Bitcoin Forum

Has anyone heard anything? Price? Specs? release date? etc?
I read somewhere on here it was supposed to be released today but haven't seen anything.

Thread now locked refer to main thread.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1493601.0;topicseen

It is a FUD.

Official BITMAIN answer from Idzly (aka Dan Lunna aka BITMAIN_Lunna on this forum)

Reference link https://enforum.bitmain.com/bbs/topics/3433

I suggest you to buy S7 reduced price  ;)
~RR

Its better to dont buy it better to stay s7 or buy s7 because isn't still profitable to mine right now..

I don't think I'll buy any more s7's. I have a feeling the s9 will be out fairly soon.

"before that we need a long term test process to make sure the stable perfomance"

AKA we're going to build lots and mine with them, before selling them? :P

...or AKA we're going to sell them when you can't make ROI? ;)

Probably both.

So, we will wait... for "GekkoMiner" ;)

You will probably be waiting for a long, long time, sadly. =/

Nah... happy waiting without feeding Bitmain
...and I have faith in community initiatives!

What i mean is. You seem to say you can just wait for Sidehack to release the product. But Sidehack is waiting for companies such as Bitmain to decide to sell him chips. Without those he can't make the boards. Which means by waiting for Sidehack you are effectively waiting for Bitmain or Bitfury in the first place... Therefore you will wait for a long (indefinite, potentially infinite) time.

Sidehack can't make his own ASIC chips. You'd need much more money, R&D, then manufacture and probably other stuff i'm not aware of.

If you had that kind of money, maybe Sidehack would know where to start, but i don't. And i think the existing funding is too low by a figure or two.

There's been all kinds of talk about trying to start up an independent ASIC, but you'd have to get in with guys like kilo17 and PlanetCrypto for a better discussion of the financial and administrative requirements. I'd really like to work on a project like that but right now every resource I have is put to use just keeping the lights on in my shop and getting current projects taken care of.

Waiting on the community could take a very long time. At least bitmain is going to provide us something. Bitfury has all but abandoned the small miner. Bw is launching something in June. Hopefully we will see something soon.

I got a bunch of lotto tickets,if I win I'll be stopping by to chat with ya  8)

(don't hold your breath, but ya never know  :D  )

Antminer S9 is sold on OpenBazaar for 4.8 BTC:

ob://17144de3790b134b05a0fca102ff8b8887d08e27/listing/c6bbb66fd2041bde823ad70df9bdb757600aafee (http://ob://17144de3790b134b05a0fca102ff8b8887d08e27/listing/c6bbb66fd2041bde823ad70df9bdb757600aafee)

Update:
I don't know if this is legit, better use escrow if you're going to buy one!

Any specs?

That is also what I thought. That could be the reason why the difficulty rose so fast in the last few weeks.

This is in the offer:

Can anybody confirm this?

I can confirm that I am not paying more than $700 for 9.6th S9 and even that is a little overpriced.
It is just numbers.

For what it's worth, the posted link doesn't seem to go anywhere useful at all. While not in the market for an S9, I though it would be interesting to look.

http://ob//17144de3790b134b05a0fca102ff8b8887d08e27/listing/c6bbb66fd2041bde823ad70df9bdb757600aafee

The URL looks a little malformed to me........

https://bazaarbay.org/17144de3790b134b05a0fca102ff8b8887d08e27/listing/9695e128fd0e38e232b29ae531c7a109b4afcaa6



try that

It is an OpenBazaar URL
More infor here: https://openbazaar.org/

Does Bitmain ever ship anything for FREE?

Looks to me like a fatal flaw in an otherwise plausible scam......  :)

It looks that there will be 14 Th miner.

http://shop.bitmain.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020160525104147645CqK8jJc50678 (http://shop.bitmain.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020160525104147645CqK8jJc50678)

And price probably 10BTC

14th and 10btc is unviable. 14th and 2.5-3 BTC-maybe OK, still would be slightly overpriced going forward.

I really like the idea of 14th in one unit. I guess it ultimately boils down to price. Hope they are reasonable.

