Bitcoin Forum

Hello,
I really want start mining, but I know actually it's not profitable and most of the time it's a waste of money.
So I wanted to kknow if you think that the mining will be profitable again ?
If not, why there is still so much miner ?

It varies greatly.  Personally I say with a underclocked good miner and cheap electricity it can be done.  But not everyone has the cheap electricity.

Are you able to tell us your electricity price?   We can learn a lot about your situation with that.

Sure it will, mining is important for the existence of Bitcoin so the market will regulate itself either by the lower difficulty or higher price of BTC.
Some people are also looking towards the halving with hope, we'll see how it goes.

I do not know exactly the price of my electricity because i pay to the owner of my flat the "charge" and he is paying electricity, gaz, water, etc... with these charge.
I can tell you I am in Belgium if it helps.

It looks like to take a while, i hope you are true :)

it also depends on WHAT you mine. Say what you will about altcoins, they provide a way to mine something and then trade that for bitcoins.

there are still many miners, because they have already reached their ROi, it's all profit from now for them, especially with their contract that offer to them cheap electricity

for the future, mining could be profitable only if the price will rise faster than the diff, otherwise if the ratio diff/price will remain 1:1, it won't change anything

Is it easy to sell altcoin that is easy to mine ?

Oh i did not know that :O

Not exactly.

Try using https://www.coinwarz.com (https://www.coinwarz.com)

There are many different altcoins that are changing difficulty and market value.

Coinwarz is a great site.  Only thing is difficulty and price change quickly on some coins.

I suggest looking into multipools with BTC payout if you are wanting to mine alt sha coins.  That being said you would be better off with mining BTC in a lot of cases.  Or renting and bringing in even more.

hi MonkeyCoin11.

around the world there are a lot of different context...
first of all it is the electricity cost...
With a very low electricity cost, 5/8dollar cents for kilowatt, you can mine and gain even if the price remains low.
With a EU electricity cost, 20/30dollar cents for kilowatt, you can mine, but not in gain at this bitcoin price...

some days ago, a read this interesting analisys...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1018398.msg11045110#msg11045110

if you want.. take a look

If/When the price of BTC rises, it will become profitable again, give it time.

actually it wouldn't because the diff will rise too, the only hope is the time between the price increase and the time needed for the diff to rise accordingly, only in that frame you can earn something

I don't think the price will rise again :/

It will I think.  Just is going to be a slow upwards movement.  I don't think we will just jump to 1k overnight though.

Also I think it will be interesting to see what halving does to price.  I think in long run next halving could help price, but temporarly hurt miners.

Price will slowly go up, then people sell off. It probably will maintain around 200-300 for a couple months.

Then within 6 months of halving we might see some changing of price. After halving there might be a drop after a couple months as investors (not normal bitcoin users) dump their coins.

I only believe this because there is the NYSE listing and some people don't even use bitcoin for buying or selling. I started out as this might be a cool investment and now I like trading in bitcoin.


But that's just my two cents.

Okay for you mining is absolutely great to make money just not much money.
You pay a flat rate for power so a very small miner would be free power.  
for instance I have a pair of usb sticks using bit fury chips.  each one does about 3.6 or 3.7 gh  two do 7.5gh

your landlord will not notice about 1 euro in power increase.  So small usb sticks are perfect for you.  you won't earn much 3 to 5 euros a year.

Soon better usb sticks are being built (maybe)  

they would earn  2x that so 10 euros a year.

I believe a few of these sticks below would profit.  not a lot but a few.  

2 sticks using 5 watts = 120 watts in a day or 3.6 kwatts a month.  that is not much power cost = maybe 1 euro a month

Almost no landlord will figure that out.Now 20 sticks the landlord would notice.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.msg11048953#msg11048953

I hope price will rise, but actually it's go down slowly and i don't know what could make it go up, but i am a bad trader so maybe you are more right than me.

Hello,
Thank you for advice, but 3 or 5€ per year is very low. Maybe if I use this strategy i have to mine an other coin ?

To deal with more money you would need to use a bigger miner.   As philipma1957 your landlord will notice at a point.   You put in one miner maybe not depending on miner.   But lets say 2-3 S5, SP20, Avalon 4.1's they will notice the electricity price going up.

I'm not sure your contract as far as what is ok and not ok.  I have only had student housing that it would have been ok to do for "free"/included electricity.  But as it would have raised my roomates rates 25 dollars each i did not mine and make them pay what was called the "peak rate".  It just would have been a jerk move.  In most housing contracts there is something to deal with if electricity go to high.

Of course if i use more he will ask me a bit more money to cover charge, but it will be the right price then.

It's a touchy subject a you really don't want to go to a landlord and mention mining.  (I know within past 2 weeks I had one electrician practically run from doing a job when he saw a few miners sitting around. High electricity usage and unknown scares some.).   But you might search online and see what electricity price is to get a idea from your location.  Best would be to ask landlord make sure price of electricity and talk to him in advance before buying a bigger miner (I'm not sure if your contract allows to tack on a overage charge ontop).  But I do realize this is a conversation you chances are do not want to have with landlord.

Ok thanks for the advice, i am gonna search a bit then

I am currently in the process of liquidating all of my mining equipment... A total of 50 T/hash of SHA256; and roughly 80 GPUs total.

The reason?

I lost/am losing my free electricity. Without that-- I would likely not get into mining right now, unless the AC was cheap/or I had a well thought out business plan to make an ROI.

I have been in a long term commercial lease (large space and large power capacity) for 5 years.

My lease just happens to be up... but at the same time; the building was sold to a new owner - who wanted to do a walk through after purchase and well... needless to say; after seeing our mining setup-- was not too happy. (We've been mining for over 14 months - highly profitable with zero AC costs).

So; the new landlord then digs up my lease; combs through the fine print, then sends me a not so nice letter demanding I cease all mining immediately (Basically our lease has a clause which describes our business/subletting/etc) - and that we will only operate "that type of business" under the lease - unless permission is given by the landlord.

They did not see mining bitcoins - which is in effect at it's simplist form turning electricity into currency - as "our business description" when we leased.

So miners were shut down.

Now, this just so happened all within 30 days of the end of our lease anyhow... and it was unlikely I'd find another space with free AC and that kind of power for no charge. So liquidation was a likely possibility anyhow.

