So some of you may know me from BCT and other forums since late 2010/early 2011... some of you probably dont. I just thought I would take a second to share why I won't be buying the new planned* ASIC miner for SC.
I think that SC is a great project with great potential and I am currently a host on the network myself with a decent holding allocation of SC...so this post is not meant to be derogatory in any way towards the SC team, their project, plans or goals. I am also currently GPU mining SC.
I joined the crypto-sphere in late 2010 and started mining Bitcoin immediately and shortly after, several other alt coins. Below I am going to outline a couple points and reasons as to why I won't be pre-ordering the new Obelisk ASIC from the SC dev team.
1- Pre-Order Concept Miner.
Being a miner or the last 6+ years, there is one thing that I have learned the hard way... several times unfortunately. The major learned lesson was to never pre-order any mining hardware unless there is some verifiable proof of construction available. Not proof of concept... not engineered drawings... not digitally rendered images... A true proof of construction or prototype is required for me to place a pre-order. I have purchase some of Bitmain's hardware on there semi-preorder system but that is generally for a couple months and they have a proven track record of delivering mining hardware. I first fell for the pre-order trap with Butterfly Labs in late 2011 or maybe 2012 when they opened up their Butterfly Labs Jalapeno miner for pre-order... $150 for a 5 Gh/s miner while bitcoin was super cheap... so it was a large investment at the time for a nascent industry and me being a college student. I didn't receive that miner until the end of 2013... When the altcoin craze was going on in 2014, I pre-ordered two miners from Alpha-T... totaling roughly $2,600 and I have never received them to this day. I will not be pre-ordering any miners... ever again... at least without a working prototype. The Obelisk unfortunately does not meet that requirement.
2- Currently no dedicated development team.
The SC team is currently selling the pre-order of a miner that has no set specifications, no working prototype development and no formal team behind it yet (other than the SC team) so it seems like it is trouble waiting to happen. From the FAQ on the obelisk site "Right now the Sia core team is launching Obelisk, but we will be hiring for an Obelisk team in the near-future." So right now they are taking pre-orders for a miner that doesn't even have dedicated team behind it. The SC team is great but you can only do so much at one time. It is just a concept at this point. Developing a custom ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Is not simple. There have been numerous companies to try and fail throughout history. Not just crypto mining but in general. They are raising money for a miner that has never existed with a team that currently does exist.
And they set some lofty goals:
3- Lead time.
Aside from the fact that there is no current way to verify the sort of progress this ASIC miner has achieved so far, there is already a stated lead time of 1 year. June 2018 is the current estimated delivery date. So if everything in the development and technical process goes PERFECTLY... you will get a miner in June of 2018. If there is any problem at all... expect several additional months of work or more.... or worst case... no miner at all.
So... what would my suggestion be other than NOT buying this ASIC concept miner?
Well in addition to learning not to pre-order any miners in the crypto industry I have also learned that money now is normally better than money later when it comes to mining.
I would suggest two options:
1- Take the $2500 that you would consider investing in this non-existent miner and buy Bitcoin (or your favorite altcoin or SC) and hold until next year and you will probably make much more than waiting for the miner to be released and then waiting for ROI and then accruing profit after that.
2- Take the $2500 that you would consider investing in this non-existent miner and buy GPU's (if you can find them) and miner the hell out of SC while you can. Come this time next year, IF the ASIC miner gets delivered... the difficulty will skyrocket. So you would be taking advantage of the current lower difficulty levels now. Hold the mining earnings you make, wait for the difficulty increase/price increase and be a happy camper.
Just my 2 sat on the subject. Thanks for reading if you made it this far haha