Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Mining => Topic started by: psknives on May 09, 2011, 11:39:24 AM



Title: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: psknives on May 09, 2011, 11:39:24 AM
http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/5236/dfsdfd.png

gfx is based on how much money i get, 1.8 btc is depended on gfx with difficulty in consideration.




Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: ribuck on May 09, 2011, 11:45:23 AM
(a)  I don't see an acknowledgement that the generation difficulty will increase greatly during that time, and that your projection relies on speculating that the BTC price will go up proportionally.

(b) I don't see the price of electricity in there. Oh, you get free electricity in your college dorm. For 60 computers?

(c) If you live in a hot place, even one mining PC will make the room too hot in summer.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: clonedone on May 09, 2011, 11:48:06 AM
thats a little risky.
i think if you dont get your mining rigs before this winter, it might not be as profitable anymore.
you didnt calculate electricity, im guessing your not going to be paying for it? i was thinkging of dorming next semester and doing that but im not sleeping in a room with a mining rig lol.
besides, if you wanna really invest, atleast get 5970 or 6990s, they will make u more btc.
your life will be horrible stressful monitoring 10 - 60 computers, especially if ur in college.

also with 2 computers running two 6990s each is equivelent to ur 9 pc setups @$1600 to $2000 a month

and yeah i hopeyou did the calculations with double the difficulty we see now just to be on the safe side


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: psknives on May 09, 2011, 11:50:53 AM
(a)  I don't see an acknowledgement that the generation difficulty will increase greatly during that time, and that your projection relies on speculating that the BTC price will go up proportionally.

(b) I don't see the price of electricity in there. Oh, you get free electricity in your college dorm. For 60 computers?

(c) If you live in a hot place, even one mining PC will make the room too hot in summer.

A) Well I am speculating that I will be making $3.75 per btc and the difficulty will increase and your right. The difficulty will increase but I highly doubt Ill go from 1.8 btc to 1.4 btc in 1 year with the same hash cracking rates.

B) I have an idea for it already, and no I don't live in a college dorm. Ill be getting some space for it don't worry about it.

C) The storage area will be cold as the winter.

--

@clonedone your right, i think ill add the new data to see how much profit ill be getting.



Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: vuce on May 09, 2011, 11:57:18 AM
1.8 btc per day? This sounds a bit low for a 5870.

You're correct, it will not go from 1.8 to 1.4 in a year. It will go from 1.8 to 1.08 in 10 hours.

Anyway, I think you would lose a lot of money doing this.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: m4rkiz on May 09, 2011, 11:57:57 AM
keep in mind that price may or may not rise with difficulty increases, no one can predict either price of btc or difficulty at the end of this year, so you can't assume 1.8 daily or fixed 3.75 price

and unless you have some proper space to keep those pcs that would be a problem, noise for one, and count every 5870 as 0.3kWh heater... with 10 of them it is no different than having 3kWh heater running 24/7...

edit:

Quote
but I highly doubt Ill go from 1.8 btc to 1.4 btc in 1 year with the same hash cracking rates.

you can expect 45% increase in difficulty just today, who knows what will happen in 2 weeks not to mention 2 months or more


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: ploum on May 09, 2011, 12:10:13 PM
Short and simple: you are applying linear interpolations to a bunch of highly non-linear stuffs.

Which makes your prediction as reliable as a pure random guess.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: psknives on May 09, 2011, 12:27:19 PM
keep in mind that price may or may not rise with difficulty increases, no one can predict either price of btc or difficulty at the end of this year, so you can't assume 1.8 daily or fixed 3.75 price

and unless you have some proper space to keep those pcs that would be a problem, noise for one, and count every 5870 as 0.3kWh heater... with 10 of them it is no different than having 3kWh heater running 24/7...

edit:

Quote
but I highly doubt Ill go from 1.8 btc to 1.4 btc in 1 year with the same hash cracking rates.

you can expect 45% increase in difficulty just today, who knows what will happen in 2 weeks not to mention 2 months or more

Don't worry about storage too much, and I expect some difficulty. But nothing too radical.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: eof on May 09, 2011, 12:37:54 PM
I expect some difficulty. But nothing too radical.

The point is that difficulty will be jumping more in the next jump, happening *today* than you predict it will in a year.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: keybaud on May 09, 2011, 01:27:04 PM
Also, don't forget to take humidity into account, if you're going to put them into a cold room. A PC full of condensation won't help your MH/s.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: JJG on May 09, 2011, 02:03:20 PM
As mentioned before, your difficulty estimates are way, way off. Difficulty will jump over 42% in a matter of hours, and that's after only ~10 days at the current difficulty.

Your note suggests that you don't have difficulty rising very quickly because you believe it will be offset by purchases of faster cards. You're being a bit optimistic here, as the current 'GPU to have' for the bitcoin game came out in 2009.

