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Topic: Enjoy the Last 24 Hours of Profitable GPU Mining (Read 7077 times)

legendary
Activity: 2506
Merit: 1010
December 11, 2012, 12:58:41 AM
#48
Double dipping could only occur when product exists, it does not require any manufacturer take 51%, simply that they bring online their excess stock, to make money off both sales and unsold stock.

Not every ASIC manufacturer is selling hardware to customers.  From another thread:

If the foundry keeps up 4 layers a week from now on, it means ASICMINEr should receive the chips just before Christmas, so we could theoretically (hopefully) have something online before the end of the year....hashing the first ASIC mined block ever

then following that:

(~2-3 weeks)
First 6TH/s online
(~2-3 weeks)
Second 6TH/s online
(~0-4 weeks)
50TH/s of chips out
(~2-3 weeks, ~2-5 weeks if location changes)
Part or all of the 50TH/s online
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 500
I keep hearing about double dipping from manufacturers but is here any evidence? I think Organofcorti has a chart which would detect that and so far nothing. I don't think it is in the manufacturer's interest to mine. 51% = btc death = no money :,(

No, there is no evidence, as there is no evidence that any bitcoin asics exist, which would render such impossible at the current time. Double dipping could only occur when product exists, it does not require any manufacturer take 51%, simply that they bring online their excess stock, to make money off both sales and unsold stock. What % they would take in the long term is unknown, perhaps in the end you will see 23% / 23% / 23% /23% / 8% split between asic manufacturers with 8% for customers. No worries about 51% there, and a cool 3.6 mill for each manufacturer per year at current prices.

sr. member
Activity: 330
Merit: 250
I keep hearing about double dipping from manufacturers but is here any evidence? I think Organofcorti has a chart which would detect that and so far nothing. I don't think it is in the manufacturer's interest to mine. 51% = btc death = no money :,(
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 500
Reminder: 50x current network = 1.25 Petahash = ~833 BFL Minirigs = $24,990,000 = ~1.75x as much USD invested in GPUs in the past 2 years. If you think that will happen overnight, well...

As I said, if it happens in 59 weeks (seems reasonable), you'll still be making $60/mo, and whatever else you made during the run up to 50x.

I would suggest heavily against buying anywhere near the 50x mark of course, but given the size of the pre-orders out there, the pre-order crowd should do pretty well, and potentially even the early bird post-orders.

There is no doubt the first people who get asics will make good money.
The question for me is that in a year will i be in the same boat i am in now. Which is having hardware making a couple of bucks a day when they used to make triple or more per day. I am not sure it is worth the hassle as you are making some large assumptions about the situation. For example the failure rate of the devices combined with a warranty that i cannot find on bfls website. For all i know these things might break after 13 months. Having it repaired or buying another will mess up calculations.

Another example is adding all the asic companies products into the diff. They all seem to be coming out first quarter 2013. If so the spike upwards will be massive in 2 months time. That couple of bucks per day may come much faster then anyone realizes.

Btc price. I think 12 per btc is drastically over priced. 5 per btc is fair when you look at the bitcoin economy and amount of coins out there versus usage.  i would cut current price in half for any calculations. Extra is gravy.

Etc....

The thing breaking in 13 months doesn't factor in at all to my statement, so it can't really be an assumption, let alone a big one. The warranty info is pretty easy to find, though admittedly not from the main page (https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showwiki.php?title=FAQ:What+is+the+warranty+period+on+your+devices).

I already factored all asic companies products into the difficulty, so again not a big assumption (not any bigger than anything else in the world that is unknown). The pre-orders for Q1 2013 are on the order of 150TH + 57.6TH + 19.8TH = ~225TH, for BFL, bAsic and Avalon respectively. Even assuming 225TH / quarter is reasonable that's only 900TH by end of 2013, far less than my estimation.

Price of BTC makes no human sense, so there is no real way to say what the price should be. I've heard people claim "floors" and "ceilings" to the price based on X Y and Z for literally years now, and they've almost always been wrong, especially the farther one looked in time. The one big assumption is that price will remain close to what it is now, but that is literally the best you can do, so there's no getting around that.