But going back to what others have stated: Lease agreements have all sorts of fine print that can be argued to favor the landlord. Leases both residential and commerical - will often use language like "reasonable use" when utilities are included. If your landlord does in fact see that you are pulling (in our case - 32,000 watts - 24/hrs day) - they will no doubt find any way to get you to stop. And their lease document will likely have clauses which allow them to do just that.

Now; to simply close out my comments; I'd like to address my standpoint on the ethics of our mining situation:  1.) I was actually going to purchase the building during the sale process,,, but we could not agree on the fair value of the property (about 1.6 million difference) - so during the initial negotiations; locking in the 2M loan for the mortgage, the credit checks; life insurance; etc - I had access to all of the financials of the building operations - and the building - even with our AC was highly profitable for the owner.

Second: I work in media/content delivery/production - and I contemplated making the argument "Well what if instead installed servers: video streaming servers/or a large networked render farms which could do cloud rendering on demand... similar to mining right?  This could, given the setup- pull a high draw as well. And this setup WOULD be within my business description.

But 30 days out it wasnt worth the fight... It boiled down to the landlord didnt like "how" I was making money. Had I installed 32kW of servers - there would have never been a problem. Which leads me to my last point:

Much of the world still sees Bitcoin as a "shady" product to be involved with. The vast majority of the public has only heard about Silk Road; Bitcoin Corruption; Scandals; Buying Drugs Online; etc. So keep in mind that if you are called out on it - there could be reputation harm as well.

I don't think that was the case with my situation... but certainly something to consider.

Cheers,

Strato

EDIT:  Also - we were highly profitable, and likely could have been as well even with AC costs which are high in my area. We followed the model of Bitmain. We purchased miners only with short pre-sale windows - never long term "reserve" orders. We used the miners to mine using clock speeds - not burning them out. And we then would sell the miners as soon as the next-better-faster-more power effecient product was likely to hit to the streets.

So if you do delve into mining: I would recommend giving high consideration to an ongoing churn/exit strategy of equipment. Always by cycling your equipment. Always be current generation mining; selling while at the end of that generation... but still will fetch a good price, etc. Don't hold miners long periods - because they become obsolete rapidly.

Thank you to share your experience with me :)

seeing the trend, I dont think people would want to mine on a price decline.

The cost of maintenance will get you in the negative which is why bigger ones like CEX has ceized their operation.

I remember seeing plenty of posts on various internet forums, stating that they mine ONLY one bitcoin per DAY and it was costing them more money in electric.

Why is that any different to today?

Obviously those that are currently mining at a loss, feel the same as those folks did back in the day.

Then why do they mine if they only lost ?

Mining could become profitable after the next bitcoi price halving with big farms forced to close small time miners will get the rewards with a lower diff too :P

It's profitable for "smart" guys...Ask KNC, Bitmain, Spondoolies, BB, if it's profitable or not  ;)

The big farm's have the best electricity prices of anyone.  They had the money to chase very cheap electricity. 

If the big farms can't mine, it's likely no one could make ROI.   So like big miners or not it's best for us they still are profitable.

IMO, the mining farms and large outfits are probably whats helping kill the bitcoin valuation. An outfit with huge electricity costs is converting a certain % of those mined coins into electricity payments, and that essentially means putting them on the market.

this is different than your enthusiast miner with a single asic, whose 7-30$ addition per month electric bill isn't being paid with bitcoin, because they're probably hodling.

this assuming that the price/hash will not have the same 1:1 ratio like now, if the price rise the hash will rise too, and it won't change anything from the point of view of the mining, actually it could be worse for casual, because less coin will be distributed, but the earning will stay the same

Like I mentioned, they mine at a loss, in hope that the price goes up, therefore bringing them into profit again.

there is more chance that they reached roi than mining at loss(it doesn't make sense to mine at loss, you can stop mining and waiting for the new opportunity windows when the btc price raise again), if they reached they are doen they can mine forever practically

Well those who believe in Bitcoin may even mine at a loss, however the majority will simply back out :(

if the price increases and difficulty stays the same then it will be profitable again but i don't think that will happen. IMO its better to buy bitcoin directly then mining.

Majority would stop mining I agree with this.   it would take a lot to make the big farms unprofitable.

I would guess I would always run a miner just as I love bitcoin.  But I would not be able to maintain a big hash rate.

Im sorry... Why EVER mine at a loss. Just shut off miners, and instead of paying the money to the electric company buy BTC at market price.

Mine at a loss... No smart business person would do that. Mining is just a way to buy bitcoins.

Strato

Once it becomes close to a loss or a loss, I think smart miners act.  Most will sell the gear to homes with less electricity price.

Only those with "free" electricity will use the miners once they are unprofitable.

Home mining, probably not. Mining industry has become very competitive and it s very hard for newbies to actually build up any sizable farm size to stay in business. All in all, it depends on your electricity price and the ability to achieve economies of scale. In other words, to buy as many miners as possible at the lowest possible price. I highly doubt many newbies can do that.

If they have cheap electricity and plan it out yes they can.  You get some of the advantages of scale as you buy from a asic maker who made a ton of machines.   Now you need cheap electricity, that is not everywhere I agree on that.  Also really need a place without high import tax/vat.

You just have to mine smart.  I personally have started to put together my summer mining area.  I will use fan's to cool miners during summer as AC is to expensive to do it with.

I still prefer cloud simply due to the fact you can easily upgrade your cloud farm and more importantly get out and sell your farm in case you do not like how things develop.
It s gonna take months for a newbie to optimize the farm and everything related and do not forget we are getting closer to that reward reduction in 2016. Nobody knows how s that going to affect mining.

For me two many cloud companies disappear.   And as far as "selling" you might be able to sell your contract, but in most cloud mining you don't own the gear.  If you own the gear your looking at hosting not cloud mining.

With mining at home or with miner in hosting facility you own a piece of hardware.  I think that means a lot as it has value normally.   It helps on ROI to be able to sell your miner at the end.    As far as optimizing you don't have to do much unless you are running a few miners, which is more hash then most invest in cloud.

And having is to far away to really know what it will do, or even consider it.  You just cant predict the effect.

