Bitcoin Forum

Lately there is a lot of complaining about the mining profits. These charts are to show what the mining profitability was over time for Equihash and Dagger.

Looking at Daggerhash (ETH)

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/ethereum-mining_profitability.html

We have been at this profitability before last Sept/Oct 2017. Probably why many of us got excellent deals on GPUs last Black Friday. So if trends are to repeat we should see decent GPU deals in a month or two.

Currently the mining profitability for ETH is still higher than it was in Oct 2015 and Dec 2016 and Sept 2017.

Looking at Equihash

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/zcash-mining_profitability.html

This algo is a different story. Most likely due to the huge hashrate inequalities between the Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Daggerhash is more fair against all types of GPUs. Not the case with Equihash which has speeds of 300Hs for the RX 580 while the 1080Ti can reach almost 700Hs.

Currently we are at record lows ever ($3 per Khs). The second record low was set last February 2017 at $3.50 per Khs.

Looking at Cryptonight (Monero)

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/monero-mining_profitability.html

Again this one was a given. We are at record low profits. Reason being the ASIC and unfair advantages of some GPUs like the Vega. The last time it was this unprofitable was Aug 2016.

I disagree with that cause, gpu prices, example --> rx 480 used to be $200 and now rx 580 $450.

The thing is, you see as usd only regardless of gpu price and I see gpus price to how much usd you are getting.

This isn't being taken into account for simplicity.

Taxes, Software mining fees, Hardware costs, Power costs are not taken into account.

If you were to take this into account then most likely it was easier mining in Oct 2015 since back then You could of bought a second hand Radeon 7950/7970/280x for $100 since nobody mined back then.

However this is too difficult to plot.

Hopefully this also translates into meaning that we are soon due for an upward spike in mining profitability. The problem is that so many people have gotten into mining tho that i'm pretty sure the spike won't last long once they start dumping the ethereum/coins they have mined.

Too many people mining is a good thing as long is a fair competition which is hardly the case in times like this, everybody wants a piece of you --> raw material company, manufacturer, shipping company, distributor, seller, reseller, government and lot more things, all want a piece of you. Hard to be profitable nowadays after everything is taken from you.

And after all that, if they start figuring out what they are doing is for bitcoin miners which was $17k each, they will start thinking what they do is a bargain, so they raised it all. What you see today is a unfair market for miners, very different than it was 2 years ago.

Soon will be increased taxes for miners, govs think miners are earning money too easy and doing nothing, the truth is the system wants to steal something from you as always. The system never lets you to fly away to other heights, always holding you back. And in turn if you become successful then it means it was not legal cause you did not pay enough taxes or did something to cover up something.

The system in most countries is abominable.

I agree for those who are mining at a larger level (i.e. all those mining in washington) who are taking the local electrical authority beyond its capacity because of the cheap electricity which is a byproduct of companies taking over what was supposed to be a de-centralized activity.

1 word.  Greed.  We all have some sense of it.   For those who were in for a long time, maybe not....but when the buzz words are "moon" "lambo" etc.  makes you wonder. 

I think a lot of money flowed in and out kind of like a Tsunami wave from December to January. 

It was flowing in from the ocean rising the tide (i.e. bitcoin)  and then hit a critical mass (December) and flowed over the banks into (altcoins) and then receded back into the ocean.   I don't believe there will be another tsunami like that for a while.  I'm just paying off my miners with 75% of profits and 25% is holding.  It'll be a while, might as well hold some.

Going to follow up on a weekly update. Basically

Brand new profitability low for ETH, thanks to new ATH difficulty and yearly low on price. Last time ETH was this unprofitable was in Dec 2016

Brand new profitability low for ZEC. Thanks to higher difficulty and lower prices. High end Nvidias are really hurting due to this algo. ZEC was never this unprofitable ever.

Monero profitability seems constant this week.

