Quote from: Cluster2k on July 15, 2013, 02:00:13 PM

ASIC companies don't mind having to ship product without mining with it first. Why? The sooner they ship the sooner difficulty goes up, and the sooner their first ASIC customers return seeking more ASICs to keep profitability up. Selling gear is guaranteed instant profit. Even better when customers prepay and you have money in the bank before shipping. Using the units to mine always carries risk as bitcoin could crater and be worth $1 tomorrow with the company left with a lot of useless gear no one would want.

It seems to me like the economics of the situation would drive demand for new ASIC *down* as difficulty goes up, unless there is an offsetting change in the relevant exchange rates. If I were Avalon, I would want difficulty to remain as low as possible for as long as possible to keep demand for the pre-orders up. If a 100 Gh/s miner gets only 0.5 BTC per month or less, what sane person would pay 20BTC+ for one?

If I were an ASIC manufacturer/distributor holding miners today, I would just mine and mine until the exact point in time where the miners are profitable for the consumers (barely) given the price and difficulty. Then I would ship.