Bitcoin Forum

Well, how likely are you to buy ASIC equipment of any flavor or hell BTC in general, if you were or are living on crypto/BTC now?

I myself retired on crypto/BTC on Jan 13th, 2018 when life was good, unicorns, rainbows, fairy-dust and Bambi all conspired to make the BTC price 'wonderful'

Alas, my 'crypto-retirement' broke the BTC price. (It's how my luck rolls, don't ya know)

Thus living on crypto, it makes little sense to me to spend BTC for hardware on the 'fairy-dust' hope of prompt arrival of equipment from an ASIC maker and making more BTC out then you put into Equipment.

(alas, the good old days when this is true)

So, how many of you are going to 'buy ASIC' equipment if you were/are living on BTC?

If so how much? And you rational on this new reality?

My 'viewpoints' on such are in the next post and in the poll. Please take the poll as well.

Will be interesting to see how many people like me can either embrace or buck their ASIC addiction under these real or supposed circumstances that you are living on BTC now...what to do about ASIC's?

thanks

Brad

The math is harsh for me in that all my spending is from crypto (at least for the next 2.5 years till full retirement at 66 and 2 months and plan to take my traditional investments then)

thus BTC to Hardware (on the trust of timely arrival and profit ...based on BTC pumping and taking BTC  and/or all other alts with it) seems kinda silly in my situation. Now if you wanted to get this say from your

regular job income vs a Snowmobile say that may make more sense. But if folk are counting on a BTC pump in price and you are living on crypto..seems best to wait for the BTC price pump with my current

BTC in hand. I have enough issues just spending BTC to eat/clothe self/ and generally get bath soap/ laundry soap with such...all these social conventions like eating and bathing burning up my BTC! The horror!

So I will sit on sidelines on hardware likely. However, still mining 4-year-old KNC Titan miners using scrypt-N for Fujicoin (FJC) ..hey at 10c KwH vs heating my house in the winter it is a $25 buck loss at the

current $4k BTC prices and xfer rate...so what the heck. The KNC Titans will be 'doorstops' by the end of winter, however, I'm sure, due to the 4c plus kWh price rise of summer rates. They are 'truly evil' to

have lasted that long in any fly by night way...KNC Titans ...the Sargon/Mordor of the crypto mining universe...the undead! Ack!

anyway, looks like I'm out unless USB stick mining comes back and I need an itch.

Guess it is time to get the BTC node working again in the basement so when I do shut off my FJC KNC Titans, I will at least have something with blinking LCD lights in the BSMT)

So besides the undead KNC Titans or other 'legacy equipment' you are still making something on....what are your thoughts on this (mine below) Take the poll.

Knowing myself to be an unenthusiastic lad about maintaining a lot of hardware I know little about, I wouldn't buy ASICs to earn more bitcoin. Aside from that, seeing that the heydays of mining has long been gone, it's very difficult to risk the money into buying equipment unless you're a huge miner who has deep pockets and would be able to run hundreds of these little babies. I'd love to get me a couple of S9s, but knowing that these machines are power hungry--and the power rates here are extremely high, sometimes reaching $0.25 depending on where you live--it's not an option to make money off of them. GPU farms are better, but then again the altcoin market is unstable and would easily crumble with just a few movements from sharks.

So tl;dr: I wouldn't risk it, and just keep the BTC, thank you.

This is just my personal opinion, so don't take it as any sort of 'truth'.

I think buying mining equipment is not worth it, especially not for me.
I'd be paying too much for electricity, so Bitcoin mining would only be profitable if prices were well above $10.000

I don't know how accurate this chart is, but according to this, it wouldn't be a great idea in Belgium (my country)

https://i.imgur.com/6MkdAun.png
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/9p8dpg/cost_to_mine_bitcoin_as_per_average_electricty/

Aside from profitability, I just don't have the space for it. I'd really need a dedicated room for it, just for the noise that these miners make.

I'm just sticking with buying BTC.

Yeah, I was under the impression that the average price in the USA was 10c kWh. My Winter rates are 10.14c kWh and my Summer rates are

15.56c kWh. Or that was what they were in 2018.

Yeah, guess it is just gonna be all ASIC's off by next Summer rate time, just me and the bitcoin node in the bsmt. A distinct lack of LED's down there. Alas! :(

@Searing

I would think that it's fairly difficult to calculate accurate average rates for the US, since the prices would be very different, depending in which state you live.
Haha, at least you still have your node running! There should be more people like you ;)

PoW mining is dead/unprofitable for everyone but the Ultra Rich that can monopolize the majority of Hashrate & rewards.

