HN Explorer

Ask HN: Is a Bitcoin ASIC miner a good investment for now?

10 points by Cardeck1 ↗ HN
Is an ASIC miner a good investment right now?I mean, I was checking the websites that are selling them and many are out of stock.

Or should I say, are these miners a sure investment at least for the moment?A friend bought an ASIC miner a month ago and he sold 100 or something BTC for 16-18.000 $.I'm not calling my friend a liar but it's kind of too easy.I mean you just buy the ASIC, you wait for a month and then sell it for a sum like that.Sounds...interesting.

It's just I am having some doubts about this.Sounds too good to be true.Buying an ASIC and getting rich...It can't be that easy to make money even though I see the word "bubble" in the BTC topics.

By the way, I don't know much about BTC so if I am off the road, correct me.

7 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 19.0 ms ] thread
Jeremy1026
"By the way, I don't know much about BTC so if I am off the road, correct me."

Then no. It is not a good idea to buy anything related to BitCoins. If you don't understand the technology, don't invest in it.

johnmurch
At this point I would say you are better off just buying bitcoins rather than a rig. It's only going to get harder to mine and yes you will be more efficient/faster than most but it's a losing game. Although I do have a miner and already pre-paid for an ASIC rig - I wish I had just bought BTC with the money as there will only be 21M btc ever!
Cardeck1
How come it is better to buy BTC?I mean it is trading at 180 right now.If I were to buy 15 BTC for example, I would have to pay 2700 while a good ASIC would mine 15 in a couple of days with a much higher value.Then again, maybe I don't understand it but that's how some of my friends do it.

Of course it is gonna be harder but I am talking about the next 2-3 months.

johnmurch
The real question is can you get an ASIC miner today or in a few days? I prepaid mine back in November and still don't have it. If you can get one, do it - if you are just planning to order now - your already behind.

Over the next few months ASIC miners are going to be everywhere so the mining rates will be harder as everyone will have an ASIC miner. Just look at some of the pool rates over time - it's like when people realized you could use graphic cards rather than just a CPU.

Cardeck1
Now that was the answer I was expecting.I was thinking the same thing but I wasn't sure.If you can get it now, you can be profitable but later on you are better off with buying BTC.Thanks.
what_the_frell
I'm guessing you pre-ordered from BFL? They seem a little too scammy for my taste, but if you paid with CC, hopefully you at least have fraud protection. They actually just posted something the other day (https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showwiki.php?title=FAQ:Get+...) that shows a rough estimation of how much you can theoretically make with each of their rigs at different difficulty levels. I'm of the opinion that once ASICs really get going, the difficulty is going to skyrocket. It's great for the manufacturer, because they can sell more of the units because people need to keep up. I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 50x current difficulty by the end of 2013.
jlengrand
What kind of computer do you have? I checked a few days ago, and had the chance to have one of the "ok" GPU for farming. With the current prices, you get more value in bitcoins than the power consumption it uses. You won't sell for 20k for sure, but you can end up with a few bitcoin within months. Most of all, it will give you some awareness about the whole thing.

I like everyone buying farming stuff right now, because they are part of the huge current valuation of bitcoin. And as the number of bitcoins is fixed, it can only go up.