How is it a viable business model if a largely autonomous single purpose device makes more money than it costs to buy? Surely you'd just mine with them instead of selling?

As much as the CAPITALISTS hate crypto currency I will support it even if there is no stock of GPUs for 10 years. This is the new era where the government is loosing its grip on expensive money transfers thanks to the literate taxes and the currency that looses value over night because some countries are having trade wars.

Spreadie
How is it a viable business model if a largely autonomous single purpose device makes more money than it costs to buy? Surely you'd just mine with them instead of selling?

No one knows what crypto markets will do, but selling these at 20k a pop is surely making money for Bitmain.

Spreadie
How is it a viable business model if a largely autonomous single purpose device makes more money than it costs to buy? Surely you'd just mine with them instead of selling?

Presumably their business model and resulting stakeholders are a) in the hardware business rather than speculation/coin mining business and b) are satisfied with the returns from hardware sales.

Viability doesn't hinge on making the most amount of money possible.

Spreadie
How is it a viable business model if a largely autonomous single purpose device makes more money than it costs to buy? Surely you'd just mine with them instead of selling?

Wasn't the best way to make money in the old gold rush to sell pick axes?

Spreadie
How is it a viable business model if a largely autonomous single purpose device makes more money than it costs to buy? Surely you'd just mine with them instead of selling?

By that mentality, Nvidia should stop selling GPUs and just do inhouse mining.

It's the same thing as always, the tools you manufacture can always be used to make more than you do using them than you selling them. But then everyone needs the tool so therefore you make bank on that fact not the more fluffy post sale one.

Think of it like a farming equipment manufacturer, it costs buttons for the shovels, hoes and tools to plow and farm a land and will after a single harvest make more than the tools were purchased for. But they still needed the tool so that's where Bitmain is sitting.

I also bet they have some of these running making them money as well anyway.

Tabbykatze
By that mentality, Nvidia should stop selling GPUs and just do inhouse mining.

It's the same thing as always, the tools you manufacture can always be used to make more than you do using them than you selling them. But then everyone needs the tool so therefore you make bank on that fact not the more fluffy post sale one.

Think of it like a farming equipment manufacturer, it costs buttons for the shovels, hoes and tools to plow and farm a land and will after a single harvest make more than the tools were purchased for. But they still needed the tool so that's where Bitmain is sitting.

I also bet they have some of these running making them money as well anyway.

Got to test them haven't they! Probably one of the few times in software development where management are happy to do a little more ‘testing’.

DanceswithUnix
Wasn't the best way to make money in the old gold rush to sell pick axes?

Yes, I was going to reference that but the single application and autonomous points would just invite arguments about the effort and further utility of pick axes :)

Spreadie

DanceswithUnix
Wasn't the best way to make money in the old gold rush to sell pick axes?

Yes, I was going to reference that but the single application and autonomous points would just invite arguments about the effort and further utility of pick axes :)

Surely sell and repair pick axes….. I'll get me coat

Spreadie
Yes, I was going to reference that but the single application and autonomous points would just invite arguments about the effort and further utility of pick axes :)

I was wondering if there were other things than Eth that this thing could mine if/when Eth2.0 comes out. OFC that could be years off yet, and there still seem to be people fighting it to keep their mining gravy train going. But otherwise, a year down the line, this could be a rather expensive paperweight (though a 3080 seems profitable enough so it should have paid for itself quite easily by then).

So once again, it seems the crypto democratisation of money we were promised is open to anyone with a spare $20000 kicking about. I'll go check the back of the sofa, but I think I'm out. On the upside, if it kills GPU crypto mining then I'm good with that. But then existing asics haven't done that, and in a way this ups the investment and momentum behind the current proof of work disaster so possibly gets us more entrenched in that.

hopefully all the miners will buy these so gamers can actually get gpus then I hope the market crashes hard as hell.
Infact even if I don't get a decent gpu from this I will be happy knowing scumbag miners have lost money.

DanceswithUnix
I was wondering if there were other things than Eth that this thing could mine if/when Eth2.0 comes out. OFC that could be years off yet, and there still seem to be people fighting it to keep their mining gravy train going. But otherwise, a year down the line, this could be a rather expensive paperweight (though a 3080 seems profitable enough so it should have paid for itself quite easily by then).

