Bitcoin Forum

I just don't see a scenario where future generations of hardware will make sense at any cost. Efficiency seems to be stalled at .7w/GHs at best. And only the few home miners with sub $0.10/kWh will be able to profit after the next 2 or 3 difficulty adjustments.

Does it make sense for manufacturers to go to smaller process nodes for future generations of miners? It will cost so much more to develop and take so much time, it will be too late for the next gen to make sense for the home miner. And then, would they even bother to sell them at retail?

Massive datacenters will continue to be built by ASIC manufacturers in locations with super-cheap electricity. Therefore difficulty will continue to rise. Even if they could get efficiency to sub .5w/GHs with a smaller process node, it will be way too late for home miners.


Btw, this does not come as a surprise for me. I'm pessimistic about home mining and have been predicting variations of this scenario for months. But I just wanted to get opinions from others. Thanks!

As long as Difficulty continues to climb and Asic Manufacturers continue to self mine with their huge industrial farms, the home/hobby miner will be mining at a loss from the word "go".

There's no scenario really where it benefits a miner to home to plug in at this point.  You'll never recoup the startup and operational costs, so why bother.  Even with a fiat price spike, it'd be better off just buying the coin outright.

Home mining truly is dead.

For BTC maybe. Altcoin home mining is still workable.

Although if the estimated difficulty holds we're on the way to a decrease :o

Do you mean SHA alts or Scrypt coins? And are we talking Scrypt ASICs or GPUs?

I see only spot mining for us home miners.  

 5 cents a kwatt

.7 watts a gh is the new montra.

So anyone that can so that can mine at home.  I can't come close to that.

 My friends office lets me do 1100 watts at 2.4 cents  that is 3 s-3's.  they will be good to mine for a long time.

My in house is 15 cents the heat benefits lower that to 10 cents at 370 usd this stops in jan.

I now buy coins and hold them.
most of my investment is coins.

a safer investment is like most say to just buy bitcoin. Mining at home is only profitable if you can manage to mine altcoins and pick a good one. Bitcoin home mining is pointless. Even if bitcoin price does go up cloud mining with companies will still be more profitable. Hopefully there becomes a lot of good competition this way mining will not become lopsided

my KNC mercury is still giving me poker chips for seals, every couple weeks.  ;D

I solo mine 3gh.  I figure I have a 1 in 42 million chance of hitting a block every 10 minutes.  Better than powerball odds, not as big a jackpot tho.  But I'll take it.

Is my math right?

Maybe with the new generation miners, the mining will be business again...

The ANTMINER L1 (Speed: 120MH/s) have some future:

https://bitmaintech.com/

Home mining is not dead in fact the mega factories would die first before home mining does. They can't recoup their investments and their operating fees when the BTC is  continually going downward direction. They have more pressure to make a profit than avg. home miner. Most of home miners see this as a hobby not a job

If you have some solar panels at home maybe it could work out your profit.

well I will give you this a home guy can mine 1 s-3 and just bank the coins .  he will  not lose much doing that.

under 300 for he s-3  40 a month for power.  a small home miner will not lose a lot if he did this.

I have 5kw of solar panels at home and am currently pulling in an average of 25KwH per day.  I get three times more money selling the power to the grid than using it to make bitcoins.  The sold power is tax free, refund from the power company comes automatically once every three months, there are no exchange fees to pay and I don't need to hand over my private info to some anonymous exchange in eastern Europe.

In other words, although I could mine for 'free' during the day, I would be losing a lot of money doing so.

It's only made sense for manufacturers to sell retail to offset their own mining reinvestment costs.

Efficiency may be leveling out, but operational scaling has only just begun.

I would like to know that too!

With 3 GH at current difficulty would take on average 895 years to solo mine a block according to http://www.bitcoinx.com/ (http://www.bitcoinx.com/).

Doesn't mean to say you wont find one today, tomorrow or next week but your chances are very slim.

