March 20th, 2014 
CryptoBadger Yesterday, KnCMiner began accepting pre-orders for their first ASIC scrypt-based mining rigs. Dubbed the “Titan”, KnCMiner claims that each unit will be capable of mining scrypt-based coins (Litecoin, etc) at a rate of at least 100 Mh/sec—far in excess of what GPU-based rigs are capable of today. KnCMiner hasn’t shared power consumption estimates thus far, but each unit will apparently run on a single standard ATX power supply (which is supplied by the customer). The units are scheduled to begin shipping in Q2 or Q3 of 2014, and the pre-order price is set at $9,995 per rig.
There are a handful of other companies that have announced that they’re actively developing ASIC scrypt miners, but KnCMiner is the only one that has a proven track record in this area. KnCMiner’s popular Bitcoin ASIC rigs shipped on time to pre-order customers, and performed in excess of initial estimates—so there is no reason to assume that they won’t be able to deliver on their promises with the Titan.
TechCrunch reported that KnCMiner sold $2 million worth of Titan pre-orders in four hours, so interest in the rigs is apparently quite high.
Edit 3/21: As reader sapientlife points out, ASIC scrypt miners by Gridseed are already available for purchase. The Gridseed miners aren’t very powerful, however—they’re capable of mining scrypt coins about half as fast as a single high-end GPU, for nearly the same up-front cost. However, they’re quite a bit more power efficient than GPU mining (GPUs will use about 10 times as much power at the same hashing speed). Whether or not a Gridseed ASIC beats out GPUs for you depends on electricity costs in your area.
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KnCMiner is very respected and you can count on them to deliver on time.
But do not discount the Fibonacci scrypt ASIC miners expected to ship this July. The least expensive Recursion single chip USB miner will hash at 3460 kH/sec, only consume 5 watts and cost $400 paid with bitcoin.
As a prospective altcoin miner wanting to mine at 3400 kH/sec would you rather have a noisy 5 GPU miner consuming 1500 watts or a single Recursion USB miner at 5 watts? This is a game changer.
Comparison of all litecoin ASIC miners – https://axablends.com/merchants-accepting-bitcoin/litecoin-discussion/litecoin-scrypt-asic-miners/
Fibonacci website – https://fibonacci.io/
KnCMiner website – https://www.kncminer.com/products/titan
This is very bad news. Scrypt mining was supposed to be fairer, now all those with big pockets will rip off the benefit of all small miners like us by making difficulty increase exponentially…just like what happened with Bitcoin. What a disappointment!
We’re Doomed! Dooooooooooooooommmmmed I tell you!!
You would be nuts to hand over $10K worth of BTC on nothing more than a website ad. Couple that with the fact that if you read the T&C on their website, they NEVER have to refund you the money if you request it. EVER! So, if they fail to deliver on time, fail to deliver the advertise specs, go out of business, etc… they will keep what you sold them. Talk about a license to steal. I wish I could get suckers to hand me $2M worth of bitcoins and get them to sign an agreement basically saying that I’ll try to build the device but I don’t have to provide them with anything if shit hits the fan.
Sure, KnC is reputable. Big deal. Lots of reputable businesses fail on a daily basis.
What about the Gridseed ASIC miners? There already on the market
Good point, while the Gridseeds aren’t in the same league as the upcoming units promised be KNC and others, they’re certainly ASIC-based. I’ve updated my post – thanks!
good spelling, they’re already on the market
Now what?!?
Based on the history from BTC, once the ASICs enter the picture it’s bye, bye to us normal guys with a couple of rigs in the basement.
I guess my LTC mining days are over?
Seems like my options are:
1. Get into the craze, buy ASICs and keep my fingers crossed…
2. Sell all my stuff… take up drinking…
3. Get into something else?
Options 1 and 2 seems bad. Which leaves me with option 3.
What are the thinking amongst you fellow miners???
No need to give up mining, but you should give serious consideration to preordering ASICs and selling off some of your GPUs now while you can still get a good price on ebay.
By taking your money from GPU sales you will be able to buy more hashing power from the new ASICS while lowering power consumption. No brainer solution and there are other scrypt coins to mine besides litecoin of course.
I have been thinking hard and long regarding ASICs and my conclusion is that it does not make sense.
Your payout is really tied to your % share of the overall network. (Ignoring price fluctuation)
This mean that you will have to maintain your % share over time to continue to have a stable payout.
Enter ASICs, and big players, that actually own the production channel of the ASICs, and you can’t win.
I don’t want to sell off my mining rigs, so the next best thing is to go find a different coin to mine.
Any suggestions here? I’ll try Vertcoin for a while…
What’s up Frodo, CB, and all! Been a minute.
Anyways… yeah. If you are limited to mining Litecoin with the asics, then it will be a scenario like Bitcoin is now, where the little guy is squeezed out… as has been mentioned.
Luckily there will likely be other scrypt coins that you can mine for a larger profit… just like now. Well, lets hope.
