Thanks for the confidence guys, it's appreciated.
I'd like to get as much feedback as possible in order to reach a consensus on the direction we should take going forward as far as future hardware purchases go. I favor Bitfury gear due to their efficiency claims and ability to demonstrate progress in their development process. On the other hand I've seen little evidence to convince me that knc will be able to deliver products on their timeline. Does anybody disagree with my take on this and if so why? Also does anybody have any other suggestions as far as which vendor they feel is a better choice and if so why?
Avalon has said they were done with pre-orders and that they were developing 55nm? chips of their own for October delivery. Clearly their reputation has been tarnished, but what's everyone's take on the latest from Bitsyncom?
Also as far as criteria go for hardware selection, my own priorities are as follows:
1) Credibility - Can this vendor deliver what they claim and most importantly can they deliver it WHEN they claim. To date pre-order vendors have a 100% failure rate, though obviously some have failed more spectacularly than others.
2) Efficiency - Will this product be hashing long enough to at least break even in the face of continued network expansion? This obviously affects resale price of hardware as well.
3) Price point - I believe this is self explanatory.
Cheers.
If you could purchase 100 block erupter sapphires for 35BTC today, that would give the fund another 33Gh/s (@250Watts). The break even TODAY is about 85 days. Say the network hash rate doubles in the fall, that would mean 170 days or if it triples, 255 days. They sip power so running them longer isn't an issue. I realize you would need good hubs which are ~$70US each for an aluminum 10 port USB 3 powered hub (aitech sells one through amazon for 69.99 - I believe the seller's name is computerExtension). I know these work great for 10 usb miners. Are you currently running a couple of 6770's and a couple of 7770's for bitcoin? Even if we just purchase sufficient amounts of block erupters to replace those, we would be further ahead. The usb hubs would com in handy for the next gen asics too I'm sure. They have to release a little usb key for those if us who can't afford the big rigs!!
I ordered 20 block erupter blades last wednesay and had them running by Friday evening before I left for work. I paid 5.99 BTC/10 and I saw just last night the price dropped to 4.19BTC/10 (free UPS express shipping until Aug 15th on 5BTC+ orders). The miners were new and worked perfectly. I'm hesitant to mention this seller as I see BTCGuild store is 1000 units shy right now!
I'm just thinking in the short term to keep up our percentage of the network share while you formulate a long term plan.
Thoughts anyone?
Take care