Topic: Block Erupter USB owners won't make ROI??? (Read 10214 times)

Can get them from www.bitmit.net for 1.19 BTC

It's mostly PayPal, and, yes, they do shake people down pretty hard for selling mining hardware or anything at all bitcoin related.

I quickly checked Block Erupter eBay listings. It appears that none of the currently active ones are from repeat [Block Erupter] sellers.

Does eBay ban people for listing mining equipment?

A sh*t storm is coming and it's going to be like Cypress all over the world.  imho

I would estimate 1-2 years return on investment. And yes, I started a group buy just tonight in my signature. Difficulty will be crazy with all the Avalons, BFL, kncminer, TerraHash, AsicMiner, AMC, klondikes, bitfury, etc. etc. coming online by years end. Also, what VC money is being done in private to mine that the average guy knows nothing about. Then again, maybe bitcoin prices in ALL currencies will begin to rise.

There will not be any change with or without BFL, they are using it already.

BFL orders alone will move the network hash rate from 150TH to 450TH.
(cue laugh track) BFL says they will clear that backlog by mid September.
That means we go from 19 million to 57 million roughly 3 months from BFLs contribution.
250TH of Avalon Klondike devices are on their way.
Bitfury's chip has been seen, KNCMiner is also in the mix for mid September.
I think your projection of 40 million difficulty at the end of 5 months is optimistic.

I am projecting around the same... 200mil beginning of November

New group buy price for the USB block erupters is about 1 btc (not advertising for them, just sayin).

So, at the new price, assuming starting current difficulty, you'll make 1 btc in 5-6 months, depending on difficulty increases all the way to 40 million ish...

After that, my crystal ball gets cloudy, grasshopper.

For what it is worth... The K1's returned their first nonces this morning (incorrect values, but I imagine that will be fixed shortly).  I believe K1 are slated to be sold around the price mentioned.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2565835

Pretty much this.

correct price should be 0.25btc, aka 1 month roi

I don't have any USB miner but I believe you can make descent money reselling them.
It's like the gold rush : the miners get poor, the guys that build hotels or sell tools for them get rich.

In my simple model, I just use a Geometric Series model:



where a = Initially weekly earning , and r =  ( 100% - weekly growth % ) and n = number of weeks

Could also do a = hourly earning and r = ( 100% - daily growth %) and n = number of days

** r will a number between 0 and 1 , i.e.   for 2% growth, r = 0.98 , for 4% growth, r = 0.96 etc. **

I also have more optimistic model where we can vary the growth %, such as tapering off every few weeks.

can I see your spread sheet?
my calculations are
no electricity cost, no pool fee, no unexpected down time.
5% raised diff every 11days.

you will never hit 2.2BTC before it costs you more to run 3 watts
the last 12 cycles average is 17% and the most important 12 cycles because we're moving from GPU to ASICS.
with new price 0.99btc.
much better, at 10% diff, you will still profit @ jun 10'14 and return 0.02BTC running till Nov 2014. not counting fee's and electricity.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmXn4BnLUgYsdEF0TUtWUWtUaUUzR1F2aUhEWW9lN2c#gid=0

@ 2% 'weekly', 7 days, you still won't make more then 1.86BTC till Nov'2014 and at that point,t he residual will be so small you'll never make it to 1.9BTC.

At 2% compounded weekly difficulty growth, the stick could make 2.8 BTC over 2 years
At 4% compounded weekly difficulty growth,  the stick could make 1.5 BTC over 2 years
At 6% compounded weekly difficulty growth, the stick could make 1.05BTC over 2 years

(Assuming you received the stick latest by next week)

It's up to individual to look at historical difficulty growth rate, and pick a growth forecast that you believe in.

Where are they selling for 0.5?

edit: found for 1.19
https://www.bitmit.net/en/item/38319-asicminer-336-mh-s-block-erupter-usb-in-stock-at-wtcr-ca

At .5BTC I might start to get interested.  They still won't ROI, but at least my backside won't hurt so bad.  And there is something to be said for the convenience of USB.

well BA BAM, they just dropped the price down to .99btc.
so if you wanted to pass the ball to the next schmuck I suggest you do it now.

and at .99btc, you still won't make ROI.