Look at this investigation of "difficulty" to see how it is reducing every month for year over year to help determine if mining is profitable.  You also need cheap power and the capital to buy a substantial amount of rigs:

This difficulty was reduced April 19, 2015 to 47,610,564,513.  On Apr 17, 2014 the difficulty was 6,978,842,650.  That means your hash rate, from April 17, 2014 to April 19, 2015 needed to increase 6.8 times to mine the same amount of coin.  I plan on getting out WAAAAAAAAY ahead of the difficulty before the blocks halve and also have electricity rates of 3.4 cents per kWH to make the block halving much easier to bare if the price of bitcoin is the same as what it is today ($ 238.00).

EDIT: Sunday, May 3, 2015.  Bitcoin difficulty on Apr 29 2014 was 8,000,872,136 [BTC-e $438.60].  On May 3, 2015 it was 47,643,398,018 [BTC-e $240.73].  That means the difficulty rose 5.95 times more than what it was a year prior. [Your hash rate would have to be 5.95 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]  So, if you had 10 TH/s a year ago, you need 59.5 TH/s today to mine the same amount of coin.

Bitcoin difficulty on Apr. 17 2014 was 6,978,842,650 [BTC-e $485.58].  On Apr 19, 2015 it was 47,610,564,513 [BTC-e $220.43].  That means the difficulty rose 6.8 times more than what it was a year prior. [Your hash rate would have to be 6.8 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Apr. 05 2014 was 6,119,726,089 [BTC-e $467.78].  On Apr 05 2015 it was 49,446,390,688 [BTC-e $257.01].  That means the difficulty rose 8.07 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 8.07 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Mar 24 2014 was 5,006,860,589 [BTC-e $588.71].  On Mar 22 2015 it was 46,717,549,645 [BTC-e $266.36].  That means the difficulty rose 9.3 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 9.3 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Feb 17 2014 was 3,129,573,175 [BTC-e $612.00].  On Feb 22 2015 it was 46,684,376,317 [BTC-e $230.23].  That means the difficulty rose 14.9 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 14.9 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Jan 24 2014 was 2,193,847,870 [BTC-e $774.98].  On Jan 27 2015 it was 41,272,873,895 [BTC-e $252.58].  That means the difficulty rose 18 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 18 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Jan 02 2014 was 1,418,481,395 [BTC-e $782.00].  On Dec 30 2014 it was 40,640,955,017 [BTC-e $308.86].  That means the difficulty rose 29 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 29 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Nov 29 2013   was 707,408,283 [BTC-e $1,019.60].  On Dec 02 2014 it was 40,007,470,271 [BTC-e $377.50].  That means the difficulty rose 56.5 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 56.5 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Oct 26 2013 was 390,928,788 [BTC-e $171.37].  On Oct 23 2014 it was 35,985,640,265 [BTC-e $354.17].  That means the difficulty rose 92 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 92 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Sep 25 2013 was 148,819,200 [BTC-e $122.55].  On Sep 25 2014 it was 34,661,425,924 [BTC-e $401.91].  That means the difficulty rose 232.9 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 232.9 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Aug 24 2013 was 65,750,060 [BTC-e $106.34].  On Aug 31 2014 it was 27,428,630,902 [BTC-e $475.90].  That means the difficulty rose 417.1 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 417.1 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Jul 22 2013 was 31,256,961 [BTC-e $84.50].  On Jul 25 2014 it was 18,736,441,558 [BTC-e $594.47].  That means the difficulty rose 599.4 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 599.4 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

Bitcoin difficulty on Jun 29 2013 was 21,335,329 [BitStamp $88.83].  On Jun 29 2014 it was 16,818,461,371 [BitStamp $599.86].  That means the difficulty rose 788.3 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 788.3 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.]

The numbers above reveal at one time we had as much as a 788.3 times increase in difficulty over a year's time.  That number has reduced to 8.07 times more than what we had the year prior.  The amount it increases year over year is being reduced every difficulty change quite significantly.  I think now is the best time to get into mining than this time last year.  I just started myself on September 22nd last year.  By September this year, the difficulty might be around 64,000,000,000.  That would be less than 2 times what it was September of 2014.  

Like I've told others, I think I got in at the right time.  I started out with 7 TH/s September 22, 2014.  I ought to have 210 TH/s by September this year.  That would be 30 times what I started out with September a year ago.  However, the difficulty will have only come a little shy of two times year over year.  I'm hoping to have 20 times that number in September of 2016 at 4,200 TH/s.  And again, the difficulty might be 2 or 3 times what it was the year over year for September 2016 but I will have done a 20 times increase.  I'll stop for a while somewhere in between 5,000 and 10,000 TH/s to recoup all of my investment and then some.  Then start again...

If you look at the numbers below [curtesy of https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty (https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty)] you can see what I see.  For example:  On
On May 24, 2014 the difficulty was 10,455,720,138.  Do you honestly think it will be close to 10 times that at 100.4 Billion this coming May 24th of 2015?  I seriously doubt it.
On Jun 29, 2014 the difficulty was 16,818,461,371.  Do you honestly think it will be close to 10 times that at 160.8 Billion on June 29, 2015?  I seriously doubt it.
On Aug 31, 2014 the difficulty was 27,428,630,902.  Does one really believe it will be close to 10 times this at 270.4 Billion on August 31, 2015?  I seriously doubt it.

Apr 19 2015   47,610,564,513   -3.71%   340,809,696 GH/s
Apr 05 2015   49,446,390,688   5.84%   353,951,052 GH/s
Mar 22 2015   46,717,549,645   -1.50%   334,417,246 GH/s
Mar 08 2015   47,427,554,951   1.59%   339,499,662 GH/s
Feb 22 2015   46,684,376,317   5.01%   334,179,783 GH/s
Feb 09 2015   44,455,415,962   7.71%   318,224,263 GH/s
Jan 27 2015   41,272,873,895   -6.14%   295,442,739 GH/s
Jan 12 2015   43,971,662,056   8.20%   314,761,417 GH/s
Dec 30 2014   40,640,955,017   3.00%   290,919,288 GH/s
Dec 17 2014   39,457,671,307   -1.37%   282,449,013 GH/s
Dec 02 2014   40,007,470,271   -0.73%   286,384,627 GH/s
Nov 18 2014   40,300,030,328   1.76%   288,478,854 GH/s
Nov 05 2014   39,603,666,252   10.05%   283,494,086 GH/s
Oct 23 2014   35,985,640,265   2.81%   257,595,247 GH/s
Oct 09 2014   35,002,482,026   0.98%   250,557,526 GH/s
Sep 25 2014   34,661,425,924   16.20%   248,116,151 GH/s
Sep 13 2014   29,829,733,124   8.75%   213,529,547 GH/s
Aug 31 2014   27,428,630,902   15.03%   196,341,788 GH/s
Aug 19 2014   23,844,670,039   20.86%   170,686,797 GH/s
Aug 08 2014   19,729,645,941   5.30%   141,230,307 GH/s
Jul 25 2014   18,736,441,558   8.08%   134,120,673 GH/s
Jul 12 2014   17,336,316,979   3.08%   124,098,191 GH/s
Jun 29 2014   16,818,461,371   24.93%   120,391,236 GH/s
Jun 18 2014   13,462,580,115   14.51%   96,368,902 GH/s
Jun 05 2014   11,756,551,917   12.44%   84,156,677 GH/s
May 24 2014   10,455,720,138   18.10%   74,844,960 GH/s
May 12 2014   8,853,416,309   10.66%   63,375,223 GH/s
Apr 29 2014   8,000,872,136   14.64%   57,272,474 GH/s
Apr 17 2014   6,978,842,650   14.04%   49,956,502 GH/s
Apr 05 2014   6,119,726,089   22.23%   43,806,706 GH/s

