My understanding (and it could be wrong) is that ASICMiner has made their own asics for their own use. They are not selling them.
Their business model is that they have a sub-pool in a larger mining pool, and they financed their operation by selling shares (denominated in Bitcoin). The shares pay out weekly dividends, based on the awards the mining pool provides to them.
There's a couple (very, very tiny) bitcoin denominated stock exchanges, and on some of them you can buy ASICMiner "passthroughs". These represent shares in ASICMiner that are controlled in large blocks by an individual. That individual passes through the dividends to the passthrough shareholders, minus a small management fee.
It's an elaborate system, but I guess money finds a way, even when it's bitcoin.
That is correct. ASICMINER went through an informal IPO, selling at the time the equivalent of $200k or so of shares. With these funds plus the project's creators own investments, they designed a custom 130nm ASIC. http://bitcoinmagazine.com/asicminer-starts-hashing/
Sorry, I didn't express myself properly. AsicMiner does have ASICs, and Avalon also has shown them to work. All I'm saying is that a government or individual can't buy today enough ASICs off-the-shelf to conduct the 50% attack.