You can always resell that USB miner on ebay.
Instant ROI.

profitable if you get them in sept/oct

Curious, what are your outlooks on the Saturn & Jupiter?

you misunderstand.
the spreadsheet clearly shows.
you will not break even on the USB miner in the absolute most favorable conditions.
that's it. I mean, I can't make it anymore clear.

you paid 2.2btc for it and you will never earn back the 2.2btc mining from it, in fact, you'll most likely lose 1btc.
if you sell it back to someone else and pass the buck, yeah you make a profit. but then someone else becomes the schmuck.

the units are overpriced, ASICminer basically sold everybody a device that's unprofitable. Its only use is for novelty 'fun' factor. if that's your thing, so be it.
but don't ever think you will make that money back and it's not an 'investment'.

my advice, unplug it by july 14, 2014 or you'll start paying more for electricity, lol.

I used your calculator and one i made myself in excel using the 4% you initially quoted.  I don't think that it'll be profitable in the sense of i'll be retiring, but I was merely arguing that the units were not overpriced for what they are because of the fact that you get a lot of the initial cost back.  Plus the value of these things hasn't gone down a lot, so if someone were to have bought 100 of them, mined for a month, and then sold them after that, they would have already made their money back.  But once again, that's not what these were designed for.  They are being wold at retail rates because they are for those of us who don't look to run farms.  And I already made a bet--I bought 2 of the sticks!!

http://www.coinish.com/calc/#

300 MH/s, 2 BTC, 3W, 2% pool fee, $0.15 kWh
1.3% increase per day

You will be at minus 1.429 BTC after 12 months of mining. After that, earnings and the residual value of the device will be negligible.

which calculator did you use?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmXn4BnLUgYsdEF0TUtWUWtUaUUzR1F2aUhEWW9lN2c#gid=0

here i even put in the values for you and gave you -300k difficulty, and i negated 2% of the pool fee cost.

you will, never, make, any, profit, from, the, usb. the end. there is no discussion.

the most absolute wet dream inducing scenario and it still won't make any profit.

put in an AVERAGE difficulty rating of 9% and you'll see how futile it is. hell, increase it by 1%.

if it's fun, go ahead, i'm not arguing that it's not fun. i'm arguing that it's not PROFITABLE.

hey, if you still think you can, make a bet with me. any amount of BTC i will match and we both send it in escrow and wait a year for a clearer picture.

lol, at a moderate 15% increase. 1watt will cost you more then the usb makes by Oct 2014.

Ok, your chart says basically the same as mine does.  At 4% difficulty, I'll break even around October of 2014 for the stick I have at home and September of 2014 for the stick at work.  (Like I said, electricity is negligible, only about 2 weeks difference in the long run.)

There are a couple of points to be addressed here.

1) the people buying these things are a different audience than the people investing and buying BTC straight up.  The risk of BTC crashing and going away is hedged by the fact that BTC may rise in the future.  But the BTC enthusiasts are people like me who do it in their free time and don't really want to plop down any serious cash.  My pension fund is doing just fine, and I have no need to invest into BTC at this time.  If you go onto some of the irc's of the pools, we've had this discussion time and time again.  Most of us in there are there to have some fun and as a hobby, not there to make tons and tons of money.

2) let's go ahead and assume that pool fees are negligible, and so is electricity (at 2-3 W's the total watt hours for the year come in at what, around 1 kWh?)  Don't quote me on this math but the point is it's negligible.