Yes, there is plenty of talk of the 3rd generation chips (rigs) coming out by the Summer of this year (2015).  The power efficiency and hash rate of these 3rd generation rigs remains to be seen.  Will 3rd generation rigs encourage miners who stopped mining to start back up again because of their power costs being above 15 cents per kWH?  More than likely.  Especially, if the price of bitcoin remains at the $235.00 to $335.00 level.  

If bitcoin price is higher than $335.00 by the end of November, 2015, we could definitely see more miners wanting to come back into the fray.  The only issue is will they be able to buy these 3rd generation rigs from those who will manufacture them?  The demand for power efficient 3rd generation rigs could be quite high.  The 3rd and 4th quarter of 2015 will be a very interesting time of year indeed for the miners.

A lot of calculations, but keep in mind that the ASIC companies have the first dibs on the newer generation chips. They use them to mine, increase difficulty and then ship. After that huge mining farms, especially in China, mines at a lower cost than the individual.

In the end it doesnt matter what the price or transistor size is, mining will always be unprofitable for the small scale miner.

That post has been posted twice I still have not made it through it all the way.  It's almost unreadable at parts, just to much infomation not enough organization.  I'm sure it took a lot of time though.

And mining is a lot different at this point.  A year ago we were having lots of double digit difficulty changes.  Now it's rare for a double digit change.  There is just a heck of a lot of hash on the network.

I mainly wanted to post the data to prove this point:

The amount we need to increase our hash rate in a year's time to mine the same amount of bitcoin is reducing month after month.  For example:

If we started mining June 29, 2013, the difficulty was 21,335,329.  If we were still mining by Jun 29 2014, the difficulty had risen to 16,818,461,371.  That means the difficulty rose 788.3 times more than what it was a year prior.  [Your hash rate would have to be 788.3 times more than what it was this time last year to mine the same amount of coin.].  Example:  If you had 2 TH/s on June 29, 2013, multiply this by 788.3 to come up with how many TH/s you would need a year later (June 29, 2014) to mine the same amount of coin you mined a year prior = 1,576.6 TH/s.

Let us move forward to Apr. 17, 2014.  The difficulty then was 6,978,842,650.  A year later, on Apr 19, 2015 the difficulty increased to 47,610,564,513.  That means the difficulty rose 6.8 times more than what it was a year prior. [Your hash rate would have to be 6.8 times more than what it was this time a year prior to mine the same amount of coin.]  Example:

If you started out with 2 TH/s on April 17, 2014, your hash rate on April 19, 2015 would have to be 6.8 x 2 = 13.6 TH/s.

So, looking at both of these examples.  Can you see as each month passes, the amount our hash rate needs to increase from a year prior is decreasing significantly every difficulty change?  This reveals it is probably better to get in now more than any other time in mining PROVIDING one goes big in an area with power costs less than 5 cents per kWH.

I can see the difficulty being approximately 68 billion by the first week of December, 2015 with 3rd generation rigs on the market.  The difficulty on December 2, 2014 was 40,007,470,271.  That means the difficulty would have risen 1.699 (1.7) times of what it was a year prior.  This also means if you started with 2 TH/s on December 2, 2014, your hash rate would have to be 2 x 1.7 = 3.4 TH/s to mine the same amount of bitcoin you mined a year prior.

This data was posted to reveal how the race with difficulty to continue mining the same amount of bitcoin is looking better for us each difficulty change.  You do not have to add as many rigs to your present set up to mine the same amount of coin you mined a year prior as each difficulty change occurs every two weeks.  My estimation of the difficulty being 68,000,000,000 in the first week of December is only an educated guess.  I'm not for certain what it will be.  I only posted the data to reveal to miners we do not have to increase our hash rate as much as months prior to mine the same amount of coin we did a year ago.

Thank you for going into more details.  I was able to understand this version much better.

I agree that now is a interesting time for mining.  We have had low difficulty changes, and even negative changes.  I think it is a good time for miners long term.  It's not a get rich quick, or 90 day ROI anymore.  But still a good time to be a miner if conditions are right.

You are welcome...

You are right!  Providing only the data without much clarification could be seen as "too much" or just "rambling."

Of course, it's still a competition of sorts between us miners and the mining rig manufacturers have that competition as well.  We even have a couple new manufacturers coming into the fray to provide competition among manufacturers.  What the manufacturers create has a profound affect on those who will mine bitcoin.  I'm fairly certain the next generation rigs will create another substantial growth in difficulty.  However, this also depends on supply and demand.  The price of the 3rd generation rigs in relation to bitcoin price can affect demand as well.  I know I don't have to tell you any of this.  I'm only thinking out loud.

You're right; this is not a get rich quick profession.  Unfortunately, 90 days ROI is probably over.  The only ones who stand a chance with ROI in a time frame less than 6 months would be those who have less than 5 cents per kWH power costs.

I also think "new" alt coins [such as SLING] have played a roll with providing a reduction in bitcoin difficulty as of late.  How long this continues is unknown.  I don't mind new coins.  That's better for other miners who choose to continue in bitcoin while others mine alt coin that is also SHA-256.

Mining at home is probably still profitable if you mine the right alts and then trade at the right time.

Mining bitcoin will probably never be profitable for most people in developed countries with expensive electricity.

