Bitcoin Forum

Hi, I've been running a bitcoin mine for around 6 month now with
50 5830.  Since the price for bitcoin just drop below $3, the cost to generate a bitcoin
is too hight and no longer profitable.  It is time to pull the plug and leave the party OR

I like the idea of bitcoin being an online currency and is time to find an alternative way.
you're probebly on the boat that's probebly why you're here. 

What are your electrical costs? 
What is your efficiency (MH/W at the wall)?

Don't sell mined bitcoin, rather spend them at CIB (http://cheaperincoins.com) or Spendbitcoins (http://spendbitcoins.com/)! Rather than running them maybe buy some bitcoin at Tradehill (http://tradehill.com) or another exchange.

Consider using your rigs for distributed computing and advancing the state of science.

Im actually starting a new project on cutting down the electricity cost
made a blog here

http://mycheapenergy.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-2-gathering-source.html

well...  hopfully something works out nicely

I remembered my last bill was like $1800 + CAD
didnt have time to break it down
pulled the plug on all of them since it falls below $5USD

It's all about solar power or FPGA now.

so people like us with lots of GPU power will start leaving

Solar power?  You do realize how expensive solar power is?

As far as efficiency how can you make any informed decision on economics if you have no clue what power your rigs actually pull from the wall?

Hell you might be still profitable @ $2 or you might have been losing money @ $6.

Lastly 5830s.  Ouch not the most efficient cards.  Likely combined w/ cheapo low efficiency power supplies right?

I have 50 card rig right now
FPGA will turn all my rig to a waste
solar panel is too expensive

Im doing a DIY solar stirling plant that generates free energy
I'll post some more stuff about the project here

http://mycheapenergy.blogspot.com/2011/11/episode-2-gathering-source.html

If a $400 solar stirling plant could produce the same amount of power as $20K solar panels don't you think every company would be selling/installing stirling plants instead?

@DeathAndTaxes

my rig was built when everything seems too good tobe true @ $20+
im one of the lucky guy that got everything paid off before the party was over

I pulled the plug already on them since it's no longer profitable
Im on a project doing this DIY solar stirling generator right now,
size is like 4ft X 4ft, cost was around $400
but I should be able to generate enough power to run my 50 rigs

if it doesnt, I'll just ebay all of the cards
but so far i manage to get 3 of my computer running with a small version of the rig which cost around $80
building the big one atm

Right?

I plan on implementing Stirling engines on my diesel powered Phoenix class submarine so that I can make trans-pacific crossings underwater.

http://www.ussubmarines.com/submarines/phoenix_1000.php3

well.. i've invested into this thing already

the onlyway to find out is to try i guess...  seems tobe easy enough to set up
I'll try to get post some updates on the blog if i have any success

Maybe You can try to build a render farm for some 3D applications like Blender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_farm
You can sell the processing power for bitcoins.

Another option is to sell all the stuff and recover some costs.

You can also look at it this way: if it costs you $3.00 in energy to generate a bitcoin, you can always mine them now and sell them later when the price goes higher (unless you are pessimistic it never will). If two months from now, the price goes up to even $5, you be sad you didn't mine two months' worth of bitcoins to sell.

This is a waste of money. It's better to buy them now, which has the further advantage of placing upward pressure on the price.

????? Why is this an advantage?

Sorry, that was a typo.

You are claiming that if your production costs just breaking even, you should just buy coins instead because it will place upward pressure on the price. If everyone did this, the network would cease to exist. Upward pressure isn't what we need, it's stability and security. One way to achieve this is with production cost parity. People shouldn't be making money for doing jack shit.

Mining the network isn't doing anyone a charity right now, because I doubt people who say they are "just breaking even" have considered the cost of maintaining the rigs and hardware depreciation. We're well below production cost now, and it's time to adjust to the new price and difficulty levels.

You doubt that people have cheaper electricity than you? That's just foolish.

I am still running at a profit, albeit a miniscule one. Remember that difficulty thing? People are generating ~33% more coin.

Your hardware is losing value every day. The time one expends on maintaining ones rigs is likely worth more than whatever slim profit one could make when taking hardware depreciation into account.

Where is the problem if lots of rigs cease their activity?

Maybe It could be a opportunity for people who are interested in Bitcoin, not in speculation.

The network will be stable, because it was stable in the early blocks.

Yep. I'm doing it because I believe in bitcoin. Pretty amazing, huh?

Are there any miners out there that have found some profitable way of utilising their hardware besides bitcoins? I found out about WPA cracking, but video rendering doesn't go that well on most ATI cards I figured..