Bitcoin ASIC miners now shipping

[madfranks]

It's about time. Just got this in my inbox:


BFL Products Shipping Now
May 1, 2013

Shipping of our BitForce SC ASIC miners has begun!

You may have seen news reports of our ASIC miners in the wild and some of you may have already taken delivery. It's all true. We're finally shipping. You will receive your order as we work through the shipping queue .

If you didn't know, you can check your order status on our website. Log in by clicking here. Use the same email and password you set up your account with.

If you don't have your password, use the Lost Password function to create a new one.


So what took so long?

This third generation of our SHA256 engine was a complex multi-year investment in bringing the latest semiconductor technology to bitcoin mining.

Developing a fully custom 65nm ASIC processor is not a casual undertaking. In fact, the new products have improved mining speed by a factor of 72. This much advancement doesn't come easy and it's fair to say that getting here has been eventful.

The key issue has been the engineering related to accommodating larger power draws than expected. A good example is the Jalapeno product. It was originally designed to be powered by USB but now consumes the power of a small light bulb (30w).

Consequently the power regulator, enclosure, airflow and PCB needed upgrading to suit. Although we are *very* aware of the undesirable dynamics of any delay, we were nonetheless obligated to make these updates in order to deliver a reliable product at the expected performance. The same adjustments have been made with all products in the lineup. You can see the adjusted product cases in our currently posted product lineup. (The Mini Rig case will be double shipped to satisfy their orders which is why we've run out Mini Rig enclosure stock).

Final confirmation is required

Please be advised that due to the adjustments described above, we need your confirmation prior to release of your order into the final build queue and on to final delivery. It may also be a good time to review your purchase altogether relative to the bitcoin market as this is the last opportunity to do so. If your order is not confirmed, it will be canceled and your money will be refunded.

Thank you for your support and we wish you great satisfaction with your product!

[madfranks]

The main implication of this is we are about to watch the price of bitcoins drop, as this advanced mining technology allows coins to be mined much faster. I expect somewhere between a 50-75% drop in bitcoin price over the next few months.

[Ares]

The main implication of this is we are about to watch the price of bitcoins drop, as this advanced mining technology allows coins to be mined much faster. I expect somewhere between a 50-75% drop in bitcoin price over the next few months.

It might actually do the opposite. It will temporarily dip while some players who didn't get in early wait on the side lines on MtGox waiting for price drops. They see it drop to where they want and start buying causing the price to stabilize or go back up. It's hard to say. This is all new territory for everyone. Definitely an exciting time.

[Son-of-Liberty]

Even if it dips it will only be temporary. Difficulty will adjust and the volume of new coins will return to normal.

[vacuum]

The main implication of this is we are about to watch the price of bitcoins drop, as this advanced mining technology allows coins to be mined much faster. I expect somewhere between a 50-75% drop in bitcoin price over the next few months.

Coins will always be mined at the same rate, at 50 coins/block currently. It doesn't matter if there are only 5 people mining on their PCs, or thousands of multicore asics. The asics simply make the difficulty increase, but don't change the coin mining rate.

[Son-of-Liberty]

The actual volume of mining rigs sent out by BFL is in question. It looks like they sent out a few rigs to press and promanent people to create hype around their product but shipping is now pushed back to July.

Some information can be found here.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114329.1480

Personally I think BFL is a huge scam.

Looks like they are taking pre-order money to use either for research and development or to create rigs to mine themselves. I almost placed an order before finding that thread on bitcointalk but their miners were too good to be true so I decided not to. They would pay for themselves at current difficulty in two weeks. Why would they ship them when they could just run them themselves and make a fortune.

Either they are running customers product themselves or they over-promised during pre-launch and cannot deliver what they claimed and are now running a ponzi scheme operation with the money from pre-orders.

[Neuro]

The actual volume of mining rigs sent out by BFL is in question. It looks like they sent out a few rigs to press and promanent people to create hype around their product but shipping is now pushed back to July.

Some information can be found here.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114329.1480

Personally I think BFL is a huge scam.

Looks like they are taking pre-order money to use either for research and development or to create rigs to mine themselves. I almost placed an order before finding that thread on bitcointalk but their miners were too good to be true so I decided not to. They would pay for themselves at current difficulty in two weeks. Why would they ship them when they could just run them themselves and make a fortune.

Either they are running customers product themselves or they over-promised during pre-launch and cannot deliver what they claimed and are now running a ponzi scheme operation with the money from pre-orders.
Nothing wrong with testing the product for many weeks to make sure that it performs well before releasing it to the customer... ;)