As far as different hashing algorithms go, I hear that most of the ones we are seeing now (X11, n-scrypt, etc) will not necessarily be ASIC proof… I read that you can modify the ASIC miners to do these other algos. Unless I am reading this incorrectly, or this guy is completely wrong:
https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=18166.msg152706#msg152706
Personally I am seeing ASICs in my future most likely. I might do it slowly, so as to not get stuck with older gen ASIC harware, but if I really want to stay in this mining game, it sort of seems inevitable.
Still GPU mining scrypt for the time being, but may try x11 if there is another hot coin that comes along using it… much lower power consumption.
I would love to hear more about how everyone feels about this and what their plans are.
Hi Brows!
I moved all my litecoin rigs to Vertcoin.
It’s more of a wait and see move. With the current profit margins being so low, I don’t want to invest my profits to date into what is likely to become the next ASIC arms race.
My play is that I believe/hope that as litecoin difficulty moves through the roof and people are forced out, the interest for the vertcoins of the world will increase and the relative price go up.
As with all “investment” the wisest path forward might be to spread your investments through different coins, so investments in an asic or two might not be a bad move.
Cheers!
How easy do you think it will be to mine something besides Litecoin with the Fibonacci Recursion? And how hard is it going to be to use? Do you have any info on this axa?
Sounds fantastic so far!
Fibonacci will host the miners at first, you can point your miner at the pool of your choice, use a multipool to mine the most profitable scrypt coin.
Vertcoin or Execoin.
KnCMiner updates hashing figures for the Titan ASIC scrypt miner to 250 mH/sec while keeping price at $9995. Also confirms power draw to be 800-1000 watts.
http://forum.kncminer.com/forum/news-and-anouncments/32076-scrypt-miner-update
Smokin’ hot deal for 10 grand. If you fancy at Titan but can not swing the full price there is a group buy hosted by a trusted member of the Bitcoin Forum at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=522317.0
Already sold out two Titan group buys and now on number 3. Worth a look. For one bitcoin you can own 1/20 of a Titan or 12.5 mH/sec hashing power.
Using GPU’s what can you buy for $600?
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I have just been looking at a website of Mining-asics-technologies, a dutch company.
they are offering a product, the Excalibur-5 for Euro 12,900 ( US$ 17,500 ) which is guaranteed to hash at 250Mh/s min.
They have a buy 1 get 1 free offer on their website.
So for $17.5 Grand you get 500MH/s hashing power. That in itself would let you solo mine quite successfully. At today’s difficulty you could probably get about 1 block ( 50LTC = US$650 ) per day. At that rate it would take less than a month to pay off your asic. Obviously as difficulty increases this would change, but to me it does not sound that bad.
I spent $ 1400 on my 3-card rig and have so far only made 15 LTC in 3 months of mining. The chances of getting my initial outlay back now look very remote.
At present these asics are still only available on paper, and my experience of product development tells me that they are still a bit away from reality.
Once they start to sell real hardware, and it is proven to work, then this might be the only way forward.
Changing to another crypto currency is not the answer. Each currency needs to gain acceptance before it is worth anything. You could spend months mining some Crypto-coin only to find out that you cannot off load them to anybody.
Not every Crypto currency will survive. and of those that do survive, only few will make their way to general acceptance. Bitcioin being the first is already established and Litecoin is only a step behind.
I have doubts about all the rest.
Blackcoin will be the Crypto currency of 2014, mark my words. Mining this is different to anything else. The more you mine and keep the more the price goes up.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackcoin-popularity-value-soars-due-110915981.html
http://www.blackcoin.co/
Just so you know: Gridseed ASICS are actually 50 times more power efficient than GPU’s … not 10 times.
Also; KNC isn’t your friend. They are arrogant, unconcerned with your welfare, never process refunds unless and until confronted with police action and are in the process of building a data center (Gigantic Miner) with YOUR MONEY.
KNC appears to be utilizing a form of extortion in an attempt to get Neptune Buyers to relinquish their hardware contracts in exchange for a “Mining Contract” that will never produce a profit. They are being accused of intentionally delaying their Neptune production roll-out to this end.
Takers will absolve KNC of the obligation to deliver their miners and also lose the ability to mine altcoins after mining Bitcoins becomes impossible.
That impossibility will take place precisely 40 days after their “Data Center” becomes operational … probably before they have delivered a single Neptune.
By the time KNC delivers ANY Neptune-Class hardware … it will already be obsolete … effectively Dead On Arrival. This is NOT an Opinion … it’s a fact, backed by simple mathematics. Run the numbers yourself … The math, unlike KNC, doesn’t lie.
Criminal complaints from several countries have been leveled against KNC with Interpol, Scotland Yard, the FBI and with the StockHolm Police, primarily as a result of KNC’s “policy of intentional deception” regarding the processing of refunds demanded by more than 900 customers over the past six weeks.
One particularly irritated customer has apparently arranged to have each of the KNC corporate officers arrested and transported to Greece or Turkey in the event they attempt to travel outside Sweden by rail or air.
I think I would be extremely hesitant to engage in business with these people under any circumstance. Their probable future appears to be very Gox-Like.
kncminer is a scam, they *tested* your hardware for 5 months until it was unprofitable for them, then, they assembled and shipped!