Don't mind Bitmain. They are merely laughing all the way to the bank while they are attempting to fuck you and me over with this bullshit price-gouging.
Bitmain, when I wished you a happy and prosperous New Year in our private communications, I had no idea it would come in the form of bending us over to the tune of +25% price increases the first chance you got.
For shame, Bitmain. You've spit in the face of every small-time miner on these forums that helped your rise to prominence.
Especially after they found out a competitor will not tape out. So now they can charge whatever the fuck they want.
I get all this is business, I run a business of my own, but then to blatantly price gouge on insider knowledge and just laugh it all off. "
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It is just a slap in the face. So, I guess SP-Tech will be getting my BTC when the new gear starts rolling out. Oh well. Business is business.
Come off it! Honestly, as you say they can charge whatever they want, which initially was $320 and now it is $419. But that would not be the whole story. What would the majority of people mourning about the price now have said if the initial price was $411? I'd hazard a guess and say they'd still mourn, albeit a little bit less than now.
But you ignore the fact that the $320 price point was set with the assumption that a competitor was about to release a very efficient chip that would not just have redered the S5 massively in-efficient in comparison, but would have meant a spectaular rise in network difficulty making it reasonably harder / impossible for you to ROI on your investment in the S5 (so they set the price lower at $320). As it turns out (and we are to believe it from bitmain), that competition was blowing hot air and have not even been able to go to the foundry! That changes the dynamics in terms of network difficulty rise (also reflected in the filip in BTC value today) and means you can within reason ROI at the new price point according to their calculations. I really want to err on the side of bitmain at this point as they have been on our side (home miners) and continue to be so. Look at SPT! They have abandoned the home miner ..... literally! Bitmain do not get the credit they deserve, though I have to put my hand up and say I too give them stick ...... not on this one though.
pekatete elaborated what we want to say. Bitmain's pricing is based on our projection of the future diff, which is based on the mining rig quantity which will be available on the market. It is impossible to forecast without error, but we are always trying. We collect information, and we model the CPEX&OPEX and the thought&strategy of the bitcoin miners. In the past few months, we put a competitors' hundred ph/s hash rate into the assumption, which is always being discussed. Though for a long time that we think they must have some serious problems in their road map but we just cannot confirm. For conservatives, we still think that their large farm will be online, which is about 30% of the network hashrate now. In Jan, we assumed they would be online in Jan as they said. In Feb, we thought they might have delayed and will do it in Feb as they claimed. Now in Mar, we knew at last that all talks are just bluffing. So, we adjusted our pricing model.
In the past few months, the bear market of bitcoin killed lots of mining rig supplier, and you all know about those sad news. And the survived players did not dare to order too many wafers and build stocks. Mining farm plans were given up in lots of places, from WA to Iceland. Producing a mining rig and prepare the mining farm, 2-3 months is the least time it requires. So in the next 2-3 months, there cannot be large hash rate online.
According to our estimation, no one can join the mining party with substantial hash rate before June or July. And in June or July their ability to deploy real hash rate will also be very limited. Sorry that we have raised the price for 20%, but we think it is fair based on our knowledge. And previous buyers of S5 may feel better now, as the diff will not rocket, given our new forecast is better than the old one. At the same time, the bitcoin price goes up a little bit. However, if it finally turns out to be wrong after this month or next, we will offer coupon to the buyer of our this batch for our future products .
(depending on user)