Here's the table I get with the assumption that it takes about 2 weeks to find a block and your 4% assumption.  This also assumes the price of BTC does not change.

prd   Percentage            US$/wk           USD/period 1   1                    14                  28 2   0.96                    13.44           26.88 3   0.9216            12.9024           25.8048 4   0.884736            12.386304           24.772608 5   0.84934656            11.89085184   23.78170368 6   0.815372698   11.41521777   22.83043553 7   0.78275779           10.95860906   21.91721811 8   0.751447478   10.52026469   21.04052939 9   0.721389579   10.09945411   20.19890821 10   0.692533996   9.695475942   19.39095188 11   0.664832636   9.307656904   18.61531381 12   0.638239331   8.935350628   17.87070126 13   0.612709757   8.577936603   17.15587321 14   0.588201367   8.234819139   16.46963828 15   0.564673312   7.905426373   15.81085275 16   0.54208638           7.589209318   15.17841864 17   0.520402925   7.285640945   14.57128189 18   0.499586808   6.994215308   13.98843062 19   0.479603335   6.714446695   13.42889339 20   0.460419202   6.445868827   12.89173765 21   0.442002434   6.188034074   12.37606815 22   0.424322337   5.940512711   11.88102542 23   0.407349443   5.702892203   11.40578441 24   0.391055465   5.474776515   10.94955303 25   0.375413247   5.255785454   10.51157091 26   0.360396717   5.045554036   10.09110807    sum      457.8134063

will i break even in a year? no, but each miner will only cost me $25 a piece at that point.  In reality, I think each will cost me somewhere between 50-100 as I said before, but hers the math now to prove it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmXn4BnLUgYsdEF0TUtWUWtUaUUzR1F2aUhEWW9lN2c#gid=0

here, pop in the info, put it at 4% difficulty increase every 11days, which is exceptionally favorable for miners. negate electricity. -2% for pool fee.

I will bet you as much BTC in escrow as you want.

put in a reasonable increase @ 9% difficulty every 11days and look what ASICminer sold you.

this isn't about taking a risk, this isn't a risk, this is just madness arguing against the basic math.

Isn't there a website where people can bet on things with bitcoin?  Is there a bet on whether these will make ROI?  I'd love you to put your money where your mouth is.  Seeing everyone else has but you.  We're all buying these with optimistic hopes while all you do is talk smack.  What risks have you taken lately?

don't bother with the math portion. you won't make any profit on that usb miner, I can guarantee it.
also, if it's fun for you. okay I can't argue against fun.

You're missing the point.  No one is buying these things to make a farm out of them (if you are, then I agree with you, you're an idiot).  They are being sold at "retail rates" because of the fact that these are for the small guys who are enthusiasts.  I mine on my GPU when I'm not gaming, but I have no interest in investing in bitcoin for myself with these things.  I already own a GPU for gaming, so when it's not otherwise busy, it mines.  I keep one at work on my desk and one at home on my desk for decoration.  The wattage they draw is minimal, about 2 W, maybe 3W at the most so it doesn't cost anything (and at work it really don't cost anything!).

Look at this analogy.  You want to dig a hole in your backyard, so you go buy a shovel. But people who want to build a skyscraper and need to move dirt don't just go buy 50,000 shovels!  The money to diggage ratio is terrible!  They go out and buy a few backhoes and bulldozers where the money to diggage ratio is much better.  But if you only want to dig a hole in your backyard, why go buy a bulldozer?  Sure you could dig quicker, but you just want a small hole to play in!

It's the same here.  I don't want to spend 50k on machines that hash a TH's, i'm just an enthusiast, and I'm willing to fork over a few hundred to have some fun and make some (albeit small amounts) of money.  My GPU has paid for itself already, and with some of the extra cash, why not get a cute little device that looks cool sitting on my desk and makes me a bit of money?  Will I make $50 a year?  Maybe, maybe not (i'll address the next post in another post since it has some math in it), but even if all it makes if $50 of profit, that's still a few lattes!

read the post above you.
you will *never* get your money back even in the most favorable difficulty settings.

you got ripped off, straight up.