Just wondering how much per KW the power company is paying or crediting you? Some electric companies require a duel meter where the electric you use they charge you normal price but only want to pay you for your electric "generating cost" which can be a 1/4 of what they charge.

I think he means SCRYPT asics

For mining to stay at homes, it has to be so little profitable big investments have better alternatives yet enough profitable to let you pay for at least the running costs.
Because residential electricity is usually more expensive I see those two conditions very difficult to happen at the same time.
To sustain the costs, coin value must rise higher than difficulty. Might have worked for BTC but surely won't happen for any alt. Except in short term maybe, PnD "is proven to work".

Home mining isnt dead. We just need cheaper power to complete with the giants...

How does one go about to get cheaper power?

http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/wp-content/uploads/do_tell.jpg

Oooh, I know I know!  We get a bunch of giant hamsters and a bunch of giant wheels, and then let them run for hours and hours generating free electricity!  Brilliant.

There are many home miners with free electricity, they are unbeatable. If they scale up the operation and have large management and electricity overhead, then they can not hold long in a bear market. The most stable situation for bitcoin mining is millions of users mining at home using mostly free electricity, so that the cost is well under control. Large mining farms will be too risky, they have to either find the private investors to sell their coin or sell the hash power through a competitive pricing

Ever considered mining altcoins? CPU and GPU mining is still alive and well.

Really?  Where in the USA can one get free electricity?

I might have to move there to start my mining farm!   :D

A lot of people seem to confuse "free" with "somebody else is paying for it." :)

Some basic accommodation in the UK (mainly flats or bedsits) come with free electricity included in the rent. Its obviously not free they just put it on the rent ;).

However I know for a fact that the landlords would notice if they had an extra light on, let alone mining equipment as they know what the average expected usage would be.

The reason I know is because I do work for many different landlords and they know where every penny is going in every property they own.

Someone is still mining in Italy, and I've said it all  ::) The highest costs around the globe probably  ;D

True, there's included in rent or maintenance costs, then there's the "Landlord ain't gonna pay shit for this outrageous electrical bill cost you passed on to him".

Nothing's completely free, a line gets crossed at some point.

What is currently killing home miners is the high cost of shipping and customs fee compared to the hardware itself.
 Also the fact that 90% of hardware designs use noisy 12 000 RPM fans into units that look like crap. (external power supplies)

Used to be a fan of the S3 for home mining until they priced themselves out of the market.

Bravo Jonny!  :D

The geniuses who think "free" electricity is the answer are living in a fantasy world, retarded or just really deep in denial.

I have an average sized American home with average electricity costs. My circuits can currently handle my 10Ths of gear as long as my pool pump and A/C aren't running at the same time, lol. And I'm lucky if I bring in $50 per day in BTC revenue. And I'm extra lucky if $10 of that is profit! I'm exactly one average difficulty adjustment from going into the red.

How is someone with "free electricity" who lives in a small flat (or dorm room) or is stashing miners under their desk at work and who has very restricted electrical capacity going to make any significant income?! At best they'll be able to run 1 or 2 THs before they start tripping circuits.

And even 1 or 2 THs is going to raise suspicion of the person/organization who is actually paying the electric bill. So is that extra $5 or $10 per day worth someone spending any money on new mining gear? No, not even with free electricity. And considering they are likely to be caught, it's certainly not worth the risk.

Home mining is indeed dead.

My small farm is still profitable.  And now with winter just around the corner I can have subsidized heat for a few months!  About half of my miners have been running

in outdoor temps all summer but are going to get brought in to stay at their "winter home".

Also if you have enough hardware of different sorts running as a home miner, it starts to become a lot like a second job.  Maybe I just fiddle with my equipment too

much. :P

You, just like me, are running miners that we purchased months ago. I'm at a net positive for all of my miner purchases combined (notice how I didn't use ROI, lol). And we will run them until electrical costs exceed our income and it doesn't make sense anymore. And that time is fast approaching.

But for anyone just starting now and buying new (or even used gear) or anyone adding gear to their existing farm... the investment is hopeless and stupid.