But the absolute biggest indication that your model isn't realistic should be this: The barrier to entry for mining bitcoin is low relative to other investments or business ventures. You don't have to get a business license, find investors, etc. You just take a computer, load a generic program, and hit go. This doesn't take special knowledge, other than the knowledge that bitcoin mining exists.

In other words: If you can do something on a shoestring budget in your basement without actually even working for it, then so can almost every other hardware enthusiast on the internet. And as they discover bitcoin mining, they certainly will try. And this will rapidly drive the absolute profitability in to the ground.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: Sukrim on May 09, 2011, 02:21:00 PM
Difficulty increases (as the hashrate increases) by 2% per DAY, not per month currently.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: gmaxwell on May 09, 2011, 02:45:22 PM
In other words: If you can do something on a shoestring budget in your basement without actually even working for it, then so can almost every other hardware enthusiast on the internet. And as they discover bitcoin mining, they certainly will try. And this will rapidly drive the absolute profitability in to the ground.

Moreover... they'll make the same kind of crap analysis we've seen from many people here (difficulty increasing linearly 2% per month‽‽ How can you read enough to know about difficulty an then completely miss its growth like that?) and they'll keep piling into it even when it's _not_ profitable for them.



Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life.
Post by: Fiyasko on May 09, 2011, 05:20:18 PM
1.8 btc per day? This sounds a bit low for a 5870.

You're correct, it will not go from 1.8 to 1.4 in a year. It will go from 1.8 to 1.08 in 10 hours.

Anyway, I think you would lose a lot of money doing this.

(Vuce)"SHHHHHiiiNNNNNNNKUUUUUUUUUU HHHHaDOOOOOOOOUKEEEENNNNNNNNN"
(Jack)"SHYORUKEN!!!!!!"
(announcer) "KAY OH!!!!!"


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: MoonShadow on May 09, 2011, 06:04:26 PM
In other words: If you can do something on a shoestring budget in your basement without actually even working for it, then so can almost every other hardware enthusiast on the internet. And as they discover bitcoin mining, they certainly will try. And this will rapidly drive the absolute profitability in to the ground.

Moreover... they'll make the same kind of crap analysis we've seen from many people here (difficulty increasing linearly 2% per month‽‽ How can you read enough to know about difficulty an then completely miss its growth like that?) and they'll keep piling into it even when it's _not_ profitable for them.



You can't know who it's profitable for, or it isn't.  Mining was never profitable for me, and in general I don't, but I can envision conditions that I would mine for short terms.  There are many users who mine in their winter months because the cost of electric is either the main method of heat, and therefore running a miner is just a possible bonus to paying the heat bill; or they functionally have near free electric.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: gmaxwell on May 10, 2011, 12:30:40 AM
You can't know who it's profitable for, or it isn't.  Mining was never profitable for me, and in general I don't, but I can envision conditions that I would mine for short terms.  There are many users who mine in their winter months because the cost of electric is either the main method of heat, and therefore running a miner is just a possible bonus to paying the heat bill; or they functionally have near free electric.

If heating is a non-trivial part of your electric expenses then you should be using gas (much power cost per therm than electric heating),  and/or an electric heat pump (greater than 100% "efficiency").   

Because of this, even with heating as a consideration mining will never be free, unless you can make some sucker pay for it for you. :)


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: psknives on May 10, 2011, 07:00:53 AM
You can't know who it's profitable for, or it isn't.  Mining was never profitable for me, and in general I don't, but I can envision conditions that I would mine for short terms.  There are many users who mine in their winter months because the cost of electric is either the main method of heat, and therefore running a miner is just a possible bonus to paying the heat bill; or they functionally have near free electric.

If heating is a non-trivial part of your electric expenses then you should be using gas (much power cost per therm than electric heating),  and/or an electric heat pump (greater than 100% "efficiency").   

Because of this, even with heating as a consideration mining will never be free, unless you can make some sucker pay for it for you. :)

Generally in GTA, Ontario, Canada you can find apartments around $800 to $1400 (depending on size and rooms) with free utilities (some not all).


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: allinvain on May 10, 2011, 09:47:56 AM
You can't know who it's profitable for, or it isn't.  Mining was never profitable for me, and in general I don't, but I can envision conditions that I would mine for short terms.  There are many users who mine in their winter months because the cost of electric is either the main method of heat, and therefore running a miner is just a possible bonus to paying the heat bill; or they functionally have near free electric.

If heating is a non-trivial part of your electric expenses then you should be using gas (much power cost per therm than electric heating),  and/or an electric heat pump (greater than 100% "efficiency").   

Because of this, even with heating as a consideration mining will never be free, unless you can make some sucker pay for it for you. :)

Generally in GTA, Ontario, Canada you can find apartments around $800 to $1400 (depending on size and rooms) with free utilities (some not all).