They were a bit expensive, but once again, some of the value comes from the fact that it makes some of that value back.  It's a cute little thing to have, and I'd gladly pay about $50 - $100 for it.  But since it also makes money, I'm willing to pay $250 because I know that I'm going to get $100 back within a couple of months, and the other $50-100 I might get back by the time a year rolls around.

here's some math for you.
even if i minus the cost of electricity and fee's from pools.
and even if there is only a 4% increase every 11days from now till nov 2014.

you will never make back the 2btc you invested in it.

ever.

oh? what if BTC rises? you'll make back the USD investment you put in?
well, if you had just plopped down the USD into straight up BTC, you'd still make more profit then buying that usb miner.

god, they must've made such a killing pushing out that crap.

No wonder ASICMiner is doing so well.  There's so many idiots hanging around in this forum.

Good luck with your 21% annual return, hope you make enough and retire happily for the rest of your life.

I agree.  Making it back in 300 days is actually a great return on investment in todays environment.  Assuming you paid 2.2 BTC for one:

Conservatively that's 0.0073 BTC per day

Over the other 65 days of the year, you'd make an extra 0.4745 BTC.

That's actually a ~21.5% annual return on investment.  Pretty damn good!  Considering most high yield stocks are around 5%.  And t-a-x free (<--don't want to spell it out for the search bots.)  Sh*t, I might buy more!!  DANG!!

It is possible that they will never make a return (if the hash and exchange rates reach the point that the USB miners burn more electricity than they generate in BTC).
They would be useful for distributing the hash rate and making the network more secure if they were priced lower. As it is, they are only a novelty item.
They could be a benefit to Bitcoin itself, which is why I don't think it is cool that they are priced in such a way as to make them a niche product.

Because most people around here see investments more like VC's do.. If they're not making oodles of money, it's not worth it!

I don't see the big deal here if you are long on Bitcoin. I've been mining for three years, and I hope to be mining for the next three years and beyond.

All this talk of not making ROI in 3-6 months seems a bit short-sighted IMO.

I'll agree that we can't agree whether it'll take 10-12 months or more for full ROI.  THat's an unknown.  But I disagree with the fact that you don't think it's cool.  I think they're pretty freakin' sweet just for the novelty factor.

And you could do that, but my ASIC miners are engraved--it looks way cooler than a sticker.  And I'll admit that if they didn't have the engraved bitcoin logo, i might not have paid as much for them as they would have been of less decorative value.  But you can (and people are) selling usb drives with the bitcoin logo on them for about 40-50 USD so maybe more like 0.5 BTC?

They didn't wax about comic books in 1940 either.

I don't wax nostalgic about the 80286.

The fact that they produced a product and sold it for bitcoin is bullish for bitcoin.  It supports the economy.  They will be nostalgic.  30 some years from now, we'll be sitting around in our rocking chairs talking about those little USB sticks.  Kinda like how they sit around now talking about Honus Wagner baseball cards and comic books.  So don't be so quick to dismiss these little suckers.  Run 'em 24/7, but keep 'em cool, cuz they are cool.

No. I am afraid we cannot agree to that. It is not cool.

In other news, I should make a USB drive with a bitcoin sticker on it and sell it for 1 BTC.

Well it depends on what you mean by financially better off.  I value these sticks at somewhere between $50-$100 and I paid $250 for them so that means I need to make back $150-200 a piece.  Depending on how difficulty goes, yes, it does change, but the calculation is very simple since there is a fixed width to each sum.  Graphically, the width (delta x if you will) is 14 days.  So find how much you would make per day on average at the current difficult, multiply by 14, and repeat with a new difficulty.  If you can find what the difficulty is increasing by and calculate what that does to your revenue, than you can use that ratio as the common ratio.  I would guess for a simple calculation, you can use the last 5-10 difficulty increases to extrapolate.  I don't know what the common ratio would be, but since difficulty is not doubling, I doubt the guy above me who used the common ratio of 1/2 was anywhere near right (I know it was just an example, but with a higher common ratio, the sum of the series would probably not converge absolutely)

Can we all agree that it will take 10-12 months for ROI per USB?  Regardless, it's pretty freekin cool!

