Topic: Purchasing bitcoin ASICs - The Manual - page 2. (Read 4610 times)

I'm sitting here thinking we're going to see another round of 5830's-paying-themselves-off-in-a-week-like profitability.

Almost missed the boat last time.

This time I'm at the front of the line.

No, I don't take bribes! That's all.

Well I'll agree with you there.

Purchasing ASICs would be fine, except there are no ASICs to be purchased. Only pre-orders with vague dates/specs/etc.

OP: it should be this:
Guide to purchasing ASICs - Step 1 - DONT!

Yes, my point is that anyone expecting anything else is an unreasonable idiot.

He's greedy like hell... That's all

I think he's referring to the discussion that's been going on in the BFL and bASIC forums where people have received refunds for the amount of BTC equivalent of the USD amount of their product, rather than the actual BTC amount they paid months ago when the exchange rate was lower.

Ex. You buy BFL SC Single a few months ago for 111BTC (when the exchange rate was $12). Now when you order your refund, you get 95.2BTC (because the exchange rate today is $14).

The only new company in the ASIC round was ASICMINER, which is not (yet) selling products or taking preorders. Most of the other vendors (BFL, BTCFPGA, and ngz) have shipped successful FPGA products. Deepbit operates a popular mining pool. Furthermore, last I checked both BFL and BTCFPGA clearly stated that they were not using customer money for the actual product expenses. So, while it is true that any purchase of mining equipment is an investment, it is only an investment in your own mining business, not necessarily in the vendor producing it. bASIC customers were/are in fact customers.
Depends on what you mean by a "failure". Most likely all 5 vendors will deliver a working product, but none of those products will break even any time soon. I don't expect to see any room for new vendors to get into the market without overcoming a huge barrier of entry.
Fraud is not something special to ASIC vendors (and I have no reason to suspect fraud from any of them). People using Bitcoin need to learn to adapt to these situations, whether that means escrow or insurance or whatever else.
This is nonsense; I'm sure every vendor is more than willing to refund purchases made with Bitcoins. Bitcoins are just as regulated as any other currency. No ASIC vendor is selling in Bitcoin units, just USD; your ability to pay in another high-volatility currency does not give it a set price in that currency! What the ASIC vendor does with their income, including gambling or investing in Bitcoin volatility, is entirely up to them so long as they honour their agreements with their customers (including their refund policy).
If specifications are not met, I'm sure your vendor will probably let you know before shipping, and give you the opportunity to request a refund at that time. If you choose to go ahead with the purchase, filing a chargeback at that point is fraud (on your part).

We all must draw our conclusions from what has happened to bASIC "customers". I was quite active recently on this forum and I think I've spotted quite a large number of problems. Let me try to help you avoid future troubles following step by step considerations below:

1. There is nothing wrong with investing in ASIC startups as soon as you understand that you are investor, not customer!
2. There will be a lot of companies manufacturing ASICs, including bitcoin ASICs, by the end of 2013. It is just another question how successful their products will be and to what extend their specification will correspond to what was originally announced. Most of products will be complete failures.
3. Don't be greedy. Greed is the worst possible advisor of inexperienced investors.
4. Get rid of all your unprotected investments! Risk/reward ratio for unprotected investments is very unreasonable at this stage. Unprotected investments are all payments you made to an ASIC startup other than with a credit card not older than the 3 months chargeback window.
5. You should contact your credit card issuing bank and find out what is the maximum period of a payment you can request chargeback for! Be absolutely confident about that! About three months is the standard but your might be different.
6. You can get rid of an unprotected investment either by selling it or by requesting a refund from the ASIC startup company. I'm not aware of a third method.
7. Of all the unprotected investments the worst possible one is paying with bitcoins. I understand that this a bad advertisement for bitcoins but those are the merchants that refuse full bitcoin refunds that make it to appear that way! This should not be allowed by the bitcoin community if we want bitcoin to be addopted as a commercially viable currency!
8. ASIC startups strongly oppose full bitcoin refunds as they are a big profit source. Firstly, because bitcoin is still unregulated as a currency and as a method of payment and secondly, because receiving bitcoins and later refunding in $, gives those companies free option call to profit from BTC /$ exchange rates differences between payment and refund dates. Of course, what is profit for them is a loss for you!
9. If the chargeback window is about to close ask for a refund. If refund is not honored by the merchant within 48 hours then contact credit card issuer and request a chargeback!
10. If you successfully got your money back you might want consider paying for a pre-order again.
11. Don't be fooled by someone yelling at you that you'll lose your spot on the queue!
12. Maximum time loss might be couple of weeks. On the other hand, you can win big. If your ASIC is finally delivered you might find out that it does not match the announced specifications. If you are lucky you may have couple of month for finding such discrepancies and still be under the protection of chargeback window!

Good Luck