[g_sch]

Seems unlikely, given that this story was told from the perspective of someone mining in the pre-ASIC era. I suppose they could have invested in ASICs early on, but they started as a broke student and the reason the story is fun is because they made it work on a shoestring. "And then I bought $200,000 worth of ASICs in an overseas datacenter" doesn't have the same effect.

[lemonking]

The problem with ASICs and FPGAs were indeed that you would have to order them some 6-12 months in advance and pay the multi-thousand cost up front.

The FPGA/ASIC manufacturers were actually using their own stock to mine the best profits and only then ship them to customers.

[SamPatt]

ASICs existed in 2013. But they wouldn't have been obtainable to a broke college student.