Agreed!  But it also depends on what the geometric series is and at what rate it changes.  While there is an upper bound as to how much can be made at a given instant, what we really want is the area under the curve because not only am I making money at this instant, but I've also made money in the past that needs to be added.  Even if it is a geometric series, if the t for each n is one year, then I easily make a profit.  It just depends on what that series is (how fast the decay actually is) and how long it stays at each stage.
[/quote]

Area under the curve (integral) is relevant to continues quantities. Income (cash flows) are discrete sums.

Have a look at the current rate of increase of the difficulty, and tell me what do you expect as the average rate of increase of the difficulty. 1% a day? 2% a day? If you tell me that, I will be able to tell you how much money you can get from your investment.

The fact that you made already some money does not alter the fact that on the USB stick you will not make ROI. We are talking about ROI of the USB stick, not your business model in general.

For example, you can sell ice-cream and mine bitcoins, and make money on the former, while lose money on the later, and still have a profitable business. But the fact remains that you do not make ROI with the USB sticks, and you would be better off financially if you did not purchase the USB erupters, and did not mine.

Agreed!  But it also depends on what the geometric series is and at what rate it changes.  While there is an upper bound as to how much can be made at a given instant, what we really want is the area under the curve because not only am I making money at this instant, but I've also made money in the past that needs to be added.  Even if it is a geometric series, if the t for each n is one year, then I easily make a profit.  It just depends on what that series is (how fast the decay actually is) and how long it stays at each stage.

I did pay cash for them.  And I can't imagine the electricity costs that much.  Plus, the people who buy 2 BTC right now don't have the two BTC as decorations on their desks to show for it

Exactly.. Was going to post something similar, but your explanation is spot in.  The limit or final value approaches a number because you have diminishing returns on an exponential basis..  0.01 + 0.001 + 0.0001 + 0.00001 to give you an extreme example.  Once you get far out on the series, the incremental income, although non-zero, approaches zero at some point, and when it does, you make no more ROI, to any significant digit.

Your calculation is wrong, because the difficulty keeps increasing very rapidly. It is a convergent geometric series, whose sum can easily be calculated, and it provides an upper bound for how much revenue you can get out of a miner even if you use it for infinitely long time.

Remember:

1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + .... = 2 (and not infinite!)

FTW

Mine PPcoin with them

Edit: ^ dough!!

cool thanks

You can mine all SHA-256 Coins, so Freicoins, PPCoin, Bytecoin, Terracoin, ...

You will never make back 2 BTC of investment with the crap stick, unless there is another big mining operation meltdown causing the network difficulty to have a sharp drop.

You could potentially make back what you spend in cash (if you purchase the 2BTC to buy the stick), if the Bitcoin price will rise above today's value.

In that case, people who bought 2 BTC now will make the same profit as you do, without wasting on their electrical bills.

I got 2 of them, one for my office desk and one that I keep either at home or at my other "mobile" office I set up.

They are cute, colorful, and a nice decoration on my desk.  Will I make, ROI?  Absolutely, unless the price of bitcoin crashes.  Even if the difficulty goes up, it still makes money, just less.  It will EVENTUALLY make back for itself, but even if it didn't I have a coupld of novelty pieces for decoration that cost less to have each day.  (Paid about $250 USD for them each, so total of $500, In the week I've had them, I've made about $15 USD.  Break even point right now is 8 months but with block difficulty increasing is probably closer to a year.  But even so, if I only made 10 USD a week, the decorations would have only cost me $150 a piece by Christmastime which is more than reasonable for a decoration on my desk that shows what I support (the Physicians that work with me have decorations that are worth a TON more).

+1

Are there any other use for the ASICminer USB beside mining Bitcoins? (ex:litecoins)

Mine PPC with them.  Yeah, it could take 3 years for ROI if BTC stays ~100.  When blocks go to 12.5, BTC could and should spike, and we'll get our ROI by then I'm sure. ihmo.

