ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[Eric Muyser]

Firstly, they ain't never gonna control 100% of the market. That's just plain bubble-boy talk. If they did, the whole bitcoin market would collapse anyway.

Second, yet again, transaction fees, miners expect to earn an ever increasing % of their income in the future from transaction fees. Nobody else gets these fees, only miners. So AM earnings are not capped by actual mining of new coins, only by the transaction size of the entire bitcoin network. Nobody knows what this will be next year or in five years, but if you are betting it is nothing, I'm not sure why you are interested in bitcoins at all. If there are no transaction fees in a few years, bitcoin will be dead anyway.

empoweoqwj really gets it. Pay attention kids, try to think further and hold more variables in your head than just A + B = UNDERVALUED! B + C = INFLATED!

[1714194777]

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[canth]

Where will this lead? The obvious conclusion is a system wherein Friedcat runs the bitcoin mining ecosystem in the same manner the federal Reserve manages dollars. A total domination on almost every level. Avalon kicking up the hash? Excellent, we can just increase to match, and sell even more block erupters to everyone who is trying to keep up. More profit for shareholders. BFL actually delivering? Pop the cork, we can now bring another 10 Terrahash online and sell even more USB miners! More profit for shareholders!

There are several insiders who post in this thread who've acknowledged this. AM is ultimately a hardware sales company. The mine is just a bootstrap. Profit per unit sold will come down as competition increases, but volume will go up too. As long as they have the lowest cost of production (which given the volume they can afford is likely) there will always be a place for them.

The first few weeks after I bought my first AM shares, every few days I'd have a "A-ha!" moment where I'd realise something else that friedcat and crew must have realised months before they produced any hardware. This idea was one of my "A-ha!" moments.

Alright, so it's a hardware company.

And if Avalon, or BFL, or KNCMiner, or whomever else gets their shit together... are we going to value those companies at $132M also?

Furthermore, I think we have to realize ASICMiner is in a powerful monopoly position right now, so they're getting away with charging ridiculous sums for their hardware. That will end very soon; within 2 years I suspect the margins on mining hardware will be comparable to the margins on other electronics.

I'm still buying puts, by the way.

Strike: 3.5
Premium: 0.32
Exp: ~90d

"We" aren't going to value Avalon, BFL or KnC at all, unless they decide to offer a way for public investment. Also, as you eloquently noted, none of these companies (so far) have been able to demonstrably prove their ability for produce a similar volume of miners/hashrate.

I do believe that AM will have at least 1-2 solid competitors in < 1 year and then this will turn into an oligopoly.

[nycgoat]

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tnc.com.cn%2Finfo%2Fc-013005-d-3335242.html

From China.

"grilled cat"

[runeks]

As specialized hardware is required to make any sort of profit, the actual number of miners has been decreasing. The costs of obtaining the latest hardware continue to increase leading to only one conclusion: That eventually no individual will be able to own hardware capable of hashing a profit. We will eventually reach a point where there exist only a handful of companies with the resources to purchase and operate the hardware required... and instead of owning hardware, we will all own shares in farms. Just as the wildcat oil-drillers gave way to Standard Oil. But Friedcat has a trick up his sleeve, there will be no Standard Oil. Friedcat appears to have embarked on a strategy that pays attention to history. He knows the result of a monopoly, and knows it is poison to bitcoins. He welcomes the competition. he encourages it, and above all else, he profits from it. He knows he needs it. So he ensures it exists.

The emphasised statement is obviously false. First Blades were sold at 75 BTC, then they went down to ~55 BTC, then it was a fixed price of 50 BTC.

We saw the same trend for USB Erupters: First 1.99 BTC, then 0.99 BTC/0.89 BTC.

There is simply no reason that ASICMiner can keep a monopoly on mining if their profits are huge. It will attract other companies with the same professionalism that ASICMiner has, it's just a matter of time.

[freedomno1]

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tnc.com.cn%2Finfo%2Fc-013005-d-3335242.html

From China.

"grilled cat"

The sudden emergence of bitcoin Cock wire emerging ....... I wish translators worked better
Disclaimer: This article represents only personal point of view, has nothing to do with the online textile city.

That said it was interesting bit hard to read in Engrish but thanks

[binaryFate]

About 130 only remaining in the wall. Ready for take-off?

[supert]

Firstly, they ain't never gonna control 100% of the market. That's just plain bubble-boy talk. If they did, the whole bitcoin market would collapse anyway.

