Is that 19,000 number accurate or an exaggeration? source?
Buying in at this point is a risky proposition. Perhaps even across your suggested 12 month period I would likely wait for hardware. The price of BTC is at a record high, and I have been around long enough to know what is likely coming.
EDIT:
- thanks for the link to the forum; didn't realise there was a BFL forum.
- I saw a post with something about 16,000 queue which makes your 19,000 figure look a little more credible: Are all the ASIC chips common for all units, so every BFL product (and the entire queue of pre sales) is waiting on the same chips?
Don't listen to cdog. Bitcointalk is filled with people of 2 different camps: Those who have orders with BFL, and those who think BFL is the devil incarnate. He's obviously of the latter mindset.
There are 19,000 order numbers, but they started at ~1600, and only paid order numbers actually get shipped. It ends up resulting in a lot of false numbers that aren't really orders at all. I myself went thru 7 order numbers before I finally bought my first SC Single (due to wallet problems), so there aren't actually 19,000 people in front of you.
B: The false ASIC orders were removed from their system recently. So its 19,000 - 1600 or whatever # of FPGA units they sold is.
My point stands. If you dont mind being out $30k for 18 months and then making a marginal profit, its probably a good gamble.