but valueing them 4x+ as high as LC, even though LC will start running very soon now, is nothing but ridiculous. I say once people realize this huge imbalance, ActM will drop and LC will go up.
It is 4x the value because 28nm chips have a higher ROI potential, than Labcoin's 130nm. Given that both companies succeed in their goal and ship their products on time.
1. The current counter-party risk of ActiveMining is at least as high as Labcoin, and in my opinion higher; the "given that" is a little bit big.
2. If you deliver 2 months late, very probably that will reduce lifetime mining revenue by a factor of 4.
3. Labcoin isn't going to sit on the 130nm chips forever, and they are already working on 65nm. Granted it's not as good as 28nm, they won't be too far behind.
The 28nm chips need to have at least 16x earning potential to justify the current price. Just imagine, if Labcoin keeps 1% from October, then ActiveMining has to keep 4% from December. If Labcoin keeps 5% then ActiveMining has to be as big as ASICMINER.
On the other hand, ASICMINER has had staggered expansion rate beyond 40TH/s (though with 130nm hardware) despite continuous blade production, which at least means keeping 4x the mining rate is not just 4x more difficult. This can partly be explained by the diminishing returns of mining expansion; say the network has 1000TH/s, and you have 10% i.e. 100TH/s. Put in 100TH/s then you'll get around 18.182%. Put in another 100TH/s you only get 25%. You spent 3x as much money but only get 2.5x more return.