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The tech can be amazing, but the business itself can still be essentially, a kind of a ponzi scam. The vast majority of people cannot make money from an Antmine

The tech can be amazing, but the business itself can still be essentially, a kind of a ponzi scam. The vast majority of people cannot make money from an Antminer S15 unless they're able to steal electricity or get it super cheap. At current predicted hash rates, power consumption, and BTC prices, these miners are a wash, or net negative. (https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-s15-28th https://www.asicminervalue.com/miners/bitmain/antminer-s15-2...) That makes them a scam. Even if they were profitable, it would likely be temporary, meaning you'd have to buy a whole new suite of even faster HW as soon as everyone else buys them. That's why I view this as selling pick-axes to unsuspecting and gullible farmers who sold their worldly possessions for the great gold rushes of the 1800s. The people selling the mining equivalent knew the vast majority of them would never earn anything. The best most amazing technologically advanced pick-axes in the world can still be a disrespectful business model.

samatman 8y ago
This is not what a scam is. An Antminer isn't a license to print money. It's a device for hashing blocks. This is like calling Sony a scam because they sell video cameras to aspiring YouTube stars who never make money out of their aspirations. It matters, because there are plenty of scams out there, where people exchange money in good faith and receive a substandard good, or nothing at all, in return. If Bitmain does that, provide evidence. If it doesn't, stop making libelous statements about them. You may not like their product. I would never buy it. But it isn't a scam.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  And what legitimate business or personal need does hashing blocks satisfy? A camera is useful even if you don't use it to produce a Youtube video. The average person buying a camera isn't seeking to make money off of it by photographic profession or vlogging. However, the vast majority of people purchasing ASIC miners think they're going to make money from them. Another example: GPUs, some people bought em for mining, but independent of mining they accelerate games and digital content creation, and lots of other useful computation.
  - hndamien 8y ago
    They provide network security in exchange for money.
    - cromwellian 8y ago
      The people who own most of the hashing power (esp those in China) aren't interested in network security, they're interested purely in money. It's the true believers who think cryptocurrencies are going to save the world from centralized banks who are getting scammed.

samatman 8y ago

This is not what a scam is. An Antminer isn't a license to print money. It's a device for hashing blocks. This is like calling Sony a scam because they sell video cameras to aspiring YouTube stars who never make money out of their aspirations. It matters, because there are plenty of scams out there, where people exchange money in good faith and receive a substandard good, or nothing at all, in return. If Bitmain does that, provide evidence. If it doesn't, stop making libelous statements about them. You may not like their product. I would never buy it. But it isn't a scam.

cromwellian 8y ago
And what legitimate business or personal need does hashing blocks satisfy? A camera is useful even if you don't use it to produce a Youtube video. The average person buying a camera isn't seeking to make money off of it by photographic profession or vlogging. However, the vast majority of people purchasing ASIC miners think they're going to make money from them. Another example: GPUs, some people bought em for mining, but independent of mining they accelerate games and digital content creation, and lots of other useful computation.
- hndamien 8y ago
  They provide network security in exchange for money.
  - cromwellian 8y ago
    The people who own most of the hashing power (esp those in China) aren't interested in network security, they're interested purely in money. It's the true believers who think cryptocurrencies are going to save the world from centralized banks who are getting scammed.