It's amazing how low the main altcoins have become in few weeks, this is unbelievable. I myself would not believe if I have not seen it and that is all because investors think when eth, equihash asics hit the market, they can buy a lot cheaper than is right now.  Investors are doing a mistake, I dont think eth price or profitability will crash any further. It is just too low.

Weekly update

ETH

Looks like the profitability has improved slightly since the dip last week. Currently we are back at the mid March profitability levels. So we are making 30% more profit this week compared to the last

ZEC

Similar story here. Basically since ZEC didn't move up as much as ETH it's only 20% more profitable than last week. The Nvidia people will be happy.

XMR

Biggest difference is XMR basically half the difficulty has disappeared and we are at +60% more profitability compared to last week. The VEGA owners must be really happy.

I see difficult increasing a lot only on July at all levels and from now till July profitability will increase a lot and July - August time-frame profitability will dip a bit and coin prices will be 3 times they are today average. So like I always say, only holders will win in the end, if you mine and sell then you are doing it wrong.

I really expected the Monero profitability to rise alot more. I tought bitmain had 1000+ miners running CryptoNight on Monero, and the amount of botnets that used to old algo would also be high. But i guess i was wrong, 60% is not nearly what i expected!

Yes, that's true. Everybody here is expecting a ROI in less than 3 months...

Another thing is that usually, most people do not research enough before they start buying stuff, especially when GPUs are extremely expensive. If they would have looked into the trends and profitability beforehand, that would have helped a lot.

I see that a lot of people are posting the GPUs they bought in October-November for sale because they're not profitable "anymore". The truth is they are still profitable but the ROI isn't as fast as they expect it to be.

I think mining ROI about 9 Months is good.

3-4 Months roi is very hard, if you are not very lucky

However I would not buy new mining gear if Roi is over 12 Months.

I bought 2 times high quantity of GPUS.

1st in Jan-Feb 2017 - Sold them in June 2017.
2nd in July-Aug 2017- Sold them in December 2017.

Been a while and time to provide an update.

Basically its an endless bear markets and lots of panic in the markets especially with miners since there are ASICs on board.

Looking at ETH mining profitability we are still above the April lows and we are still making 30% more today than in April when ETH reached $375 per coin. However with the difficulty constantly increasing, it doesn't bode well for the future.

Monero profitabilty is still very good thanks to that fork which eliminated all those ASICs and botnets. We are basically making double today than the low in April. This is good news for the AMD Vega holders and the older GPUs like the Tahiti and Pitcairn which require very little power. However not including electricity costs an R9 280X is only pulling in about $0.50 per day. Pretty much half of what an RX 570 can earn.

ZEC or other Equihash coins profitability is down the drain thanks to the ASICs in the market. Basically mining ZEC right now is unprofitable for most GPUs. The Nvidia people are probably suffering the most as a result to this. Hopefully we will see some algo change forks to make these coins profitable again in the near future.

Ok its time for an update again, its been over a month and lots have changed.

Basically things not looking good for DaggerHashimoto (ETH) basically we hit the lowest daily profitability since April. This is largely due to the low price and the huge difficulty jump. Those with RX gpus hopefully ROI'd by now. Because pretty soon we will hit the lowest profitability ever for ETH even lower than Oct 2015.

Thanks for all the ASICs, the Equihash is the lowest profitability ever for ZCASH. Never has profitability been this low before.

Monero profitability is looking also bad, however not as bad as back in April. However with all the GPUs switching and the difficulty rising looks like we will hit all time low profitability levels soon for XMR.

Basically its like Capitulation for GPU miners.

Concise report, hopefully these historical charts will help trolls who are not in denial to understand what is going on, gpu mining is close to be the lowest since 2014. Since that time, it has never been so bad like it is now and as pos draws closer, anybody investing in gpus are about to be burnt alive unless altcoin prices jumps few times.

All my remaining gpus  are paid for.