That said I'm not suggesting anyone do anything, but I've always been a middle of the road guy (things are not as great or as horrible as most people claim), and I've been right more often than I've been wrong.

You have made some good counter points.

I just wonder if that 3 dollar fan on an asic board goes bad and the board keeps running will it fry? I wonder it if shuts off or somin. Video cards sure dont. They just hang or worse.

Is not the deepbit guy also pushing out asics next year? People forget about him but i have not kept up to date.
Unknown builders have to be considered when you have guys like  ?art forz? Around.

I think it is wise to factor in a price 50% less then today to be on the safe side.

But all your points are reasonable.



Yeah I haven't kept up much with Tycho's development admittedly, because last I heard the specs he released were 80GH/sec for $2800, which is not a comparable cost with the "Big 3" (is what I'll call em now). He certainly could pull out a surprise win though, he has the time (his first announcement said ~3.23.13), and I could be wrong but in my head he's mad bitcoin-rich.  Artforz is a blast from the past, I remember that people thought he had FPGA/ASICs running back in '10.

I certainly concede that there's a lot of unknowns, shoddy production quality devices, dark horse miners, one or all of the Big 3 double-dipping (selling and mining simultaneously), price bottoming out (the least predictable in my mind), exchanges getting seized, etc.  It will be potentially the last really big exciting time left to bitcoin, and I'm looking forward to it, whichever way it leans Smiley
legendary
Activity: 2072
Merit: 1001
Reminder: 50x current network = 1.25 Petahash = ~833 BFL Minirigs = $24,990,000 = ~1.75x as much USD invested in GPUs in the past 2 years. If you think that will happen overnight, well...

As I said, if it happens in 59 weeks (seems reasonable), you'll still be making $60/mo, and whatever else you made during the run up to 50x.

I would suggest heavily against buying anywhere near the 50x mark of course, but given the size of the pre-orders out there, the pre-order crowd should do pretty well, and potentially even the early bird post-orders.

There is no doubt the first people who get asics will make good money.
The question for me is that in a year will i be in the same boat i am in now. Which is having hardware making a couple of bucks a day when they used to make triple or more per day. I am not sure it is worth the hassle as you are making some large assumptions about the situation. For example the failure rate of the devices combined with a warranty that i cannot find on bfls website. For all i know these things might break after 13 months. Having it repaired or buying another will mess up calculations.

Another example is adding all the asic companies products into the diff. They all seem to be coming out first quarter 2013. If so the spike upwards will be massive in 2 months time. That couple of bucks per day may come much faster then anyone realizes.

Btc price. I think 12 per btc is drastically over priced. 5 per btc is fair when you look at the bitcoin economy and amount of coins out there versus usage.  i would cut current price in half for any calculations. Extra is gravy.

Etc....

The thing breaking in 13 months doesn't factor in at all to my statement, so it can't really be an assumption, let alone a big one. The warranty info is pretty easy to find, though admittedly not from the main page (https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showwiki.php?title=FAQ:What+is+the+warranty+period+on+your+devices).

I already factored all asic companies products into the difficulty, so again not a big assumption (not any bigger than anything else in the world that is unknown). The pre-orders for Q1 2013 are on the order of 150TH + 57.6TH + 19.8TH = ~225TH, for BFL, bAsic and Avalon respectively. Even assuming 225TH / quarter is reasonable that's only 900TH by end of 2013, far less than my estimation.

Price of BTC makes no human sense, so there is no real way to say what the price should be. I've heard people claim "floors" and "ceilings" to the price based on X Y and Z for literally years now, and they've almost always been wrong, especially the farther one looked in time. The one big assumption is that price will remain close to what it is now, but that is literally the best you can do, so there's no getting around that.

That said I'm not suggesting anyone do anything, but I've always been a middle of the road guy (things are not as great or as horrible as most people claim), and I've been right more often than I've been wrong.