Second, yet again, transaction fees, miners expect to earn an ever increasing % of their income in the future from transaction fees. Nobody else gets these fees, only miners. So AM earnings are not capped by actual mining of new coins, only by the transaction size of the entire bitcoin network. Nobody knows what this will be next year or in five years, but if you are betting it is nothing, I'm not sure why you are interested in bitcoins at all. If there are no transaction fees in a few years, bitcoin will be dead anyway.

Not sure if you were replying to me -- but if you were, you didn't understand my point.

AM can control ~30% of the network directly, and more indirectly by selling hardware. The HYPOTHETICAL CASE that AM controlled 100% percent of the network, establishes an UPPER BOUND on the possible price (which is still higher than the current price btw).

AM is grabbing tx fees (in the long term) + block rewards (short-mid term) + hw profits; in the long term tx fees are going to be higher, but still at finite rate. Block reward is finite.

[empoweoqwj]

Firstly, they ain't never gonna control 100% of the market. That's just plain bubble-boy talk. If they did, the whole bitcoin market would collapse anyway.

Second, yet again, transaction fees, miners expect to earn an ever increasing % of their income in the future from transaction fees. Nobody else gets these fees, only miners. So AM earnings are not capped by actual mining of new coins, only by the transaction size of the entire bitcoin network. Nobody knows what this will be next year or in five years, but if you are betting it is nothing, I'm not sure why you are interested in bitcoins at all. If there are no transaction fees in a few years, bitcoin will be dead anyway.

Not sure if you were replying to me -- but if you were, you didn't understand my point.

AM can control ~30% of the network directly, and more indirectly by selling hardware. The HYPOTHETICAL CASE that AM controlled 100% percent of the network, establishes an UPPER BOUND on the possible price (which is still higher than the current price btw).

AM is grabbing tx fees (in the long term) + block rewards (short-mid term) + hw profits; in the long term tx fees are going to be higher, but still at finite rate. Block reward is finite.

I concur. AM will eventually control somewhere between 0% and 100% of the network. Mining rewards are not infinite. Thanks for clearing both of those points up.

[Eric Muyser]

Firstly, they ain't never gonna control 100% of the market. That's just plain bubble-boy talk. If they did, the whole bitcoin market would collapse anyway.

Second, yet again, transaction fees, miners expect to earn an ever increasing % of their income in the future from transaction fees. Nobody else gets these fees, only miners. So AM earnings are not capped by actual mining of new coins, only by the transaction size of the entire bitcoin network. Nobody knows what this will be next year or in five years, but if you are betting it is nothing, I'm not sure why you are interested in bitcoins at all. If there are no transaction fees in a few years, bitcoin will be dead anyway.

Not sure if you were replying to me -- but if you were, you didn't understand my point.

AM can control ~30% of the network directly, and more indirectly by selling hardware. The HYPOTHETICAL CASE that AM controlled 100% percent of the network, establishes an UPPER BOUND on the possible price (which is still higher than the current price btw).

AM is grabbing tx fees (in the long term) + block rewards (short-mid term) + hw profits; in the long term tx fees are going to be higher, but still at finite rate. Block reward is finite.

I concur. AM will eventually control somewhere between 0% and 100% of the network. Mining rewards are not infinite. Thanks for clearing both of those points up.

 

[KarmaShark]

ASICMiner- Letting the cat out of the bag.

Recent analysis has led me to some interesting conclusions. I would like to present them to the community for discussion. Feel free to shoot holes in it as you desire.

In the early 1990's, Microsoft made a huge investment in their direct competitor, Apple. Apple was failing, and common wisdom dictated that this was done to keep from getting impaled by anti-trust lawsuits. I would suggest that it was nothing of the sort. I believe they were just doing it to grow the market, so that the value of their share would increase. Witness AM. AM has demonstrated a capability to completely dominate the entire global hash if they so desired. I don't think this is conjecture, but rather a demonstrable fact. But unlike Microsoft, they had to deal with a very important restraint: they could not ever under and circumstances breach 50% of market share. This placed a practical limit on their growth. They could never grow to more than 50% of the current hash. So what is the obvious solution? Increase the hash that they do not control, and the easiest way to do that is to supply their competitor (Joe and Jane miner) with devices that could hash. AM, in order to grow, increased the hash of their competition by selling them hardware that they could have easily put into their own farm. AM effectively put themselves into the catbird seat by not only profiting from their own farm, but from hardware sales as well. The tertiary profit came from increased hashrate allowing them to expand even further. They raised the value of the cap.

