Well I'm still looking for the best BTC miner out there. The BFL 600GH/s miner sounded good because I can just place it into my already cooled case. Though I'm very tempted in getting a ready made miner case. Hash Fast has a 1.2GH/s miner, CoinTerra has a 2GH/s miner but can't be shipped anywhere (just local pickup or hosted service).

I know BFL products have heat issues; their previous generation of miners have somehow flawed case designs. Many actually run their setup with the covering case; others actually drilled holes for the miner to breath. Do you think BFL products are prone to early failure?

I have used this site to speculate BTC mining profitability: http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/
After some thinking, the HashFast Sierra 1200GH/s sounds much better. Also took into consideration worst case scenarios like bitcoin difficulty reaching 1,000,000,000 and bitcoin price going down; this unit which lets say will cost 10000$ can pay itself in under 2 months.
8 days later
in a week it jumped $300 that is crazy!
I did something stupid today. Bitcoin crashed from 608$ to 535$. I noticed the crash when it was 535$ and freaked out and sold my bitcoins. In few minutes, bitcoin price went up to 580-590$, then to 600$. Apparently the bubble pop lasted 10 minutes only. I bought at 590$ fearing that the price wouldn't go down; well it didn't, but I lost half a bitcoin darn it.

I think lesson learned: never sell your bitcoins till you reach your target. Lost about 13 bitcoins since the last crash in April 2013 :S

Bitcoin now at 730$. Sorry but I got to say WTF!

So yeah minor set back today but I am still happy.

Regarding mining bitcoin, it turned out that getting miners was a hard deal. The good ASIC miners can be ready by January at the soonest. So the difficulty would be impossible by the time I get my hands on a unit. Let's keep our bitcoins as is till the price reach the moon; and by moon I mean 100K ;)

Has anyone every tried to withdraw USD cash from a bitcoin exchange? I'm thinking of moving to BTC-E or BTCCHINA but not sure if they support withdrawal via bank transfer. I'm still with gox, but I guess they'll make it a hard deal when you try to withdraw.
@MrClass i am selling BFL ASIC miners in Lebanon. If you're interested PM me.
As for withdrawing, did you get AML approved? My last withdrawal took 3 weeks to complete

BTC-China requires you to have a Chinese bank account.

@scatman which miners do you have and how much are you selling them for? Would it be worth it given how fast the mining difficulty is increasing?

I'm interested as well, please let us know the price.

Thanks aliessayli2
BFL is selling the 5GH/S ASIC for 275$ + 36$ shipment to Lebanon
Customs and libanpost charges around 50$ extra.
So i think 400$ is a reasonable price. No?
Knowing that if you order one now from BFL.... you won't get your item until February (estimation). I received my ASICs 8 months after i ordered them.

Would it be worth it given how fast the mining difficulty is increasing?

The mining difficulty is absolutely increasing and so is the the price of a bitcoin
so looking at the current price, difficulty and hash rate, and using the Mining Calculator i got:
bitcoin

Most people are doing pool mining.
On BFL website i quote "Processing Power: 5 GH/s (+/- 10% running variance)". The miners i got are doing 7.5GH/S (I'll post images of a miner i am running if anyone asks for it).
as for the exchange rate, last night it went up to 900$ while now its 553$ (It was a few cents 4 years ago).

In summary, don't buy an ASIC miner unless you believe in the future of bitcoins. People used to mine 10 bitcoins/day when the price was in cents. For some people it wasn't worth it, for others it was. The bitcoin reached 900$ yesterday night.
My point is: 0.1 bitcoins maybe worthless for some now. But in the future it may be worth thousands (Or null).

@rtp
Actually i am doing both. Mining + selling ASICS for some money.

7 days later
9 days later
China banned the banks from dealing with bitcoins..... here comes the huge fall....
Hybrid wroteChina banned the banks from dealing with bitcoins..... here comes the huge fall....
indeed its 600 now.
rtp wrote
Hybrid wroteChina banned the banks from dealing with bitcoins..... here comes the huge fall....
indeed its 600 now.
It was around $800 10 hours ago, expected to go down to $200~$300 soon... all other coins are affected aswell... LTC, NMC and PPC has dropped aswell... everyone's selling
5 days later
Hi everyone, I'm a Lebanese living in SF, working on a couple Bitcoin related businesses. I'm excited to see a good Lebanese community around Bitcoin.

I'm heading over to Lebanon in January and would love to meetup and get a discussion going with the local community. Things to talk about include: where Bitcoin is at today in Lebanon, what are plans in the near term, opportunities to grow adoption in Lebanon and the ME region, and anything else you come up with.

Anyone on here are interested in getting a good conversation started?
A nice chat about crypto currency sounds great. Maybe I'll share my litecoin mining experience. I'm about to make my first LTC :D
Great, glad to hear it. Samer, are you suggesting we meet before or after January 5? Both are fine with me.

Also, can you think of other avenues where we should spread the word? It would be great to get a diverse set of people from various places.