Bitcoin Forum

Which mining do you prefer? Cloud mining or Hardware Mining?
I am currently doing both but which do you prefer and why?

Hardware. It gives me a warm feeling. :-)

I do get you there, I have 2 Antminer S3 hashing away at home and I sold 3 others to pay for some cloud hashing, although now I kind of miss them. Is that crazy?

I prefer hardware I like knowing what i own and being able to log into it to change things as i please.

If mining is not your profession, then I'd suggest u to go for cloud mining. Just keep your eyes open, so that u dont get scammed by some rotten company.

If you plan to mine then hardware mining, it will give you more satisfaction. Just don't throw away money on cloud mining services, rather give that money to charity.

I agree with the Hardware mining approach being better although there are a few reputable cloud mining companies out there such as GAW and LTCgear.co.uk

Cloud, :)

Everyone beware, LTCGear.co.uk is an affiliate link, it has been reported to the mods.

LTCgear's real page is ltcgear.com

If you have free electricity I recommend buying Hardware mining equipment. else I recommend the Cloud mining (Hashlets or something)

Thanks, I have bought some Hashlets and now have some Primes, Genesis and some Zens. I just wanted to spread it out a bit with hardware. No point in keeping all of your eggs in one basket!

No point in spamming affiliate links too.

I prefer hardware mining. I was involved with cloud mining and can't be able to get ROI.

There does appear to be more and more cloud mining companies out there now, some of which are very difficult or near impossible to ROI. I peronally like GAW or LTCgear.com.

They are the best of the bunch IMO.

Both have negative expectation of positive ROI.

Prefer cloud mining cause you don't have to do anything..

Hardware Mining for sure got three S3's not much but i would prefer it over cloud mining.

i prefer hardware mining, cloud mining is just for beginners to lose money lol

Cloud mining is more efficient and less messy but I feel uneasy at having to trust a 3rd party
Isn't that precisely the problem btc was seeking to fix? ;)

I have added a poll to this thread as I thought it would be quite interesting to see what the majority of us miners prefer :)

I think most will prefer hardware.  I wish cloud was cheaper, I just cannot justify the prices yet when i can do it cheaper myself. 

hardware is better more personal, and less scammy if you use gpu, but with asic also, i like to have direct control over my things

i would love to own a miner hardware, but since its way expensive were a live.

I have to content myself with cloud mining D=

hardware if your electricity is free?

if not cloud mining seems the best route.

It seems that Electricity price is the main deciding factor hmmm

Cloud is much cheaper but you must trust the producer.

Yes that is a risk but can be just as risky as purchasing from the wrong hardware (Vapourware) provider IMO

it depends
if you don't know how to setup & manage hardware or don't want to do that then cloud mining is good idea

else hardware mining is a good choice

Hardware anyday! Cloud mining rips you off and you can't overclock :P pluus- with hardware mining you are there to control everything!!

Not only the vaporware but cost.  I still am able to do cheaper hosting myself then I can get off cloud.  I do not have vat, have lots of room, and decent priced electricity.  I'm lucky to have all those things but cloud is not always cheaper.

And comparing a cloud that can not change pools etc really is not same as having access to hardware and selecting pool or rental site of your choice.

I mean it depends if you know how to do that.

Most people dont know, and rather mine right away. Eg: setting up cgminer or anything setting up for the first time can be daunting task for someone.

Hardware?

Whoever sells you the cloud mining won't sell for lower than he mines. That usually is higher than you could get by hardware mining.

Hardware all the way

But some chinese might get super cheap asics and electricity, and not willing to bet on the price volatility.

Not sure if there is many ppl in that spot, though

It is definitely looking like more votes for Hardware  :)

Definitely hardware. I actually don't understand why would someone sell you his hash if he could just earn more btc by himself.

Well with cloud mining, you have no problem with heat and high electricity cost and hardware failure and huge investments to buy hardware and storage space.