Edit: I guess it's safe to assume this is no longer speculation.
Edit 2: As far as speculation, I was referring to the existence of something solid from bitmain acknowledging the s9.

so it is still speculation

we know 14th

we do not know

watts?
price?
when does it ship?

if it gets .095 watts and does 1350 watts 1 psu    it would be a beast a killer a monster.

if it gets .15 watts a gh  2100 watts and needs 2 psu's meh!

price has real meaning for us.   it is 3 s-7's

  so 3btc would be too low

say 7 btc if it uses 1 psu and only 1350 watts

maybe 6 btc if it uses 2 psus and 2200 watts

roi on a 7 btc 14th unit is hard to do

if it were 4-5btc it is an easy choice.

You are correct that price and power consumption will have a giant impact. As far as when? My bet is any day now. But that's just more speculation  ;D

No wonder they are selling the S7 so cheap now.

I don't expect any significant shipment s for at least a month. If they ship it in a week, that only further depresses the value of the used S7's they are selling.

If some other manufacturer produces something real, that might change their timing.

It will be interesting to watch, kind of, but I am unlikely to buy one. 

they could price it low for the first two batches just to put a hurt on bitfury.

That would be a good idea. I'd buy as many as I could. Now that bitfury has no use for the average miner I now feel the same way about them.

why would around 3btc for 14 th be too low?
S7 is priced at 420 (used), but S7 has still 1.5mo useful life until halving.
14/4.73=2.95 (multiplication factor)
2.95X 450 (for new S7)= $1327. Add $200-300 for increased efficiency and you'll get $1500 a.k.a 3.3 BTC.
You'll have to consider that while producing maybe $450 in profit (with 8.9 c electric) until halving, it will slow to a crawl of $220/mo afterwards (even without diffuculty adjustment), so even $1500 will maybe breakeven in 6-8 mo or even later if difficulty increase rapidly.
At 3-3.3 btc i might buy one, at above I will simply buy bitcoin for now.

The numbers you guys are showing and calculating are based on customers' needs

Price will be 7-10BTC - because profit for BTM from it will be 2-3 times higher

I seriously do not get why people are expecting a brand new design top of the line miner for peanuts. Please how me one piece of hardware from a major asic manufacturer that did not have a premium on its price for the first few months of production. Also lowering its price on new units to 'hurt' bitfury? Uhhh....what?

Only time will tell. I certainly am not expecting the price to be peanuts. But on the other hand at 10 btc I won't be a buyer.

If the price is out of balance, who would pay it?
I will rather pay it to myself, then get it in 3 mo for less than half the price.
Or I would go to Microcenter tomorrow and get GTX 1080 instead for just $599.

Come mid July after halving that won't be the case.

to think that they think (as the OP says) that we are all stupid and don't know about halving would be a bit too much.

it will be close to 7btc like I said   it won't be 3.3btc.

And if bitfury decides to knock heads with them bitmaintech will lower the price and crush them in a price war.

As for a premium price 7btc is not premium  10 btc is premium.

the math for it at 7btc works if your power is 5 cents.  

my assumption would be 5 cent power with coins at 500 and 3% diff jumps. it breaks even in about a year

no way it works for 7btc for 14th with coin at $450, not even close.
Please recheck your math.
I used vnbitcoin calculator, then adjusted for halving manually using 1600w.
I get $585 revenue until July 15, then it swithes to $7/day minus $2 for power (I used 5c), so you will start with $5/day revenue on July 10-15.
The remainder is $2565, so IF btc stays the same and difficulty does not rise, you will breakeven in 2565/5=513 days.
I don't care what they ask; If btc needs to rise to breakeven, then I don't need bitmain-I can buy coin and go long.

I did and changed to 500 from 450.

Knowing them  they won't price at 3.3  and 7 is high as a 500 usd price with 4 cent power and 3% jumps would be needed to break even.

They may do 6.5 btc or maybe 6 btc.  I can not see them going lower then that price.

lets say they do 4 btc (which they won't) if you have 5 cent power  3% jumps and  450 btc you roi in 200 days they will not do that.

as other farms will buy and jump diff too fast they rather sell slower.

so say 5 btc  you roi in 260 days with 450 coin 3% jumps and 5 cent power.

so at 5 btc   with 5 cent power it could work for a buyer.


Since I have the solar array I could do  one or two to 2x my hash power.

