead (because 120nm was very easy/cheap/fast to produce). But will ancient hardware win every time? or will cutting edge 28nm hardware win in the long run? we will see
[/quote]

Winning in the short run (with older technology) has given AM the capital to continue winning the middle term and longer term competition. For arguments sake, let's say we agree that BFL has a large number of paid orders today - much it that would have gone to competitors, if their prices were lower. How many months does BFL have before large numbers of those orders are canceled when BFL continues to be unable to ship adequate volumes?  All AM needs to do is release their next generation equipment within a reasonable time period and they'll manage to get many of those perceived to be cheaper orders back from BFL.

Personally, I have a few items from BFL on order - if they arrive in 60 days, *maybe* they'll be viable. If they don't, you can believe that I'll be canceling my orders.

[FNG]

It's all a bit mysterious, though. There is a lack of transparency on what the future plans are at ASICMINER. The China connection is big, but that could work against AM in a second if the Communist Party decided to shutdown BTC-related businesses.

Hah..China is more open to business than the U.S

[Exocyst]

It's all a bit mysterious, though. There is a lack of transparency on what the future plans are at ASICMINER. The China connection is big, but that could work against AM in a second if the Communist Party decided to shutdown BTC-related businesses.

Hah..China is more open to business than the U.S

The point I was making is that, China is capable of making unilateral regulatory decisions. Note: I didn't say the US executive branch was any better.

[bitcad]

Nice little gift for the weekend!

https://i.imgur.com/8vMFide.jpg

[VeeMiner]

It's all a bit mysterious, though. There is a lack of transparency on what the future plans are at ASICMINER. The China connection is big, but that could work against AM in a second if the Communist Party decided to shutdown BTC-related businesses.

Hah..China is more open to business than the U.S

I guess it's true nowadays...

[empoweoqwj]

Reminder / Update

ThickAsThieves, VJain, Franktank and myself have put together the next round of questions for the community to vote on.

Once we have a consensus of the top three questions, ThickAsThieves will submit them to Friedcat.

The last round was a big success, so we will continue doing this for the foreseeable future.

The questions are available for voting here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1M7wigyDWjKjabHKdC7msaEfXvYaNxtMbbmTIRss8EqU/viewform

Here are the results so far (215 votes):

1) What are the plans regarding the Official ASICMINER Exchange? Have they been dropped? - 2.89
2) Does ASICMINER/Bitfountain intend to create and official website and/or blog outside of the bitcointalk forums? - 2.95
3) Do you have plans for a retail website? - 3.2
4) Does ASICMINER have plans to develop a marketing campaign to extend beyond word of mouth and business on the bitcointalk.org? - 2.88
5) Earlier this year, you committed to a minimum of 10% of the network hashing being represented by ASICMINER, can you update us to the current goals for network % and for total hashpower in 2013 and beyond? - 4.08
6) When can we expect the first financial report? - 3.68
7) Originally, board members were going to receive a test unit of an ASIC mining device. Will you provide this or any other tangible items to board members in the future? - 2.01
8 ) Could we have an official live hashrate meter from ASICMINER? - 3.17
9) For more transparency, is it possible to share a wallet address for depositing income from ASICMINER hardware sales? - 2.99
10) Besides mining, hardware sales, and fees, are there any other potential sources of revenue? - 2.34 (Note: This question was added significantly later in the voting process, therefore, about half of the votes are weighed as "1" due to the fact that half of the voters did not have the opportunity to vote on it.)

Please note: Voting has NOT closed! You can (and should) still vote! We'll keep the voting open for another 24-48 hours, and then we will compile results and submit the questions.

I don't mind being shot down on this but I'm wondering on the (to my mind) "measly" 3-question limit.

These questions are good in that they could all be answered within a minute each by friedcat or one of his staff. Are we that scared of taking up any of AM's precious time we are limiting ourselves to 3 minutes? Couldn't we stretch to 5 or 10 minutes? Him and his staff must spend several hours a week dealing with share transfers. Having to vote to reduce it down to just 3 questions is a bit much imho.

[nubbins]

Nice little gift for the weekend!

