Quote from: Voodah on December 16, 2013, 10:43:39 AM

Quote from: jimmothy on December 16, 2013, 10:30:06 AM

Literally anything you do with btc will not yeild as much return as just holding btc. In terms of USD almost everyone who bought an asic machine or invested in asicminer came out ahead.

Thinking in terms of USD makes no sense when you paid in BTC. It is just a way of justifying a bad investment.

Most people paid in BTC. Even in the case of KNC, who only sold in USD. Groupbuys were in BTC.

And still, you said it, buying BTC with those USD would've netted a whole lot more.

So... what's the point?

I love paying for a more secure network, but not even that is happening. Quite the opposite.

Seems like we are just paying for greater ASIC maker profits, that never get reinvested in the customers making them rich.

What is the future of mining? Will it play out this same way for the next couple years?

Is this sustainable?

This is not an AM flame.. I've just been thinking about this a lot lately and I'd love some opinions from the experienced people that are actually in the business of mining.

I don't understand what you mean by we are paying for asic maker profits. AM sold as much gen1 as they could and are preparing for much more efficient gen3.

I assume the plan is to replace all the solomining chips with gen3 bringing AM back to 10% network hashrate and add hardware sales on top of that. Could very well be sustainable if AM is able to provide competitive hardware.

And when you invest in AM you are investing in bitcoin mining as a whole. We know that literally every single ASIC yielded less than if you were to just buy btc at the time and hold.