ASICs were for sale from Avalon http://launch.avalon-asics.com/ but they only took orders for a <1000 in 3 batches that sold out very quickly and are going for 20k + on eBay. Butterfly labs has been promising a lot for a long time but there is no evidence yet that they will actually deliver anything. They have taken a lot of pre-orders though. There is a third company that lets you buy shares and is running ASICs but doesn't sell them. I can't remember the name at the moment.

'ASICminer' is the third company.

During their first week of operation they paid out 3860 BTC (~$480,000) spread over 163,964 shares. [1]

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1568242#msg...

Why not an FPGA?

They did do FPGA, many of the companies selling FPGA boards to mine have ceased operations because interest has dropped off since ASICS are where it is at now.

FPGAs are the same speed as GPUs but cost more, so they're only better if you're paying a lot for power.

The advantage to FPGAs is that they can be designed rapidly. ASICs are cheaper to manufacture and usually run faster.

Actually, if you were serious about mining, FPGAs might still be a good choice. They are approximately as efficient as current ASICS, just much slower. Plus they will have resale value.

I don't see why decent ASICs will ever be for sale. It'll be more profitable to run them than to sell them so the manufacturers will keep them.

Because you need a large capital investment to get an ASIC made. taking pre-orders and selling some is one way to get that cash.

Besides the crowdfunding argument, it may be possible to sell an ASIC miner for more BTC than it will ever generate during its lifetime.

In theory, miners will have a better estimate of BTC future values than the manufacture.

In practice, miners might even be a little generous in their estimates (because they are self-selecting).

And more importantly, the risk is reduced. If BTC tanks, the manufacturer will have already cashed out. If BTC goes up, the manufacture will have lost some potential profits, but will still have made a decent amount.

Yea that's what I'm saying. It wouldn't be worth it unless you have really cheap or free electricity. If you're considering buying ASICs you should be very careful.