Are they having trouble selling their products, or are they selling as fast as they can produce them?

If the second, they're not overcharging.

Also, plenty of people buy at current prices assuming the price of bitcoin will go up long term.

If I were a shareholder (I'm not), I'd be pretty pissed if they weren't charging what the market would pay for their products!  They're one of very few companies shipping any quantity right now.

I don't get this "The purpose of a business is to be a charity and underprice their products so I can get a better deal" approach to running a business many people here seem to have.  It's clearly not people who have run a business or have a tolerable grasp of economics.

Delivering on time is one thing, but overcharging for ASIC products is another. I find that most of AsicMiner's products are overpriced from the initial offering. This is obviously to make money for their shareholders, but I'm not sure how long a business can sustain selling products that are not profitable to the consumer, when the whole purpose of buying an ASIC is to turn a profit at mining.

I agree with you that the calculator is quite optimistic, and is based only on past data. But even that data confirms that Block Erupter USB owners will not make ROI.

The reality is worse: they will be losing a lot of money.

The only people that are going to make money on Block Erupters are ASICMINER, their shareholders, and the resellers...

Of course people have thought about reselling them... that's the only way to profit from them from the outside looking in.

Don't be fooled by that calculator. It doesn't really take into consideration the coming increase. You have to enter the appropriate increase value to get the "right"(likely) difficulty increase.

It is true if you mine it yourself. Not if you are part of a pool.

As for the profitability, I suggest that you have a look at this site:

http://www.coinish.com/calc/#

It, finally, takes into account the increase in the difficulty.

If the price of bitcoins goes up, there will be a (not in nominal, but in value i.e. in gold) profit.

Admittedly it would have been a lot easier to just buy bitcoins to make that bet.

Edit: there is also another upside: mined bitcoins are truly anonymous which can motivate a premium in high-friction transactions..

I'm liking my block erupter that I just got. It's cute, and according to my calculations, it will come close to paying itself off in a year.

The return on investment can be calculated in different ways, not necessarily on just pure BTC generated.

For example, I got mine because I was looking for a way to bump up the hash speed without generating TONS more heat in my office. Compared to adding a graphics card, it does not put out much heat at all, thus saving me money on cooling costs.

Also, I wanted to test the ASIC concept, see how hard it is to get going, learn something in the process, AND bump up my hashrate IMMEDIATELY (added 30%), so that I can generate more bitcoins to buy more ASICS down the road (generating BTC to pay for assembly costs, etc)....

I don't really want to add graphics cards now, with their associated heat, but I did want to bump up the hash rate.

Block Erupter is available NOW, immediately, to help me accomplish the goals that I set out to accomplish.

If you look at it from that point of view, it is well worth the money, right NOW. A month from now, it will not be, according to my calculations.

In the long run, when margins get tight, yes. Short term and during a huge step forward in the technology, when a single entity can control a vast % of the network for relatively low cost, no.

if you made back your investment in only a few monoths why would anybody sell it to you

There's also the possibility that people are interested in obtaining hardware and are NOT focused on ROI.

If one wants to obtain bitcoin without playing the "fiat/btc" game, one can buy mining hardware and then play the long game.  The ASICs should be profitable for quite a while (as will FPGAs, actually) if one assumes that the initial purchase cost is a sunk cost one will not recover.

But, yes, the real money is made selling mining hardware.

I think there are quite a few of us who warned people. told people, etc. that the math was not on their side, but it didn't seem to matter.  As long as people are going to buy hashrate just to increase their virtual p*nises, with no regard for return on investment, companies can charge whatever they want for hardware.  I sincerely hope that many prescribed to the, so far, mistaken belief that diff. increases make price go up, so their models were at least flawed.  But, I suspect that is only a fraction of those who bought these USB erupters and blades.  Although, the blades could still break even, depending on when they were purchased.  Most of the equipment bought from ASICMINER, by my math, will not, however.

