Just my 2 cents speculation
the point is not to compete with asics... as we have seen recently any coin with a large marketcap is going to have an asic implemented after some time. the point is that an asic will only ever work for that algorithm. an fpga can do many many kinds of algorithms, you just need to program it. i assume the people who know fpga's can look at a coins algorithm and whip up a miner similar to how people cook up gpu miners for cpu only coins. your gravy would be any algo that you could implement efficiently onto an fpga that no one is going to make an asic for.
Yes, I get the point.
But if your FPGA cost $2000 USD and can do 500 hashrate while the asic cost 400 USD and can do the same 500 hashrate, u are still screwed.
U will switch to other coins but so will all the FPGAs and GPUs. Those other coins that are not yet touched by asics will then have their mining difficulty skyrocket due to all the FPGAs and GPUs going there.
Basically, u will lose on a cost per MH/TH basis by too much even if u can match the asics efficiency. And looking at the speed in which asics appear on new coins these days, I dont see how that can work. This looks pretty sucidal.
Just my 2 cents speculation
you cant compare them. the asic will do what an asic does, so you compete on every coin without an asic and you compete vs gpus and cpus.
*edit to add, if you gain yourself a nice niche and an asic does happen to come out, you just go be the king of some other anthill of an algo that isnt asic implemented yet. theres no point trying to make your fpga be as fast or faster than an asic.
I am saying it makes no financial sense. The major GPU coins already have asics, with ETH being the biggest. And those coins that have no asic on it will have asics on it before the FPGA will come close to ever breaking even.
And everytime an asic takes over an alternate coin, all the GPUs and FPGAs that were mining that coin will go to a non-asic coin. That means the remaining non-asic coins will have difficulty skyrocket and guess wat, that means your GPUs and FPGAs mining make less money. Everytime a new asic comes out, the FPGAs make less money. So, there is no niche. There is a limited amount to be earned from mining u see. If the asics keep appearing to take some of it, the switchers (FPGAs/GPUs) will have less and less.
Why not u calculate how much it would cost to make an FPGA that can do the equivalent of mining 504mh like the L3+ or 14TH like the S9.
Run your numbers and see the gap. While I dont have the numbers, I dont think it can work.
Anyways, good luck in your endeavors. Maybe I am wrong.
Just my 2 cents