From a friend: "…did you guys know the ASIC servers are coming online in the next 2 months? The network difficulty is about to go right through the roof. There’s going to be really dramatic unloading and shuffling until the network stabilizes around the new production paradigm
I should add that GPUs have additional costs which ASIC servers do not. Namely, you can hook more than 2 ASIC servers to a single computer. Most PCs max out at 3 or 4 GPUs. With a series of USB hubs, it would be possible to hook an unlimited number of ASIC servers into a single computer. As such, you save a ton of money on support (non-revenue generating) hardware. Really, who wants a dozen motherboards anyway?
…There’s more costs associated with hardware than the GPU. Namely, a PC can only hold three or four of those bad boys. Believe me when I tell you, the cost of extra mother boards, memory, power supplies, ram, and monitor switches adds-up quickly. Not to mention the heat. 15 GPUs can raise a sealed 20x20 room’s ambient temperature by 75 degrees in less than 5 minutes. It takes some serious engineering to expel that much heat from an enclosed space. I thought a plastic fan might work in the window…then the fan melted. A cluster of GPUs needs an actual exhaust system, and the space to hold all the equipment. When you cost average non-revenue equipment into the cost of GPU mining, the cost per MH becomes rather prohibitive… Well, it was prohibitive when BTC were trading at less than $10. However, the difficulty was under 1,000,000. With the difficulty over 7,000,000 (it’s gonna break 8 million at the next difficulty check), it’s impossible to make a profit with any number of GPUs. The power costs alone will eat the miners alive.
This bubble is the last chance for GPU miners to recover their sunk costs and turn a profit.
I pay $.11 per kWh. With 24 GPUs @ 750,000 difficulty I could make 2-3 BTC per day through pooled mining. The power costs were $750 per month. I could break-even while BTC stayed above $10. I never recovered all my sunk costs.
Assuming power costs are comparable everywhere, a 24 GPU system (which is a big cluster computer) @ 7,500,000 (or 10x difficulty) should be able to produce .2-.3 BTC per day. I’d say that’s, at most, 14 BTC a month. The price needs to stay above $50 to break even. I guess fifty is the new zero while there’s still GPU mining.
I assume all miners, prior to the current bubble, have been running at a loss for a very long time.
The major source of cost is power. The ASIC systems use 5 to 10 times less power than GPU systems. To me, that means the ASIC miners can sell their coins for less than GPU miners’ coins. I would assume the ASICs will drive the price of BTC back down to $20 or so.
The ASIC boxes are quiet, cool, and consume almost no power. Not to mention the fact that you can hook dozens of them into a network of USB hubs. One computer, dozens of miners. To me, that equals very low barriers to entry. Lots of competition in a zero-sum game. Thanks anyway."
