Quote from: glendall on October 10, 2013, 02:43:51 AM

Quote from: BitThink on October 10, 2013, 02:13:30 AM

Quote from: pankkake on October 10, 2013, 01:56:24 AM

Quote from: BitThink on October 10, 2013, 01:51:10 AM

There are more choices to buy mining hardwares

Unless it's non-exploding hardware.

In long term, gen2 chips cannot be postponed any more, or AM has to be converted to non-mining company totally. If currently the design and testing of gen2 has been finished, then there's no reason not to mass produce it. Even they are not sold well, self mining with them are still profitable. Suppose the watt/G reduce to 1/3 of gen-1, the self-mining capacity can increase to 300TH (from current 100TH), with the same power supply limit.

I think what you said makes a lot of sense and I agree with it.

But additionally, I would also consider another possibility that if the price per GH is right (or cheapest), for those who at least live in countries with very cheap power, then you could imagine a scenario where Asicminer's chips, even though older gen and using much more power, still may be the most attractive option for some long-scale and hobbyist miners.

Sure the watt/G is hugely important... but as well, price per gh is also paramount. Maybe I'm confusing things, but just saying, it is conceivable to me to have a successful product of 130nm asic miners if the make up for their shortcomings in selling price. Finally, rushing to market with a gen 2 at this point -- if you have a proven gen 1 product that you can economically produce and sell -- may not be the best plan. Instead, getting a lab set up, and hire some smart-folk, and making a great 2nd gen chip instead of late-coming average gen 2 chip would be a better alternative.

Gen-3 chips are already under research, and a lab is already founded and the researcher candidates are decided already, all according to the second latest update. But that's far far away in the bitcoin time scale. Even everything goes smoothly and the gen-3 chips are successfully designed in time, it takes at least 2 months for design and testing and 2 months for producing testing chips and another 2 months for mass production. So we are very lucky if we can benefit from Gen-3 chips in March 2014.

Meanwhile, the Gen-1 chips can be sold $20/G on Oct, $10/G on Nov, $5/G on Dec. It will become not profitable at all in next year. So if the current 500TH are sold well, then at best there're another 500TH to be sold this year. If not, then these 500TH is the last batch of Gen-1 Chips.

Without Gen-2 Chips, AM can do nothing for at least 3 months (Jan 2014 - March 2014) except mining with the current 200TH (less than 0.5% then). That's the reason I said AM has to turn into a non-mining company (providing board producing, cooling solution, and deploy service as friedcat said in his post before) if they don't order Gen2 Chips immediately.