For everyone else it is a suckers bet, they are guaranteed to lose.

Low interest Proof of Stake coins are the only viable options left for the little guy to actually profit.


 8)

With the current price relative to mining cost it's not a good time to invest in any mining equipment. You're purely banking on a price recovery and if you wanted to do that you might as well just buy bitcoin itself.

yep, the 'only' mining I recommend now is 'Attic Mining' you SELL all the stuff in the attic, daunting though that may be, on eBay of what you probably would die with anyway, being lazy and all, and buy BTC with it!

IF BTC goes tulips, you have an empty attic to make into a rec room, house value goes up 10-15k USD...win/win. If BTC pumps also you are even more golden!

myself I have 5k USD of crap up there at least I could sell on eBay..but is it sooooooo borrrrring....alas!

Anyway, what I tell newbies to do for getting BTC now, that or Saturday Garage Sales and/or Thrift shops with the same sell on eBay and buy at BTC angle.

later

brad

when it comes to mining your profitability is determined mostly with electricity cost so if i had a cheap electricity cost (it is actually cheap but not the cheapest and also here the value goes up with usage, meaning with a high electricity usage the price will be more in $/kwh) i would continue sticking to mining bitcoin, specially now that the hashrate is lower and i (as a small time miner) would be able to earn more with the same hashrate that i had before because of difficulty adjustment.
of course it is because i believe in bitcoin's long term potential and even if i were living on bitcoin i would still have some leftover BTC which i could store.

Well...as to ASIC makers and the future of POW mining of any flavor, this does not bode well...

Sorry, but it looks like Bitmain may be a going down, like the Titanic. 50% of workforce fired.

https://www.ccn.com/bitmain-bitcoin-mining-giant-to-sack-50-of-its-workforce/ (https://www.ccn.com/bitmain-bitcoin-mining-giant-to-sack-50-of-its-workforce/)

Pretty sure this means their IPO is deader than dead. Though Ebang seems to be going thru with their IPO.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/crypto-miner-ebang-re-files-for-ipo-despite-weak-q3-results/ (https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/crypto-miner-ebang-re-files-for-ipo-despite-weak-q3-results/)

Well, even for ASIC makers and big players like Bitmain...sh*t just got real!

Even the makers of POW scrypt miners, can't make them, even at cost, to make any $$$ out of running them, even for themselves...

dire...

i can't think of any scenario where things get bad for Bitmain! it may get bad for everyone else first and then bitmain be the last company standing! they have just made too much money so far. with mining bitcoin, with running a pool, with selling ASICs specially when the shoot up to popularity happened last year, selling ETH ASICs, and on top of all that they  created BCH and made tons of money that way by not only doubling their coins but also with pump and dumping it and also by selling more ASICs!

Going off their last quarterly numbers, their profitability from late 2017 and early 2018 has turned into major loss-making. Their losses have been magnified because they have had increasingly huge BCH holdings throughout this year's bear market. Then there was the whole ABC/SV hash war where they rented and redirected Bitcoin hash power to BCH while mining at a loss.

Bitmain has also been making very risky business moves like selling hardware extra cheap to undercut their competitors (https://cryptoslate.com/why-bitmain-is-purposely-losing-money-in-its-bitcoin-mining-business/). There have been rumors floating around that they've nearly defaulted on debts to their chip supplier (https://coingeek.com/bitmain-losing-chip-supplier-debts-mounting/) and therefore need to raise cash. These layoffs line up with those rumors, so I'm inclined to think Bitmain is really in trouble here.

Well...I'm looking at www.coinmarketcap.com (http://www.coinmarketcap.com) Litecoin (LTC) price of $138 USD now.

I can 'swing' at best in the data hall in the Midwest USA a Summer Rate of 12c kWh. (I think...bill is not in yet on Summer Rates).

This would normally be 10c kWh in the Winter (or was). The boat doesn't quite float yet.

I assume MOST of you still mining Bitmain L3+'s have 'underclocked' them and have 2 to a Bitmain PSU now to survive and likely

much better electric rates than 12c kWh.

Below is what I get at 12c kWh with (1) Bitmain L3+ unit (not underclocked) stock on www.litecoinpool.org/calc (http://www.litecoinpool.org/calc)

With everyone turning their old Bitmain L3's and L3+'s back on, with the price rise, I'm pretty sure it is still (even at lower rates than my 12c kWh) most people

are simply converting $$$ to electric and getting out LTC in a sideways manner (on equipment they had previous to this LTC price pump to $138 off).

Here are my ugly stats, again for (1) Bitmain L3+ Unit at stock at 12c kWh and 500mh and 800 watts at $138 LTC.

