Bitcoin Forum

Where do you think the GPU miners (both amateur and professional) will go after GPU mining becomes unprofitable? Litecoin?

Litecoin, or whatever other altcoins are/will be using scrypt.

Litecoin or PPcoin, both are good at the moment for GPUs

Ltc will just be another hardware race though, right? I read about how scrypt had some memory operation that made it prohibitive to develop dedicated hardware for but that seems overly hopeful.

I did some napkin calculations and I think that at the current LTC value it might be better just buying LTC directly, rather than buying a new mining rig.

LTC Mining: 7970x2 (https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison): 1400 kHash/s
Mining Rig Cost: ~1000 USD for 7970x2

LTC/day@1.4GH/s (http://litecoinminingcalculator.com/index.php?khs=1400&diff=364.36008253&cdiff=364.36008253&fee=0): 3.86 LTC/day = 10 USD/day
LTC/month@1.4GH/s (http://litecoinminingcalculator.com/index.php?khs=1400&diff=364.36008253&cdiff=364.36008253&fee=0): 116 LTC/month = 300 USD/month
LTC/year@1.4GH/s (http://litecoinminingcalculator.com/index.php?khs=1400&diff=364.36008253&cdiff=364.36008253&fee=0): 1410 LTC/year = 3600 USD/year

[Exchange rate USD/LTC (https://btc-e.com/exchange/ltc_usd) = 2.58 USD for 1 LTC]

Mining Rig Breakeven (power cost ignored): ~4 months


Three years ago BTC was valued almost similarly than LTC is today, BTC:LTC is now 1:44.

I ask myself, what fundamentals are going to be in play in the next 3 years.

1) The big BTC miners, like ASICMiner, have so much momentum going atm, i.e. enjoying major mining profit and funding from their IPOs. One cannot hope to get in front of them or the ASIC wave. The result is that the entry-level individual pool share is going to rapidly diminish, as the high-momentum mining giants carve out bigger shares and the mining difficulty rise.

2) BFL, Avalon, KNCMiner are going to push +100GH/s ASIC units like clockwork on production lines in a years time. Only the players with big funds to invest will get on the forefront of this wave, leaving small players in the dust.

3) The players who have already invested in GPU miners will definitely have to reappropriate their rigs, and LTC is perhaps the best option. The memory-intensiveness of LTC will make it difficult for the industry to push out high-hash production-line units, ASIC it seems is not suitable for LTC mining. This is a very interesting dynamic, on one hand we have BTC mining that is going to be dominated by a few players and on the other we have highly decentralized LTC mining that is performed by the everyman on the ground.

4) Crypto-currencies are going to grow despite crashes, due to mistrust in fiat and ease of use. Alternatives like LTC are going to have their place. I expect the 1:44 BTC:LTC ratio to steadily reduce over the next years.


How should one position oneself given these dynamics (not exhaustive)?

1) Get in while you still can, on the dips, at least with play money that you can afford to lose.

2) Play with miner shares like ASICMiner-PT (https://btct.co/security/ASICMINER-PT).

3) Earn 28% APR BTC interest as a bitcoin lender (http://coinlenders.com/interest).

4) When LTC mining becomes sufficiently profitable (+10 USD/LTC ?) invest in some mining rigs. At least GPU's have resale value if profitability drops later on.

I think the is the best first post I've ever seen, you're getting whitelisted.

Also I'm guessing OP was talking more about people who already have GPUs to mine with.  I don't know the math, but once ASICs hit big time I'm guessing the GPUs won't be efficient enough to keep up.  It'll really only be worth it if you have free electricity, and even then depending on the difficulty it may take too much effort to be worth it.

It depends on the relative price and difficulty of BTC and LTC. I haven't mined LTC yet so I don't know if the mining rate corresponds to the difference in market value. I'm planning to try it and see if it's worth mining LTC or mine BTC and sell for LTC.

If mining really becomes unprofitable, perhaps move to folding.

I've tried mining litecoin, but ran into a few issues with Scrypt, so I gave up for the time being. I might try again considering I have my gaming rig just lying dormant at the moment. Does anyone have tips on getting Scrypt up and running/links to a thread?

When my friend told me about folding I felt guilty for using hardware to mine coins that could be used to cure disease. Definitely interesting though. :/

it would have been nice if there was some way to combine the two

Folding with a BTC payout? :P

  Definitely LTC. From mining PP coin a good portion goes to developers.

We can make a new altcoin called science coin!

Ok after reading that, I made a post about making a mining rig. But for $10 a day does it seem to be worth it? I have 5k to spend and want to invest it into something worth while. I was thinking of 3x's 7970's that would only get me $15 a day I also have to pay for electricity.

But would it still be a good investment?

Thanks

What about Namecoin?

You should be able to get a lot more than 3x7970 for $5k. I got 7970 and a 7950 rig for $1k. When I got my rig litecoin was worth $5 and the difficulty was half what it is now. The time to break even is now four times what it was then, but it's still only 3-6 months, depending on if you have to pay for electricity or not. However, the difficulty is only going to go up, and the price may not. I think 15% per annum is generally considered a decent return on investment, and you'll probably get it, depending on what your electricity prices are, but I don't know how much more you'll get than that. So if you're happy with 15% go for it, but don't expect huge riches, I think it's too late for that.

Not for 5k I have 5k to invest and I was thinking of getting 3 x 7970's for mining. And I am looking for a small amount of cash ontop of my income thats all.

I did it and I don't regret it. It's been a good learning experience and at worst you can ebay your rig to recoup most of your investment. Make sure you at least look at the mining calculators and see if the return is worth it for you. Remember to include the cost of electricity and the inevitable difficulty increases.

They are a bit hard to calculate with. I know my hash rate will be 2184 for LC Difficulty I kept as standard import no clue what Pool Fee is.

The mining pools charge a fee to run the servers and take some of the risk. It's usually 2%.

Wondering if there will be dedicated hw for scrypt...

At that point I will be making $420 a month with a elec bill of $75 so 320 a month Seems quite good. That is with 3 x 7970's with 5k should I get 2 rigs both with 3 x 7970's. So many things to think about.

If someone want to invest some millions of $ then there will be

But that's at the current difficulty. It is going to go up. It's was at 200 only two weeks ago. Make sure you factor in the decreasing returns.

I quite like that idea. We're gonna go far!