That is the big risk with ASIC miners of course. You have to hope that the price of the cryptocurrency you're mining continues to increase ahead of the difficulty.

My S9 investment has paid off now, but only because the price of BTC continues to rise. When I received it back in March, it was making over £300 per month. At times the return has been lower than £200 per month but now it's back over £300 and the unit is still going strong and has more than paid for itself. It's a gamble of course; had the price not continued to rise, I could've been left with an expensive (and rather large) paper-weight.

Having said that, one of the interesting things about cryptocurrencies is that they're generally fairly self-regulating. If mining becomes unprofitable, miners will either stop mining or stop selling (and wait for prices to rise), which reduces the supply (and exchange selling/dumping), pushing prices up and improving mining profitability. Of course other factors, such as FUD, can dramatically (though usually temporarily) affect the price, but I think the general underlying regulation that drives the upward trend is the balance between mining difficulty and mining profitability.

From that perspective, as long as nothing else drastically affects the cryptocurrency prices, I think we can expect L3/D3 mining to follow the same path. So, while the high-profitability opportunities might be missed by all but those lucky few who manage to get their hands on such miners early, I think profitability will quickly fall and then recover to a level that produces an ROI of around 10-12 months.

I am glad I decided not to buy D3 from Alibaba. They are in stock again from Bitmain for $1450. I placed order for 1 but this time they only accept USD wire transfer, no Bitcoins so I have 7 days now to figure out best/cheapest way to do it.

Interesting ^ I wonder if this is why: Top China Bitcoin exchange to stop trading

Something has certainly had a dramatic effect on crypto prices.

Have you guys got your L3s yet?

That news is certainly the main cause. Any FUD involving China always causes the prices to plummet.

As long as the negativity that's causing it eventually blows over and the prices recover, it's generally a good thing because it brings more investment. Existing cryptocurrency holders will buy more and people who are new to cryptocurrencies, who felt that the prices were previous too high to make a quick profit, are more likely to invest when there's a significant dip.

Still waiting for news on the L3+ miners. Should be shipping any time now hopefully.

https://i.imgur.com/9MbvxEe.jpg

Haha perfect :ROFL:

D3 is sold out again now.

As for the L3+ the one I bought estimated shipping date was September 21-30 so realistically still 2-3 weeks to go.

Back in stock again and also L3+ in stock as well. Looks like some of Chinese buyers might be cancelling their orders so they become available again. Or they be the units that Bitmain intended to use for their own mining operations but have now decided to sell on due to uncertainties in China. https://shop.bitmain.com/main.htm?lang=en

D3 also at more reasonable price on e-bay now http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302453682121?ul_noapp=true

So he's selling what he doesn't yet have? Only problem I see with that .... isn't there a time limit on Ebay/PayPal disputes?

I suppose there is but the one that sold on auction for EUR9100 last week was also pre-order and some at £12k Buy it now were also pre-order. I am sure ebay allows pre-order items but not sure what the exact terms are for them.