Because you are matured and smart :)

15yo from BTM cloud mining will spend all money to buy virtual GHs for any money

And I'm 99.9% sure - right now exactly they are selling S7 hashes

I expect the S9 will sell for a "premium" at the outset. I don't know if that is $3500 or $4000. It doesn't really matter because they just look at the demand (i.e. how quickly they sell), and adjust the price after 10 days or so. Once the details of the machine are done, the price is the easiest thing to change. Sell S9's to all those that will pay $4000, and then see who will pay $3500. They did this with the S7 and they'll do it again. If they actually have some competition, then they'll adjust price down sooner.

Rinse and repeat......

Based on the fact that antpool hashrate seems to have slowed a bit I am thinking the S9 is going to use more watts than S7.  I suspect they are having to rewire their farm to accommodate and that's why their hash is down a little.  Selling S7's but not able to bring the S9 replacements fully online.  I actually hope I am wrong, the S7 already pushes the limits on what you can run in a normally wired building. If they continue requiring more power for their miners it will basically be datacenter only at some point.

This may end all 120 volt mining if you are correct.

A 2000 watt 240 volt psu may be needed.

Fine, as long as you agree that your purported numbers have NOTHING to do with economic reality as it exists today.
As far as i can see most people on this board either have no interest in a miner, so just pull numbers out of thin air, or fully acquiesce to such bloated expectations without pressing their case.
I prefer a different approach.

That was the path that Spondoolies took. It did not end up well.

Frankly the track record on first units is over priced,  But the ½ ing is getting closer.

My Eth coin rigs are whaling like a mofo. I am approaching roi on them faster then I thought I would.

I really have to question if bitmaintech  will look at the prices and go low price  but small  amount to sell on this s-9.

the solar array has some 20 amp 240 volt circuits.  I have 2880 watt psu's 4000 watt psu's 2980 watt psus so I can supply the power these units need.

I would love to see 5 btc or lower shipped to my house.

they got too many s7 to sell you the s9 ;)

Another s7 model is out.
ANTMINER S7 BATCH 18 with 2 fans - Shipped out from June 2nd. https://enshop.bitmain.com/productDetail.htm?pid=000201605290908457178P0E046905D2

I visited the link below a couple weeks ago and it showed out of stock. It now says in stock. http://ugeekstore.com/product/antminer-s7-newest-batch-94

The link says s7, but the page says s9

Well, if you have $2200, maybe you can get an estimated ship date and actual specifications.

S7 is out - at least on the page from my account

https://www.hashnest.com/hash_currencies/25/shop

Price on cloud hashes on rise again - but that probably related to BTC rally

Hopefully next week we will see S9

Not sure I would bother with halving so close to happening and how long shipping would take.  But yeah it's here and on Bitmains site.  It is using the new 16nm chipset though so it is their next gen.  Oh yeah almost forgot the price.  Price: 2100 USD or 3.92 BTC

ANTMINER S9 First Batch - Shipping starts from 12 June

S9 Specifications:

1. Hash Rate: 14.0TH/s ±5%

2. Power Consumption: 1375W + 7% (at the wall, with APW3 ,93% efficiency, 25C ambient temp)

3. Power Efficiency: 0.098 J/GH + 7%(at the wall, with APW3 93% efficiency, 25°C ambient temp)

4. Rated Voltage: 11.60 ~13.00V

5. Chip quantity per unit: 189x BM1387

6. Dimensions: 350mm(L)*135mm(W)*158mm(H)

7. Cooling: 2x 12038 fan

8. Operating Temperature: 0 °C to 40 °C

9. Network Connection: Ethernet

10. Default Frequency: 650M

I thought that the price is $1k plus not 2k+ ..
The voltage and the power consumption is a little bit near in s7.. did you try s9 how about the noises??

No one has a clue on the noise factor seeing as Shipping starts from 12 June.  My guess is it will be the same, the picture of the machine looks like they stuck with the same exact fans as the S7.  If you have issues with that you could always go ahead and get a Quieter fan from someone like Noctua, which is what I had to do when I had my S5 running. 

I do wish these companies would realize it is 2016 and add Wi-Fi ability to their machines as well, I mean hell even just add the ability to add a USB Wi-Fi Dongle for christs sake, would make placement of the miners so much easier for those who mine at home and don't have a giant factory with Internet and decent cooling.

