Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone. I am now in a situation where I can spend some money on bitcoin. So far it seems like a good deal to do so.

I have around $5000 to spend. I was looking at a machine that has 4.1-5.0TH/s. I was going to mine for a couple months until break even, then buy another machine.

Power consumption should be 2600-3200 W

My current electricity cost is $0.115 (11.5 cents USD).

Do you think its worth it to start now or have I missed my chance?

Also, if I were to buy equipment and bitcoin goes away tomorrow, what can i do with the equipment? Can the same equipment mine for other crypto currency?

Let me know what you guys think.


Thank you everyone!


PS sorry if this is a double post. im having comp issues



below is the calculator i used. does this look accurate?

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc217/rosskimball/Capture_zpsa8ad6a9b.jpg (http://s215.photobucket.com/user/rosskimball/media/Capture_zpsa8ad6a9b.jpg.html)

Since BTC price is sub $600 and your electricity rates are above $0.10 I would suggest buying BTC at this point.  Even the S3 would be very borderline profit if not negative.  You can always use the purchased BTC to buy miners later if another miner comes out at a good pricepoint, but for you the electricity is an issue.

Your miner would be worthless if Bitcoin went away. Sure, there are other crypto currencies that use the same algorithm as Bitcoin (SHA-256) and you can mine them too.

But since BTC is the original and most useful/adopted crypto currency, if it went away, that would be such a major calimity that all other crypto currencies would be doomed as well. And since SHA ASICs serve no other purpose, they would be worthless.

If you want to be safe and have a nice return on your investment just buy bitcoins directly,
instead of trying to have some ROI you could live your life and wait for the next btc bubble.

Thanks for the help guys. I was looking into 1-3 SP300 Yukon machines... Too mad i missed my mark :(

I will look into buying coins direct.

Thanks guys!

At this point unless you got 6 big digits and are ready to invest it all and have literally everything taken care of - from cooled environments to the ridiculous amount of power consumption you will use.. Buy BTC directly and #fullmoon

Or... buy a 5Thz miner (Hope you get it) then plug it in and watch it become more and more worthless every 12 days :/

You have to factor in by getting mining equip now vs right after a bubble you are risking being in mining equip at the start of next price bubble.  Bitcoin doesnt stay still for long.

Buy BTC instead, 0.1 is not competitive enough...

agree i think now nots time to mining . to see diffuclt next will worth on price .
but all opinion its your choice.

That is the problem these days... By the time you receive your equipment, it's already out of date or close to it.  ;)

You are better of buying the BTC and investing in the companies manufacturing the technology for mining hardware, because there iis a sucker born every day, and they milk these noobers with pre-orders, and cash in before they fold.

I will have to agree with most of the above posters. It is probably a better idea to buy bitcoins and hold them rather than get mining equipment.

You have to maintain and run those things. I've had some of them before, I even hosted for friends. The only ones that made ROI were the ones I didn't have to pay for.

I've got a couple of 1000 watt ATX PSU's if you're looking to buy.

Summary of points to consider:

• Putting a large sum into a single large miner has downside in terms of reliability of arrival and reliability of equipment. When a big minor dies after whatever warranty it has (if any) then you are S.O.L.
  Mining profitability is uncertain - so mining bitcoin like hard rock mining is a bit of gamble - what is your risk profile?
  Miners can be very loud - where will you put it? What does your S.O. think of the endeavor? Hosting options always dilute potential profit.
  

I mine a little with a sympathetic spouse and free electricity. By definition, this eventually pays off absent failure of all my miners - I won't get rich, but I'll have a little BTC trickling in.

So if you want to mine, then maybe starting small with an S3 or two and spending the rest on BTC is an option. However, running my calculator,  an S3 never pays back with 11.5 cent power ($600 BTC, 15% difficulty increase every 12 days). You go negative on power in 168 days. Using your proposed rig (5 THS at 3200 W) you go negative on power in 192 days after earning $3,600 worth or 6 BTC.

When looking at your power bill, look for other demand related charges. For example, in my other residence, I pay an average of 0.12/KWHR, but there are several other system charges that scale in proportion to demand so my net marginal cost of power is closer to 0.18.

I suggest buying scrypt or x11 based asic devices, they can offer much profitable experiences.

