55 BTC for one Blade is just too much. Thats $7800 in todays price. It will take people about 3 months to just come out even. With BFL shipping units each day, with the many DYI Avalon projects out, its a really big risk.
First, ASICMINER is a business. It is their goal to make money. They aren't twisting our arms for BTC. I trust that soon they will sell their blades at a fixed price. For now they are just trying to acquire as much profit as possible.
Second, the blades are expensive but it is a gamble. I am gambling that I will make more BTC with this blade than I could by ordering from BFL or Avalon. In reality I will likely order from both companies once their shipping times become predictable.
Well I dont care that they are a business. I don`t support their methods. Their actions is created to make a buzz, not to mention high price. They are actually shipping out the blades, I give them that though.
For 8000 USD you could purchase 20 * 7970s, have a hashrate of 15GH/s (4GH/s more than Blades), have the possibility to resell them after you are done with them. Or shift to Litecoins.
With Erupter Blades you are kinda stuck since they can`t be used for Litecoins. Its all or nothing
Understandable on not supporting it, that is fair. 75 BTC didn't seem reasonable after looking at organofcorti's estimates on BTC/day. 45-50 BTC was my cutoff for this auction and I scraped by at 50.5 BTC. The next auction, if it happens in 3-4 weeks, would have a cutoff around 30-35 BTC for myself I suspect.
Re: HD 7970s, I would love to see how you are racking 20 7970s @ $400/GPU. I think 7950s make more sense and even with them you are looking at a minimum of $400/GPU when factoring in MB/CPU/PSU/RAM/risers and something to house this rig. I did the GPU thing(ran a 14-15 GH/s farm for 6 months) and I'm tired of them. I'll run my remaining GPUs into the ground and keep up the hunt for more ASICs. I'm not too concerned about the blades being limited to BTC. If BTC fails I'm confident LTC will fail with it. By the time BTC's difficulty makes the blade a negative earner, I will have replaced it and I am gambling it will have hit ROI at least 2x.
someone's going to start racking ASICs once they start supplying more. The interesting thing here is trying to determine what comes first
does the increase in BTC value, increase the overall attraction to mining and the rise in difficulty
OR
does the increase in the overall attraction to mining increase the value of BTC