Just remember, a fool and his money are soon parted..  if you are like me and have itched to make a *wise* investment in mining, and have yet to really find ample opportunity to do so, just sit tight.. opportunities will present themselves *because* of the foolhearty decisions made in the last several months with regard to equipment purchases, not in spite of them.

+1

At least ASICMiner delivered when they said they would, unlike BFL and Avalon!

People been posting from the very start that these items would never make ROI. I've been saying it all along, but no one listened and they bought them anyways.

Eventually I stopped because I own ASICMiner shares and I realized I was shooting myself in the foot, lol.

ASICMiner priced these EXACTLY right. They made a great business decision. If they ever offered an ASIC product that I felt was reasonably priced, I'd buy from them in a second. I can't say the same for BFL and Avalon, both of which have screwed me over at this point. Hopefully my ASICMiner shares will more than make up for all the money I lost due to the other two.

Well, mining is sort of a "complicate" business, so I agree that there are many customers that did not realize that their blade would never ROI because they do not understand the math behind it. But, I'm sorry - it's their fault. At least ASICMiner didn't make misleading statements about dreamlike ROI. They auctioned their first units stating hashrate and power consumption, without promising any kind of return, as many auctioneers do at least in a subtle way. Friedcat set up a fixed price for the following units that was good enough to have them sold out, again without subtle promises. If people is dumb enough to invest without understanding what they are investing in, it's their problem.

For the long term, better hope that open source alternatives spread. Because a private company offering money machines for less money than they will print will never exist, we better get used to that.

Why is it a businesses obligation to ensure you can return a profit on items you purchase from them?

The business is obligated to provide to you what they have advertised, at the agreed on price.  No more, no less.

Have you actually talked to any buyers of the USB erupters who were coerced into paying more than they wanted to for the devices?

Or are you just assuming that since someone paid more than you would pay that they are being "ripped off"?

It's pretty easy to "not pay more than you want to pay" for an item - you don't bid beyond that point, or you simply don't purchase it.  An auction is as pure a market transaction as you can create.  The supply is specified, the demand is allowed to price it as they wish, and you complete the transaction.

"Nickel and diming" would refer to adding additional fees, extra shipping fees, a handling fee, etc.  Selling an item for a negotiated price with no extra fees tacked on doesn't qualify here.  

You seem to find that a business selling items for more than you would personally pay to be a dishonest business practice, somehow.  If this is the case, then you can clearly fill the gap by selling comparable items for what you feel is a fair price and undercutting them.


I agree.  I would be very upset if a business were selling items for far less than it knew it could get for them.  That's a charity, not a business.

I think you got me wrong. I did not intend to be ironic. I really congratulate Friedcat, he did an epic job, not only for him but for all ASICMiner shareholders. Kudos for him. In fact, I assume that he hasn't got the capacity to quickly produce and ship thousands of units, he has a limited production capacity, and he squeezed the maximum profit from this limited production capacity.

This is how the market works. If he suddenly sees that he is able to produce thousands of units and sell them with a mark-up than allows him to have a bigger profit than mining himself, he will probably do it because he is acting as a clever manager. I think he achieved an optimum equilibrium, his mining op works wonders and each one of his limited units on sale is being sold at a huge mark-up. The truth is that every businesses priority is to maximize profits. If you have money printing machines, you have to squeeze the maximum you can from them, full stop. I don't see how all this changes the fact that the customers of those units will probably lose money. They are willing to pay for it because of either greed or ignorance, so be it. There's no ethics here, just capitalism at work.

If it was an auction, then the consumers can blame themselves but if the base price was set so high as to never return a profit, I'd be pretty pissed at myself for making that mistake and pissed at the company for exploiting it.

To be fair, ASICMiner's prices were set at auction. What reasonable seller would end an auction just because the item became overpriced? I, as a shareholder, would be very upset if they did, and a business's primary responsibility is to its shareholders.