                       
                   Expected Rewards            Costs    Net Profit
24 hours   0.01889374 LTC   2.61 USD     2.30 USD   0.30 USD
 7 days   0.13225616 LTC   18.25 USD   16.13 USD   2.12 USD
30 days   0.56681213 LTC   78.22 USD   69.12 USD   9.10 USD

Hardly anything to run home about. I do have 8,000mh at 12,800 watts of Bitmain L3+'s off in a data hall. Also at the 12c kWh rate.

I'd get this below on www.litecoinpool.org/calc (http://www.litecoinpool.org/calc). Which as an 'aside' currently pays out at 102%.

 Expected Rewards           Costs          Profit

24 hours    0.30229980 LTC    41.72 USD    36.86 USD    4.85 USD
  7 days     2.11609863 LTC  292.02 USD   258.05 USD  33.97 USD
30 days     9.06899414 LTC 1251.52 USD 1105.92 USD 145.60 USD

So it is 'getting there'. The reasons 'profit' has stayed the same is that difficulty is shooting up. I would HOPE for say $175 LTC which to me might mean

ALL of the old Bitmain L3's and L3+'s are back up and running. This difficulty would flatten out for 6-8 months while ASIC makers 'scramble' to get the

next generation of machines out. In that crypto miners (IMHO) they usually HODL LTC long-term.

That would bring a lot of FOMO to the LTC price and maybe make me able 'perhaps' to ASIC mine again with this old Bitmain L3+ equipment.

Anyway, just 'woolgathering' on what ifs.

But again, the above would be a pretty good 'kick in the ass' for LTC prices going past $200 if miners could mine again with old equipment and difficulty was 'flat'

as a result for the next 6-8 months till new scrypt ASIC equipment of better efficiency. But again, for all boats (ASIC scrypt miners in existence) to 'put to sea'

and mine like hell again, I think we at 'least' need $175 LTC to pull such off. I guess 'chump or champ' I'll be the first to know. :)

Hell. A guy can dream right?

later

Brad

I agree with you. I think it's not as profitable as we think anymore. The electric consumption is higher than the profit that we'll gain through mining. I don't have plans to swap BTC with Asics because I think it's better to focus on trading and investing which is more profitable now.

ASIC mining is not dead,

problem is 2 things:
people pay retail/public prices for asics, not wholesale
people pay domestic/public prices for electric, not excess contracts

Well I am planning on start on mining since it would give me a stable income in crypto currency ,
Since we are earning in crypto might as well try anything that we could and also I am planning to invest in a solar panel to lessen the electricity cost so I could maximized the profit that I would get in mining.
So for me mining isn't dead it only cost much but it is worth it.

First of all I am not looking to mine Bitcoins with mining rigs, as that can be extremely costly and is not good for retirement plan but instead if I was going to get a living on cryptocurrencies then I will instead try to mine Altcoins as they are easy to mine and the can be easy to sell at better rates. I will look for something else rather than mining as mining is not a good option if you are not packed with huge money or savings.

If price gets better then I'm willing to enter the risks of mining since the electric supply here in our country isn't as hard as other countries. However, if the situation will still be the same, I think mining wouldn't be that profitable. The decision still depends on the market situation.

Mining is of course a very important issue. But right now I think it might be a logical investment Bitcoin.

If I were you, I would definitely buy Bitcoin now.

yeah..I tell people I recommend 'attic mining' you sell crap from the attic on eBay than buy BTC or crypto with such...this, of course, is stuff you otherwise would NOT

have been motivated to sell on eBay and likely would die with.

but in my case, it is 'equip' I already roi'd on..I'd like to turn on as the last hurrah...but yeah...bringing home about 10% of the price you spent on electric for the month

and LTC continues to pump..you should only HODL...in that electric is a BILL and the same amount of electric in LTC is actual LTC in hand....safer...

but again, if the price of say LTC was to go around $175 and everyone turned their bitmain L3+'s back on and such and as a result of NO new asic equipment  for scrypt

of any scale yet...you'd have 2 things 1) 6-8 months before you were blown out of the water by new equipment and difficulty and 2) most miners HODL in such

circumstances so that would also increase the FOMO and price of LTC IMHO. Not saying it is gonna happen, but has done so in the past for nice stable mining $$$ out

of the sky ..back in the day.

but yeah, sell crap you don't need for LTC or BTC or whatever crypto and/or what you can afford to lose makes more sense yet.

But if $175 LTC price comes back and looks stable and difficulty flattens out..the stuff I own is 'turned back on'. But buying new scrypt equip or used off eBay..er nope indeed.