You have made some good counter points.

I just wonder if that 3 dollar fan on an asic board goes bad and the board keeps running will it fry? I wonder it if shuts off or somin. Video cards sure dont. They just hang or worse.

Is not the deepbit guy also pushing out asics next year? People forget about him but i have not kept up to date.
Unknown builders have to be considered when you have guys like  ?art forz? Around.

I think it is wise to factor in a price 50% less then today to be on the safe side.

But all your points are reasonable.

hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 500
Reminder: 50x current network = 1.25 Petahash = ~833 BFL Minirigs = $24,990,000 = ~1.75x as much USD invested in GPUs in the past 2 years. If you think that will happen overnight, well...

As I said, if it happens in 59 weeks (seems reasonable), you'll still be making $60/mo, and whatever else you made during the run up to 50x.

I would suggest heavily against buying anywhere near the 50x mark of course, but given the size of the pre-orders out there, the pre-order crowd should do pretty well, and potentially even the early bird post-orders.

There is no doubt the first people who get asics will make good money.
The question for me is that in a year will i be in the same boat i am in now. Which is having hardware making a couple of bucks a day when they used to make triple or more per day. I am not sure it is worth the hassle as you are making some large assumptions about the situation. For example the failure rate of the devices combined with a warranty that i cannot find on bfls website. For all i know these things might break after 13 months. Having it repaired or buying another will mess up calculations.

Another example is adding all the asic companies products into the diff. They all seem to be coming out first quarter 2013. If so the spike upwards will be massive in 2 months time. That couple of bucks per day may come much faster then anyone realizes.

Btc price. I think 12 per btc is drastically over priced. 5 per btc is fair when you look at the bitcoin economy and amount of coins out there versus usage.  i would cut current price in half for any calculations. Extra is gravy.

Etc....

The thing breaking in 13 months doesn't factor in at all to my statement, so it can't really be an assumption, let alone a big one. The warranty info is pretty easy to find, though admittedly not from the main page (https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showwiki.php?title=FAQ:What+is+the+warranty+period+on+your+devices).

I already factored all asic companies products into the difficulty, so again not a big assumption (not any bigger than anything else in the world that is unknown). The pre-orders for Q1 2013 are on the order of 150TH + 57.6TH + 19.8TH = ~225TH, for BFL, bAsic and Avalon respectively. Even assuming 225TH / quarter is reasonable that's only 900TH by end of 2013, far less than my estimation.

Price of BTC makes no human sense, so there is no real way to say what the price should be. I've heard people claim "floors" and "ceilings" to the price based on X Y and Z for literally years now, and they've almost always been wrong, especially the farther one looked in time. The one big assumption is that price will remain close to what it is now, but that is literally the best you can do, so there's no getting around that.

That said I'm not suggesting anyone do anything, but I've always been a middle of the road guy (things are not as great or as horrible as most people claim), and I've been right more often than I've been wrong.
legendary
Activity: 2072
Merit: 1001
Reminder: 50x current network = 1.25 Petahash = ~833 BFL Minirigs = $24,990,000 = ~1.75x as much USD invested in GPUs in the past 2 years. If you think that will happen overnight, well...

As I said, if it happens in 59 weeks (seems reasonable), you'll still be making $60/mo, and whatever else you made during the run up to 50x.

I would suggest heavily against buying anywhere near the 50x mark of course, but given the size of the pre-orders out there, the pre-order crowd should do pretty well, and potentially even the early bird post-orders.

There is no doubt the first people who get asics will make good money.
The question for me is that in a year will i be in the same boat i am in now. Which is having hardware making a couple of bucks a day when they used to make triple or more per day. I am not sure it is worth the hassle as you are making some large assumptions about the situation. For example the failure rate of the devices combined with a warranty that i cannot find on bfls website. For all i know these things might break after 13 months. Having it repaired or buying another will mess up calculations.

