Re: ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It
And Bitcoin investors don't quite grasp that the value of Bitcoin ASICs depends on said bitcoins having value.
Bitcoin/USD exchange rate being down helps us as AM investors. FC has already paid for the materials to build our mine (fairly safe assumption), he is going to be able to bring online a static amount of hash-power. Lower btc/usd value means less new entrants into the mining ecosystem, less investment from current participants and generally slower network growth. Lower btc/usd value means that we will be able to hold a larger % of the network for longer increasing our BTC dividends. (which is what I care about at this stage)
As someone who has no interest in selling BTC for a long while, this is all positive in my eyes.
This is predicated on other players not having sunk money into their product--an unjustified assumption.
Lower BTC/USD price makes mining less profitable--electricity and hosting costs, which must be paid in fiat, remain constant, while the return--price of the mined BTC--is lower.
It's reasonable to assume that the price one can charge for hashpower will also be lower.
depends on your capital and whether you sell devices or mine
Makes no difference whether you mine or sell.
Self-mining requires hosting and electricity--both to be paid in fiat. When (electricity+hosting) cost more than (the bitcoins mined with that electricity and hosting), the gear is at the break-even point--it is worth nothing. That's why both miners and ASIC manufacturers depend on high Bitcoin exchange rate.
No one in his right mind would spend money on mining gear that doesn't break even.*
*Truth. Unchanged by the fact that Bitcoin miners have done just that. Constantly. AM's business model relied on the coin of these lunatics. As did pretty much every other ASIC manufacturer.