If you live somewhere with ridiculously cheap electricity then maybe for a while yet if you have efficient hardware.

My power rates will go from 10.6 cents per kWH during winter and 12.1 cents per kWH during summer to 3.4 cents per kWH all year round when I move from Alabama to Washington State.  You will be surprised how long one can go with even older hardware in an area with this cheap of power costs.  If the price of bitcoin were to go down significantly, the difficulty would go down significantly.  Why?  Because those who do not have as cheap of electricity will cut off their rigs while those with less than 5 cents per kWH will continue mining.  If you move to an area with less than 5 cents per kWH, you are set!  Plain and simple!  You do need some capital to get started, though.  I recommend going big.  1,000 TH/s should be your minimum goal if you move to a location with less than 5 cents per kWH.

The data I provided above reveals one needed to increase their hash rate 6.08 times what it was a year ago to mine the same amount of coin they mined a year ago [if they actually started a year ago].  That means you needed to increase your hash rate by 608% to mine the same amount of coin you did a year prior.  I see that number going down to 1.5 or 1.2 times (50% to 20%) by November of December of this year.  

My first day of mining was September 22, 2014.  I expect the difficulty by that same time in 2015 to be approximately 54 billion to 58 billion.  Let us use the more conservative 58 billion number.  The difficulty on September 25, 2014 was 34,661,425,924.  If the difficulty on September 25, 2015 is 58 billion, that would be approximately a 1.67 times increase.  Meaning, I would have needed to increase my hash rate by 67% to mine the same amount of coin I mined a year prior when I started.  I started with 10 S3+'s or 4.7 TH/s (over clocked just a hair).  I now have 45 TH/s (under clocked).  I could wind them up to a little over 50 TH/s if I wanted to.  I've increased my hash rate by 1000% or a little over 10 times what I started with.

Washington State will get crowded! Just kidding.

I have managed to secure about 1k-watt at 2.4 cents  and about 7kwatt at 7 cents.

I am in Howell,NJ.

 1 place is in the Brooklyn Navy yard.  The other place is in Lakewood, NJ.

I am going to order more avalon 4.1's  basically I need really quiet gear to run these as both are businesses. 
  The Lakewood place has run a pair of s-3's since July.  The Brooklyn navy yard is set to go online in late May.

Yeah!
Mining will be profitable again. If bitcoin price goes up or difficuly rate decrese.
And yes! There some miners exist. Because they're no solo miners. Merged mining will always be profitable.


~Rude Boy

I think there are other factors just as big as merged miners.   That is HUGE when talking about getting a block reward.

But as far as ROI a miner needs to worry about cost of machine (including if there is vat, etc).   Also electricity price is huge.  This can make or break a miner.  And being able to get rid of heat.

If the right things are in place you can still ROI.  I do stick with my ROI of 3 months are no longer.  It's a longer time ROI anymore.

only if the price skyrockets for some odd reason.

And it can offset the cost for facility and on day to day costs then yes it can profitable.

But, if you look at prices its not been that way for quite some time. The value would rise though once the block keeps getting halved.

No body can really say what will happen  at next halving.   We can guess sure, and hope it goes up.

But it is still a pretty long way away in crypto time.  With that amount of time we just don't know.

I hope it becomes profitable in the UK again. I'm missing mining :(.

Keep thinking about plugging an old usb Nanofury in I've got somewhere and solo mining just for the hell of it :D.

Sadly I think the VAT will keep it very hard in future I see.  And add on top of that high electricity in most cases.   

It just is not a ideal situation for mining at all.  I wish that would change, but I don't see it changing with so many obstetricals there for miners.

Yeah I know  :D

Just hopeful you know, based on a supply of demand concept of limiting supply thats all lol.

But, I really hope the bitcoin will increase based on the rareness like gold. 

i don't think it will profitable any more, it is profitable only for old miners who already got their investment returned for mining hardware and  now they are only mining at cost of electricity while new miner has to earn for electricity and hardware investment

 There are ways to make money at this without owning anything more then a pc..  Proper spot rentals will earn you money.
 So to the op mining via rental is profitable  today if you know when to rent and wait for the right prices.

So you have to wait for a time when somebody on Westhash (for example) is willing to rent their mining hardware at a rate lower than what they would get mining on a pool? Kinda the opposite of when I renting out the hash on my SP20 at 30-40% over the rate I would get on Kano's pool? An "efficient market" theory would suggest that those kinds of disparities don't exist, or at least not for very long.

If you watch westhash/nicehash they have been under btc price a surprising amount of time.  I have seen -8 percent.   Some people point it there and do not use the code to pick price.   So with this some get a profit from renting there.

  careful timing will give you 3 to 5 days each difficulty adjustment that are more then 5% under.

So renting 500th at .0092 when real price is 0.01055 can be done.  then point at a pps pool paying 0.0101 .

 when all is said and done 3% a day profit  pretty much certain to profit.

I just rented 6btc over the last 3 days.  I paid 0.0092 to 0.0094  pointed it at f2pool and was   paid 0.01013   basically 6btc in and 6.18btc back.

I did this with https://mining.bitcoinaffiliatenetwork.com/index.php  on and off for 3 months it was   harder to get low prices  .  I suspect a lot of people were trying to do it with them.  But they started paying really slow and I became afraid to use them.

So with no gear and patience  mining makes money right now.

So kinda like "hashing arbitrage"?

Seems less risky than just trading Bitcoins with the inevitable fees whenever you convert BTC to/from USD.

I wonder how long term a strategy this is, though the terms "long term" might be a bit silly in the Bitcoin realm.  :)

Depending on how low nicehash/westhash is it's better then arbitrage.  Within past week you could have rented at -8 percent. No I cannot explain why anyone let's their gear mine there without price set up correctly.   

But you could go for a entire month of arbitrage and not make 8 percent if it goes wrong.

comes and goes. right now someone is paying .0093 to mine they are getting 868gh

and have 1.6 coins on order #358916  if it is pointed at f2pool  spread is 0.00930 to 0.01017

if at ban and ban pays it is 0.00930 to  0.01057

ban has been paying slowly but that is a big difference.

It already is profitable for KNC, Bitfury and others. That is why they don't sell to home miners and mine their own massive farms.

Will it ever be profitable for the home or small miner again? No it will only get worse see what Spondoolies Tech has done? Partnerships to build larger and larger hash rate farms with higher and higher efficiency. You can't compete with that at home. Game over.

