Its not like they can draw pretty graphics is it
Topic: ASIC resale value - page 3. (Read 5493 times)
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Its not like they can draw pretty graphics is it
Its not like they can draw pretty graphics is it
When one considers either buying ASIC hardware outright or investing in a mining company, it would be useful to have some idea of book value. You can safetly assume within 18 months (likely generous assumption), almost any ASIC purchased now will be non-cost effective to continue running. I believe if you purchase for example a BFL 60GHZ (I see one on ebay going for about 10k), the chances of making that back in 18 months just off of the coins produced is very little (even if we assume the exchange rate stays around 65BTC/USD which seems optimistic). In order to make a reasonable decision that buying an ASIC now can ever lead to a worthwhile ROI (to me that would be about 25% in 18 months), the question is will these ASIC units have any reasonable re-sale value?
For example, my friend had a GPU miner with 5 7950s, which he recently shut down and has sold the 7950s (just over a year old) for an average of $230 each on ebay - considering they only cost $320 each to buy, that is a pretty minute depreciation of only 30%. That is because these GPUs still have use in gaming and you combine a couple in Crossfire mode, and they can keep up with even the newest GPU cards and a lower cost (especially with some overclocking).
In order for ASICs to not drop to near neglible value, they would need to have some use after it is no longer profitable to mine bitcoins. If the Fiat/USD continues to decrease and the hash rate increase exponentially, this time will likely come soon for the "older" (ie a couple months old) Avalon and BFL units currently in use - especially some of these units are not very $/Watt efficient compared to the newer ASICs being developed. So, I guess the question is: are there any alternate valuable uses for ASICs once BTC no longer profitable. If not, then you need to base your entire investment on the Bitcoins produced assuming hardware resale goes to near 0, which is a much bigger challenge to face than the GPU miners ever had to since they can sell their hardware for about 70% if the original cost.
For example, my friend had a GPU miner with 5 7950s, which he recently shut down and has sold the 7950s (just over a year old) for an average of $230 each on ebay - considering they only cost $320 each to buy, that is a pretty minute depreciation of only 30%. That is because these GPUs still have use in gaming and you combine a couple in Crossfire mode, and they can keep up with even the newest GPU cards and a lower cost (especially with some overclocking).
In order for ASICs to not drop to near neglible value, they would need to have some use after it is no longer profitable to mine bitcoins. If the Fiat/USD continues to decrease and the hash rate increase exponentially, this time will likely come soon for the "older" (ie a couple months old) Avalon and BFL units currently in use - especially some of these units are not very $/Watt efficient compared to the newer ASICs being developed. So, I guess the question is: are there any alternate valuable uses for ASICs once BTC no longer profitable. If not, then you need to base your entire investment on the Bitcoins produced assuming hardware resale goes to near 0, which is a much bigger challenge to face than the GPU miners ever had to since they can sell their hardware for about 70% if the original cost.
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