Bitfury August delivery is definitely positive.
bitfury august was >2x the current price, 400GH at $18k (or was it 19k dont remember exactly), they took delivery at the very end of august.
Not factor in the bitcoin/usd price increase as you never should for roi calculations, please enlighten on that hardware is "definitely positive"
Ok, let me try that: I don't have any of this Bitfury full-kit 400GHs units so can't testify first hand (if someone has them please confirm or deny), but let's say they started mining Sept. 1st to be on the safe side, although some did few days earlier. According to reverse mining calculations it already earned close to 80 BTC, maybe few BTC more or less. 400GHs will mine around around 35-40BTC more before network difficulty reduces mining income to satoshies, so it will return around 120 BTC mining in profitable conditions. Bitfury is energy efficient, so it will continue to grind over electricity costs even in double-digit PHs conditions. Don't need to calculate that in fiat, although they were paid in fiat and not in BTC, but it looks to me that whoever invested in that at the beginning of July is looking at his wallet and smiling to the current ASIC buyers.
Your estimate is spot on, but your conclusions are a bit off. With 120 BTC income in profitable conditions you're looking at about a 50% ROI overall after about 1 year. One scenario where you can make anything more than that is if the BTC price collapses right NOW to $20, instantly crowding out everyone who is less efficient than you and collapsing the sales market. Then there would be a net wealth transfer from the inefficient miners to the efficient ones, because the inefficient miners are out of the competition and immediately bankrupt.
Of course there are a few other scenarios which make hashpower more valuable than bitcoins, but I don't see them happening within the next 2-3 months, where this would make any impact. Instead, given that the BTC price will not collapse and keep rising sub-exponentially, the hash power will simply inflate away your yield and will cause the remaining 50% to take a lifetime.
There is no incentive to smile at anyone. The only satisfaction which is left is that the miners are the peons who make this industry work and without their sacrifice, bitcoin may not succeed. As such, giving up opportunity gains (loss of potential profit) when mining may be a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.
