The mention of IP (as Intellectual Property) is worth replying. Because there is none.

SHA256 brute forcer is such a trivial circuit, that anyone can design and make it. For students this would be a semester project, for experienced engineer with access to the appropriate toolchain this would be a couple of weekends. All the value is in the execution: people who have the "know how" and "from manufacturing to fulfillment" channel. Once those people left Hashfast and went back to Uniquify the value of the "IP" went to near zero, less than the value of the software licenses of the tools used to produce it.

Because there's no real, separable, intellectual property it would be better to account for it as a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting) . There are no patents, trademarks, brand names, etc. that would have a value/worth to a different organization.

Bitcoin gives the users the power to disintermediate the conventional banks and classical accounting. This just means that the work done (expensively) by the bank or accountancy can be done (cheaper) by the end user. But not doing that work at all converts the investors into gamblers.

Conventional finance uses letters of credit to buy/manufacture custom equipment. It is similar to escrow, with the difference that LoC can be used as a collateral for obtaining a loan by the manufacturer. Thus far the Bitcoin "group buy" deals look more like a purchase of a lottery ticket for an office pool that a proper business deal. I'm kinda hoping that this fiasco will give some readers the motivation to familiarize themselves with the commerce and accounting beyond the most basic "consumer" level, or in this case "investomer" level.

Edit: To maybe summarize my post: the choice isn't between "hodl" and "gamble". You always have an intermediate choice of "invest like a pro", which means doing things like "due dilligence", "accounting", "risk analysis" without handholding and safety net from "Fidelity Investments" or other retail brokerage.