I have 12x 1080ti's  mostly pointed at BTG

the 8 1080tx earn about .4 btg a day  or 10-11 usd

my power cost is  1.80 a day so I net around 9 dollars on these 8 cards  maybe 8 a day

or 240 a month

and BTG is vulnerable to a new asic attack if a new asic is built.

Btg new algo is memory intensive. Will be very costly at the moment to build an asic for btg. It's similar to eth algo in hardware requirements

Thanks for keeping this updated! Your reports seem very accurate and I actually do agree and share your opinion on the end of GPU mining. Even if lets say you are mining with the future value in mind, there is still the threat of new hardware that would make existing GPUs less profitable. Not to mention that not selling you GPUs today would be a bad idea because of the constant price gouging and steady decrease of GPU value.

Well, with ETH almost breaking yearly lows, profitability with a RX 470 4GB is down to a measly $0.75 before fees and electricity.

Pretty crazy since back in June 2017, I think this GPU was pulling in around $7.50 while dual mining SIA. However since electricity is fixed and not a ratio of profitability it can mean $0.00 daily net profit after electricity cost for some.

What to do with these GPUs? Sell ? Hold ? Start actually using them to play Video games ?

Party's over folks.  Lets go play some games :)

I'm mining at around 35 cent watt average and shutting down my machine today.  Going to full throttle my 401k and max it out for the year.  reduce my taxable amount,  Probably sell my gpus and just buy coins over the next 3-4 months at these depressed prices,  I'll get more millage that way

Well, right now, is all time low but from here it can only go up. I advise any to buy coins, if you buy now, you will enjoy the return 10 times more in few months.

yep and to those dumb enough to keep on mining for penny profits. Your taking a huge risk of lighting your rigs on fire and burning down your place.  Not worth fighting over left over bitmain scraps.  Its been 8 months and BTC has not found a bottom  yet.  It will probably take till the end of the year till we hit a real bottom and capitulate.  Early 2019 will be accumuation flat prices.  and prices probably wont' pick up till mid to late 2019.

Last time, btc price crashed on January 2015 to $200 and rose on October 2015 to $500, this time btc crashed on January 2018 to $6k and will probably rise on October 2018 to $14k.

Im looking at that chart.   It was 1 year long crash from Jan 2014 of $1000 to  Jan 2015 to $200.  Took 1 year to find that bottom.  We are still 8 months in currently and probably have another 4 months till we hit bottom.

There was also 9 months afterwards of consolidation at the bottom 200-$350 range between Jan 2015 to September 2015 of just sideways  After September 2015 prices finally started to rise.

If we are to play the market cycles are are still in full blown winter season follks. Hopefully winter gets over soon in a few months so we can start accumulate for  the next 6 months in spring and start the summer season again.  

Big mining farms will shut down, Things will get even uglier for mining as they already have. Still increase in difficulty. Obelisk delayed shipment. Xlinix delaying FPGA and new hardware is arriving,  This is going to get very ugly for mining, I would not expect rise in value anytime soon for at least a year from now and thats why I've turned off my rigs and not waste my electric or burning out my hardware

BTC all time high was 20k this time, if we take last time as an example, we will see 5x crash, btc at 5k is a 4x crash, i do not expect btc to crash lower than 5k because we don't have a mt.gox case where many bitcoins were stolen and market thought the hackers would unload all those coins into the market. So matter of fact, i dont think btc price will be lower than what is at moment, is just too low.

Thanks for the sources of good information.
Since the topic is not too crowded it was easy to get read it all and get an overall view about where things are going.

Right now ETH profitability is getting lower and lower because all the nvidia cards which used to mine Equihash are turning to Dagger Hashimoto.
The situation is still pretty fine for ASICs and FPGA mining farm, but I think that it's deep winter for people that bought GPUs in late 2017 or early 2018.

The thing is scaring me most is the absence of a good PoW powered project. Everyone seems to believe that the best way (actually is just the simplest and cheapest) to launch a crypto project is doing an ICO and live in ETH or start with ERC20 and swap for a DPOS coin afterward. Seems that no one is actually interested in decentralization (which is the main reason to stay here).