As others have said, profitable at home: probably not. profitable for major companies manufacturing hardware: probably until 2140.

I couldn't agree more, unless you're lucky enough to have dirt cheap electricity and the latest efficient hardware then you might make small profits for the short term.

Okay

   Spondoolies-tech
   Bitfury
   KNC

All decide to cut small miners out.

Leaves us

Bitmaintech
Sfards
Avalon----------------your favorite company------------just a joke among the two of us.
and whatever others.

No one profits by having more hashrate if they are self mining.

Escalation hurts all giant miners. Unless they sell outside their  own mining camps.

This is a fact.  BTW this is one reason growth is slowing.  If I have 10% of the whole network with 2 watt machines.

The same 10% of the network with a .4 watt machine is a score.  No big company needs more hash.  All big self mining companies need more efficient hash and low power costs.

Big companies will never squeeze the little guy fully out of the picture.

But as I have said WTF do I know I thought iPads would never sell when they first came out.

Bitmaintech mines massively and sells the leftovers to home miners. Will they continue to sell to smaller interests as long as it is after getting a few weeks off them first probably but doubtful longer term given the RMAs etc mounting. I suspect by 2016 they will not be selling nor will SFARDS nor Avalon. The last two maybe way too late and inefficient moving in 2016. Competing with Spondoolies and BitFury and KNC you can't be behind the efficiency curve as it eats your mining profits.

Most of the big manufacturers have been mining with their own hardware for a while before selling it on to home miners.

Problem is as weeks and months pass and difficulty increases fewer people are mining at home because there's no point.

Manufacturers will be left with all their own hardware eventually because no-one will want to buy it.

With miner's they have to use them before until they sell.   They are a item that loses money if they put it in a box and wait for sale.  And most are made in batches meaning there are more miners then will be sold immediately.

If they don't announce them and run them yes it's a different thing.   But if plugged in until it sales I would consider this normal.

While this may be considered normal behavior for a Bitcoin mining manufacturer in the last year or so, it's not normal behavior for a whole host of other vendors. Think Automobile dealer for example. Their new cars sitting on the lot depreciate, though much less quickly than mining gear. You could argue that they should rent them until somebody actually buys them, but there are a whole host of constraints on that kind of behavior in the US. Would you buy a "new" car that already had 3000 miles on it? What about a GPU manufacturer 2 years ago?

I would argue that this definition of "normal behavior" has been forced on purchasers over the last 12-18 months. I don't know if BFL was the first one to do it or not, but it's certainly not limited to them.

It is a specialty product.  If they put them in a box and don't use  it loses value each day.  New cars don't normally lose value when sitting there.  And GPU is a different monster they were made for the gaming industry, mining just happened to be something they also did.

When you buy a new miner you get a warranty.  So this helps, it gives you time to test the miner and make sure it works good.  Unless they are pre-ordered I would consider the batch system normal.  And with making in batches it is normal to plug in till sold, not just leave in a box. 

Most cars are not a machine that makes money.
so to use a car is tough to think it is the correct comparable.

 This is not an easy industry.  We are now in tough times with tight profits. Not sure what will happen in the long run. It would be nice to see a price runup.

Is there anyway to make extra profit by pool hopping like on Antpool when its having a bad luck day?

I tried the Nicehash/Westhash mining on F2 but too many people are doing it that the spread isn't large enough to make any actual profit.

Anyone know how the PPLNS work on Antpool?


Earlier today

354948   2015-05-04 18:18:01   000000000000000003aebef4f27f4d7f1153137f234b407cb38732819e8e95bd   25.14659258   43/120   3h 47m 39s     26.25%   57.07 PH/s   181,488,452,448
354930   2015-05-04 14:30:22   000000000000000008a270742bf9d932df2ef71d03ea9ecdd03706e82d05347e   25.05103519   61/120   3h 19m     30.16%   56.82 PH/s   157,962,257,008


It had very bad luck on 2 blocks but if you jumped in and mined the next 7 blocks youre luck would have been 250%.


But would your shares actually count on the next 7 blocks? No idea exactly how PPLNS works

Most other industries recognize the difference between "new" and "used". While I completely understand that Bitcoin mining hardware depreciates way faster than almost anything else, lots of other equipment depreciates while it sits unused. That car that arrives on the dealers lot today, that then doesn't sell until November will sell for less than if it sold next week. It's still "new" and will be treated as such, but the dealer will certainly not expect to receive the same as it sells before the new model year cars start to arrive. It has depreciated in value, even though it hasn't been used by any stretch of the imagination.

The Apple iPhone N-1 that arrived at the Walmart store 3 weeks before the iPhone N, will not sell for the same price as when the first iPhone N-1 was introduced. Walmart understand that it's not as valuable and sells it for less before it depreciates even more. It didn't get used, and still depreciated.

The only real difference is that a Bitcoin miner has a much shorter economic life span than an iPhone or a car.

I would also argue that a miner as used by a mining farm, really isn't all the different from a car that was acquired by Hertz, Avis, National, Alamo and so forth. They are both a machine used to make money. The car just depreciates less quickly than the miner. Both are resold at near then of their economic life span, a few months for the miner, maybe 2-3 years for the rental car. Both had ongoing cost while they were being used, and had risks of damage or loss.

I understand that it's not in the sellers best interest to let the machine sit in a box, but running flat out for a month until somebody actually pays for it and it's shipped on it's way, isn't really the same as "new" is it?

I think the "batch model" is just a manufacturing convenience for the vendor.

I won't belabor the point any more, but obscuring the difference between "new" and "used" is largely driven by the manufacturers to their benefit.

Batch allows companies to produce miners without pre-ordering so that is good in my book.   I personally don't like pre-ordering.

But you cant expect a mining company to not use a miner that is not sold.   If a few weeks or a month they would take a pretty good loss from leaving it in a box.

With this mentality the logical jump is why even sell to joe q public avoid the hassle. The reason they are selling them on is to make profit. Mine it. Sell it. Repeat. It is not like they are saying oh we have a few extra here better throw them on the network. They make the unit it is immediately pressed into mining and then sell off whatever they can after reaping the most they can from it via mining. Is it unethical? No. All the power to them to do it. The fact remains it makes no sense to be a home miner now so the only winners here are those selling the units. Stop ordering miners for small to medium sized operations. It is over.