With cloud mining, you make way less profit, and in some cases, none at all, but you can play around with different cloud mining operations, until you find one, where they actually want you to make some money, and stay with them.

This is not from my own experience, but from my friends, that have done this. I am still new to this, so my opinion does not count.  :(

You make a sound point!

I prefer Hardware mining but is more expansive than cloud mining. The only things to watch out are the hear and the electricity cost  :)

And to add to that, the cloud mining services that seems to be profitable, looks like Ponzi schemes.

So you never know when those operations will reach saturation point and close their doors.

You get drawn in by promises of 1, 2, 3 and 5 year contracts, and you make your calculations, based on that, but tomorrow they might just close shop, and your return on investment will never come.

The hardware mining is just as tricky. You calculate your profit, before you buy the latest ASIC chips and then you order them. The shipping delays to get the hardware to you, get longer and longer and by the time, you receive the hardware, it's either obsolete or well below your initial calculated profits.

If you are lucky, you get a reputable company selling products that are actually available and you can mine with profit.  

Cloud mining, only if it is able to profit..

Which cloud mining companies would you suggest?

I prefer not to engage in bitcoin mining.
But if I have to choose one, I would prefer running my own hardware as it will be more fun to set up and run the machine myself.

What does anyone make of the new C1 Hardware miner that Bitmain have brought out, it has Water cooling features etc? I have both Hardware and cloud mining.

I prefer hardware mining.
You know whats wrong if something fucks up.

Also, you get a warm feeling of actually being able to do something in life.

Prefer hardware mining, its fun to setup some hardware....

Cloud, since the data center is most specialized than I.

Yeah, and it is pretty much effective to compare to cloud mining.

I prefer cloud mining, we do not need too much capital, but it can get the maximum results, you do not need to think about how to pay for electricity for mining and you also do not need a super computer to mining, so that the capital required for mining should not be too great, I advise you to do the cloud mining, wish you luck, because every investment there must be risks ...  ::)

I like hardware mining. Heating my flat with the waste heat.

I have to go with hardware mining on this one.

Cloudmining for me, have not seen ROI on any of the operations, I have invested. PBmining / GAW / Cex etc.

^Sucks^

Prefer cloud mining much better, don't need to deal with the wires..

Don't forget that those "recommended accessories" for C1 are not included in the 1 btc price, and those are going to cost you $50 + shipping.

For those who use cloud mining, which do you use?

Cloud mining is never and will never be profitable. Buy some hardware(not preorder) and host them at your garage, provided if your electrical fees are low. If not, if you have a big investment fund, install some high efficient solar panel or rent space at a datacenter.

Both cloud mining and hardware is unprofitable. So choose cloud mining cause you don't need to do anything with it :)

Hardware mining is actually profitable for some. Winter is coming so some miners can just turn off their heater and use the miner to heat up their room. Some people also have cheap or even free electricity, they can ROI pretty soon if they don't buy preorders. Cloud mining is definitely unprofitable.

Would love to do hardware mining but since you need to buy the hardware and I don't have the time to manage the miner so I had to choose cloud mining.

Cloud mining IS profitable, you just need to choose a good contract.
There's a group of people who simply take the numbers and say: "Oh, I need over 6 months to ROI at current rates. Not worth it!"
It's not that simple. Just read some ROI tracking threads and you'll see. There are people who got profits after just 2 or 3 months, by simply trading their shares. Sitting on your ass and whining won't get you anywhere ;)

What contract is good? Considering the risk of operator running away, datacenter downtime etc. The problem is difficulty is not always predictable, huge difficulty can increase due to miners bring shipped. I went to search for various cloudmining plans, they are either unprofitable or untrustworthy.  The operator would just mine for themselves instead of selling shares if profitability is high. Trading isn't for everyone, the risk is high, you are more likely to lose money than getting profits if you are inexperienced.

I agree, there's always the risk of the company running away, that's why cryptocurrency has ben plagued by frequent scams. Last one that succeded was probably Lunamine in the cloud mining area, but there were even more among the hardware suppliers. Most recently we had AMT, and MAT, not to mention BFL. So cloud mining is probably as vunerable as hardware.

