9.12 ASIC choices: ASIC earnings update

0. Introduction
Avalon batch 3 went on sale tonight, for ~ 75 btc for a ~67 Ghps unit and 103 btc for an 85 Ghps model. Avalon estimate this will be earned back in the first month of operation. I wasn't so sure, so I decided to to an update post.

I also finally managed to get bitcoind running (no thanks to the lack of OSX support) and able to be queried from R, so I can produce clean estimates of the historical network hashrate, minimising the effect of luck. I found that a penalised B spline was a more accurate estimate of the network hashrate than the generalised smoothing spline I'd used earlier. The 95% confidence interval for the mean are the 2.5% and 97.5% quantiles of 1000 bootstrapped simulations.

Otherwise there are no changes in method or presentation from the last post.

Dataset of the earnings estimates if you have trouble reading values from the charts.

1. Assumptions
Updated information plus my current guesses and estimates:

• Arrivals are constant. Rather than modelling arrival times, I'm assuming a constant rate of hashes per second added to the network for each of the batches.
• Batch 1: COMPLETE
• Batch 2: 600 of 67 Ghps units delivered from 30th April to 1st June.
• Batch 3: 500 of an even mix of  67 and 85 Ghps units, delivered from 30th May to 1st July
• BFL delivers 2000 Ghps per day (~35 SC Singles per day) from 30th April to 1st July.
• ASICMiner delivers 2 Thps  until 31st March.
• ASICMiner delivers 50 Thps  from 1st April to 1st June.

2. Charts

Chart 1: As mentioned above first chart is for readers who are interested how I estimate the network hashrate. The dots are the daily average hashrates, the blue line is the hashrate estimate, the blue shaded area the bootstrapped 95% confidence interval for the hashrate estimate, and the red line is Difficulty (no scale provided for Difficulty).

Now I always know what the network hashrate is right now.

Chart 2: This group of charts show the expected hashrate, difficulty and blocks per day given my assumptions. Data prior to the dotted white line is historical data.

Chart 3 shows:

• Expected cumulative BTC earnings per Ghps, when starting mining on the Friday of each week, from 1st February.
• Daily BTC earnings from 1st February.

Charts 4 and 5 show the cumulative electricity costs and daily electricity costs for all known ASIC devices, separated into 220V and in 110V countries.

3. How to estimate earnings

1. Decide when you think your ASIC will arrive and what the US$ exchange rate will be. Read the btc earned from the cumulative earnings chart,  multiply by the hashrate of the device you wish to assess. Multiply by your  estimated USD$ exchange rate to find an earnings estimate in US$. 
2. On the appropriate cumulative electricity costs chart, select the on the x axis of the number of days mining of which you wish estimate the cost, and on the y axis your electricity cost per kWh. The estimated cumulative cost of mining can be read from the colourbar on the side.
3. Subtract the electricity costs from the US$ earnings.

Example: You've just bought into Avalon batch 3. You hope your Avalon ASIC will arrive on the 31st of May. The cumulative btc earned by 1st July (the maximum x axis value) is ~ 0.414 BTC / Ghps. You're thinking of purchasing a 3 hashing unit Avalon, so you multipy that by 67 Ghps to get 27.73 BTC. You haven't paid for your new Avalon in BTC just yet!

You estimate the exchange rate will rise to US$100 per BTC by then for a gross earning of $2773.

You live in Australia with 240V main and your electricity costs are US$0.25 per kWh. From the upper cumulative electricity chart, you mark the intersection of 30 days (x axis) and US$ 0.25/kWh (y axis) and by matching the colour from the colour bar, estimate a total cost of ~ US$100 (click on the chart for a closer view).

In this case, the net amount earned will be US$2673.

If you dont want to use the charts  the cumulative earnings can be found in this dataset, and the cumulative cost will be:

cumulative daily electricity cost = device watts * cost per kWh / 1000 * days * 24

4. Conclusions

The expected big spike in the network hashrate from the batch 1 Avalons finally arrived over the last two weeks, and this post's estimates are similar but show slightly better cumulative earnings than those  from the last post. This is due in part to:

• Confirmation of no batch 4 from Avalon, offset in part by 50Thps added by ASICMiner, which I estimate will take two months from the start of April to the start of June.
• Delays from ASIC manufacturers means better earnings for those who have their ASICs already.

Thanks to forum member deepceleron for his help, suggestions and encouragement.

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