Experience on S7 suggested that the factory fans were about the quietest you could use and still keep the temperature under control. The S7 (and S9) dissipate quite bit (i.e. more than 2x) more heat than the S5. Quieter fans required a frequency reduction as I recall.

I heard that s9's will only mine on AntPool?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789369.msg15073544#msg15073544

Can anyone confirm that?

I hope its just a joke?

maybe not a joke.  at least kano said it will not mine on his pool

well I sure hope somebody jailbreaks it if it is true........

The old asicminer tubes were fucked up with many pool restrictions.  Fixes and patches were  done.

I am not buying a third one as only antpool mining is not acceptable.

 Given the similarity in design and power consumption to the 2-fan S7 models, on CAN estimate that the noise level will be about the same.
 I don't see any reason Bitmain would have changed fans, given they seem to have a ton of them on hand and have been using the same fan model for years now.


 I am happy I decided to wait - I will NOT put up with "antpool only" restriction on this miner, Bitmain OR SOMEONE needs to fix that before it becomes a viable product (over and above they need to get the price down some).



 Wifi is an unneeded expense for most miner units - if YOU want it, it's fairly cheap and easy to add an Ethernet <-> Wifi adapter.
 USB - I'm pretty sure the controller CPU board they use has a USB port, shouldn't be hard to add a USB-Wifi connection if YOU want that.

 Hint - most SERIOUS (read "large farm") operators DO NOT USE WIFI, as it flat out won't handle enough connections and isn't RELIABLE enough for large-scale deployment.
 Even a lot of us HOME miners don't want anything to do with WiFi.

Bitmain surely understand that is not an acceptable solution. Has being the only asic manufacturer made them that arrogant? I surely hope not. It will cost them their business in the end...
Mark my words....

I agree, this doesn't make sense.

Other than centralization of one pool, why do people not like the miners being restricted to AntPool?

You just hit one nail on the head - centralization.

 The other one - and for the BIG farms, this matters a lot - is pool fees.
 I strongly suspect that very few big farms run through some pool not their own, and probably quite a few of them run their own P2Pool nodes, in order to maximise profit.


 In my specific case, every time I've even TRIED to use AntPool, it's been nothing but issues that I've never been able to figure out. By the time I get back into BitCoin mining at all, I intend to have a solid P2Pool node set up to point my miners at (already working on getting that set up for LiteCoin, which should be good practice - had it set up for X11 at one point, back when I mined X11).

How would you like it if you can only buy Goodyear tires for your Honda?
It is basic freedom of choice, man. They don't teach that in school in your country?

I'd like to point out that right now the notion that the Antminer S9 is restricted to AntPool is FUD.

true, and we will find out soon enough.
I replied to the hypothetical that OP posited.

Does anyone know when it will be released ? And what do you think does it gain ?

If your talking about S9 it has technically been publicly released and scheduled to start shipping June 12th which is not to far away (less then a week which seems crazy).  But it is sold out https://bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=0002016052907243375530DcJIoK0654

So you are likely waiting on batch 2 or if they add more to batch 1 and open it up.   As far as gain... it's all about efficiency they squeezed like 2/3 more efficiency almost out of it.  So a lot currently when talking about having coming.

 I'll take Kano's word over yours.
 His trust factor is quite a bit higher overall on technical issues.

what is FUD ?

Nothing like a bit of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.  :) Bitnmain says it works on Kano, very easy for anyone to check if it works on other pools.


Rich

I had the coins to order a third and I read kano's post  I did not order. The said f it and decided to order and it is sold out.

The good side is coins price has went up.   So holding may be better.

What do I care if you take kano's word over mine?  I'm simply telling you that you won't be restricted to Antpool with S9's.  You can choose to believe the sky is falling.  Makes no difference to me whatsoever.

Im not too worried about the pool it can mine on....im more worried about the cost. $2100 plus shipping for a miner not shipping yet so close to the halving is scarry. One thing is certain though....every btc paid to bitmain has shot up in value so bitmain made a ton off of first adopter and a ton off of the increase. Its a win win for them at this point.

You wrote like there is a chance for "no win"...

