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I am surprised the article does not mention that Avalon, in addition to ready-to-use devices, just started selling bare mining chips to OEM manufacturers last w

by mrb 14y ago

I am surprised the article does not mention that Avalon, in addition to ready-to-use devices, just started selling bare mining chips to OEM manufacturers last week. And they already sold $5M worth of them (500 thousand chips) in the past 8 days alone! This equates to 140 Thash/s (twice more power than the current network). Lead time is 9-10 weeks. Manufactured on-demand at TSMC. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181982.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181982.0 http://store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-chips-10000 http://store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-chips-100...

Nursie 14y ago
Unless I've interpreted BTC wrong - this means that as soon as they go live, the current miners are going to see their returns drop by 2/3? And if many are already at the edge of profitability in terms of electricity/BTC, they'll drop off the network? The BTC network may be utterly dominated by ASIC players within a few weeks. Are they any more energy efficient than racks of GPUs?
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > Are they any more energy efficient than racks of GPUs? Vastly. GPU's are space heaters compared to ASICs and FPGA's.
- mrb 14y ago
  A decent GPU would still be plenty profitable even after a 3x difficulty increase. For example the HD 7970 (about $400) currently mines $130/month, with electrical costs around $15/month assuming a worldwide average rate of $0.10/kWh, making a $115/month profit. After a 3x diff increase, this would turn to $45/mo revenues and $30/mo profits. However this 140 Thash/s of Avalon chips is just a fraction of what is about to hit the network. All ASIC vendors combined, plus future Avalon deliveries will push the difficulty far more than 3x higher in the next 4-6 months. Current ASICs do 150-200 Mhash/Joule (at 12V). Much better than GPUs topping out at 3-4 Mhash/Joule (at 12V).
- notaddicted 14y ago
  Yeah. My estimate of the total amount invested in pre-ASIC hardware is 60 million, not counting power. The key questions to predict ASIC mining profitability is: - how much will be invested in ASIC hardware - future prices of bitcoin - how long will it take for the ASIC hardware to roll out The only "easy-money" I see here is if you have access to ASIC mining hardware _right now_.
samstave 14y ago
I want to know how many chips the single largest buyer bought of that 5M

by mrb 14y ago

Nursie 14y ago

Unless I've interpreted BTC wrong - this means that as soon as they go live, the current miners are going to see their returns drop by 2/3? And if many are already at the edge of profitability in terms of electricity/BTC, they'll drop off the network? The BTC network may be utterly dominated by ASIC players within a few weeks. Are they any more energy efficient than racks of GPUs?

jacquesm 14y ago
> Are they any more energy efficient than racks of GPUs? Vastly. GPU's are space heaters compared to ASICs and FPGA's.
mrb 14y ago
A decent GPU would still be plenty profitable even after a 3x difficulty increase. For example the HD 7970 (about $400) currently mines $130/month, with electrical costs around $15/month assuming a worldwide average rate of $0.10/kWh, making a $115/month profit. After a 3x diff increase, this would turn to $45/mo revenues and $30/mo profits. However this 140 Thash/s of Avalon chips is just a fraction of what is about to hit the network. All ASIC vendors combined, plus future Avalon deliveries will push the difficulty far more than 3x higher in the next 4-6 months. Current ASICs do 150-200 Mhash/Joule (at 12V). Much better than GPUs topping out at 3-4 Mhash/Joule (at 12V).
notaddicted 14y ago
Yeah. My estimate of the total amount invested in pre-ASIC hardware is 60 million, not counting power. The key questions to predict ASIC mining profitability is: - how much will be invested in ASIC hardware - future prices of bitcoin - how long will it take for the ASIC hardware to roll out The only "easy-money" I see here is if you have access to ASIC mining hardware _right now_.

samstave 14y ago

I want to know how many chips the single largest buyer bought of that 5M