They will make a lot of money back during that short window, but no where near the cost of the device. I believe, by buying this equipment, we're all just shooting each other in the foot.
Why do you think people will not make their money back. If you are one of the first to the table (timing is crucial here I think) mining at 1TH/s should recoup your $30,000 pretty quick even if the reward is halved to 25 and the difficulty starts to ramp up. Like I said calculations may be wrong but it does seem like their is an opportunity here
Considering they will release more then one at once. Global hashrate doubles, you'll make half your guess with 1TH/s. 1 week goes by (2016 blocks found) and difficulty increases astronomically. Goodluck!
When I plug the numbers, at Double the Difficulty and Half the reward the gear would still be repaid ($30,000) in 30 days
Did you account for the difficulty rising twice (possibly 3 or even 4 times) during that period?
When companies order chips like these, they arrive all at once.. If BFL has any common sense, they will flood the market with these things so everyone has a 'chance' at getting the first 1TH/s machine. Then everyone will complain that their ROI has risen back to 2 years.
1 month gross rates for 1TH/s at $6.38 exchange rate
At present difficulty and 25 reward - $62850.86 USD
Double the Difficulty 25 reward - $31425.43 USD
Triple the Difficulty 25 reward - $20950.29 USD
Quadruple the Difficulty 25 reward - $15712.71 USD
It still seems to me that even as the difficulty ramps up if you are one of the first to market that you will enjoy a good rate of return until the field equalizes. So your actual return over the first 6 months would probably be a sliding scale of upward difficulty but your initial investment seems like it should be paid off rather quickly
