Quote from: Ultimist on June 29, 2012, 09:08:22 AM

Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on June 29, 2012, 08:58:51 AM

In the first few days of the ASIC being out they can be quite profitable, but the difficulty will quickly increase to diminish the profits.

In a way, that's a shame. It seems that these new ASIC machines will quickly make it nearly impossible for the little guy to mine enough BTC to make it worth the effort. Something like this could turn BitCoin into something that benefits those who already have the BTCBTCBTC or $$$, and the little guy gets the tiniest, tiniest scraps that are leftover... and that sounds too much like a monetary system we are already too familiar with.

Anyway, hopefully I can build a small Jalapeno army rather quickly within a few months, and then start buying the $1299 ones that do 40 Gh/s... and slowly work my way up to the 1000 Gh/s monster.

One good thing, though... I doubt many people will invest in the more expensive ASICs right away... They'll likely want to see the results (and consistency) delivered by the Jalapeno before plunking down a huge investment for the (supposedly) more powerful units.

Bit-pay processed 46000BTC worth of orders in the first two days after the announcement, so it's safe to say the demand's there Wink

Whether BFL can actually make anything remotely close to their projections remains to be seen.

Quote from: Ultimist on June 29, 2012, 09:44:17 AM

I don't see this as a "get rich quick scheme." I see it as an income opportunity. I simply want to be able to keep up with the pack to generate a decent income. My Radeon 5850 would net me about BTC1.50 a month if I let it go 24/7, but I use my computer... BTC1.50 a month isn't exactly getting rich, NOR is it a reasonable income. The Jalapeno does about 11.67 times what my 5850 can do... That would net me BTC17.07 per month (at the current difficulty), which is much better. Not enough to consider an income, but definitely enough to help with some of the bills. So if I can get at least a few Jalapenos and keep up with the difficulty changes, and the drop to BTC25 per block, I can help myself with at least a decent supplemental income.

Your calculations are way off.
Even if you're only getting 300Mhash (undervolting?) you'd be earning BTC5.3 per month or so at the current difficulty. On a decent PPS+ scheme like projectx, Clipse's pool or GPUMAX, you'd get >6.