Samsonn25, there is an interesting dynamic developing in the bitcoin ecosystem that people should consider when they think about the possible evolution of the mining and miner manufacturing industry. There are points on the mining profitability curve where miners can justify spending the kind of money on new equipment that allow miner manufacturers to accept the risk of the significant capital R&D costs needed to produce the next generation of technology. And there are points on the curve where the risk is unacceptable and miner manufacturers evolve existing technology.

So far, the Chinese have been evolutionary in their approach. This is probably because they haven't had the capital, or expectations of reasonable returns, to invest in large die 20nm ASIC development. They deploy 'old technology' at scale, with tuning to meet short term market demands. After this current generation of Chinese mining technology, they will be faced with the choice of either having to make significant investment in their own 20nm ASICs or exit the market. My guess is that several Chinese manufacturers will join together in a consortium to fund the needed investment and share the results. Eventually, they will consolidate.

KNC was fortunate in their timing and invested profit from their successful first products and their mining revenue into large die 20nm technology. We'll soon discover what kind of performance this yields. My guess is a 1st in Class machine that they can then node shrink to 14nm without a lot of risk or expense to enable them to stay competitive well into the point on the mining profitability curve where others can not compete because there is too much risk to capital returns.

Other existing mining equipment manufacturers fall somewhere between these two cases, some relying on die shrinks of old technology to stay competitive, others investing in 28nm and 40nm designs and mostly falling on their faces leaving a trail of unhappy pre-order investors in their wake.

So, the long and short of it is that we are getting to the point on the profitability curve where if a company hasn't already made the very large investments needed to stay competitive over the next few years, they are out of business. Its is clear to me that KNC, so far, has made all the correct strategic moves to ensure that they are a leader in this market for the foreseeable future.

If Spondoolies can pull off the investment needed for their post-28nm technology they have a chance. But the mining profitability curve is working against them.