Question is: If you're interested in mining at all and willing to take the risk, should you buy shares or hardware?

In such case I'd buy shares. Why?
-you start mining immediately, don't have to wait 2 weeks or more for the miner to ship.
-you don't have to pay customs duty, usually a significant sum.
-no need to buy a PSU
-no problems with heat and noise
-you can relax while somebody else checks on your miner.

There are also some other marginal difficulties you face when mining at home, like your kids pulling the wires, losing money when you lose connection because the ISP or electric company had a maintenance, and some miners. e.g. the ones from KNC are known to to burn the cables.

There are many reasons why people offer shares instead of mining, one of them is that they get the money right away, if they mined, they'd be getting more in the end, but it would take 6 months or more.
And don't be fooled, most of them were and are mining for themselves. They usually have 100+ miners constantly online and if you buy a share you just direct the profit from one of these miners to your account, while the rest still mines for them, until someone buys another share ;)

Cloud, because my pc is too weak and I don't have money to build a rig. So I've invested in cex.io.

all depends on how good a computer you have, if you have a computer that is compatible to the hardware of mining, mining hardware then do it, but if not you can try cloud mining, both have advantages and disadvantages that can be tolerated, please choose ...  ;D

It doesn't really matter to me.
What I care are the hashrate cost, the maintenance cost, and the reputation of the ASIC or cloud hashrate provider and predicted profitability in the end.

There's some reputable ASIC manufacturer out there, the incredibility high maintenance fees, 50%+ really make cloud mining unprofitable. If you really want to profit, you need to take more risk. You can always place the rig in your garage and place some fans. There are monitors available which can allow you to monitor the ASICs. Use a UPS backup if you are afraid your miners would go down due to electrical problems. Mining is most suited for those who have space in a datacenter and can host their ASIC there.

I recommend hardware mining even if its not economic !

Yes, me too. You can still use graphics cards for 4k gaming  ;D

I prefer hardware mining too. Atleast after it's over you can show your grand kids that souvenir.  :D

of course I'm prefer with hardware, but I'm also have some mining contract with cloud mining.
It's hard to get profit with mining this day

cloud mining is the only route now unless you have cheap electricity.

That is exactly the point. There is no profit to it unless you invest like MUCH in it.


And that is the only way.

If you are hipster and/or have a lot of money to spend and place to store and maintain your physical mining hardware go for it. For everyone else I recommend cloud mining. A less bothersome way to mine efficiently.

Id prefer cloud mining since I wouldnt want to use my own electricity costs, unless I was in place that got a super dirt cheap or free.

With cloud mining you never know if the operator will run with your bitcoins.. so I`ll go with hardware.. if you can afford it.

If you choose shady and suspicious cloud mining provider you will never know that. But there are some companies on the market which are foolproof. So if you invest in right place you can sleep peacefully.

Just check my signature - there you will find what you want  ;D

Just sayin, but your signature smells like ponzi  ::)

Well, for people like me, cloud mining does make sense. I live in an area where I don't have 24 hours of power supply and a barely reliable Internet connection. Clearly, I won't be able to run a miner reasonably well under these conditions. I imagine mining would be profitable if Bitcoin was at a better price point.

I have cheap power so I really prefer to have the hardware in hand.  Plus this winter I don't think I'll be using the furnace much   ;)

Hardware is kinda good for starters though.

I'd prefer cloud mining over hardware.
Cloud mining is far more simple than hardware mining, you don't have to wait for the miner to come, the set-up, electricity, maintenance, heat, etc.
Simply buy some shares, and receives your daily profit.

Prefer cloud mining, hardwareget too dusty and hard to clean.

I prefer hardware mining because you can never be sure if the owners of the cloud mining are scammers.