Another example is adding all the asic companies products into the diff. They all seem to be coming out first quarter 2013. If so the spike upwards will be massive in 2 months time. That couple of bucks per day may come much faster then anyone realizes.

Btc price. I think 12 per btc is drastically over priced. 5 per btc is fair when you look at the bitcoin economy and amount of coins out there versus usage.  i would cut current price in half for any calculations. Extra is gravy.

Etc....
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 500
Reminder: 50x current network = 1.25 Petahash = ~833 BFL Minirigs = $24,990,000 = ~1.75x as much USD invested in GPUs in the past 2 years. If you think that will happen overnight, well...

As I said, if it happens in 59 weeks (seems reasonable), you'll still be making $60/mo, and whatever else you made during the run up to 50x.

I would suggest heavily against buying anywhere near the 50x mark of course, but given the size of the pre-orders out there, the pre-order crowd should do pretty well, and potentially even the early bird post-orders.
bce
sr. member
Activity: 756
Merit: 250
Chinese new year, assembly cost vs cash flow of asic providers, block reward change and related BTC price, end of the world, etc... this is a foggy time for whom may prove to be the guardians of the worlds first decentralized cryptocurrency.  In the short term, I'm sure the stumbles in production process will prove to be evenly distributed across ASIC offerings, and will have made pre-ordering from any of the promised ASIC projects a good decision.
-ck
legendary
Activity: 4088
Merit: 1631
Ruu \o/
I suspect all manufacturers will be delivering ASICs within 2 months of each other. I don't expect difficulty to rise slowly at all, nor do I believe BFL will corner the market early on.
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 500
I tell you, I've been running the numbers, and I'm beginning to wonder if ASIC's are even going to be able to cut the mustard.  Figure the most efficient unit announced so far is ASIC at 60 GH/60 Watts for $1,299 and the most powerful per dollar is the BTCGPGA at 72GH/80-120 Watts for $1,069.

So, let's kick in a _conservative_ difficulty increase of 10x, and I say conservative because BFL has already said they have enough orders to bump the network at least that high.  With power costs of .10/kwh and a BTC/$ rate of $12.50, the hardware breakeven is:

BFL: 132 Days
BTCFPGA: 88 Days

So at _best_ you're looking at a minimum of 3 months before you can break even, and that's assuming the difficulty doesn't ramp up higher during that time, which is rediculous.  I'm beginning to think that if $/BTC doesn't jump drastically or BFL/BFGA don't increase their hashing/watt/$ drastically, you could easily end up in a situation where you never actually break even.
I'm glad others are starting to work this out. Check my post here (which you already responded to):
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1368704

I think diff will go up 50x

It will almost certainly go up 50x, and probably even more. How long it will take to do that is anyones guess though. I mentioned in a previous thread that BFLs own estimates are that they can produce and deliver about 21THash/sec of machines (though admittedly this might go up as they become more efficient) per week. The other vendors considerably less. So assuming that BFL is the sole deliverer of ASICs (averaging the addition of the slower vendors against the slower rate of delivery vs BFL and possibility for not enough orders to max everyone out constantly), that still leaves ~59 weeks from start to finish to reach 50x difficulty increase.  At which point machines are still profitable, just less so, a BFL Single SC would net about $60/month. Not that bad really, unless you went into some crazy debt to buy them, which would indeed be bad.

Just to play devil's advocate.
-ck
legendary
Activity: 4088
Merit: 1631
Ruu \o/
I tell you, I've been running the numbers, and I'm beginning to wonder if ASIC's are even going to be able to cut the mustard.  Figure the most efficient unit announced so far is ASIC at 60 GH/60 Watts for $1,299 and the most powerful per dollar is the BTCGPGA at 72GH/80-120 Watts for $1,069.

