"A few years ago" is a long time ago. Thanks to Moore's law, designing an ASIC, getting a full mask set made, and the first few wafers etched only costs $500k a

"A few years ago" is a long time ago. Thanks to Moore's law, designing an ASIC, getting a full mask set made, and the first few wafers etched only costs $500k at 65nm: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=73 http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=73 Other Bitcoin companies (KnCMiner, etc) have apparently done 28nm with merely $1-3 million.