Looks like they found the same free cat image that I did

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=230843.0

[empoweoqwj]

Nice little gift for the weekend!

Looks like they found the same free cat image that I did

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=230843.0

Black T-shirts are so much cooler than white .... help hide my fat belly as well!

[TECHICENINE]

Really what better is it to have shares at BTCT.co if it's a PT?
I mean if Bitfunder goes down or WeExchange go down, we are still f*cked when BTCT.co is buying shares from BitFunder as a PT.
Am I missing something here?

You're missing something. Direct shares can be moved to/from BTC-TC.

so play it safe and "pull certs" nice*+1 do you have a pic of the certificates(game cards) they issue...thanks

[ShroomsKit]

I sold as well.
Took my profit and now will invest in AMC.

You are now doomed to experience lonely and miserable Wednesdays.

I already regretted it after 2 minutes. Bought back slightly lower and kept my AMC shares as well.
Have invested way more than i wanted to but i'm gonna take the risk.
Making fast money = high risk.

[binaryFate]

Sorry for the dumb question, but what is AMC everyone is talking about?

[Mausini]

Keep in mind that ASICMINER's shares produce ~1M USD in income monthly for the company. I'm hopeful that they are doing a *lot* to fend off competition.

^ This. Not sure why people think ASICMINER will settle for throwing away all it's good work so far / massive headstart.

Have you heard the phrase: Success breeds complacency?

Just look at how SDice went down the toilet after hugely successful head start.

You're completely avoiding the facts -- what makes you think that AM is being complacent? You're just arguing to argue.

Any competent business person knows that (metaphorically) when you're winning a race, you don't take your foot off the gas.

Until there's any evidence contrary, then I think the fair thing to do is to not assume anything. Friedcat said we would know more about the next gen eruptors this month or early next, and can expect next gen asics in October (or there abouts.)

at least this is a discussion worth to discuss. however, kokojie, your opinion seems pretty biased by your selling, if I may say   And you are wrong in so many ways. come on! you can not compare sdice to AM from an operational point of view. But what's most important:

As we all know by now, if someone says he will produce this and that (28 nm whatever) in the next months, it actually means NOTHING!!!

NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING!

And even if, it wouldnt necessarily harm AM.

[ShroomsKit]

Sorry for the dumb question, but what is AMC everyone is talking about?

Was added today. 2 million shares need to be bought first before anything will happen to the price at all. It's going real fast though as you can see.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158806.0

Edit: forgot the link https://btct.co/security/AMC-PT

[ShroomsKit]

I sold as well.
Took my profit and now will invest in AMC.

You are now doomed to experience lonely and miserable Wednesdays.

I already regretted it after 2 minutes. Bought back slightly lower and kept my AMC shares as well.
Have invested way more than i wanted to but i'm gonna take the risk.
Making fast money = high risk.

Hm crap, it needs to stop going down now though 

[aahzmundus]

As others have said, ASICminer really is at an advantage.  For competitors to really hurt us, they first need to get the funds to start an operation.  Most often that will mean a big IPO and then after that they can finally start doing things.  Asicminer before just held back 2,000 coins in funding to fund future development.  No big messy ipo to deal with... they just needed some funds so they cut back on divs a bit.  If ever ASICMINER was at threat of losing 10% of the network I am sure friedcat would cut dividends and build up our buffer.  If anyone has ever watched "The King of Kong" I imagine friedcat as billy... possibly we already have new chips ready to go... but there is no reason to put them out yet, so why show your hand.  Just keep them in reserve and then when someone says "AH HA! Look I'm better then you!" you pull out your development you kept secret and CRUSH them.

The way I see it, with the current track record of ASICMINER the bar is set REALLY high for competition.  So many of these new companies are probably getting funded by people who feel they "missed the boat" with asicminer and they want to get that experience.  I myself invested some in AMC just because I can afford to, and diversification never hurts...  But honestly here the second they make any mistake that makes them look weak compared to ASICMINER money will run.

I am investing in AMC, but a majority of my holdings are going to remain in ASICMINER.  Anyone who dumps ASICMINER shares will find plenty of buyers.