So, let's kick in a _conservative_ difficulty increase of 10x, and I say conservative because BFL has already said they have enough orders to bump the network at least that high.  With power costs of .10/kwh and a BTC/$ rate of $12.50, the hardware breakeven is:

BFL: 132 Days
BTCFPGA: 88 Days

So at _best_ you're looking at a minimum of 3 months before you can break even, and that's assuming the difficulty doesn't ramp up higher during that time, which is rediculous.  I'm beginning to think that if $/BTC doesn't jump drastically or BFL/BFGA don't increase their hashing/watt/$ drastically, you could easily end up in a situation where you never actually break even.
I'm glad others are starting to work this out. Check my post here (which you already responded to):
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1368704

I think diff will go up 50x
sr. member
Activity: 392
Merit: 250
So far I've made just as much per day after the block split as I have before....

Being as that's impossible, I call ignorance and/or B.S.


Just good luck...  Been hitting twice the blocks I normally do.

You mean your pool is super lucky. What pool is it?

I seriously doubt you're "hitting many blocks" solo mining.

Anyhow, it's besides the point. Your "luck", even if it exists, will run out sooner rather than later and then you'll be faced with the same economics the rest of us have dealt with.
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 500
So far I've made just as much per day after the block split as I have before....

Being as that's impossible, I call ignorance and/or B.S.


Just good luck...  Been hitting twice the blocks I normally do.
sr. member
Activity: 392
Merit: 250
So far I've made just as much per day after the block split as I have before....

Being as that's impossible, I call ignorance and/or B.S.
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
Well i'll let people here know how my unloading of all my mining hardware is going.  I am getting about half of what I originally bought my video cards for from ebay right now.  I'm guessing bitcoin miners were a decent chunk of people buying video cards on ebay back in the day.  Just wanted to share this so people thinking about winding down their mining operations can take that into consideration.

That's actually not bad.  Anything used that's more than 6 months old and half is probably a normal rate you'd see on eBay.
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
Well i'll let people here know how my unloading of all my mining hardware is going.  I am getting about half of what I originally bought my video cards for from ebay right now.  I'm guessing bitcoin miners were a decent chunk of people buying video cards on ebay back in the day.  Just wanted to share this so people thinking about winding down their mining operations can take that into consideration.
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 500
So far I've made just as much per day after the block split as I have before....
donator
Activity: 994
Merit: 1000
So at _best_ you're looking at a minimum of 3 months before you can break even, and that's assuming the difficulty doesn't ramp up higher during that time, which is rediculous.  I'm beginning to think that if $/BTC doesn't jump drastically or BFL/BFGA don't increase their hashing/watt/$ drastically, you could easily end up in a situation where you never actually break even.
A smart miner always buys hardware to support the network AND buys bitcoin to support the price.

Thus I recommend a 50/50 split of your mining equipment budget into hardware and bitcoins. You may be tempted to only do mining and sell all the bitcoins for a low margin profit (which is/was a way to ROI on the graphic cards), however this behavior becomes increasingly irrational once the ASICs arrive, since an ASIC is an investment which gets rather CONSUMED by the activity (graphics cards have ulterior usage patterns).
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
I'm not going to leave mining completely, just taking a break.  Once the ASICs start shipping and there isn't a massive backlog I'm going to order several and start mining again.  I'm just hoping that the ASICs actually start shipping soon.

I tell you, I've been running the numbers, and I'm beginning to wonder if ASIC's are even going to be able to cut the mustard.  Figure the most efficient unit announced so far is ASIC at 60 GH/60 Watts for $1,299 and the most powerful per dollar is the BTCGPGA at 72GH/80-120 Watts for $1,069.

So, let's kick in a _conservative_ difficulty increase of 10x, and I say conservative because BFL has already said they have enough orders to bump the network at least that high.  With power costs of .10/kwh and a BTC/$ rate of $12.50, the hardware breakeven is:

BFL: 132 Days
BTCFPGA: 88 Days

So at _best_ you're looking at a minimum of 3 months before you can break even, and that's assuming the difficulty doesn't ramp up higher during that time, which is rediculous.  I'm beginning to think that if $/BTC doesn't jump drastically or BFL/BFGA don't increase their hashing/watt/$ drastically, you could easily end up in a situation where you never actually break even.
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