What has friedcat done? He had 30% of the pie, and the business is now trash. Even Labcoin is close to them in TH. I feel as though he ran AM into the ground purposefully.
Why would he put more TH/s online when people are willing to buy them for more than they can generate in their lifetime? The smart thing to do is to sell them for a quick profit that can be reinvested instead of betting on the hashrate to reach a plateau in the next few months (only way current 1st gen chips could be profitable even bought at cost).
If I were in friedcat's position I would do exactly what he seems to do:
- keep hashing with existing hardware that has already been paid for multiple times,
- research new hardware tech to be ready to put it online ASAP,
- keep selling what customers want to buy and maybe install what is not selling quick enough/is partially defective in the mine to avoid wasting it.
This is called bidding your time. I would be worried if the mine was growing quickly in hashrate with 1st gen ASICs right now as the whole venture would probably risk bleeding Bitcoins.
Following this reasoning I took a risk and bought quite a few shares recently: they may not pay off right now, but I expect them to do so in 2014 and if I'm right it would be too late to buy them then.