Not just smells like ponzi, it is a ponzi.
Some have reported their withdrawals have been pending for days like in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=823259.msg9298250#msg9298250 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=817820.msg9290901#msg9290901. ::)

I prefer having my own ASIC miners, as it is more fun and I don't need to worry about the cloudmining site disappearing from time to time.

It depends on your electricity price and whether you want to mine sha256 or scrypt. I assume that GPU mining scene is almost as death now, except something else happens soon in the future. TBH, I still haven't shutdown my GPU farm and am mining at break even point.
Mining BTC, cloud or home, is pretty much hopeless to reach ROI if you ask my opinion. I prefer mining with ASIC scrypt now. If you have cheap electricity, you could try to get some from Zeus or Bitmaintech. Btw check this site, they have pretty much a nice overview.
http://www.satoshis.guru/new-mining-gear-calc/

Regards,

Hardware is better

Yes, if you have the means to support it at home hardware is better.
Unfortunately some people live in apartments or have unstable internet connections.

Hardware is better when you can put all your equipment in some dedicated place like storage room, garage or something. I don't have place for it my electricity is expensive. The only solution for me is to invest in cloud mining.

i don't own any mining equipment but if i would mine i probably choose hardware mining .

I used to be like you. But now I am not sure about perks of hardware mining it is quite obsolete in my opinion. The pros of cloud mining definitely outweigh the cons.

both have pros and cons, neither will get you ROI.

If you must enter the mining game you can get mining hardware for fiat, mine with it, then sell the hardware thus reducing your $$$ outlay. with cloud mining you could feasably buy into a contract, get some dividends then sell the contract so that your costs arue covered but this might be harder to do than it is for me to type it. fewer and fewer knowledgeable people are willing to take a chance, and if they do, it would have to be at IPO because the profit margins are less than thin.

I managed to squeeze 2x my investment out of a year-late BFL 60ghs miner because a) I paid in fiat b) I recieved the miner and managed to mine almost 5 btc before it became too expensive to run, and c) after I had mined ~3.5 btc the price shot up to 1200/btc so I covered my fiat costs by virtue of a bubble.

so, while i like to brag about my flukey success with mining, it was just that, a fluke. I would not do any mining right now, and wont any time in the future. you are smarter to just put your money into btc and hodl.

Yep. Buy with BTC and hope to get ROI in BTC is an illusion. You can never get it however you calculate it.
But it might be different with scrypt cloud mining. ;)

With cloud mining the most important thing is to choose some really good company which does not suck you from all money while providing only loses. If you find reliable company you may want to invest a little to test the water. Then it is up to you to decide if you are fully in...

You know that MORE scams in the past came from the people who were selling physical hardware miners, right? If someone is a scammer they will scam you no matter what. You have to choose wisely and do not trust shady companies, that is all. There are after all some really good crypto businesses out there.

This is what I have done with LTCgear and I haven't looked back since, I thought the same about GAW but they have completely changed their mining model now and you have to mine Hashpoints and convert them to their new coin (soon to be released) via an ICO it's all quite interesting but also could also amount to nothing

Cloud mining. The noise from hardware miners drivers me literally insane. Hardware miners are only cool if you live in siberia or something.

Cloud mining. Electricity is not cheap in Turkey :-\

Well, i agree hardware is always better but what you gonna do when you can't afford to pay electricity
I have old miners laying around only prefers cloud these days atleast covers weekly gambling funds.

I do small time mining but I would never touch cloud mining with a 10 foot pole...your going to just lose money in the long run.

You can not do cloud mining with 10 foot pole. It is not riding the church and poking the cloud to mine bitcoin for you.

Mining requires electricity and regular maintenance. Hence Cloud Mining is always better than your pole dancing.

If I had free or even cheaper power I'd prefer hardware mining again.. but with the cost of running a shop and power where I live I'm currently using cloud services.

I have free electricity but still my rigs are turned off, because I must stand with noise and a lot of heat...

When the bitcoin you can mine is worth less than your electricity cost, you should shut the miner off and try to sell it on eBay or in computer hardware section here. Someone with a lower electricity price may be interested in it. :)