Bitcoin Forum

I plan on mining with an Antminer S7 running at 4.330 Th/sec
I am buying it and the power supply for $750
I do not fully understand the "diffuculty rates" and I don't know if it is worth my time and money.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.  :)

Just wait until for the new asics after the reward halving. Right now it's very risky to purchase bitcoin miners because the reward will be cut by half and make you more likely not be able to get ROI.

Here is what you need to know: Until you fully understand difficulty, don't mine.

If you think of it as fun like playing some games at the casino its fine.
But you probably aren't going to make a lot of money mining bitcoins in 2016 unless you make a huge investment.

Don't spend that much now specially that halving is upon us and you won't be able to get your ROI in time before this event, therefor your earnings will be harder than you think and the return longer as well. If you have a free electricity then wait a bit for more efficient miners to come out and buy those instead but if your part of those that have high electricity rate then your better off buying bitcoin rather than mining it.

Should probably mention the S9's coming date is like next door.

if you don't fully understand things about mining and you can't completely calculate your earning potential with your expenses like electricity bill don't get into mining.

here is additional suggestion: buy GPU and mine altcoins.

it depend on yoru electricity, but it's vastly better to go with gpu at this point, etheruem make gpu mining very profitable liek any asic out there can't do

I would wait until after the halving

It's still profitable to mine if you have access to very cheap or free electricity (a solar panel setup would work great for this but requires investment). Also, as the members above also said, GPU mining is much better right now than using asic.

Agree, and by me dont mine at all. Now its professional business with HUUUUUUUGE competition.
You are not prepared to face this. Other countries got cheaper electricity, chip manufacture capabilities etc.

i have to support Jhanzo.  The return on your investment at the current profit will not be worth it when the halving takes place.  You are going to have to give it some time for the hardware to go down to make it worth your time.

I'm not expert, but for mining bitcoin it is the worst moment. Nobody know what will happen after halving. So my advice is - WAIT!

Why not convert those 750 usd to bitcoin directly? It will buy you around 2 bitcoin now.

Mining those two bitcoin, means you need to bascially mine 4 bitcoin after expenses to get to the same level as directly buying. After that, you make more ofcourse, but mining 4 bitcoin after power expenses will take a long time, especially if difficulty increases.

Let alone the fan noise and heat generated that will turn you crazy in time.

Why don't you try mining etherum or any other budding altcoin. They seem to be more profitable now.

Depends on your budget.

If youre hoping the halving prices will out weight your income to debt situation, you might want to revise your approach.

As for your question on diffuculty rates, its however much that performance hash can produce with the current difficulty to find a block.

The faster the chances to find a block to work on = you earn higher chances to earn btc.

I wouldn't get in to mining now, too expensive. Obviously it depends where in the world you are though & the cost of electricity there.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

It's depends on your electric bills too. And if you can check the data on bitcoinwisdom, the next diff will increase around +1.6%

I think it's better to wait till after the mining and then invest in the Antminer S9.

Antminer S7 will be outdated later on...

it will be worth in 2016 and beyond

If you want to try bitcoin mining then don't even try to buy and start to mine before halving. We have no idea what what exactly will happen with mining after block reward drop.
Difficulty could go down because people will cease to mine, or it will quite the opposite because it will be profitable because price of BTC might be higher.

In short: Wait and see.

I think we need to wait till the halving occurs, as we don't know what will be the exact scenario at the time of halving but this would be definitely the best year for bitcoin.

Waiting is recommended not only because of the halving. Certainly in short time, will be released S9, then after halving and with new rig will be good moment to start.