So once again, it seems the crypto democratisation of money we were promised is open to anyone with a spare $20000 kicking about. I'll go check the back of the sofa, but I think I'm out. On the upside, if it kills GPU crypto mining then I'm good with that. But then existing asics haven't done that, and in a way this ups the investment and momentum behind the current proof of work disaster so possibly gets us more entrenched in that.

After bitmain brought out their big BTC miners, around that time or economically shortly after there was the crash. Maybe all these big mining houses getting these instead will cause another downturn and disinter people from eth mining and the gpu sector will dip again from crypto miners in lieu of getting something far better and cheaper.

But will Bitmain be able to supply enough to cause this? Probably not

lumireleon
As much as the CAPITALISTS hate crypto currency I will support it even if there is no stock of GPUs for 10 years. This is the new era where the government is loosing its grip on expensive money transfers thanks to the literate taxes and the currency that looses value over night because some countries are having trade wars.

You know money transfers are not affected in any way whatsoever right ? There are millions upon millions of transfers per second in the real world, crypto simply can't handle that (bitcoin is especially useless in this regard, it's like 10 per second and costs an absolute fortune).

Crypto moves money from 1 person to another, that's about it. It has no value outside of its inherent value. And when it stops, it ceases to exist. It's a useless product propped up by itself. And don't even get me started on the waste of electricity.

Tunnah
… It's a useless product propped up by itself.

Sounds like many religions, and they've been going for centuries :D

Spreadie
How is it a viable business model if a largely autonomous single purpose device makes more money than it costs to buy? Surely you'd just mine with them instead of selling?

AFAIK the fact they are selling the generation of hardware, means they are already running the G10 internally. This certainly used to be their strategy - the fastest ones they had were used internally until the difficulty jumped up a level & they had their next product ready to go, at which point they swap out and sell to the rest of the market. They own quite a few mining farms in China.

Lets them have a bit of the cherry on both ends,

Spud1
AFAIK the fact they are selling the generation of hardware, means they are already running the G10 internally. This certainly used to be their strategy - the fastest ones they had were used internally until the difficulty jumped up a level & they had their next product ready to go, at which point they swap out and sell to the rest of the market. They own quite a few mining farms in China.

Lets them have a bit of the cherry on both ends,

So, as soon as the efficiency starts tailing off they swap out for next gen and flog the current stuff while it's still marginally attractive. Sweet deal.

If its true, its not a bad business model, mine on the stuff you have, get coins, then use the cash coming in from selling the old ones to purchase the hardware to build the new stuff..

Spreadie
So, as soon as the efficiency starts tailing off they swap out for next gen and flog the current stuff while it's still marginally attractive. Sweet deal.

Yep. You see the exact same pattern all the way down the chain. Heck back when BTC was actually profitable to mine at home (which is crazy to think of since at the time it was only a few hundred $/BTC) I would buy Antminers a few generations old which had been through several hands first, use them for a few months and then resell on ebay.

It was win-win as you tended to get back what you paid for the miner and made a bit of cash along the way. Apart from the first one I bought, which I kept as a memory of when BTC was actually a profitable thing to mine in the UK.

I just wish I had not used my BTC there and then, like so many people i'd be rich by now!

These things suck up more juice and make more noise and heat than it's worth for a home miner, but for those with the space and money to do it professionally without taking down a power grid… they can be very lucrative. However as a home miner running GPU's myself, I hope it takes them a while to release them, and I hope they are quite limited in supply until us GPU miners can move on to something else haha.

The big question… will this divert the buy of GFX cards to this product instead? Or is re-sell factor still a thing?

QuorTek
The big question… will this divert the buy of GFX cards to this product instead? Or is re-sell factor still a thing?

Mining is almost irrelevant at this point - Scalpers will pounce on whatever product is in demand, be it hangbags, shoes or GPUs. Materials shortages and mining helped create the demand for GPUs but the scalpers are perpetuating it by dint of not moving on to another product and, as long is there is demand, prices will remain high. If miners moved to ASICs for ETH, I'll bet scalpers would take up the slack immediately - there is enough latent demand to keep it going until next year.

I seriously doubt things will get back to normal unless there is a new Cabbage Patch craze or something to divert their attention.