There is an other question I got concerning the whole bitmain thing:
Some people say, that Bitmain uses the devices themselves before selling them (or at least give them to some related companies before the private customers get them).
If so, theoretically, the Hashrate should not increase at all, right? It should drop when they get their miners shipped and increase to the same level again when all shippings arrive and the devices are pluged in again?
What stands against this theory is the estimated number of devices in one batch:
Total hashrate of X11 is aprox. 15 TH/s by now, which would mean 1000 D3 miners. But people are talking about much higher selling numbers.
Maybe it is some middle way: Like for example they sold 10000 pieces of which 3333 where already mining before. So the hasrate would triple.
Does anyone have an idea on how this could work?
The ones they're selling now probably haven't even been manufactured yet. It might make sense for Bitmain to mine for themselves for a few weeks but it also makes more sense for them to sell those miners BEFORE they're added to the network so that profitability calculation would look better at the time of purchase. Sell today, start mining next week, ship next month seems to be the model. So the hashrate will grow.
LTC hashrate went up 10 TH/s or 20k L3+ units in 4 months. It stands to reason that Bitmain is capable of adding 20k D3 units to the network over the next 4 months and they'll just play around with sale timing, prices, delivery dates to maintain the suspense.