True (I'm from Ontario too) but do you really think that free utilities means unlimited utilities. I'm sure someone would notice if you start sucking 10's of kilowatt hours.

I thought about this a few weeks back and I think what may work is if you have a lot of friends who rent places with so called "free utilities" you may be able to convince them to allow you to place one of your mining rigs at their place (reward them somehow for this). Spread these mining rigs across several apartments and you'd have a nice amount of hashing power without paying for electricity - ie free bitcoins. The moral downside is that the landlord is going to end up footing the bill :p lol


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: Sukrim on May 10, 2011, 09:50:46 AM
At these prices, I don't feel sorry for a landlord!  :o

I live nicely for half the price in western Europe!


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: allinvain on May 10, 2011, 10:07:33 AM
At these prices, I don't feel sorry for a landlord!  :o

I live nicely for half the price in western Europe!

Yep, real estate is way overpriced in the Toronto (aka GTA) area and as a result I'd say so are rents. If that landlord has the property already paid off (ie no mortgage) then that $800 is pure profit (minus expenses and other misc items) so our psknives's electricity usage may go unnoticed or maybe the landlord won't care all that much - at least not until the power bill approached the the multiple hundred dollar mark lol

I dunno, this is all pure speculation. Psknives if you have the desire to do this go for it, don't let anyone here tell you what to do even if ultimately you may end up with an unprofitable operation - at least this way you've done it your way and you learned by your own mistakes and noone can take the blame for your actions ;)



Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: njloof on May 10, 2011, 02:16:35 PM
I can't wait for the first time the cops bust a place because they're SURE it's a grow house -- drawing lots and lots of power, heat signature of the place is through the roof -- and they come slamming through the door looking for all the pot, and all they find is a bunch of computers humming away :)


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: allinvain on May 10, 2011, 02:21:53 PM
I can't wait for the first time the cops bust a place because they're SURE it's a grow house -- drawing lots and lots of power, heat signature of the place is through the roof -- and they come slamming through the door looking for all the pot, and all they find is a bunch of computers humming away :)


hahahaha...yeah that would be hilarious - not for the person getting busted though :P





Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: Littleshop on May 10, 2011, 05:08:40 PM
At these prices, I don't feel sorry for a landlord!  :o

I live nicely for half the price in western Europe!

Yep, real estate is way overpriced in the Toronto (aka GTA) area and as a result I'd say so are rents. If that landlord has the property already paid off (ie no mortgage) then that $800 is pure profit (minus expenses and other misc items) so our psknives's electricity usage may go unnoticed or maybe the landlord won't care all that much - at least not until the power bill approached the the multiple hundred dollar mark lol


Property tax is a huge expense in some areas.  I bet that is why landlords costs (and therefore rents) are so high.



Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: keybaud on May 10, 2011, 05:47:37 PM
Any contract that has a free element usually has an additional 'fair use' statement in the small print. My guess is that free electricity would not include running internet or mining services 24/7 as fair use and you'd get the bill enforced legally if you refused to pay, as you'd be in breach of contract.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: allinvain on May 11, 2011, 12:26:20 AM
Once again there is no such thing as a free lunch...unless you live in your parent's basement..then you're living like a king..lol mine away!

No but seriously yeah I bet most smart landlords do include a small clause or disclaimer that will prevent you from consuming the Gigawatts of electricity your dream mining farm would require. So I'm afraid with all things you gotta pay if you wanna play. Thankfully mining is still profitable - for some people - so the electricity costs can be covered and justified.



Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: bitjet on May 11, 2011, 03:39:25 PM
Once again there is no such thing as a free lunch...unless you live in your parent's basement..then you're living like a king..lol mine away!

No but seriously yeah I bet most smart landlords do include a small clause or disclaimer that will prevent you from consuming the Gigawatts of electricity your dream mining farm would require. So I'm afraid with all things you gotta pay if you wanna play. Thankfully mining is still profitable - for some people - so the electricity costs can be covered and justified.



If its an apartment building without meters for each unit, it would be sorta hard to tell who's using all the electricity. I guess you could just start shutting down breakers and see when the meter slows down a bunch.


Title: Re: Would this be wise? My college life (no I DO NOT LIVE IN A DORM)
Post by: allinvain on May 12, 2011, 04:14:32 AM
Once again there is no such thing as a free lunch...unless you live in your parent's basement..then you're living like a king..lol mine away!

No but seriously yeah I bet most smart landlords do include a small clause or disclaimer that will prevent you from consuming the Gigawatts of electricity your dream mining farm would require. So I'm afraid with all things you gotta pay if you wanna play. Thankfully mining is still profitable - for some people - so the electricity costs can be covered and justified.



If its an apartment building without meters for each unit, it would be sorta hard to tell who's using all the electricity. I guess you could just start shutting down breakers and see when the meter slows down a bunch.

Can they not check the load on the circuits? I dunno, I'm no expert on this.