Sorry for hijacking the topic


What if electricity is not an issue? What if you remove it from the equation?

I ran a few calculations using an S3 (440 GHS, 350 W, $600 BTC,  $0.00/KWHR power, starts 8/20 after the next bump).
15% increase every 12 days:  Goes to 0.10/day after 360 days and earning 0.87 BTC
10% increase every 12 days: Goes to $0.10/day after 528 days and earning 1.30 BTC
5% increase every 12 days: Goes to $0.10/day after 1032 days and earning 2.61 BTC

Since the beginning of the year we have averaged 16% every 12.1 days.

What is your risk profile?   :o

You would have been better off buying the BTC instead of mining, according to the above example of the S3, even if electricity is not an issue.

Thanks for doing the math!

I can practically get free electricity (long story short: not free, but paying a fixed -small- amount of money no matter how i use it)

And i can take the risk OFC otherwise i wouldn't be here  ;D
My capacity for investment is not too high ATM though.

I took the risk in 2011 and it didn't go very well, i joined when it was still rising and put all my savings into a mining rig (Which was getting me ~1BTC per day) i sold once for $20 then the big crash happened and i sold all i had for $2.5 because i thought it will become $0 one day (The pessimistic posts at that time got to me) and sold my mining rig (And took a %20 loss selling them).

But now it's different. i KNOW for sure the price won't hit $0 in fact i believe it will always become more valuable in time. because of the increased demand, publicity and wide acceptance.

Noted, thank you!

Man, how I wish I bought all the BTC I could get in 2011 or even 2012, and just held it until today. Even if you bought in mid to late 2013, today you would have more than tripled it.

An alternative is to invest it in one of those dice gambling sites that accept investments. Or since it's a gamble, just roll the dice.

Thank you for that candid honesty.  Everybody talks about how they wish they got into Bitcoin in 2011 without realizing how bleak it was in Jan 2012.  People were talking about the coin going to 0.  I had invested several thousand into hardware and I held until it recovered to $7.  It's easy for people in hindsight.

Looking back it is clear to me the best strategy would have been to just buy coin every month and set up a BTC accepting business.

If your going to consider mining look at the options and decide if that is worth the time to get started mining and cost of electricity.  After you do that consider would it be worth waiting for the amount of coins you mined to equal the amount you put into the operation or would it be best to just buy and hold.  I can't say for sure which is the best option, I just suggest you take it all into consideration. 

Buy and hold. Fire and forget. Easiest method. May not be the best, but you don't have to think about it for awhile, you have no equipment to maintain, no additional electricity, no head ache. The risk is about the same or even less. You could still lose everything.

If you bought at $200 USD last year, you're up 300% now.

It's still fun to mine though, so when I move to a colder climate with lower electricity cost, I just might get back into it.

You were smarter (and braver) than me, i thought the crash was the end.
And it doesn't matter if you mined it early or you bought it you just needed to hold into them. it's always gonna be tricky knowing where/if to sell.

If held into the last cash out (6 coins -i think-) which was nothing in $$ if i just kept it i would be in a different place today :P

But i actually have no remorse or regret it was a great experience.
I still have a 1 gram silver coin (i bought for 1BTC) that kept reminding me of it, and how revolutionary the idea is.

Many people regret buying mining gear as it would never ROI. Just buy cheap mining gear off ebay and you should be fine...

I actually bought 5 BTC back in 2011, when the price was about 20 USD. I think it was 20 USD for 5 BTC so that would have been 4 USD per BTC.

I sold them all the next month when the price doubled.

I bought some again, and bought and sold and bought and sold from then until today.

If I had a crystal ball then, (or even if I didn't, and I just kept those original coins) and just bought and bought and bought what I could afford ... and only sold now, even after seeing it go to 1200 then back down to 600....

I'm actually waiting for a 20,000 USD loan to get approved, then I'm buying about 33 BTC or whatever the rate is then. (The bank thinks I'm going to use it for "home improvement". hehehehe)

So about mining *Sips coffee* went to bed a day ago looking at 140 Peta hash rate...

*Sips coffee*  you had a look today to see what it is? lol... you must think we are making this shit up...   *Stares at warehouse full of soon to be useless hardware*

Well... living under a bridge it is then.. lol jk

You have to get more power to play the game of mining.  Mining at home is going away soon.