Is anyone aware of a good PoW powered project that is worth supporting?

I agree with you on that one and we are not to far from the bottom it seems like. But I do think markets can drag on longer than we comfortablely want till we get new fresh money and people comming in or extremely bullish news. We all are pretty much bag holding for the moment

 5k would be the lowest I could possibly imagine. Cost around 6k to mine  1 btc as miner support but markets generally don't care about your hard work to mine it. I have a buy order at $5400 in case it dips that low

Fundementals and confidence is much stronger with btc now so I do agree on a quicker market cycle recovery compared to the past.

I hope I am wrong and markets will recover near all tlme high this year but i see no signs of that, I'm trying to be as objective and plan for the worst.

This is the classic logical fallacy.
There is always 100% downside. "It can only go up" is wishful thinking at best.
Remember summer 2014. BTC prices had lost 75% from the top. Many (inclulding me) turned off their rigs. Remember what happened the following 2 years. Yep. BTC lost another 50%+.

Back then it was only Mt. Gox.
Let's see how many hacked exchanges we can list for 2018 only...

Same with the NVIDIA graphics card. Got 8x 1070's that i still use for mining Equihash. I get a profit of $0.50 - $0.52 per hashrate in a month. Mining in ETH would generate me almost the same. So i guess this is the end for mining. Thanks to corporate level mining, Average joe like us won't get our return of investment sooner than expected.

Well it seems the ETH profitability went up slightly in the last 24 hours or so due to the transaction spamming.

Apparently some ICO or some dApp is raising the GAS prices and each block has a 15% premium due to the high transaction fees.

However we just hit a new yearly low for ETH so profitability doesn't really increase.

Data shows that ETH's difficulty increased by 9% the past 90 days. And for the past 90 days, the price of ETH is down 50%. I can't seem to see any signs of decrease in difficulty. Same goes for the price of ETH. Only the other GPU coins with low marketcap are able to make a higher profit. I wonder when will people going to realized that selling their rigs is the best decision now.

Why sell? Just stay put. Turn'em off if you have to but don't sell them at deflated prices... Who's gonna buy them now anyway? Leave'em be and be ready to switch back on when it makes economical sense again.

Prices of Cards are surging below it's MSRP. Plus, next month or so, there will be another powerful card available in the market. That would make the 2nd hand cards difficult to sell.Add to that to the fact that it will result to low profitability. This is just my opinion. I'm also finding it hard to sell my 1070's(Planning to upgrade to next gen gpu's).

hacked right? mt.gox was the only one hacked, we had a lot more exchanges than we have today.

Unless its Coinbase, Binance, or Bitfinex that gets hacked, I don't think the effect will be as bad as it was in 2014.

Even after Bitfinex got hacked a few years back we quickly recovered.

Pretty sure most exchanges these days aren't stupid and cold storage 99% of their BTC.

That large NEM hack (forgot which exchange) was most likely due to the fact that they couldn't keep it on cold storage. If you got a profitable business, take the necessary steps to protect your customer funds or risk going bankrupt when you get hacked and all customers go elsewhere.

The second part of your sentence couldn't be further from the truth. In 2014 there was only a handful of exchanges. For altcoins, apart from Cryptsy and Poloniex there wasn't very much out there. Now every kid in a basement is running an exchange and I'm not even mentioning the DEX.

Exchange "hacks" might have been a bit of a restrictive statement. I should have added pool hacks (Nicehash?), government clampdowns (China, Korea), online wallet hacks (ledger, MEW), large infrastructure hacks and worms requesting payments in BTC or XMR, repeated regulatory rebuttals of crypto ETFs (Winkelvoss), centralisation of BTC wallets (most BTC are still held in a handful of wallets who are regularly dumping in a neverending stream)... All the above is hitting confidence in Crypto hard. We need a proper stream of good news for the prices to stabilise and start going up again. This hasn't happened yet.

thank you for the charts