I think OgNasty will be correct.

I also think I will wait for a reply from Avalon about the avalon7.
Since I did run a few group buys for block-c and Yan last winter.
There seems to be a chance the Avalon 7 will come out soon.

Maybe I can do a no profit. (For me )  group buy like I did last time.

Also yoshi of bitmainwarranty has stated the s-9 will run on Kano's pool.

So I think the scare was just a scare.

Was there really any doubt?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1493601.msg15108924#msg15108924

Yes kano's first post did cause enough doubt in my mind to not order a third unit.

So I now have the coins, but no place to order one.

Mind you I am not complaining as coins went up. 

The 6.36 coins I am holding have gone up in value from 3430 to 3733.

 So with a big  bump   maybe I end up with free  s-9s

There's always a chance for a win but at the current price which has held for a few days now it will take 120 days to break even. now if the halving is happening in a month that means in a months time (hopefully you get a full month) you will make $625 minus to cost of power which is (at $.14 per kwh) $141 leaving you with $484 buts profit.

now take $2100 (this doesn't include shipping costs which are $60 per miner in most cases at least they are for me) and - the $484 from it and your left with -$1616

mining after the halving will take 282 MORE days to break even so your total investment wont pay off for almost 1 year. once everything halves the amount you mine per month after power costs will come out to about $171. this is also going based on the difficulty staying exactly the same as it is today which we all know wont happen. once bitmain starts installing these in their mining locations and have them running at full speed 24/7 the diff will go way up. not to mention all the people buying them to run themselves. this means they have a very high chance of not ever breaking even. i say EVER because the s5 and newer miners have a problem that i made a huge fuss about that can be dangerous. when internet drops the fans stop running at full speed but the power doesn't go down with it so they burn themselves up. they have yet to fix that issue and have seen it with my s7's multiple times with multiple different batches all with the latest firmware provided by bitmain. i mean they put out an update to limit the number of boards that can be used with an s7 controller....because that's super important right?? not the fact that your house can burn down or anything lol.

the price will need to more than double to make the $2100 investment worth it and even if the price doubles bitmain will just raise the cost of the miner to match the increase in btc value so future batches wont be worth it either. once the miner is old and less desirable they will lower the cost to where they should be at. until then i wont be swapping out my s7's.

i have free electricity and the numbers still don't work for me.

Yeah, I haven't been able to figure this one out either.  From what I can tell the S9 will return around 2.5 BTC in 9-12 months.  If, and this is a big if, we see a significant network drop after the half it may break even (~3.5 BTC) in a year.

So what is the incentive?  Bitmain can plug these in themselves in their data center.  If I buy one, I assume 100% of the risk involved with mining.  Pool luck, internet outages, power outages, hardware failure, and early difficulty jumps (combined with either of the previous absolutely devastate ROI ability).

What is that risk worth?  Apparently Bitmain thinks the risk is worth -1 BTC.  That right, they are essentially charging you 1 BTC to assume all their risk. Whaaat?

Best case scenario, you just break even.  In this case you haven't purchased risk, however, you have assumed all the risk for 0 compensation.  Why wouldn't you just hold the coin?

the way i see it bitmain is trying to find the few people that see a high hashrate and low ROI times that DON'T know about the halving that's fast approaching. when you look it says it will ROI with $.14 per kwh in about 4 months which is awesome but what no calculator states is the roi times go through the roof once the rewards aren't as much. to provoke buyers to order the miners they r releasing it in a very limited batch which makes noobs think "nows my chance!" and they jump on it. i cant believe that other guy ordered 2 of these things and almost ordered a third. does no one do the math anymore? or does everyone jump on the newest miner released and enjoy being the overpriced beta testers?

with that said if the price was reasonable i would deff upgrade to these things. i mean who wouldn't?? but at $2160 a pop not including the $32 i would have to pay for fedex to overcharge me for import fees because they have a minimum fee of $25 for things over $2000 and an advancement fee of $7 which gets tacked on even if you don't want them to advance anything for you. i genuinely think everyone that purchased this first batch were silly and didn't take the time to do the math and for that u will lose out. next time you want to lose money be sure to send it my way :)

Buying any hardware before the halving is just a big unnecessary risk in my eyes. Best case is you get to mine for 2 weeks on the gravy train and then everybody else catches up. Nice, you just made probably less than $100 more than somebody who had no risk of the halving. (claps)

With increased risk comes possible increased profit.  It is not a sure bet in any means, mining is getting harder and need cheaper electricity.  But if price rises (and it depends how high it goes) getting rewards before having could be much more profit.   I would guess it's more then 100 and in the hundreds... how many hundreds hard to say though.