Again the end game is now as soon as too few people buy units off the farm like this to make this a viable business model they will stop doing it. Meaning by 2016 will be the end of the road if not sooner for companies relying solely on this model like Avalon does or has tried. Bitmain is sufficiently set up to FARM massively so they will not care too much either way and will gouge every penny they can from those still foolish enough to keep buying. This is the way it will continue until there are no customers left willing to buy miners at a loss with no hope of ROI. Not everyone has realized it yet I guess most have and some people continue to keep pushing home mining for no other reason I guess but to get paid for the signature campaigns far as I can tell.

This post's for you.

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2012/12/Neil-Young-This-Notes-for-You.jpg

I feel like the era of mining can happen again only if several big operators stop and pause.

But other then that, the average user cant really get much.

Unless you take advantage of the paused operation you fill in the similar risk that they took, but you take it on a smaller scale.

they can't stop and pause, or the network will be vulnerabile, not to mention they will lose huge amount of money, even for a tiny "pause"

the only way for a casual miner to return in the mining scene and take profit, is to be ready when the price skyrocket, taking advantages of the diff retarget time

maybe this is another reason why satoshi set the diff retarget not so low

I would agree a pause is hard.  Having all the equipment and capability to mine.... chances are you keep mining till it is no longer profitable.   

I could see underclocking and underclocking based on changes in market.  Such as high rental prices, etc.  Yes that could happen.

But total shutdown is tough for bottom line.

Yeah, I`m aware the whole mining opertors to pause is just a hopeful thinking lol.

But, people obviously cant speculate the on price jump.

I personally just gave up mining all together have some on SP partnered cloud mining, and been just buying instead. I just feel like me selling normal items for bitcoin is also just a better route as well.

Items such as iphone 5 in bulk through a liquidation site, and fixing them.

I actually think we have seen a "pause" in the last few months. Not an actual stoppage of mining, but rather a pause in the crazy pace of hashrate expansion. The introduction rate of new mining hardware has slowed. It's not clear if the "Arms Race: mentality is just a temporary hold, or a long term trend.

When you think about it, what should a big farm do when they the option to buy a newer and more efficient miner? Should they just replace the gear with an equivalent number of Watts (more or less), and enjoy the increased hash rate? Or perhaps they should consider replacing their gear on a "Gigahash equivalent" basis and enjoy a lower electric bill. The downside to "More Gigahash same power" plan is that a couple of weeks later the difficulty adjustment may well dissipate a great deal of their gain they expected to acquire. If you kinda look at the whole Bitcoin mining universe, it would likely make more sense to reduce the total electric bill, and not push up the difficulty.

That's kind of a simplistic view, and not every miner will follow that plan, but it's becoming more obvious to me that efficiency is starting to become King, and in many cases not just who's got more hash.

Any big farm not swapping high power  w/gh for low power w/gh  thus keeping hashpower  flat and power  cost lower is fiscally irresponsible.

I believe they finally figured this out thus flat hash rate..   

Pardon me while I pat myself on my back and toot my horn.  I must have said this since last September more then one or two or thrre or four or five or six or ?? times.
  While I would like to think my diff threads led large builders to this course of action , my ego is not that big.  I only hope they continue in this direction since they have zero need to grow hashpower faster then 1 or 2 % a jump.

Depends on what means profitable for you... It's very unlikely to be profitable like 2 years ago.
Mining cryptocurrency is still profitable if you afford to invest a lot of money.

With the right conditions it still can be profitable.  The main two things are electricity price and if vat/import tax.  Those can make or break home mining.

I do agree it's changed from two years ago as GPU's were pretty much on a 3 month ROI for a long time and had a awesome secondary market to sell to.

hello sir,
iam newbie in bitcoin hunter, i want to know deeply system of mining bitcoin, can u suggest me where i can find basic knowledge of mining?
and how a graph is growth ?
thanks

I suggest you do some reading the subjects have been covered plenty of times.

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

look at the 9 month chart.

look at this list:

Difficulty History

Date   Difficulty   Change   Hash Rate
May 17 2015   48,807,487,245   2.44%   349,377,603 GH/s
May 03 2015   47,643,398,018   0.07%   341,044,727 GH/s
Apr 19 2015   47,610,564,513   -3.71%   340,809,696 GH/s
Apr 05 2015   49,446,390,688   5.84%   353,951,052 GH/s
Mar 22 2015   46,717,549,645   -1.50%   334,417,246 GH/s
Mar 08 2015   47,427,554,951   1.59%   339,499,662 GH/s
Feb 22 2015   46,684,376,317   5.01%   334,179,783 GH/s
Feb 09 2015   44,455,415,962   7.71%   318,224,263 GH/s
Jan 27 2015   41,272,873,895   -6.14%   295,442,739 GH/s
Jan 12 2015   43,971,662,056   8.20%   314,761,417 GH/s
Dec 30 2014   40,640,955,017   3.00%   290,919,288 GH/s
Dec 17 2014   39,457,671,307   -1.37%   282,449,013 GH/s
Dec 02 2014   40,007,470,271   -0.73%   286,384,627 GH/s
Nov 18 2014   40,300,030,328   1.76%   288,478,854 GH/s
Nov 05 2014   39,603,666,252   10.05%   283,494,086 GH/s
Oct 23 2014   35,985,640,265   2.81%   257,595,247 GH/s
Oct 09 2014   35,002,482,026   0.98%   250,557,526 GH/s
Sep 25 2014   34,661,425,924   16.20%   248,116,151 GH/s
Sep 13 2014   29,829,733,124   8.75%   213,529,547 GH/s
Aug 31 2014   27,428,630,902   15.03%   196,341,788 GH/s
Aug 19 2014   23,844,670,039   20.86%   170,686,797 GH/s
Aug 08 2014   19,729,645,941   5.30%   141,230,307 GH/s
Jul 25 2014   18,736,441,558   8.08%   134,120,673 GH/s
Jul 12 2014   17,336,316,979   3.08%   124,098,191 GH/s


To me this is my turning point in difficulty Adjustment,  It happened due to the end of the s-1 and the start of the s-3

The s-1 by bitmaintech was a 2 watt miner
The s-3 by bitmaintech was a .8 watt miner


