I wonder how high AsicMiner would've reached if the competition hadn't really heated up as it did?
I see it as a temporary rush of funds/diversifying to other opportunities. AM price looks a touch low to me. Mid to high 4s seems about right, maybe higher if the whole franchising thing works out. All guesswork though.
One thing that is absolutely certain is none of the new (serious) competitors will be selling or hashing on the network for at least 3 months with their new chips (and maybe even longer). I wouldn't actually consider Labcoin a threat either since its only a copy of Avalon's model.
I think many people have had a sudden rush of blood to the head and panic bought once a smidge of legitimacy to the new group's claims was confirmed. I reckon a week or two from now the outlook will be very different. The greedy people will be getting impatient while Asicminer continues to chug along. Looking at the impatience of the buying onslaught, I hardly reckon they'll be able to wait 3+ months for the claimed dividends to come rolling in (I could be wrong though).
It will be interesting to see how Friedcat responds to these developments, he seems to keep his cards extremely close to his chest regarding new hardware. The blades and blockerupters were practically announced days before he started selling them all at once. He's already hinted at "next-gen" hardware in his last announcement and "franchising" over the coming months meaning he must be planning a massive deployment of hashing hardware if he's needing to split it up among a number of independent parties. He also seems to be notorious for making conservative claims, then delivering far more than expected. The guy is obviously a very shrewd planner.
