The thought occurred to me that as BTC price falls there may come a point where those with preorders for some ASICs may determine that a refund in USD put straight into BTC will net them more BTC than will be generated in the life of their ASIC. Anyone with orders for purely the BTC ROI potential should then at that point all refund and buy BTC direct as this will net them more BTC instantly with no electricity cost than they expect to earn hashing on the machine.
As an example I have an order in for $7k for a KNC Jupiter. I paid ~60BTC and estimate that I will mine 150BTC over it's lifetime (pure example figures for illustration). Currently at $70/BTC I could refund and buy approx. 100BTC, at $46.66 a refund would earn 150BTC bought bitcoins making it an even BTC ROI, at $25 the same refund would get me 280BTC and would be the obvious best BTC ROI.
Note that my ASIC order isn't purely driven by desired BTC ROI and I see much value in adding hashrate to the network and wouldn't mind having an ASIC rig just to play around with. I have no plans of refunding my order to buy BTC. However if at some point enough people have this idea inevitably leading to bankrupt KNC by creating a "bank run" on the company due to not being able to refund orders since much of their capital being tied up in NRE costs, I'd rather be one of the first ones out rather than the last.
What do you guys think? Is there a certain BTC price where this should start to be a concern to consider? I rolled the dice on KNC and I think there is a decent chance first day orders will be received on time and make a good BTC profit, however I like to be prepared for any potential situations that may arise over the next few months. Definitely not trying to create any FUD/panic/drama and I sincerely hope this is a complete non-issue but I'd still like to get others' opinions on it.
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