Jun 29 2014   16,818,461,371   24.93%   120,391,236 GH/s
Jun 18 2014   13,462,580,115   14.51%   96,368,902 GH/s
Jun 05 2014   11,756,551,917   12.44%   84,156,677 GH/s
May 24 2014   10,455,720,138   18.10%   74,844,960 GH/s
May 12 2014   8,853,416,309   10.66%   63,375,223 GH/s
Apr 29 2014   8,000,872,136   14.64%   57,272,474 GH/s
Apr 17 2014   6,978,842,650   14.04%   49,956,502 GH/s
Apr 05 2014   6,119,726,089   22.23%   43,806,706 GH/s
Mar 24 2014   5,006,860,589   17.80%   35,840,504 GH/s
Mar 13 2014   4,250,217,920   11.39%   30,424,245 GH/s
Feb 28 2014   3,815,723,799   21.92%   27,314,015 GH/s
Feb 17 2014   3,129,573,175   19.39%   22,402,357 GH/s
Feb 05 2014   2,621,404,453   19.49%   18,764,744 GH/s
Jan 24 2014   2,193,847,870   22.59%   15,704,175 GH/s
Jan 13 2014   1,789,546,951   26.16%   12,810,076 GH/s
Jan 02 2014   1,418,481,395   20.12%   10,153,885 GH/s
Dec 21 2013   1,180,923,195   30.01%   8,453,378 GH/s
Dec 10 2013   908,350,862   28.41%   6,502,229 GH/s
Nov 29 2013   707,408,283   16.07%   5,063,826 GH/s
Nov 17 2013   609,482,680   19.29%   4,362,847 GH/s
Nov 05 2013   510,929,738   30.70%   3,657,378 GH/s
Oct 26 2013   390,928,788   46.02%   2,798,377 GH/s
Oct 16 2013   267,731,249   41.45%   1,916,495 GH/s
Oct 06 2013   189,281,249   27.19%   1,354,928 GH/s
Sep 25 2013   148,819,200   32.13%   1,065,289 GH/s

Only with cheap or free electricity, difficulty is rising sky-high and Bitcoin prices are remaining relatively low. It's just easier to purchase Bitcoin's from a trusted exchange, mining requires not only electricity, but in the summer you must have a way to dissipate the heat.

Difficulty is actually growing at a very small rate.  A lot including me thought it would go up massivly but it's expansion has slowed down.  Not sure where you got the sky-high rising info but it is far from right.

And with decent electricity and smart mining it is possible to still ROI.   But it no longer is 3 month ROI it will  take more months to pay off gear then it once did.

difficulty is not even growing actually, there is an averaging decrease, looks at april we were at 5% now about 2%

now compare it with 2014 and the situation looks even better

It really is amazing comparing last year's difficulty to this year on growth.  I mean we were hitting double digit all the time.

We are in like a ping pong game of difficulty.  It goes up one week, and the next it's smacked back into negative.   Makes it nice for miners right now.  Summer would have been much harder without this trend.

The network has reached the point where only the most efficient mining hardware working in the places with the cheapest electricity , have a chance to profit

It's all about electricity price.  If very low electricity there are some still ROI'ing on old S3 they buy used.   I have decent electricity price so I am still running some gear that is a generation old.   

The summer does add a little more challenge to keeping gear cool.   But ROIing can still and is being done by many.  Just takes the right set of circumstances.

I am still making profits with 8.73 cents per kwh.  I am using s3s and s4s and c1s

I looked into buying a mining rig a while ago, and setting up a pool with my friends, But from what I understand the time for making money from mining has passed.

i wish i had free power  :'(

Gotta think BIG; get where u have cheap power; and hope you can get your hand on the next gen rigs that come out the end of summer or the fall.

I dont think it will be profitable again well not for bitcoin. Big companies and investments will be the next big thing for bitcoin.

i could see in the future big farms selling their hash power to those big company that will establish a cloud site, to bring once again a better decentralization and make casual mining possibile again, thanks to a better deal for the customers

Bitcoin is the ultimate free market balancing system and will by it's inherent design mining can not be very profitable over the long run. That's why banks hate it. If price goes up mining power will follow until the excess profits are removed, if price goes down hash rate will become unprofitable and hash rate will go down. So the profit margins over the long run will be very slim. The real question is what happens when the margins are so slim that large mining farms can't attract investments, will mining pivot back to enthusiasts and those who want to acquire virgin less traceable BTC who are willing to mine at a small loss?

There will be a brief period of profitability mining if the price skyrockets in a relatively short time. Diff will take a while longer to 'catch up'. Its during that window that mining will be highly profitable.
If there is another skyrocket in price ..... anyways....

just buying BTC would be the best kind of invest compared with ANY mining device you could have on hand the next days

Yes, I agree...  If you are paying more than $0.05 cents per kWH, it is best to buy right now instead of mining.

Mining would be always profitable, but under some harsh conditions:

1) REALLY cheap electricity
2) Easy, fast and cheap access to the newest and most efficient mining hardware available at the moment.

Bitcoin mining is no longer a game, when you win if you got secret knowledge that very few have. There are millions participants worldwide now, some of them are proffesionals.
I remember, when I made my scrypt 3xGPU rig in Nov 2013 - two, three months later it became much harder to make decent profit, because people have discovered solution for simple and effective mining at home (it was hard to gen any ATI card these times ;) ). So the factors of profitable mining had changed, not everyone then could handle that.

yes i totally agree with you, for the moment is very difficult to make a profit if the cost is issued is limited, due to the increasingly difficult levels of difficulty in adding more and more people are mining bitcoin

I would generally agree with this statement. if you're looking for a profit you'd be better off buying rather than mining unless you're sure that you're getting efficient miners and cheap enough electricity to warrant it.

Also, buying LTC/BTC low and selling LTC/BTC high is doing well right now.  LTC block halving is almost upon us.  It will occur the end of August.  Hence, the volatility in LTC right now.  This volatility is carrying over into the BTC/USD market as well.  Not as much, but still some volatility and not the boring sideways.

LTC is the place to be right now in terms of trading crypto.  My honest opinion.

I've turned my 36 BTC into 47 BTC at the moment trading in LTC/BTC since the price was .00822 BTC per LTC.

mining for profit is easy.  look for power cost of 5 cents or less.  get a few used s-3's with a low cost server psu and you have profit.

problem is it is small profit.  I run 4 s-3s at 3 cents a kwatt they make money.   the  problem is that is all I can run.




big profit is hard.   getting 100 kwatts at 5 cents is not easy. very few spots in the world to do that.