We just don't know it is hard to say how much btc hopefully will go up to.  But in this game it is normally the ones that take a little risk that profit.  If you are looking for a sure bet not sure mining has been that for a while.  But I know many people including I have managed to do it and enjoy it very much. 

The price of BTC going up has no impact on profitability. We are talking BTC ROI. If I rely on BTC increase to fiat ROI, I could have simply held the coin and made pure profit on the increase with none of the risk associated with mining. I can buy this miner for ~$2,200 today and have it return 2.5 BTC in a year. Or I could buy 2.5 BTC today for $1,450...

The only variable affecting BTC ROI besides downtown and power is network difficulty. I see no scenario in which difficulty allows this miner to ROI. BTC in < BTC out. There is no high risk, high reward. Only imoossible ROI, donation to Bitmain.

I'm not sure how you don't see BTC price impacting mining.  It HIGHLY can impact it.   I have X operating cost in USD per machine per month in electricity.  The longer the BTC stay's above that amount to run the longer I can mine.  Eventually.. I have to sell my miners as I do not have "free" electricity.

I see your point of buying 1 BTC = 1 BTC a year later even.  But BTC price highly impacts me as far as how long I can mine profitable.

Ok, let's try again. This machine costs 3.5 BTC. It returns 2.5 BTC in a year. You lose 1 BTC.

I can just buy 3.5 BTC and then not buy the miner. In a year I still have 3.5 BTC. No matter what the cost of BTC is I have more $$ than if I bought the miner.

Yes, BTC price increase will affect your fiat ROI. But look above. If you can't ROI in BTC you would have done better to hold the coin. If BTC goes up, you have more fiat if you hold the coin. If BTC goes down you lose less money if you hold the coin. Mining at a BTC loss is willingly increasing the risk to your fiat while simultaneously diminishing the returns of your fiat. You make less for higher risk.

Would you buy 4 gold bars to trade for digging equipment designed to dig up 3 gold bars and then hope for the price of gold to go up? No you wouldn't, you would just hold the 4 gold bars. Why should BTC be any different? Why would you pay more BTC than a machine returns?

This is why you run ROI in BTC. If you can't recoup BTC, hold the coin. If you can recoup coin plus more, decide if the 'plus more' is worth the risk (will the machine and variables hold up).

Personally, this just seems like way too long of a ROI for bitcoin mining gear. I get free electricity and I look at gear that i can pay off within 60-90 days.

i have free electricity as well but i wouldn't say roi needs to be 60-90 days. that's just giving customers money. a reasonable time frame to aim for is 6 months or less. what should have stuck out to s9 buyers was how bitmain sold a miner that based on current calculations would break even in way under 6 months. They never do that. but people were blinded by greed and got alot of money taken from them this round. hopefully they learn their lesson this time and dont buy new hardware that costs so fricken much! i wonder what the cost of the miner will be after halving. either way i know it will be a better roi if you wait for a later and probably less buggy batch.

And that is a valid argument that buying BTC is better for some then mining.  I'm not saying mining is for everyone with cost's going into it.   But as you I think see BTC price is HUGE for mining to keep going.  The higher the value should be the longer I can run the miner.    And should effect how much BTC I mine hopefully a profitable amount.  But I admit speculating 6 months out is kinda impossible at this point.

But for miners that are not free BTC price is going to be huge.  If it drops it could directly effect me in mining less day's before I sell the miner.  If it goes up it could directly give me more day's of mining, which should mean more BTC mined. Which is huge as far as ROI.

The quotes are getting a bit long so I'll hit the reboot on them. I agree that BTC price will impact the length of time you can mine (if you pay for electricity which most do). I would point out, however, that the network is self balancing. As the price goes up more gear jumps on the network. Any gains you make in additional mining time are likely to get wiped out by increased difficulty.

