Topic: ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It - page 1205. (Read 3917543 times)

Today BTCGuild (a mining pool) hit 48% of the network with some luck. I'd like ASICMINER to spread out their hashing power a bit to maintain a healthy net. With more units coming online and people's habit of choosing the largest pool (see DeepBit) I think it would be wise to take steps sooner rather than later.

Yes. A hidden auction may be the best model for a forum like this under this circumstance. It also circumvents the fear of auction manipulation, where the seller places false bids (which frequently happens on ebay), just to drive the price up.

To accomodate the timing issue, it may be possible to do ONE auction for multiple devices, where people are allowed to submit as many bids as there are devices. And then allocate the devices to the top bidders. In principle this would allow people to "spread" their bidding risk, by e.g. placing bids at different levels. However, given that demand is likely to be significantly higher than supply, I doubt that somebody would want to do that.

As long as the selling process gets maximum price, shareholders should be well-compensated.

But that's the trick - getting maximum price.  There are several theories about how to get the best price (as a seller) in an auction. 

Personally I think the traditional public auction is NOT the best way to get the best price.  In a public auction, the highest bidder doesn't have to bid their maximum value - the just have to bid the second highest bid + minimum increment.   And in a group auction for multiple (say, 500) items, someone who wants the item can bid at price #500+increment (effectively trading a lower bid price for the risk of being outbid just before the auction finishes - similar to being sniped in an ebay auction).  Sniping wouldn't be a thing if people didn't bid #1+increment, but instead bid the maximum they valued the item.

Alternatively, a hidden auction (in theory) forces all bidders to bid their maximum value for their expected utility.  Given high demand for ASIC miners, this could be a good way to maximise the prices received.

The other thing is that time is a factor.  The longer the auction runs, the more time there is to pull in bidders (within reason), but for a good such as this, time value deteriorates the value of the product.

As an asicminer shareholder, it is very much in my interests that the prices for sold hardware are maximised (even though I'd like to buy one myself).

Exactly -- friedcat said mid-April, but that was before he posted again talking about problems with deploying and maybe selling chips. So I'm wondering when the new batch of chips are expected, and when we expect those chips are likely to be plugged into the wall and generating new hashes..

The only reason to limit the quantity of units per customer is to prevent the formation of arbitrage markets, which can form in very illiquid markets (people buying at a fixed price and selling it for more). Given that ASIC mining units are short in supply such a policy would make sense.

However, that said, since the units are auctioned off, the prices will reflect the real demand. So no policing required.

But this is a "free market!" *screeches and throws brick out of glass window*

Or wrong thread...?

Only one unit per customer would be a nice gesture.
Prevent the formation of monopolies .....

Depending on pricing, I would definitely be interested in a group buy.

Right. Great info, but I'm more concerned with what's showing up on my electric bill. The Avalon guys are reporting 620ish watts @ 68Gh/s on 120v and I think Ngzhang has a post around here somewhere about savings with 220v circuitry. Sounds like a shipped ASICMiner concoction will be similar.

Friedcat has said their chips run at 6-8J/GH depending on voltage and temperature, while ngzhang posted that Avalon's chips consume 6.6J/GH.

BFL current estimates are 7.5w/Gh & Avalon 9.1w/Gh. ASICMiner chips are 130nm and Avalon's are 110nm, but I seem to recall calculating ASICMiner efficiency to be slightly better than Avalon's.

I've heard great things about shipping out of Hong Kong: I've heard several people say that things ordered from Hong Kong have arrived at their destination in Europe quicker than ordering from a neighboring European country.

With BFL and Avalon increasing their prices, this could be a great success. Does anyone know, top of their head, the power consumption figures of BFL, Avalon and ASICMINER?

Thats what he wrote already in the thread. He said the batch will come early april and will go online till end of april. Problem with it is that there are problems at the moment with deploying because of power and network. Thats because the auction topic came up. Its ok. I believe we will get around 10 months or so of the income the miner would create if asicminer would mine with it themselfes. At least i hope so. If it works out we wont miss much when we sell instead mine ourself with it.

Then go back a few pages. Mid-April is what friedcat said in one of his updates.

I guess I was hoping to get a date from friedcat himself..

shipping at once is very good for the mental health of bitcoin miners.

Glad you've decided not to do any of that stupid pre-order BS. Thanks for the update, friedcat.

I think it needs work to create a standalone miner, thats true, but i dont see that it needs a website, payment system and so on. As far as i read the auctions will be a limited thing. And for a couple of sold machines you dont need a whole website. You only need a thread in auction, here in the forum, and everything is fine. Make some clause that the buyer has to pay in bitcoins in 3 days from ending of the auction (timezone important) and if he doesn pay the next lower bidder is the winner automatically.
Payment can be done directly without an escrow because asicminer is well known like mtgox or similar websites and can be trusted highly.
So i dont see much work needed beside the creation of the standalone miner for normal users.
Man, i would like to own such machine... can someone trustworthy create a groupbuy? (DeadTerra?, Burnside?, John?)


And 1.5TH is out of stock... no wonder... they cant manage the need of power. I really wonder in how many months they will deliver.

I think they [BTF labs] changed specs to harvest more profit.

Number of pre-orders was overwhelming so they decided to :
- put out of stock mini rig (single asic chip costs the least in this option)
- increase prices of any other device
- reduce number of chips per device to produce more devices per batch

That's what I am thinking about it.

'scheduled' for last half of April