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Topic: What's next for BFL and others? (Read 1604 times)

legendary
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September 25, 2013, 06:40:25 PM
#1
This is an economic speculation thread on what's next for BFL and other ASIC companies.  Yes we all know and love their problems but this isn't the thread to rehash them.  Wether we like it or not BFL and others are part of the bitcoin landscape and while we can disagree on how big an actual part they are, they hold the key to how the rest of the ASIC space race continues. 
The price on resales of in-hand BFLs is now below the price they are charging on their site.  Even the monarch preorder is trading hands at a discount to list price.  The natural move for companies when the market dictates a price drop is to lower prices but they seem to be stuck since dropping prices now would mean a massive refund for the current product line backlog and the monarch as well.  Also the confusion with order conversions and how to handle those.  So they have no new orders which is a very disruptive thing for any business because most businesses operate on margins and as a going concern.  It's not like you can close up shop for a couple months until monarch is done. 
Is this a future for all ASIC companies.  What happens if market price is below pre-order prices and all customers want a refund or start refusing shipments from KnC or others who took CC orders before they get to ship even the 1st batch?  Now I understand that large profit margins are in ASICs but will there be a point where all of them are stuck like BFL.  Can't sell next batch because its massive refunds on a prior batch no one wants anymore at all and you've spent all the NRE money already.  What then?
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