Bitcoin Forum

If the value of BTC crashed how cheap would it have to get before you decided to stop mining?

Also has anyone here calculated the difficulty to value to have a hard number to decide if mining is a better value vs just buying outright?

It's very, very simple.

If bitcoin price drops so much or difficulty goes so high that it costs more in electricity to run a miner than that miner makes then you stop mining.



Here is the formula:


25*MiningHashRate * 60 * 60 * ExchangeRate * 1000
_____________________________________________          = BreakEvenDifficulty

4294967296 * CostPerKWH * PowerInWatts


When the difficulty is above BreakEvenDifficulty, stop mining. Or you can solve for ExchangeRate, plug in the current difficult and when the exchange rate drops below ExchangeRate, stop mining.

Simply running an existing modern mining rig with the current mining difficulty is economic as long as Bitcoin remains above about $40.

For example with a Bitcoin worth around $650 a 1 Terabyte miner returns about $3.20 per hour.  If electricity costs $0.20 per kilowatt/Hour and the miner draws 1 Watt/Gigahash, as is typical, the Bitcoin value would need to fall by 16 times to be uneconomic.  So mining is economic above about 650/16 or $40 per Bitcoin on any miner running at 1 Watt/Gigahash or lower with electricity at $0.20 Kilowatt/Hour or lower.

This also means most miners brought now are likely to still be economic to run well into 2015 assuming difficulty increases an average of 10% per fortnight over the next 12 months and Bitcoin does not crash.  

The above gives no guidance on whether you should buy the miner in the first place.  It just suggests it may be quite a while before any miner you purchase now is turned off for good.

All in all mining is a arms race. I still believe buying bitcoin now is going to be much more profitable than mining.

That is a good question by the OP and I tend to agree that if the cost of mining is gaining any profit it is best to shut it down.  Buying the coins would be the best bet for sure. 

I mine as a Hobby. I and others like me will be the last miners standing. I have no intentions of turning my miners off, ever, regardless of cost.  8)

man it's crazy how bad things have gotten in the mining game and I really would like to see things get better I just don't expect that to happen which is very upsetting.  This issue with mining seems to be getting swept under the rug along with the little newb who got in a little late.  :o

I'd let it ride for 30 days under $200, then I'd bail on mining but keep the BTC in case it ever recovered.

get btc through mining have low risk than buying outright

If you want more profit

You just need buy btc outright

If it dropped below $100 for longer than a month, I'd start shutting down some of my less efficient gear.  Heck, it might be time to start doing that now.  I haven't done the calculations but I some of the first gen gear has to be close to zero profit now.

if the price doesnt go up that soon everyone has to stop their mining operation especially the asics miners.

What?  I think you're just 'wishful thinking'.

Most SHA ASICs are a long way from generating a negative return.  Sure, some of the very first ASICs may be nearing the end of their useful life (depending on electricity costs) but many others are still doing just fine.

Btw, Scrypt ASICs are already here and they use a tiny fraction of the electricity that GPUs use.  Scrypt ASICs aren't the future, they are the NOW.


sometimes I think people say things just because they want them to be true, lol