Topic: [Group Buy#1] Avalon ASICs CHIPS! Using JohnK as escrow! FINISHED! - page 29. (Read 150651 times)

ecliptic - I fully agree with your assessment regarding refund.

No statements from anyone; I'm waiting for a reply to my PM from JohnK, but according to his profile he was away this weekend, so will have a lot of catching up to do over the next couple of days.

What is the current chip count for refund, and has JohnK/ragingazn made any statements about it? (i.e. 51% to refund)

For reasons unrelated to economics/ROI, and should be obvious for anyone who's been paying even remote attention to this buy, I'm starting to learn towards refund.  Counter-party risk and all that

You do realize that the "refund" is a guaranteed 50% loss, right?

PCB assembly costs were higher than the chips.

break even ROI is 50%, not 100%.

--

And this is the Group buys subfourm, of the hardware subforum, of the mining subforum, of the bitcoin forum, on a website dedicated to bitcoins.  The scope of discussions here is, in theory, limited to custom hardware for mining bitcoins and directly related topics.

There are many, many investments that paid back more than any given bitcoin mining investment.  To start including these in every single discussion, comparison and thread about bitcoin mining would be absurd.  It would become "Economics and Investing : General" and quickly "Offtopic general".  

The issue at hand is that Avalon chips had by far the most margin between "Best Case Scenario" and "Cannot even break even".  Best case was absurd, on the order of 1000% ROI.

all the other alternatives?  "Best case scenario" is maybe 200% ROI or similar.  So what happens when something goes wrong for THEM?

I would argue there does not appear to be an investment in mining hardware with enough possible reward to be worth the risk -- in this regard, you're right, it probably makes sense to not buy anything and get out of the game.  But the way people calculate hashing rate projections (exponential growth that never ends, as opposed to a sigmoid function which is approaching its inflection point) is fundamentally wrong and flawed, and the fact that you already have a 50% loss for assembly costs means that your break even is lower.   Admittedly it looks very dim as it increases, but people need to run calculations for the tail end of the curve, where you WILL be beating electricity costs, but the rate it makes money will also be very low. 

All of this notwithstanding a raise or fall in $/BTC, which affects all profit on all hardware equally.

Yifu has opened up refunds for chips.

What are we waiting for?

I already said, if you're myopically only capable of focusing on bitcoin mining, you're going to have a bad time. There are PLENTY of mining equipment alternatives. The fact that they might all end up sucking too isn't a good reason to ride this one to the bottom, when the writing is on the wall.

Once again, if you're unwilling to abandon a ship that's going down, because the lifeboat isn't headed directly to another cruise ship, then I feel bad for you, son. I'm guessing bitcoin mining is your first attempt at making money work for you, instead of the other way around. I see a bumpy ride in your future...

Sometimes the best "Investment" is to stop your losses by pulling out, and then reevaluate when you're not being driven by emotion and stress. The sunk cost fallacy is a powerful one though, and if you're a n00b to the money game, it's a lesson some people will just have to learn the hard way...

A refund now could be used to net one a rather substantial increase in hashrate.

I would sooner take the refund monies and group-buy a variety of 28 nm miners.

I know that some offer hosting services.

We could let some of the more trustworthy folks in this buy be administrators, and receive a small percentage as recompense.

I'm with ecliptic here.  The money I invested here was earmarked for mining.  If I have to I'll find somewhere else to park it, but like you said wrenchmonkey, I don't think anyone here asked for investment advice.

You know, you can just admit "You are right, there are no BITCOIN MINING ALTERNATIVES" to

You don't get have to get butthurt and defensive and say "B-BUT EVERY OTHER INVESTMENT EVER!"


THIS JUST IN!  People who bought Tesla stock instead of BFL made more money than people who bought BFL stop the fucking presses!!!!

I appreciate your consideration. I won't be seeking a refund, though I realize that may simply be due to the amount I've invested into this emotionally. Please make your own decision based on what you think is best for you.

Also, for those of you going through my assembly service, I've just posted in our thread regarding refunds: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3047235

The TL;DR: Full refunds are out of the question, but I'll see what I can do in the way of partial refunds for those of you who want them.

I'm not your investment advisor, or your broker. Figure it out yourself. If you're going to myopically focus ONLY on bitcoin mining equipment as be the only "viable investment" then I'm afraid you're in for a rough ride, friend. Some people have enough sense to be able to spot other viable investments, even if they don't look identical to what YOU apparently consider to be the only definition of a viable investment.

Putting it in a low-yield savings account, or spending it on hookers and blow would be more viable investments than this is, at this point. 

I have pm'd JohnK to see what is possible but he is moving this week and will probably only catch up with this thread and his PMs on his return (on Tuesday 3rd September)

Yeah, probably. And it's probably possible to get refund requests from 51% of chip holders, because the chips are quite concentrated in this group buy (top 10 on the spreadsheet would be enough, and I know a lot of other people below those will be keen on a refund too).

Anyone keen to volunteer to update the spreadsheet for ownership, and then go through the refund requests that have already been posted in the thread?

Hmm.. that is true, refund would only need JohnK to act (with whatever critera, probably 51% of chips..)

I believe the funds went through JohnK, so presumably all we would need to do is get an updated ownership spreadsheet together with refund addresses. prodigits/ragingazn would get their refunds from JohnK (who placed the order, presumably from the escrow address) just like everyone else, no?

I've only got 20 chips worth of say.  Do what you will.   

Has ragingazn said anything on this? 

Or has he still been pretty hard to get ahold of..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(signal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(population)

I disagree. We are gonna hit breakeven for ASICs... and then go beyond,  as people keep their pre-ordered hardware running in a doomed attempt to recoup investment.

Also - I'd rather take 50% refund than struggle for no return. This requires effort and none of you guys are considering the cost of the labor of actually running the ASICs.

128 chips voting for refund. Apologies to those wanting to stick it out, but I at least have to try to cut my losses.

Sigh

So, burnin is offering 50% refund on his assembly? 

Or is that you can convert it to bitfury chips on a burnin PCB assembly?  or something?

Maybe a refund does make sense, even if the ROI between these and other things are a wash.  There's still a degree of unmitigated risk with chip delivery and whatnot, including in the group buy

We also have no evidence yet of how quickly those refunds will be processed.  If we opt for refund, many will be left with no chips and no btc for who knows how long.

I will defer my decision depending on what ryepdx wants to do. I think he has a significant amount of sunk cost in this.