Congratulations, BITMAIN.

I have to disagree with the 'wait and see' part, while this was true for S2 for quite a time, there was a massive amount of units sold without any problem. Yes, we did see a lot of horrific pictures of UPS having played volleyball with the S2 deliveries (and BITMAIN maybe not having the perfect packaging strategy), but most of the deliveries had no issue.

I actually still have a couple of S1 units from the very first two auctions BITMAIN held back in 2013. Yes, those are the earlier revisions, I have actually given away some of the later revisions, because none of the S1's ever had any serious problems and are still running to this day. It's great to see an upgrade path for them, as I've been thinking of various options what to do with them.

However, the main point boils down to one word: Price.

The S2 was massively overpriced at launch, even with the coupons (but yes, I ordered, too, for support). With the S3 and especially the S1 to S3 upgrade, BITMAIN can really outprice themselves. They want margin, that's fine, but us miners are quite on the spot when it comes down to how much should the gear cost and that's a very fine line. Yes many will say it is too expensive, but BITMAIN have to win the majority over....rest will always complain.


Sidenote: Why BITMAIN and not the competition? Two words: Operating temperature. You can run these things in +70'C. Wow.