Likewise I disagree with your assessment, if you want to build a long term business model based on repeat customers, you have to make them feel as if they received value for their purchases, nickel and diming them for the sake of profit will yield poor results in the long term. Customers will not return if you give poor value for their money which the USB erupters do.

I entirely disagree.  What is there to gain by selling a limited quantity item well below what the market will bear, eliminating one's supply quickly, and then having nothing to sell while waiting for more items to be manufactured?

I swear, some of you act like you think the hardware makers are charity organizations instead of businesses.

A business that delivers what they promise, when they promise, at the agreed on price (or market-negotiated price in the case of an auction model) is a good thing.  I agree that many of the hardware vendors don't fit this, but it's absurd to argue that someone is "ripping buyers off" when they deliver an item exactly as advertised for a price that is higher than you think is sane for it.

"Ripping someone off" would be selling a 20GH miner that only performs at 10GH.  Not selling it at an auction for as much as the market will pay.

Because it's shortsighted. When people realize they get ripped off, they tend not to make the same mistake twice. If this was a fly by night model, it would work. But if they are here for the long term, this is a mistake.

Why is it the responsibility of a seller to sell for any less than the market will pay him for his goods?

I would consider a seller who wasn't selling for the maximum they could get for low quantity items to be somewhat mentally defective.  There is very strong demand and very limited supply, therefore the prices will be quite high.

Reasonably priced? Nobody ever got back what they spent on them, and probably never will.

3-4 months ROI? How retarded has someone to be to believe that? How do you calculated that ROI timeframe? Considering constant difficulty with no increase whatsoever? That's impossible and one of the dumbest things you can ever consider, and you have the irrefutable proof in the fact that they will not ROI on that timeframe, in fact most of us thought from the beginning that they will mot ROI at all. Only time will tell, but I stand up correct until now.

The units sold out just because there where only a few hundred on stock. Excellent strategy for ASICMiner and their shareholders, they took the maximum profit possible milking:

A) those willing to mine at a loss
B) those willing to resell the units at an even higher price
C) those that know nothing of basic math

Congrats to friedcat, he did it very well considering he had a limited supply and there was a shortage of supply in the market, but saying that those prices are reasonable (meaning they will allow ROI for customers) is plainly and simply retarded.

The blades, post auction (so at 50 btc) were very reasonably priced. The were literally the only thing you could buy that would ship, and the ROI wasn't terrible (3-4 months).  They also sold hundreds of blades, not dozens of them.

The USB devices, were initially around 6 months ROI and were not looking as good with difficulty increases. That said, they were going for 2.5x their BTC price on ebay, so a lot of people bought them to resell.

Bitching about "the market rate" is ridiculous. ASICMiner had a set inventory, and they sold out, at a rate that maximized profits.

This. Everybody knew that those blades were hugely overpriced and there was no return in buying them.

Let's be clear. They just sold some dozens of them. Mostly to newcomers. If they were priced reasonably, you would have seen single persons buying hundreds of them and building big set ups based on those units. That didn't happen, because the blades never made any sense from a business point of view except for ASIC miner and their shareholders. Those units were just a very unprofitable toy for the customer.

Truer words have never been spoken.
Except for Kate Upton has nice boobs.  Very nice.

a fool and his bitcoin are soon parted

And continued to agree and pat themselves on the back for being wise enough not to purchase any as thousands of the erupters were sold in a couple of weeks

I'm sure people who buy them don't even know what ROI means

Everyone agreed that it will never back ROI when its price/auction was announced. (erupter blades/ usb sticks)

I am with you,  I can see 3 month RIO on hardware but not 7-9 months.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't block erupter usb sticks completely pointless considering the fact that diff is rising at an alarming rate???

I want to know why people even bother paying over 2BTC for a device that most likely won't meet ROI, EVER!

Current difficulty at 19Million these sticks make about $27 a MONTH.  It would take 7 - 8 MONTHS to brake even and that is if diff remains at 19Million, which it won't.

For that matter, erupter blades will also have hard time making ROI.

So best thing to do for now is to get into the DIY avalon stuff.