You have two key players in the bitcoin mining ASIC hardware space - Avalon and BFL - and they're both sold out of multiple "batches" of products.

I get the hype - people want to mine as many bitcoins as possible hoping that they actually have real-world monetary value one day.

But isn't the real money in this business in ASIC-based processor mining hardware? (At least, at the moment)

How difficult is to build these ASIC boxes?

As far as I can tell, the more people mining Bitcoin (with mining pools, GPUs, CPUs, etc.) the more complex the hashes become. So clearly, a few things will happen:

1) CPUs and GPUs will become obsolete (if not already) in mining bitcoins. Primarily because they would be incapable of producing enough Bitcoins in an efficient manner (due to the amount of power required for mining among other things)

2) ASIC boxes will rule - but the more ASIC boxes out there - the more difficult the hashes become and the more power it takes to successfully mine the coins.

I'm not sure if Bitcoin will have real-world value in comparison to paper currency (although maybe it already does considering Namecheap accepts bitcoin).

And certainly the best ways to get bitcoins are mining them - and it appears that ASIC hardware boxes are the way to do this.

I wonder how many players will be born in the ASIC bitcoin hardware market?

What are some thoughts on ASIC hardware, the bitcoin bubble, where this thing goes in the next 6-12-18-24 months, and just a general hacker discussion on this insanity...