I guess the point is that price will have an impact on profitability (by impacting time), but the affect is minimal. It may bump it from 2.5 BTC to 2.75 BTC. Not nearly enough to cover a 1 BTC loss at any rate.

How can you possibly speculate that max amount I can get out of extra mining time for BTC price going up is .25 BTC?   We don't know what BTC price will be in a few month's don't know what operating cost will be.  No possible way to know how long I can mine profitably.   So to put a number to it.... is almost impossible to do at this point.

There are so many more facts we need to know right now it's all speculation.... which is best guess.  Just like "Any gains you make in additional mining time are likely to get wiped out by increased difficulty."  I don't see any way to speculate this as were talking about a time after having.  We don't even know what hash speed will be like after having, it could have lot's of old gear taken off or could soar like a rocket.     

We have years of historical trends now. Difficulty tracks price. Once you accept this, the rest is pretty simple math. It allows you to effectively remove price from the equation. The variations are approximately 10%. On 2.5 BTC that is +\- 0.25 BTC. I was being generous and assuming +0.25 for you.

You're right in that we don't know exactly how much gear comes offline after the halving. For this thing to even break even we'd need to see a colossal drop after the halving. I doubt it will be nearly as dramatic as people speculate.

wrong. operating costs can be figured out no matter what. the cost of power never goes down. it only goes up and not by much but power companies put out the increases almost a year beforehand so the cost can easily be calculated. on top of that the cost to mine in the summer is higher not only because running the ac costs a lot but also because power companies charge more for their power in the summer for whatever reason. your right that no one can guesstimate the exact earnings but the calculations i did were based on the info we do have. one thing is certain....if the price goes up the diff goes up so if your arguing that the price going up will make u reach roi because you will mine more per day then i suggest you stop mining right now and sell all your s9's before they lose their value because this isn't the right investment for you. the difficulty will shoot up. the only way the difficulty wont go up is if the price drops and or doesn't change from the price per btc right now. im not sure why its so hard to understand what hes saying. hell im saying the same thing....buying s9's at this price is retarded. no ifs ands or butts about it. if you think you will break even in a reasonable amount of time then again i say this isn't the type of investment someone like you should make. even me with free power wont break even.....that's saying a lot.

to make sense we would need to see a huge drop in diff and a huge increase in value per btc. but the more btc is worth the more people will mine it....the less its worth the less they will mine it. to ever assume that suddenly people wont mine something that is growing in value more and more is silly. think about it like poachers.....if ivory was worthless do you think people would be killing animals illegally to get it?? nope! so why would you think the value of btc going up means less people will mine it?? if you think it show me historical trends that prove your point. you cant prove it one bit so just stop arguing about this because the info give has been proven many times over.

This is mining SPECULATION thread, so i don't see why OP should stop doing exactly that.
The fact that you think that argument was presented many times over does not mean that OP cannot express his opinion.
I see the current crop of miners (only one so far-S9) as being of interest mostly by their novelty, not the money/profit.

I wish that Bitmain and others were in more 'sharing' mood where they get their fair profit, but let others have such profit (in btc) as well, but it is clearly not the case for people with an average electricity cost. The demarcation was clearly with S7, as S5 was profitable in btc terms, probably because bitmain wanted to drive competitors out of business by going super low on price. This happened in the world of business many times over, so there is nothing new here. As the result, they are enjoying monopolistic prices at the moment.

To me, the situation is crystal clear: as a hobbyist, I can still run S7 until it doesn't make sense, then reevaluate.
S9 pricing assumes 100% share of profits for Bitmain at the expense of negative btc profits for me.
I pass on S9 purchase until the situation changes.

no one is telling the OP to stop speculating or posting these types of threads. someone else came in here and was telling us that we dont know this and that so we must be wrong.....but it seems like you agree that the s9 isnt worth purchasing at the prices they are asking for it. but again no one is directing any harsh words towards the person that started this thread....

The reason I started this thread was to find out people's opinions on the s9. At that point in time they hadn't been released. Thus the speculation section. Now the speculation is over.

You might want to consider locking this thread with an optional link to the S9 thread in the Hardware sub-forum.

Thread locked refer to main thread.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1493601.0;topicseen