I have no doubt that many have realized this strategy already, in fact, there have been several posts that have alluded it to it. What I think most have missed however is much more complicated.

As specialized hardware is required to make any sort of profit, the actual number of miners has been decreasing. The costs of obtaining the latest hardware continue to increase leading to only one conclusion: That eventually no individual will be able to own hardware capable of hashing a profit. We will eventually reach a point where there exist only a handful of companies with the resources to purchase and operate the hardware required... and instead of owning hardware, we will all own shares in farms. Just as the wildcat oil-drillers gave way to Standard Oil. But Friedcat has a trick up his sleeve, there will be no Standard Oil. Friedcat appears to have embarked on a strategy that pays attention to history. He knows the result of a monopoly, and knows it is poison to bitcoins. He welcomes the competition. he encourages it, and above all else, he profits from it. He knows he needs it. So he ensures it exists.

Where will this lead? The obvious conclusion is a system wherein Friedcat runs the bitcoin mining ecosystem in the same manner the federal Reserve manages dollars. A total domination on almost every level. Avalon kicking up the hash? Excellent, we can just increase to match, and sell even more block erupters to everyone who is trying to keep up. More profit for shareholders. BFL actually delivering? Pop the cork, we can now bring another 10 Terrahash online and sell even more USB miners! More profit for shareholders!

And so, we end up with AM ensuring no entity ever gets 51%, protecting the bitcoin system, and rewarding shareholders with an almost endless stream of dividends. It almost looks like it is all tied up with a pretty bow. When you read it like this, it is hard to wonder if Friedcat and Satoshi might be in some way... related.

Oh, well, off to bed. It was a good bedtime story if nothing else. Please deposit the tinfoil hats in the bin as you leave.

This is the most succinct summary of AM's vision as well as why I personally made the jump. How many weeks I spent pouring over posts/threads/mud slinging wars to dig out any nugget of informational Gold I could get my IQ on, I don't know, but it was a journey. Several hundred hours later I came to the ultimate conclusion that AM had positioned itself to be much, much more than most anyone could foresee.


Having worked for many years at one of the most successful software/hardware companies on the planet, I see many of the same psychological fears and mistakes being made in the noble attempt to fairly gauge AM's long term potential. Vision is needed when investing in new, revolutionary technologies. This goes 2x when you are putting your hard earned purchasing power into an investment vehicle based upon that technology.


Oh, and is it Wednesday yet? 

[daemondazz]

Oh, and is it Wednesday yet? 

Divs are paid at about 1-2am Thursday morning in my timezone (so about 26 or so hours from now), so I don't know what all the hype about Wednesday's is :p

[g83]

Lets rename Wednesday !!!

to Bitnesday, Cashnesday, Divnesday or my favorite Catnesday... any more suggestions ?

[tinus42]

Lets rename Wednesday !!!

to Bitnesday, Cashnesday, Divnesday or my favorite Catnesday... any more suggestions ?

Friednesday  

[ThickAsThieves]

Lets rename Wednesday !!!

to Bitnesday, Cashnesday, Divnesday or my favorite Catnesday... any more suggestions ?

Divday

[empoweoqwj]

Lets rename Wednesday !!!

to Bitnesday, Cashnesday, Divnesday or my favorite Catnesday... any more suggestions ?

Divday

D-Day - completely unfriedcat related but that's a toughie ....

[runam0k]

Wednesday is the new Frieday?

[nubbins]

I did a run of shirts last year that said "Today is WEDNESDAY!".

The plan was to wear them on Mondays, Saturdays, etc.

Might be a good time to revive that design

[empoweoqwj]

Wednesday is the new Frieday?

like it !!

And anyway, for us in Asia its Thursday already when we get our divs, so its not Wednesday related.

Frieday +cat

"I wish every day was Frieday"

[tinus42]

Lets rename Wednesday !!!

to Bitnesday, Cashnesday, Divnesday or my favorite Catnesday... any more suggestions ?

Divday

D-Day - completely unfriedcat related but that's a toughie ....

Not original. I named it D-Day several posts back. Friednesday has a better ring to it.

[binaryFate]

I would like "Everyday will be friednesday" together with a black and white picture of the "cosmo-cat looking to the sky" that someone posted not long ago.